Topic: User Impressions/Reviews Thread

@crimsontadpoles It's wild to think about how things have changed since Mighty No. 9 was first announced. I've always wondered if it was as bad as people make it out to be, but reviews like this, and even my nephew buying it on Steam and then refunding it an hour later make me glad I never bought into the Kickstarter hype for this.

I guess the good thing is that the noise generated by its success is probably a big reason why Capcom finally started doing stuff with Mega Man again. Even if that's only a bunch of collections and one mainline sequel, it still semi-resurrected the property.

The 'like Mega Man, but with a differentiating gameplay gimmick that isn't terribly fun' reminds me of one of my main issues with another (and probably much better) Mega Man-like, Azure Striker Gunvolt.

Anyway, thanks for posting! And I appreciate the warning for the Wii U version specifically, for all five of us who still have one and play it occasionally.

@Jimmer-jammer Nicely nuanced and detailed impressions on Alan Wake 2! It can be easy to get sucked into excitement by well-received new releases. It sounds like AW2 is an ambitious game that ends up trying to do too much and ruins the flow of the gameplay as a result.

The issue you had with the way the detective writing/mechanics work is unfortunately a probably inherent issue with games that tell mystery stories (Ace Attorney comes to mind). You want to walk through it for players who aren't as good at paying attention to narrative cues, but you end up boring people who figure things out quickly and want their gameplay experience to reflect this. I guess you could get around this with a structure that allows the player freedom to solve a case faster when they pick up on subtle hints that other people might miss, but most games aren't designed with this degree of structural freedom.

The way the hubs sort of factor in throughout the game and tie into the story reminds me of another horror game I wanted to like but struggled to appreciate: Silent Hill 4.

I liked the original Alan Wake. How would you say this compares in terms of its atmosphere and overall moment-to-moment gameplay?

Fantastic post.

God of War 3 Remastered. A Powerful Experience
Right so I recently been playing God of War 3 which I thought was an interesting game. God of War 3 is a game that I have wanted to play and beat for quite some time but have for a few years said to myself that I will play it some point later in time "not just now". Now I am very glad that I finally took some time and played the game (not a minute too late). Did not regret it a second. Once I started, I was kind of hooked on it. Well what did I think about God of War 3? Well I think it was a very powerful, violent and fun game. Among other things, I liked how you can play the game in different ways. Reilly finding your own play-style. So even if the level design is pretty linear you can still try out quite a number of tactics which is really cool what is that I liked most with the game. So yeah, I can very much recommend the game to people who are looking for something interesting to *play. I don't think you would regret it one second either hehe.

*I would say that it is not that common today to find these combat centric games.
*The original God of War games was like the first games I played on Playstation 2 and the main reason why I got the console in the first place some years ago

@oliverp awesome that you enjoyed going back to the old-school God of War-style as much as you did… 3 in particular embraced the spectacle and sheer epic nature of the series more than any other I’d argue.

If you’re still hankering after that old-school character-action combat, you could a lot worse than giving Dante’s Inferno a go… it would appeal to your love of horror too I’d imagine.

XIII PS5- Review - A truly impressive game
So after God of War 3 I went on to play XIII for a while which I completed the story of last week and well Iam very glad that I did because I feel like XIII is an example of a game which really demonstrates greatness in many ways. Which is something which I find very cool to say the least.

Don't really understand why some sites have claimed that the latest remake of the game is not good because I really think it is such a cool and good game in many ways. Was really pleasantly surprised of what the game had to offer. Which was quite much.

So yeah I could very much recommend the game to anyone who is looking for something interesting to play. I dont think you would be disappointed but instead find a very cool game.

*Its a bit sad that XIII is a game which many people will probably miss out on because I think many would enjoy it if given a chance to play it.
*Iam btw a bit surprised that we have not heard more about the developer Tower Five.

@oliverp Nice review and nice to hear you like and recommend XIII.

I was on the verge of buying it when it was super cheap last year but held off due to some downer reviews on it.
Will look to pick it up but will be next year as my resolution is too not buy any games this year at all!

@Korra Oh thanks for your kind words. I dont think you would be disappointed with XII. I do find a bit surprising not having read more reviews/impressions of the game so far.

@Korra for me it it ran great (with maybe one or two bugs). I thought that it was the first remake which was buggy not the second one.

@oliverp What would you say are your favourite parts of the game? For example, were you particularly impressed by something like the graphics, sound, story, gameplay etc. It will be interesting to hear what made it stand out for you.

@JohnnyShoulder Oh thanks for asking. Right so the reason I did not mention much about the game in my original review was becuse I did not wanted to spoil to much of the game but because you are asking I can mention that I was very impressed with the graphical presentation of the game for example. The latest remake of the game looks very nice on PS5. Also I think the game had a great weapon variety. I really feel like the developer gives the player a number of interesting tools which allows you to choose a little bit how you play the game (I really like when it feels like you have a choice on how to play a game). At least in later parts of the game.

I did also feel like the developer did go far and beyond to create an excellent experience. I can not imagine that it was an easy task to put this thing together with the graphics and all.

It makes me a little bit sad also because I kind of feel sorry that the developers must have put so much effort into making this game while maybe not getting the right return on the investment so to speak (I don't think the game has sold very well). While there do exist a few good FPS games on the market I dont think we are spoiled for choice either regarding single player games. This or the previous generation. This could also be one of the few good James Bond like titles on the market right now (something which I did not expected either). I have now a way easier time waiting for IOs official James bond game then I had before (it also felt like this game has a nice European touch to it. A type of French “excellently” that you find sometimes.

Granblue Fantasy Relink (PS5).

This was really fun. Combat is very fast & slick (a lot of people compare it to Tales, but it honestly felt more Ys like to me, which I enjoyed because that's probably my favorite Action JRPG battle system).

The main story mode manages to feel just as exciting as FFXVI at it's best points, but without hardly any of the downtime or time consuming fetch quests holding it back, and this assuredly at a fraction of the budget. It's an all killer, no filler, 15-20 hour adventure you won't want to put down as you can't wait to see which wrinkle it'll add next (during battles on the deck of your airship you can man the cannons to shoot down foes before they board, there's a boss fight that calls to mind the kind of scale you'd expect from Shadow of the Colossus, even boss fights where you'll take control of the series' version of Bahumut & fight other massive beasts akin to FFXVI's showpiece Eikon battles, and more).

Now, it does seem to expect you to be somewhat already familiar with the cast (from the previous mobile game) as your party is already complete from the get go, and aside from a very brief moment in the prologue are never separated. This means that I never really got quite as invested in the group as other JRPG parties, as you really don't see them narratively grow as they normally would (also in part due to the fact that the big console game is the spin-off, it's a footnote in terms of the narrative of the franchise as a whole). That said they're a likeable enough group & I liked spending time with them. I'd levy similar thoughts to the story as a whole, as it hits all the cliches you'd expect to find but isn't as thematically rich as a Final Fantasy or Xenoblade Chronicles. However it's very wonderfully produced (the fantastic art direction goes a long way as well), and easily holds your attention for it's duration. If you do wish to learn more about a character's backstory, they each have "Fate Episodes" you unlock as you progress (most of these are text only affairs, but a few offer a playable segment) that brush you up on their history (and they give stat boosts upon reading/completing them, so you might as well).

Of course, if you really get into the gameplay loop the story mode is really only the opening salvo, as the real meat is in the extensive quest system (a few of these see you taking on waves of enemies under various conditions, but a good 90-95% of them are rematches against the game's many bosses with ever increasing difficulties). Easy & Normal rank quests are available during the main story, but once you clear the story mode you can work your way up through Hard, Very Hard, Extreme, Maniac, & Proud rank quests, where the grind really comes into play. There are about a million & one different ways to buff up your party (and heck, there are about a dozen different new party members to unlock as well, even though they're not story relevant), and while you don't have to explore these much to see story mode to the end, you'll need to get to grips with it all if you want to clear harder quests (at least clear them with good scores), and it can get pretty grindy when you need to start taking on certain quests multiple times in order to grind out drops. Seriously, each character has two seperate skill trees, one for offensive buffs/abilities, the other defensive, and each one is absolutely gargantuan (each one is just as large if not moreso than what you'd expect a character's entire skill tree to be in any other JRPG). Seriously, my main party members are all level 88-92 and yet each of their two skill trees I only have 60-70% complete. I haven't worked on anyone else (let alone the myriad of optional unlockable characters I mentioned), and that just accounts for one way you can power up characters (Fate Episode stat boosts. weapon crafting & upgrading, which BTW each have their own tiny skill tree. Sigils, which take the place of armor/accessories here, you can equip up to at least 10 and you can upgrade those as well). Heck, even once you do have a character's skill tree maxed out you can apparently still spend skill points on them to raise stats randomly (I'm not sure if there really is a hard cap on how strong a character can get).

I can definitely see the appeal in the grind, and I do enjoy it in doses, but I definitely enjoyed the exciting cinematic story mode moreso than the post game grind. It's important to note too, as completing story mode only puts story completion at 95%. You see, without getting into spoilers, there are few loose ends, and in order to tie them up and hit 100% story completion you are required to advance through Extreme rank quests (you'll slowly acquire lore notes as you grind your way up through the rankings, and along the way you'll unlock the last couple big cinematic story moments, the last of which is truly awesome). This leaves Maniac & Proud rank quests as truly the only optional ones if you really want to see the story to it's ultimate conclusion. It took me 20 hours to complete story mode, and a further 16 grinding my way up the quest ranks just to knock off that last 5% of the story. Definitely enjoyed the first half of the experience more, though it admittedly felt good seeing the story to it's true end.

@oliverp @JohnnyShoulder @Korra

XIII is a game I have very fond memories of. But I do remember there being a bit of a disaster in in public opinion upon the remake's release.

Good to hear it is still finding new people though and that it is in good shape now 😁

There has been a real lack of Spy thriller games for the last few generations of consoles, I feel. It's weird for such a popular cinematic genre that there are not more games. And XIII being French (or was it Belgian) and based on a graphic novel just makes it much cooler than others to start with. I'd love to see more European spy stuff come out in the next few years.

@Jimmer-jammer Beside XIII one of the few examples of Spy/thriller games that comes to mind is the Metal Gear games. Like the Phantom Pain for example (I really liked the cut scenes in that game).
Maybe Ratchet and Clank could quality as a spy game to (have not played to many of those).

Crysis 2 Review - A hardboild Scifi action game
Right so like two weeks ago I managed to beat Crysis 2. Iam very glad that I did because I think it was a very cool SCFI gameS with some in my opinion very cool and unique sci-fi game mechanics. It's also a game where you sometimes have a quite large map to explore which I really like. Even if it not an open world game.

I think both Saber Interactive and Crytek have done a very good job here with the remaster of the original game. It's such a nice game to look at (the graphics are really good and impressive).

And I think it's really cool how the game to some degree allows you to choose how to play it (which gives you a nice feeling imo). Also you are given quite a large number of tools that you can use however you like (to some degree at least). Its fun because I also feel very much that I want to improve and get better at on the game even after beating it once (the game can be quite challenging sometimes when you play it).

@oliverp you would probably need look towards what is classed as indie games for spy/stealth games.

Apart from the Metal Gear Solid Snakeater Remake, there is not that many high budget games of similar ilk being made these days. Have you played the Sniper Elite games? Those are a good shout if not.

@RR529 So basically a new modern Ys game (that's not called Ys) with some bombastic bosses that manages its campaign length well. Sounds dope. I'd kinda written this off, but your review actually put this back on my radar. Wonderful job!

@oliverp It's kinda crazy how the original Crysis used to be THE benchmark title for pushing PC graphics, and now we have a remaster running on Nintendo's current handheld!

I should probably look into these games more. The dialogue around the first one was so centered on its use of advanced tech that I never really thought of it in terms of being an actual gameplay experience, if that makes sense.

@Ralizah thanks for reading. There are actually a few things I overlooked in my writeup.

• The most notable being that you'll probably never see a game over screen. It seems practically everyone (or at least everyone I happened to usually use) has some sort of party wide HP restoring ability (there's no MP to manage, all skills are on a cool down system), so the AI was really good at topping everyone off if someone's HP was getting too low (I rarely had to use my own healing skill until later in the game). You don't have to buy any restorative items, as you carry a set number with you that automatically resets back at town (& I assume at save points during story missions, I honestly never had to use any). The max number you carry is one of the occasional upgrades in a character's skill tree. Also, your party members seem to be experts at negating damage via perfect guards & dodges (they can take damage & get KO'd, but it didn't seem like something I had to start keeping an eye on until late game & post game).
• Expounding further on the above, if you do get KO'd, you can fully revive just by button mashing for a few seconds (quicker if a party member runs up to aid you, or if you use a revival potion). KO'd party members simulate this as well (so they'll fully revive after a few seconds). The big wrinkle is the "Critical Gauge", which continuously depletes whenever someone is KO'd (& doesn't replenish when they get back in the fight, it starts out where it was last next time someone gets KO'd). Whether you fail immediately upon it's depletion (even if you only have one KO'd ally at the time) or you just can't revive anyone anymore for the rest of the fight I honestly don't know, as I was never in a position where it got that low. The only game over screen I ever saw was in a one on one fight in a side quest where getting KO'd was an instant failure. The only other failure conditions seem to be time limits in certain quests (which I never got close to hitting. It's kinda like the Monster Hunter thing where you can't take longer than 30-50 minutes to take down a boss), or the occasional escort type scenario (protect a crystal from waves of enemies).
• There's no map, like at all. The big story mission environments are usually linear enough where this isn't an issue (though they do pack away a lot of treasure chests & other collectables in a lot of nooks & crannies), though town layouts are complex enough (& there are like two story locations that are more open in nature, like the desert) that a map would have been useful. Baffling omission if nothing else.
• You can't swap party members on the fly. You have to go to party setup in the menu to change your playable character (you MIGHT not be able to swap out during a fight either. Maybe only even while you're in town/at a save point. I've honestly never tried).

@Ralizah Yeah well I guess much can be said about Crysis. I think that the original still seem to be the most well known game in the franchise which I think is a little sad actually because I think the later games have much to offer as well. Not least nr 2 (which is my favorite so far). Also many don't seem to have played or know much about the remaster of the Crysis games which I also guess is a little bit sad. To some degree I think that Crysis still mostly seems to be known as a kind of tech demo and not much else . Again one aspect I personally like about Crysis is some of the big levels that the games have to offer (which I again think are very cool). Also something I dont think many pepole know becuse they have likely not played the games hehe.

@oliverp Glad you enjoyed Crysis 2, an underrated game imo.
I did see the trilogy on sale the other week for £10 on PSN and I was really tempted as I wish to play the trilogy again but i really want the physical version which is still (comparatively) expensive.

@CaptD Yeah so I would also say that the Crysis games are pretty immersive experience as well. Not sure if maybe the nice graphics is something that contributes to that. Maybe also the semi realistic feeling in the games hehe.

My review of Banishers.

My TL;DR here is: Banishers is another title on my ever growing list of open or semi open world titles where I feel like if you shaved like 20 hours off of the running time and made it linear, it would be instantly a better game, even if you changed nothing else. Banishers makes this argument harder than ever too, as navigating its semi open world and completing its various world activities are by far the worst parts about this and bloat the package unnecessarily.

And if you wanna strap in cause we going long, here is my full review:

Set in the late 1600s/early 1700s a group of mostly British settlers have been trying to set up communities in a New England area called New Eden. However, a schoolteacher named Deborah ends up murdered in a sham of a witch trial and not long after, the land of New Eden becomes cursed. The locals may not want to see the connection, because they were all in on it in some shape or form. You are the Banishers who are called in to sort out this curse, however, events quickly alter what your ultimate goal ends up being. A Banisher, for the record, being a sort of private detective who investigates any case involving a haunting should the silver be on offer to do so, and is also expected to fight and defeat the ghost if it comes to that.

As such, much of the game will see you travelling around New Eden, going from settlement to settlement, discovering personal stories which involve a haunting of some kind (literal, and more abstract). You will investigate the people involved to try and find the truth, and in turn what the source of the haunting is. Increasingly a big part of these stories becomes finding out what role these people had in Deborah's death, which means that none of these can really be skipped, even though eventually you will wish you could.

This works fantastically for about a dozen hours. So good in fact, I was ready to call this my front runner for GOTY. However, after a while, a reality starts to become clear here that this game was never particularly well thought out. Your overarching story in Banishers is one long haunting case. Then all your side content is also just other haunting cases. Can we see the problem here? All the budget, all the spectacle, has gone into that main haunting case that makes up the main narrative thread - as it should be. But then it just means all the side content you are doing in turn is just a lesser version of what you are doing in the main quest, and as a result, it becomes increasingly harder to really care about completing these other than for the little nuggets of knowledge you gain about Deborah.

And like, don’t get it twisted, it is made by DontNod, and their unique talents are really on full display here. Side content here has better writing than many games offer in their core threads, and they do an absolutely incredible job in offering the player choices which don’t just feel like you are picking between an obviously good, evil or neutral option. And even when a choice may be obvious, the more you learn about Deborah and depending on the pact you made with your partner, sometimes it is hard to use impartial logic in these cases, and so easy to indulge in flashes of raw emotion.

I do love how much this game made me think and reflect. So much of the prejudice and cowardice that has rotten New Eden from the inside out, is sadly still so relevant today, despite it being hundreds of years later. Deborah functions much in the same way Rachel did in the Life is Strange games, and so I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised how masterfully DontNod made me hate everyone involved in her murder, despite only brief interactions with her throughout the game. And I loved that even the most contrived haunting quest would have me making a decision which would have tangible cause and effect that I would have to deal with the repercussions of sometimes hours later.

I guess what I am trying to say in all this, is I just think it all a shame. I think Banishers has a great story to tell, and up until the ending - I got literally the worst ending, so I got basically no closure at all - it tells its story well. It is anchored by two incredible characters in Red mac Raith and Antea Duarte, and I would happily go on more adventures with them. But it is hard not to feel like the way in which this game is built, and structured, means it is just constantly diluting itself.

Honestly, this problem creeps into the encounter design as well. They, by the very design of their world, limit the kind of enemies you face. In general moment to moment encounters in the world you are going to be facing the same four or five enemy types (which in themselves are more like 2 or 3 enemy types with variants). There is a bit more variety in boss encounters, and the cinematic presentation for a lot of the build up to bosses is appreciated. However, even though there are not a lot of these, the bosses still somehow in reality are really just bigger variants of other enemies you fight in the game.

They are also never particularly interesting to actually fight, either, which is a problem. They often have very basic mechanics which are more nuisances than anything that offers any real challenge. Two of the boss encounters were also bugged for me, where they just seemed to get stuck somehow and wouldn’t progress, so I had to reload my save and do the boss encounter right from the start again, which kinda makes it hard to feel positive about these.

It wouldn’t be a review of mine if we didn’t talk about difficulty and this is also majorly problematic too. Set on normal, after the first few hours, the game becomes cartoonishly and mindlessly easy. I like a relatively frictionless experience, but even I just found this all rather boring. I put the game onto Hard for most of my playthrough, something I never usually do, but I wouldn’t say Hard is any more fun, either. Especially with the enemy slate you fight in the final third of the game, it is just wave after wave of tedious, spongey, enemies that can all kill you in like two hits with no warning. Just a miserable slog.

Honestly, if I am being honest... I hated this combat by the end. Every time you fast travel the world respawns all the enemies, and I just grew so tired of having to fast travel from one end of the map to the other, and every time knowing I had to beat the same four waves of identical spongey boring enemies over and over and over that kept respawning between me and my objective. I turned it down from Hard to Story mode in the last couple of hours because I just couldn’t bear it anymore and wanted to just be done with this at that point.

Difficulty is also somewhat shaped by Banishers’ gear game. Although don’t worry, it isn’t a looter. After about 25ish hours I had enough gear to make three builds, but it wasn’t really anything crazy. Just basically more damage if I focused on melee, more damage if I focused on range or more damage if I focused on the special move called Banish. There are survivability and utility items as well which don’t have as much of a defined build focus, but even on Hard, I almost feel like you don't need these. Especially as sacrificing damage when the enemies are this spongey is not the way.

There is also this mountain of stats in the right hand side of the menu, but I honestly couldn’t tell you if this was just for show. When I had 67 Strength versus 98 strength (which apparently affects my melee damage) I noticed absolutely no difference at all. If you want to just absolutely break the experience and ruin the combat for yourself even further, just fully spec into the rifle, as this thing is absurdly overtuned and poorly balanced, it felt like cheating.

Finally I guess let us talk about exploration / the fast travel system. If you remember in GOW 2018, while it gave the illusion of being an open world, it was more a collection of linear corridors where you had to solve puzzles to progress forwards, or progress far enough in the story to unlock abilities which would then open the way for you, often requiring a ton of backtracking. Banishers works identically to this, and even borrows heavily from a lot of the environments and puzzles from that game.

This was the thing that I thought sucked the most in GOW 2018, I thought it slaughtered the pacing of that game and if I was to make my own GOW 2018 riff game like this, that would be the first thing I’d cut. Instead, Banishers embraces this part of GOW, makes it a core part of the experience and does absolutely nothing to solve all the problems it creates. In fact, Banishers somehow makes this worse because of its fast travel system.

Basically, along your journey you will find fixed shelter points you can rest at, they work a little like Souls bonfires, as you can upgrade equipment here, mess around with your skill tree (although this can be done any time) and top up your potions. These also become your fast travel points on the map. However, even though you have now unlocked the fast travel point, this system can only be used directly, so from one shelter to another. You can’t just pull up your map and access the fast travel system from anywhere.

Much like with combat, it is mostly due to the sheer unnecessary length of this that this system goes from kind of annoying, to ripping your hair out and screaming into your empty apartment maddening. Much like GOW 2018, they don’t want to give the game away as to how small the map truly is, so rather than making you walk 50 metres in a straight line to the objective you need to go hundreds of metres in the wrong direction and solve an environmental puzzle or two -

Just a quick aside. ***** the environmental puzzles. May they all burn in hell. The most unintuitive, infuriating, collection of puzzles ever designed. The amount of my game time that must have been me just wasting 20 minutes at a time running around in a circle like a *****. Giving up. Going on YouTube and seeing a solution that just makes you throw your hands up in maddening frustration as to how they ever suspected anyone to figure that out to begin with.

• Anyway, you suffer all that misery to end up basically five metres ahead of where you started. And even though the puzzles may be cleared the next time you need to go through there to access a fast travel point for example, a direct path is never opened, so you still need to do that 400 metre loop in the wrong direction every time you want to access that fast travel point. Eventually you will unlock side content all over the map, that often requires you to go from one end of the map to the other, so they know you’d be spending a not insignificant amount of your game time backtracking in loops around this map, so the fact they never make the map more convenient to cross is just baffling to me.

In fact, I have no shame in telling you, this might be the first game I ever played where I literally got so lost I just had no choice but to reload my save because I just couldn’t work out how to get out of where I was to make it back to a fast travel point.

It is funny too, because there are open world activities to complete, but I just dreaded doing them. I hated combat, I hated navigating this world, I just wanted to get to the next story beat. Every design decision made every extra activity such an easy skip. I am usually really OCD about map marker games, to the point where I kinda spoil those games for myself and burn myself out at the end trying to clear everything. But even I got less than 40 percent map completion by the time I finished the story I believe, because I just so strongly disliked the act of engaging with this world for anything beyond the story. It wasn’t like the completion rewards for these were worth it. Plus 1 to all stats? What do these stats even do? A bunch of materials I could just find out in the world anyway? Thanks so much.

Wow. Okay. This ended up being very negative overall. It is a shame, as there is so much to like about Banishers, but it is about 30 hours too long and everything bad about this game is directly because of that reason. The mission design would have been fine for a game under 20 hours, the combat would have been fine for a game less than 20 hours and so on and so forth. Although nothing was saving those environmental puzzles, even 20 minutes of doing those puzzles must count as some kind of war crime somewhere. Then for all of my trouble I got the worst ending for reasons as obtuse and intuitive as those awful environmental puzzles, like giving me one last f u on the way out.

I absolutely recommend you try and find some way to experience this story, even if it is through someone else's playthrough on YouTube or something. I also think if you like your Sony style third person, narrative focused, semi open world action games, you may be able to stomach this longer than some others can.

But I am sorry, to the general person, the length of this just makes it an impossible recommendation for me.