156 Reviews liked by Faa
A little generous in some areas with it's bonfires but consistently a terrific game. I actually didn't get filtered by Demon of Hatred on this playthrough so I can say I actually beat the damn game this time
Yes I really have replayed this shit like 5 times in the span of 3 days. It is good
1/28: Finished NG+7; Started Charmless on a fresh save
1/29:Finished Charmless
Yes I really have replayed this shit like 5 times in the span of 3 days. It is good
1/28: Finished NG+7; Started Charmless on a fresh save
1/29:Finished Charmless
All meat, no fat.
Fantastic game, but something I never see pointed out is just how good the cutscenes are, that perfect framing and solemn storyboarding makes it feel like a modern take on classic samurai movies.
I've also always felt the film was directly inspired by Ran. Many designs and key visuals and even the castle siege scene are very similar. Even one of the attacks share its name with the family name of the movie's main character. Isshin is actually Hidetora, I have no proof but no doubts either.
Fantastic game, but something I never see pointed out is just how good the cutscenes are, that perfect framing and solemn storyboarding makes it feel like a modern take on classic samurai movies.
I've also always felt the film was directly inspired by Ran. Many designs and key visuals and even the castle siege scene are very similar. Even one of the attacks share its name with the family name of the movie's main character. Isshin is actually Hidetora, I have no proof but no doubts either.
Forza Horizon 5
2021
After some time playing through the game I realized it would never get better.
FH5 is the final GaaSification of the Horizon formula. Just an endless tangle of player retention mechanics crawling over each other in the form of weekly, daily and seasonal tasks, missable cars, an ever present roulette spin for every time you level up, car-specific XP rewards, forzathon points grind, and probably more I'm just missing. Everything fits together and creates a system to keep the player paying for Gamepass, and just goes to show how much harm this business model could do to the quality of AAA launches.
The story is genuinely one of the most embarrassing things I've ever put up with, and a lot of it is non-skippable at that. T10 really went all out to show what it thinks about the player with its cringe, corporate, safe, lifeless dialog, filled with non-characters that are borderline racist caricatures and just won't shut up (Trust me, I tried. The character voice volume slider doesn't even work).
Story events are a huge pain to go through and what's worse is they aren't even fun on their own. Exhibition events got way too big and they're just lifeless and goofy scripted 5 minute stretches at this point. There was a moment of realization when I played the monster truck event where you have to knock some giant bowling pins where it struck me, there's no more denying to it, the target audience's age for the game went down at least 10 years since FH1.
The game perfected the physics and the driving sensations, now enhanced by the vibrating triggers on the Series S/X. That's a big plus and something really solid in the game. There's a big amount of cars (even if the DLC is prohibitely expensive) and despite the absence of a few big brands, it's generally a good job even if some of the models are now generations old. That said, there's a lot of customization options on each car and seeing a lot of them have special body kits now is quite good and allows for a lot of player expression.
However as it comes to the racing itself, it's a game where nothing matters anymore. Railings, trees, stone walls, doesn't matter, the car will just destroy it and carry on. There isn't even almost any traffic at all unless you select a specific offline mode. It is a frustration free package, races are extremely short and rarely ever go past the 3 laps. No thought required, no learning curve of any sort while offline. Online is just rolling the meta car with the meta tune and trying not to get punted out of the track.
Visually the game looks really, really good. Really blows me away at times, it also makes a great use of the console's SSD, making fast travel almost instant.
There are also a lot of bugs in the game. I remember playing it a month or two after release and being unable to fast travel and then drive. The controller would stop responding in game requiring a restart. The text-to-speech would also activate on the main menu screen and the option to turn it off wouldn't work. This still happens.
There are a lot of legacy issues coming straight from FH4 and FH3 even. Namely the auction house still being broken. The controller remap menu still being pretty much useless and even some cars being listed as barn finds (but actually aren't) because apparently they forgot changing that from one of the previous games where they actually were barn finds.
The music choices were interesting. Overall I'm not a fan of it but I took a couple songs for my personal playlists. Listening to the radio stations absolutely butcher already tame songs to fit that E for Everyone rating was some sort of salt on the wound when you pair it with the literal Fortnite dances, the goofy character costumes and the hypercars doing off road, cartoonish stunts to an announcer calling your avatar a superstar in spanglish.
Overall I'm just really unimpressed with the game. I consider it one of the most disgusting things I've ever played and a biopsy of the cancer that eats away the AAA sector. The actual one with the 10/10s, not the latest EA flop people will bash anyways.
FH5 is the final GaaSification of the Horizon formula. Just an endless tangle of player retention mechanics crawling over each other in the form of weekly, daily and seasonal tasks, missable cars, an ever present roulette spin for every time you level up, car-specific XP rewards, forzathon points grind, and probably more I'm just missing. Everything fits together and creates a system to keep the player paying for Gamepass, and just goes to show how much harm this business model could do to the quality of AAA launches.
The story is genuinely one of the most embarrassing things I've ever put up with, and a lot of it is non-skippable at that. T10 really went all out to show what it thinks about the player with its cringe, corporate, safe, lifeless dialog, filled with non-characters that are borderline racist caricatures and just won't shut up (Trust me, I tried. The character voice volume slider doesn't even work).
Story events are a huge pain to go through and what's worse is they aren't even fun on their own. Exhibition events got way too big and they're just lifeless and goofy scripted 5 minute stretches at this point. There was a moment of realization when I played the monster truck event where you have to knock some giant bowling pins where it struck me, there's no more denying to it, the target audience's age for the game went down at least 10 years since FH1.
The game perfected the physics and the driving sensations, now enhanced by the vibrating triggers on the Series S/X. That's a big plus and something really solid in the game. There's a big amount of cars (even if the DLC is prohibitely expensive) and despite the absence of a few big brands, it's generally a good job even if some of the models are now generations old. That said, there's a lot of customization options on each car and seeing a lot of them have special body kits now is quite good and allows for a lot of player expression.
However as it comes to the racing itself, it's a game where nothing matters anymore. Railings, trees, stone walls, doesn't matter, the car will just destroy it and carry on. There isn't even almost any traffic at all unless you select a specific offline mode. It is a frustration free package, races are extremely short and rarely ever go past the 3 laps. No thought required, no learning curve of any sort while offline. Online is just rolling the meta car with the meta tune and trying not to get punted out of the track.
Visually the game looks really, really good. Really blows me away at times, it also makes a great use of the console's SSD, making fast travel almost instant.
There are also a lot of bugs in the game. I remember playing it a month or two after release and being unable to fast travel and then drive. The controller would stop responding in game requiring a restart. The text-to-speech would also activate on the main menu screen and the option to turn it off wouldn't work. This still happens.
There are a lot of legacy issues coming straight from FH4 and FH3 even. Namely the auction house still being broken. The controller remap menu still being pretty much useless and even some cars being listed as barn finds (but actually aren't) because apparently they forgot changing that from one of the previous games where they actually were barn finds.
The music choices were interesting. Overall I'm not a fan of it but I took a couple songs for my personal playlists. Listening to the radio stations absolutely butcher already tame songs to fit that E for Everyone rating was some sort of salt on the wound when you pair it with the literal Fortnite dances, the goofy character costumes and the hypercars doing off road, cartoonish stunts to an announcer calling your avatar a superstar in spanglish.
Overall I'm just really unimpressed with the game. I consider it one of the most disgusting things I've ever played and a biopsy of the cancer that eats away the AAA sector. The actual one with the 10/10s, not the latest EA flop people will bash anyways.
this game could be fun but chose not to
Graphics are good but thats all.
Graphics are good but thats all.
Elden Ring
2022
This review contains spoilers
I put my status as Played because even though I'm not gonna stop playing the game yet I can't say I'm really eager to finish it, I've done all the optional areas and I'm at the Capital city at the time of writing this, which if I'm correct there's only one area past it. I usually also don't like writing long reviews cause I feel like I look like a nerd but this game really gave me a lot of feelings I need to get out.
I'm glad so many people can have fun with this game, and I do sometimes, all things considered it's a very pretty game with some cool looking enemies and occasionally good bosses but the farther into the game I got exploration became more boring and the more I realised this game is almost entirely just recycled things. The area just before the Capital city, Altus Plateau only has like one new enemy and really only one unique location, the entire area other than Windmill Village is entirely just filler.
The game has a lot of Catacombs and Caves to explore, which initially I was very excited for, the most fun I had in the game was in Limgrave at the start going aorund the map and seeing all the new enemies and things to explore, but once you get later into the game you realise that all the bosses you saw in Limgrave and the Weeping Peninsula, are reused later in the game, repeatedly. Erdtree Watchdog and Cemetery Shade were two bosses I found in Catacombs in Limgrave and really enjoyed them, they're not too hard but they're really cool designs and fun to fight, until later in the game where Erdtree Watchdog is reused 5 times in total, and Cemetery Shade is reused 3 times. I'm pretty sure there's not a single Cave or Catacomb boss which isn't reused somewhere, usually multiple times.
Even actually major bosses who you need to fight the game are reused occasionally, Godefroy the Grafted, who's supposed to be one of Godrick's ancestors is just Godrick in actually every way, even the voice actor and design. The Red Wolf of Radagon is reused in some dungeon for some reason. Some actually named bosses can just be found in random places as enemies (which nromally is fine, but the amount this game does it is a bit much). Almost every dragon in the game has the exact same moveset.
You could argue that this has happened in previous games, in Dark Souls it was truly a disappointment to arrive in Demon Ruins to be filled with Capra Demons and Asylum Demons, and in Dark Souls II it was certainly disappointing to get to Drangleic Castle and be confronted with two Dragonrider knights as the boss. However, no Souls game does it to this amount, at first I excused it because of how big Elden Ring is it seems worse, but it's beyond that. Where I am in the game I can't think of anything I discovered in Limgrave that I haven't seen multiple times now.
On the topic of bosses, there's really only a handful of bosses I can say that I actually truly enjoyed so far, you can argue that I haven't finished the game so I haven't seen all the game has to offer, and that's fair, I do plan to see what's past the the capital soon, but so far into the game I can say that even bosses which are unique aren't even particularly very good. Godrick the Grafted is probably my favourite boss in the game, he's an incredibly interesting guy and Stormveil Castle is probably the best area of the game. Rennala the Queen of the Full Moon's first phase is incredibly interesting, hearing the choir of the girls while dodging all their shit is hectic, it's unfortunate that her second phase, even if extremely pretty, just completely changes the mood of the fight from the melancholic mood into a regular boss who's mad at you in their second phase.
Most bosses are just going to be rolling, R1, rolling R1, if you're using melee. Initially I was excited to see shields become more of a prominent thing, until you realise that the new shield mechanics are completely worthless and mid-late game every boss fight is going to do repeated massive aoe or repeated strike attacks that will completely break your stamina and leave you open for attack all the time so there's no point in even having one unless you want to parry. I guess my experience was stifled by the fact that just recently I learned I was using a melee only build, which is apparently underpowered according to a lot of people. Unfortunately I don't have the strength or patience to just respec into a magic build at the end of the game.
I've been told a few times that I'd have more fun if I just moved on once I got bored exploring an area, this would be true if almost every area wasn't exactly the same. Almost every structure in the game is exactly the same, every church, ruin, tower functions exactly the same. In the games defence, every once in a while you will find a cool place called legacy dungeons, which are areas that work the way regular Souls games do, some of these are required like Stormveil and Raya Lucaria and sometimes you'll find a smaller one like Caria Manour or Shaded Castle. These areas are absolutely some of the best areas in the game, and usually have an actually unique boss to fight at the end.
This really makes me wonder why the game is even open world in the first place, the open world is simply an area filled with random crafting items which you'll likely never use, is sparsely populated with NPC's which are fairly rare past Limgrave and really only serves to bring you from one place to the next. You can really just cut out half the things in this game without losing anything of value at all. One of the biggest new features was the horse, but with basically nothing to do in the world and horse combat really not being that fun (at least in my opinion, many people seem to like it though so idk).
I need to make it clear that yes, you do have the option to just simply ignore areas and most bosses you don't want to see, but you really don't. This is where more than half the games content is, Tunnels are where all the upgrade materials are, catacombs and caves and ruins are where you'll find the majority of your wepaons, spells, and ashes. You need the runes these bosses give you, this game is designed around you just going spelunking into skyrim dungeons to acquire random shit to fight a boss you've seen times before.
I mentioned earlier how few NPC's there are in this game, after Limgrave the amount of interactions you'll be having with people outside of the hubs of Volcano Manour and Roundtable Hold is extremely low. It feels like there's a similar amount of NPC's as there were in Dark Souls, which doesn't work with such a giant world. Especially in Souls 1, while not having a huge amount of people, there was always at least one guy you'd find in the most fucked up places to be, barring the guy in the shack in Caelid, and the guy making prawn in Liurnia, past Limgrave you're not gonna find many guys.
To give the game credit, there certainly were many characters who I at least enjoyed. First meeting the jar guy was a fun experience, and Ranni's quest and the Volcano Manour quest were certainly fun. This may sound dumb but sometimes I feel like Ranni's quest may be a bit too good, as it kinda made me realise how kinda lame everyone elses is. Also almost every quest in the game ends in the character dying. To name a few examples, Boc the Seamster's quest gives you a friendly little guy who'll alter your garments at certain grace points, eventually he'll ask you for something, you do it, and he dies. Thops the mage is a guy you can find just after Stormveil, he'll ask for a key to Raya Lucaria, you give him the key and he just dies. Gowry, the only named NPC in Caelid other than Millicent dies.
You could argue that this happened in Dark Souls as well, and you'd kinda be right. I think the main issue of Elden Ring is that the quests are simply just way too obtuse, and don't work well at all in Elden Ring's open world. Dark Souls quests are also famously obtuse and weird, usually just having to speak to a guy at one area and meet him at the next. The problem is, this non-linear open world game Elden Ring does the exact same thing, you'll talk to a guy, he'll say he'll meet you later, and he could be actually fucking anywhere. If I ever do meet the guy again I really can't remember who the hell he is because I last time talked to him for a few minutes 15 hours of game ago.
It's also worth noting that many questlines are currently just unfinished, I'll remove this if people later find out they aren't and just super obscure, but Kenneth Haight, Nepheli Loux, and Gostoc the Gatekeeper all have quests which you can start and simply not end.
Overall, the lack of NPC's and terrible questlines just leaves the game feeling empty. I never had the feeling that anyone actually lived anywhere but Volcano Manour, Roundtable and Gowry's Shack. I never had the feeling there were other adventurers just like the player roaming the world, doing their own goals. It's just a big empty world. You could argue this goes with the whole sorta, ruined shitty place in despair vibe, but I feel like Dark Souls had that vibe extremely well while actually having people to talk to. The only real people you can find anywhere are the random isolated merchants, I like this guys, but the game actually encourages you to just fucking kill them so there's not really a point.
I should say, the only thing this game does extremely well is be extremely pretty all the time. Even if it reuses enemies and bosses repeatedly unapologetically, at the very least they look cool. The enemies are cool looking, and when I first found some it really made me impressed. Altus Plateau, despite being completely devoid of anything worthwhile at least was extremely pretty, even if it was just a yellow Limgrave.
For a smaller issue, I have only used the crafting menu twice the entire game. I feel like have endless supplies of random flowers and shit but have only found a use for it a couple times, once to make pots to throw at someone for a quest and second to use blood grease to kill someone. Items have the same problem in this game as every Souls game where they're basically useless. No item will ever help you enough to actually be worth using in a way attacking or healing can't.
Overall, for me Elden Ring just felt incredibly forgettable beyond a few bosses, everyone seems to love this game so maybe it's just not for me, idk really, I just feel like I really just don't have the patience anymore, after fighting another erdtree avatar and ulcerated tree spirit in the capital I just can't do it anymore.
I'm glad so many people can have fun with this game, and I do sometimes, all things considered it's a very pretty game with some cool looking enemies and occasionally good bosses but the farther into the game I got exploration became more boring and the more I realised this game is almost entirely just recycled things. The area just before the Capital city, Altus Plateau only has like one new enemy and really only one unique location, the entire area other than Windmill Village is entirely just filler.
The game has a lot of Catacombs and Caves to explore, which initially I was very excited for, the most fun I had in the game was in Limgrave at the start going aorund the map and seeing all the new enemies and things to explore, but once you get later into the game you realise that all the bosses you saw in Limgrave and the Weeping Peninsula, are reused later in the game, repeatedly. Erdtree Watchdog and Cemetery Shade were two bosses I found in Catacombs in Limgrave and really enjoyed them, they're not too hard but they're really cool designs and fun to fight, until later in the game where Erdtree Watchdog is reused 5 times in total, and Cemetery Shade is reused 3 times. I'm pretty sure there's not a single Cave or Catacomb boss which isn't reused somewhere, usually multiple times.
Even actually major bosses who you need to fight the game are reused occasionally, Godefroy the Grafted, who's supposed to be one of Godrick's ancestors is just Godrick in actually every way, even the voice actor and design. The Red Wolf of Radagon is reused in some dungeon for some reason. Some actually named bosses can just be found in random places as enemies (which nromally is fine, but the amount this game does it is a bit much). Almost every dragon in the game has the exact same moveset.
You could argue that this has happened in previous games, in Dark Souls it was truly a disappointment to arrive in Demon Ruins to be filled with Capra Demons and Asylum Demons, and in Dark Souls II it was certainly disappointing to get to Drangleic Castle and be confronted with two Dragonrider knights as the boss. However, no Souls game does it to this amount, at first I excused it because of how big Elden Ring is it seems worse, but it's beyond that. Where I am in the game I can't think of anything I discovered in Limgrave that I haven't seen multiple times now.
On the topic of bosses, there's really only a handful of bosses I can say that I actually truly enjoyed so far, you can argue that I haven't finished the game so I haven't seen all the game has to offer, and that's fair, I do plan to see what's past the the capital soon, but so far into the game I can say that even bosses which are unique aren't even particularly very good. Godrick the Grafted is probably my favourite boss in the game, he's an incredibly interesting guy and Stormveil Castle is probably the best area of the game. Rennala the Queen of the Full Moon's first phase is incredibly interesting, hearing the choir of the girls while dodging all their shit is hectic, it's unfortunate that her second phase, even if extremely pretty, just completely changes the mood of the fight from the melancholic mood into a regular boss who's mad at you in their second phase.
Most bosses are just going to be rolling, R1, rolling R1, if you're using melee. Initially I was excited to see shields become more of a prominent thing, until you realise that the new shield mechanics are completely worthless and mid-late game every boss fight is going to do repeated massive aoe or repeated strike attacks that will completely break your stamina and leave you open for attack all the time so there's no point in even having one unless you want to parry. I guess my experience was stifled by the fact that just recently I learned I was using a melee only build, which is apparently underpowered according to a lot of people. Unfortunately I don't have the strength or patience to just respec into a magic build at the end of the game.
I've been told a few times that I'd have more fun if I just moved on once I got bored exploring an area, this would be true if almost every area wasn't exactly the same. Almost every structure in the game is exactly the same, every church, ruin, tower functions exactly the same. In the games defence, every once in a while you will find a cool place called legacy dungeons, which are areas that work the way regular Souls games do, some of these are required like Stormveil and Raya Lucaria and sometimes you'll find a smaller one like Caria Manour or Shaded Castle. These areas are absolutely some of the best areas in the game, and usually have an actually unique boss to fight at the end.
This really makes me wonder why the game is even open world in the first place, the open world is simply an area filled with random crafting items which you'll likely never use, is sparsely populated with NPC's which are fairly rare past Limgrave and really only serves to bring you from one place to the next. You can really just cut out half the things in this game without losing anything of value at all. One of the biggest new features was the horse, but with basically nothing to do in the world and horse combat really not being that fun (at least in my opinion, many people seem to like it though so idk).
I need to make it clear that yes, you do have the option to just simply ignore areas and most bosses you don't want to see, but you really don't. This is where more than half the games content is, Tunnels are where all the upgrade materials are, catacombs and caves and ruins are where you'll find the majority of your wepaons, spells, and ashes. You need the runes these bosses give you, this game is designed around you just going spelunking into skyrim dungeons to acquire random shit to fight a boss you've seen times before.
I mentioned earlier how few NPC's there are in this game, after Limgrave the amount of interactions you'll be having with people outside of the hubs of Volcano Manour and Roundtable Hold is extremely low. It feels like there's a similar amount of NPC's as there were in Dark Souls, which doesn't work with such a giant world. Especially in Souls 1, while not having a huge amount of people, there was always at least one guy you'd find in the most fucked up places to be, barring the guy in the shack in Caelid, and the guy making prawn in Liurnia, past Limgrave you're not gonna find many guys.
To give the game credit, there certainly were many characters who I at least enjoyed. First meeting the jar guy was a fun experience, and Ranni's quest and the Volcano Manour quest were certainly fun. This may sound dumb but sometimes I feel like Ranni's quest may be a bit too good, as it kinda made me realise how kinda lame everyone elses is. Also almost every quest in the game ends in the character dying. To name a few examples, Boc the Seamster's quest gives you a friendly little guy who'll alter your garments at certain grace points, eventually he'll ask you for something, you do it, and he dies. Thops the mage is a guy you can find just after Stormveil, he'll ask for a key to Raya Lucaria, you give him the key and he just dies. Gowry, the only named NPC in Caelid other than Millicent dies.
You could argue that this happened in Dark Souls as well, and you'd kinda be right. I think the main issue of Elden Ring is that the quests are simply just way too obtuse, and don't work well at all in Elden Ring's open world. Dark Souls quests are also famously obtuse and weird, usually just having to speak to a guy at one area and meet him at the next. The problem is, this non-linear open world game Elden Ring does the exact same thing, you'll talk to a guy, he'll say he'll meet you later, and he could be actually fucking anywhere. If I ever do meet the guy again I really can't remember who the hell he is because I last time talked to him for a few minutes 15 hours of game ago.
It's also worth noting that many questlines are currently just unfinished, I'll remove this if people later find out they aren't and just super obscure, but Kenneth Haight, Nepheli Loux, and Gostoc the Gatekeeper all have quests which you can start and simply not end.
Overall, the lack of NPC's and terrible questlines just leaves the game feeling empty. I never had the feeling that anyone actually lived anywhere but Volcano Manour, Roundtable and Gowry's Shack. I never had the feeling there were other adventurers just like the player roaming the world, doing their own goals. It's just a big empty world. You could argue this goes with the whole sorta, ruined shitty place in despair vibe, but I feel like Dark Souls had that vibe extremely well while actually having people to talk to. The only real people you can find anywhere are the random isolated merchants, I like this guys, but the game actually encourages you to just fucking kill them so there's not really a point.
I should say, the only thing this game does extremely well is be extremely pretty all the time. Even if it reuses enemies and bosses repeatedly unapologetically, at the very least they look cool. The enemies are cool looking, and when I first found some it really made me impressed. Altus Plateau, despite being completely devoid of anything worthwhile at least was extremely pretty, even if it was just a yellow Limgrave.
For a smaller issue, I have only used the crafting menu twice the entire game. I feel like have endless supplies of random flowers and shit but have only found a use for it a couple times, once to make pots to throw at someone for a quest and second to use blood grease to kill someone. Items have the same problem in this game as every Souls game where they're basically useless. No item will ever help you enough to actually be worth using in a way attacking or healing can't.
Overall, for me Elden Ring just felt incredibly forgettable beyond a few bosses, everyone seems to love this game so maybe it's just not for me, idk really, I just feel like I really just don't have the patience anymore, after fighting another erdtree avatar and ulcerated tree spirit in the capital I just can't do it anymore.
Maybe has the best combat of any game ever?
Elden Ring
2022
if someone told me this was a ubisoft game, i'd never doubt it even for a second
Remake filled with small changes that kill many things that made the original feel special. Graphics look really nice and the game performs well but gone are the original color palette and some iconic visual effects of the original. New character models are more realistic but less expressive. The default control scheme is changed into a more modern one yet the physics and camera are way clunkier than the original. Voice and audio work is far inferior as well, particularly Dormin's echoing voice lacking any sort of mysticism. The saving system being changed into the current day auto save standard in AAA games just absolutely obliterates any sense of place and adventure that the shrines provided.
No additions that would have made it an objective improvement (including cut colossi for example or extra content) were added and we got time-wasting collectibles, a photo mode and filters instead.
Hope this remake isn't the way SOTC will be remembered, and it makes me think twice about taking the convenient route and playing the demon's souls remake instead of the original
No additions that would have made it an objective improvement (including cut colossi for example or extra content) were added and we got time-wasting collectibles, a photo mode and filters instead.
Hope this remake isn't the way SOTC will be remembered, and it makes me think twice about taking the convenient route and playing the demon's souls remake instead of the original
I have played maybe 200 hours worth of this across 3 platforms, even played it ahead of release back in 2014 and still hate every area, every enemy, every boss, just everything. how unpleasant
unpatched, pre-release amana's is easily one if the most awful zones I've endured through in a video game, no man's wharf is awful, iron keep is awful, sotfs heides tower is awful, almost every zone is ugly, unfinished, filled with enemies with insane tracking and ambushes with bosses that are either bullshit or super disappointing
but i keep coming back to it
unpatched, pre-release amana's is easily one if the most awful zones I've endured through in a video game, no man's wharf is awful, iron keep is awful, sotfs heides tower is awful, almost every zone is ugly, unfinished, filled with enemies with insane tracking and ambushes with bosses that are either bullshit or super disappointing
but i keep coming back to it
Sifu
2022
I'm kinda bummed I didn't have a great time with this. I knew going in it was the kind of game that forces you to lose a lot, improve, and master it. So I was excited for that process, to do my best but recognize my shortcomings and have fun doing better and better. Instead, I ran into confusing mechanics that I felt like I never had explained to me, difficulty that is more annoying than it is interesting, and feeling incredibly tilted throughout. For example, parry timings feel inconsistent and unclear, I tried with many different ways of timing it from windup to sound effects, and never could find it consistently. Blocking and its shortcomings feel similarly confusing, sometimes I'm hit out of my block and just mobbed by a crowd. The crowds are one of this games favorite ways to make an area difficult, but after 3 enemies it just means you have to deal with this encounter for longer and have less fun engaging in the typical back and forth attack and defense playstyle this game is at its most fun with. Again, I hate that I didn't enjoy this and I hate that it's because I wasn't good enough, but ultimately this games design, structure, story, or anything else were not interesting or fun enough to make me try and improve, nor did I make me think I even could.
Sifu
2022
The difficulty is balanced until the boss fights, but the boss fights are unnecessarily difficult because of shitty dodge controls. Nice game but play Sekiro first.
Breath of fresh air when I felt soulsbornes were getting a bit dry.
Prey
2017
This entire "game" is one huge scavenger hunt, just go wherever January says. The enemies can detect you so easily that stealth is not only incredibly tedious but also a waste of time. I could not continue playing this because I found a new game that is fun.
Prey
2017
Incredible atmosphere.
Sifu
2022
great combat but forced 8 hours of grinding enemies for better skills and the bad sound design and voice acting keep it from being something I recommend maybe in a sequel