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This review contains spoilers
This game... man... it's hard to talk about this game. I love this game so damn much, It's really hard to transfer these feelings with words but I am gonna try
Story
Story is about, While Kiryu is in prison again because of y5, Haruka decides to leave orphanage "Again" because of her stupid mistake at y5. Then, When Kiryu leaves the prison and finds about Haruka and what she did, he decides to find her and return her to the orphanage again.
But suddenly Kiryu learns that Haruka have a baby now and Haruka herself is in a coma. Kiryu decides to find about who is the father of this baby is and also who is behind after the attack of Haruka's and damn... what a story that is... In this journey Kiryu will see how parents neglected their children to become killing machines, also we see Kiryu's trying to protect her kids yet again and that's damn emotional one to say the least.
I can safely say that story keep me engaged to the end fully, I couldn't stop playing. It's so heart wrenching story that at points I couldn't hold my tears as well......
Also fortunately Rgg really used plot twists right and they did not force them upon your throat. You slowly see build ups and pay off, the kind that I like.
One thing really interesting to me is, there is a lot of times I felt like I am playing the yakuza 3 remake , I am not kidding. Yeah story have nothing to do with yakuza 3 but structure and build up and even the cast down to the voice actors is so similar to the yakuza 3. It results with the feeling of this is not an entirely original product but still I am happy with their decision.
Because they finally made yakuza 3 with a proper pacing, action and slow moments with the right order and really fleshed out cast down to the antagonists. I even struggle to say if this game have the almost best story and pacing in the entire franchise.
Why did I say almost? Because Haruka takes really stupid decisions just like her mom(ehm my big criticism for the first game) in order for story to happen. They downgraded Haruka with y5, so at least it's consistent with that... So unfortunately she still acts the same way compared to the clever girl from y3/y4. If we think her as a teenager that could make sense but the thing is her characterization was about that one clever kid in the first place, since from the beginning... Until y5 ruin that is.
Actually, there was one thing I wished to have as an option in this game, that is giving us option to return to the older places at parts of the story to interact with other characters more, Haruka's hospital, orphanage, stardust etc. Old games used to do that ¯\ಠಠ_/¯ .
Normally I don't talk other people's opinions but I want to make an exception here. For some reason there are a lot of people that hates this story because it's not about older characters, it's about the new characters. I find this complaint a bit flimsy because since yakuza 4... no even yakuza 3 rgg makes games this way.
They always made the games soft reboots like since y3, new place, new cast, new gangs, new friends, only the main character is consistent, yeah I hate this decision too, but saying this game is bad just because your favourites not in it is a flimsy answer to me. I mean, yeah If we get a last goodbye for all of the characters we met up to this point(especially Okinawa people) I would be really damn happy even to the point of maybe exceeding yakuza 2 for me, but rgg doesn't do that since the y3. I would understand this game to become not your favourite but saying this is the worst game is a step too far in my opinion.
Other complaint I see is ending sucks and I don't agree with this opinion. Since from the beginning to the end we see a lot of parents that didn't give right decisions with their kids and because of that Kiryu makes sure this doesn't happen to his kids and that's all.
But one thing I agree on is... why Kiryu coming back with yakuza 7 and 8? These returns really gonna sour a lot of people including me with these decisions in my opinion. Because Kiryu's story really ends here, yet if it's for the fanservice reason Rgg can't hold themselves back then this can f### this game's story in the process.
Because of that I am scared to see if they are gonna destroy this ending or not in the future. Hopefully not. But if they do, then I will start to hate this ending like everybody else for this reason. (Edit: yep they ruined it)
Side content
This time side content is really small, there is 51 substories and 3 not so fleshed out minigames. One is fishing, it's works like a railshooter, it's fun but pretty short.
One is baseball, it's similar to y5 except you also have a team to train(so yeah it's boring too)
and lastly the clan creator, a strategy minigame, you see big arena with a lot of enemies in it using the topdown camera and you need to spawn heroes to beat them. For every beaten enemy, you get points to spawn more stronger enemies. It's fine in concept but you realize it's pretty unbalanced with certain heroes are too strong compared to the others(some of them have invincibility). So they are not the best additions in my opinion.
When it comes to substories on the other hand, they are pretty fun actually. Most of them uses fanservice to entice the player but still enjoyed seeing returning characters or previous stories.
But one certain thing I am pretty disappointed on is the Amon... he is a gimmick fight again and I dislike this. This time amon have an annoying shield so it's just about breaking the shield with the right tool that's it.
Even tho side content is pretty smaller in size, my priority is main content so, as long as it's not infuriating or doing something incredible, I won't add it to my final result of this game
Combat
This is the part that also a lot of people separated on. It's because rgg decided to ditch the style system. Now it's become a physics showcase game rather than comboing game. I am actually fine with decision because yakuza games doesn't demand hardcore knowledge to beat their games to begin with, so this didn't impacted me that much as long as I can get creative with it.
And of course there are a lot of ways to get creative with it especially with the crowd combat with how you can do the "domino effect" to enemies. But when you can "do it" in the first place
Because physics engine pretty buggy and how new stupid progression system limits you a lot and how the recovery animation works now makes sometimes hard to be creative
For example physics engine is fun to watch funny physics don't get me wrong but once you want to be creative it's not nice to see game gets breaking apart itself.
Also this impacts to bosses as well. Because new moveset is good but for bosses they are too slow in my opinion. I guess that's why they added back the overpowered dragon burst thingy from y5 and yeah it obliterates anything... and with trillions of heat actions in it too.
It's at least interruptible by enemies also you can still get damaged as well so at least it doesn't make it a cakewalk but... it also makes every boss fight a joke. Like literal joke. Some bosses can guard it but not if you stun them. So, if you do that it becomes an even bigger joke. Because of that I don't remember any boss fight moveset from this game I can tell you that.
But if you ask me this negative kinda balanced with how fun the group combat is.
But I can't say the same for the damn progression system. For some reason we have 5 different exp currency in this game. So you know what that means right? You need to farm 5 times just to upgrade yourself. Only way to gain is eating food...? And for what? Exploration? I really don't get it tbh.
Third complaint is how the recovery works now. For some reason if enemy is guarding, your attack "bounces" and you watch Kiryu to slowly reposition himself... "Every.. Single... Time...". This breaks the pace of the combat so much that, I started to think rgg didn't even test it themselves. It's that pacebreaking I am not kidding. Fortunately there is a mod for pc so you can remove it. But still... rgg why did you add this and also made it so damn slow??
I have to say I am a bit torn upon combat. Because when it works you can do magical moments with it, for example once you learn how to impact enemies with other enemies, a right move can make an entire group fall to the ground in a satisfying way.
But when it doesn't work, your combo gets ruined. So... Yeah it's not the best combat they did. But that doesn't mean it's not fun. It's still is. It's just physics glitches and not challenging boss fights kinda takes it down.
So yeah this is my thoughts. Combat and sidecontent maybe not fully fleshed out and not that satisfying because of how unbalanced they are but story is soo good on the other hand so I choose to give 5/5 for the reason how the story impacted me alone. I think yakuza 2 still the best for me but this game is right behind that.
Story
Story is about, While Kiryu is in prison again because of y5, Haruka decides to leave orphanage "Again" because of her stupid mistake at y5. Then, When Kiryu leaves the prison and finds about Haruka and what she did, he decides to find her and return her to the orphanage again.
But suddenly Kiryu learns that Haruka have a baby now and Haruka herself is in a coma. Kiryu decides to find about who is the father of this baby is and also who is behind after the attack of Haruka's and damn... what a story that is... In this journey Kiryu will see how parents neglected their children to become killing machines, also we see Kiryu's trying to protect her kids yet again and that's damn emotional one to say the least.
I can safely say that story keep me engaged to the end fully, I couldn't stop playing. It's so heart wrenching story that at points I couldn't hold my tears as well......
Also fortunately Rgg really used plot twists right and they did not force them upon your throat. You slowly see build ups and pay off, the kind that I like.
One thing really interesting to me is, there is a lot of times I felt like I am playing the yakuza 3 remake , I am not kidding. Yeah story have nothing to do with yakuza 3 but structure and build up and even the cast down to the voice actors is so similar to the yakuza 3. It results with the feeling of this is not an entirely original product but still I am happy with their decision.
Because they finally made yakuza 3 with a proper pacing, action and slow moments with the right order and really fleshed out cast down to the antagonists. I even struggle to say if this game have the almost best story and pacing in the entire franchise.
Why did I say almost? Because Haruka takes really stupid decisions just like her mom(ehm my big criticism for the first game) in order for story to happen. They downgraded Haruka with y5, so at least it's consistent with that... So unfortunately she still acts the same way compared to the clever girl from y3/y4. If we think her as a teenager that could make sense but the thing is her characterization was about that one clever kid in the first place, since from the beginning... Until y5 ruin that is.
Actually, there was one thing I wished to have as an option in this game, that is giving us option to return to the older places at parts of the story to interact with other characters more, Haruka's hospital, orphanage, stardust etc. Old games used to do that ¯\ಠಠ_/¯ .
Normally I don't talk other people's opinions but I want to make an exception here. For some reason there are a lot of people that hates this story because it's not about older characters, it's about the new characters. I find this complaint a bit flimsy because since yakuza 4... no even yakuza 3 rgg makes games this way.
They always made the games soft reboots like since y3, new place, new cast, new gangs, new friends, only the main character is consistent, yeah I hate this decision too, but saying this game is bad just because your favourites not in it is a flimsy answer to me. I mean, yeah If we get a last goodbye for all of the characters we met up to this point(especially Okinawa people) I would be really damn happy even to the point of maybe exceeding yakuza 2 for me, but rgg doesn't do that since the y3. I would understand this game to become not your favourite but saying this is the worst game is a step too far in my opinion.
Other complaint I see is ending sucks and I don't agree with this opinion. Since from the beginning to the end we see a lot of parents that didn't give right decisions with their kids and because of that Kiryu makes sure this doesn't happen to his kids and that's all.
But one thing I agree on is... why Kiryu coming back with yakuza 7 and 8? These returns really gonna sour a lot of people including me with these decisions in my opinion. Because Kiryu's story really ends here, yet if it's for the fanservice reason Rgg can't hold themselves back then this can f### this game's story in the process.
Because of that I am scared to see if they are gonna destroy this ending or not in the future. Hopefully not. But if they do, then I will start to hate this ending like everybody else for this reason. (Edit: yep they ruined it)
Side content
This time side content is really small, there is 51 substories and 3 not so fleshed out minigames. One is fishing, it's works like a railshooter, it's fun but pretty short.
One is baseball, it's similar to y5 except you also have a team to train(so yeah it's boring too)
and lastly the clan creator, a strategy minigame, you see big arena with a lot of enemies in it using the topdown camera and you need to spawn heroes to beat them. For every beaten enemy, you get points to spawn more stronger enemies. It's fine in concept but you realize it's pretty unbalanced with certain heroes are too strong compared to the others(some of them have invincibility). So they are not the best additions in my opinion.
When it comes to substories on the other hand, they are pretty fun actually. Most of them uses fanservice to entice the player but still enjoyed seeing returning characters or previous stories.
But one certain thing I am pretty disappointed on is the Amon... he is a gimmick fight again and I dislike this. This time amon have an annoying shield so it's just about breaking the shield with the right tool that's it.
Even tho side content is pretty smaller in size, my priority is main content so, as long as it's not infuriating or doing something incredible, I won't add it to my final result of this game
Combat
This is the part that also a lot of people separated on. It's because rgg decided to ditch the style system. Now it's become a physics showcase game rather than comboing game. I am actually fine with decision because yakuza games doesn't demand hardcore knowledge to beat their games to begin with, so this didn't impacted me that much as long as I can get creative with it.
And of course there are a lot of ways to get creative with it especially with the crowd combat with how you can do the "domino effect" to enemies. But when you can "do it" in the first place
Because physics engine pretty buggy and how new stupid progression system limits you a lot and how the recovery animation works now makes sometimes hard to be creative
For example physics engine is fun to watch funny physics don't get me wrong but once you want to be creative it's not nice to see game gets breaking apart itself.
Also this impacts to bosses as well. Because new moveset is good but for bosses they are too slow in my opinion. I guess that's why they added back the overpowered dragon burst thingy from y5 and yeah it obliterates anything... and with trillions of heat actions in it too.
It's at least interruptible by enemies also you can still get damaged as well so at least it doesn't make it a cakewalk but... it also makes every boss fight a joke. Like literal joke. Some bosses can guard it but not if you stun them. So, if you do that it becomes an even bigger joke. Because of that I don't remember any boss fight moveset from this game I can tell you that.
But if you ask me this negative kinda balanced with how fun the group combat is.
But I can't say the same for the damn progression system. For some reason we have 5 different exp currency in this game. So you know what that means right? You need to farm 5 times just to upgrade yourself. Only way to gain is eating food...? And for what? Exploration? I really don't get it tbh.
Third complaint is how the recovery works now. For some reason if enemy is guarding, your attack "bounces" and you watch Kiryu to slowly reposition himself... "Every.. Single... Time...". This breaks the pace of the combat so much that, I started to think rgg didn't even test it themselves. It's that pacebreaking I am not kidding. Fortunately there is a mod for pc so you can remove it. But still... rgg why did you add this and also made it so damn slow??
I have to say I am a bit torn upon combat. Because when it works you can do magical moments with it, for example once you learn how to impact enemies with other enemies, a right move can make an entire group fall to the ground in a satisfying way.
But when it doesn't work, your combo gets ruined. So... Yeah it's not the best combat they did. But that doesn't mean it's not fun. It's still is. It's just physics glitches and not challenging boss fights kinda takes it down.
So yeah this is my thoughts. Combat and sidecontent maybe not fully fleshed out and not that satisfying because of how unbalanced they are but story is soo good on the other hand so I choose to give 5/5 for the reason how the story impacted me alone. I think yakuza 2 still the best for me but this game is right behind that.
2002
I saw couple of clips in this game and said to myself. Damn I have to play it, dashing around, flying everywhere, cool weapons, now this is my kind of game!
Then I started playing... Realized this "speedy" game uses tanks controls. I said whatever let's push on. Then realized camera doesn't turn left to right, you can only do it with turning your character, camera only goes up or down and it's INVERTED, with no option to change. I get little bit anxious. Again I said let's push on, first mission was about finding a weapon and returning back, it was simple so I didn't mind it. Then the second mission came, it was about exterminating all the monsters, I said okay let's do it, then opened the map and saw trillions of red dots, also everywhere filled with enemy spawners, I also met with flying bug creatures that forces you to look up or down with the shitty camera, I get even more anxious, finishes the level finally with all sweat and tears. Looks up the timer, it says 30minutes. Seeing that, I said to myself: let me shelve this until someone makes a improved controls mod for this game(probably never gonna happen)
Edit: But then, I did the best desicion. I readed a game guide to learn more tricks. Learned to fast turn, invinsibility 25 combo and meteor attack. (funny that game doesn't explain in the game itself)
Then I opened on emulator and rebind my buttons. There is a program called ds4windows and with that, I bind l3(analog left) to r1, r3(analog right) to l1. I did this because pressing analog sticks make me frustrated after a while. Also you need to press both of them for the meteor attack and it does make things easier.
It still wasn't easy but after getting the ultimate meteor attack at the half point of the game. Game get better for me, I started to finally do some cool shit, dodge enemies, fly to the air unlimitedly, destroy enemies with super fast etc. Even with that, last two missions still kind of hard for me. Mission that before last is about a heavy enemy gauntlet that keeps spawning to protect a core and final one is the of course final boss itself. But final boss fight taught me how to use invinsibilty reliably(or forced me to learn) and the moment I learned, I kicked his head to the infinitium!
I finally learned how to enjoy at gunvalkyrie!
But still... I can't give 5/5... Why? Because...
1-even with fast turn, I still wished a free camera, especially for turning left and right. Because you have to keep using fast turn just because an enemy is a bit too left or right to lock on and it gets bad in frantic situations
2-some bad enemies. Some enemies are both super fast and small so you can get needless damage from out of the camera's side. Also there is an enemy that can go invisible, it's such an annoying enemy to fight. Because you have to wait for himself to show up again and again. Also rest of the enemies are boring ants. They are boring tbh. I would rather get enemies that are well designed and challenging to fight over quantity for the quantity sake
3-Bad map. More than half of the game's objectives are, destroy all the enemies or all the enemy spawners. It wouldn't be bad but map is 2d. But there is a lot of both vertical and horizontal maps in the game. So you know what happens most of the time? You are searching for that one damn enemy that you lost and waste your damn time
4-there is no remapping settings. I know first xbox controller have some weird quirks okay, so it would be important to give to the player an option to remap buttons also invert the camera options. But there is none. If I couldn't remap the keys with the emulator, I wouldn't continue this game. I am not kidding
5-also a locking camera to the enemy option would be nice, especially for the bosses. Because I can't count how many times I get damaged from an attack I couldn't see. For example the "A" button is unused. Why not use it for locking on to the nearest enemy? I don't understand? It still wouldn't take away from the challenge after all you need to continue dodging enemies yourself.
So yeah that's my thoughts on the game. I wish there would be a sequel with a better settings option, more varied arenas to fight and focuses on less numbered but more clever designed enemies. If this happens one day, It would make me happy with finally realizing true potential of this game.
Thanks for reading everyone!
Then I started playing... Realized this "speedy" game uses tanks controls. I said whatever let's push on. Then realized camera doesn't turn left to right, you can only do it with turning your character, camera only goes up or down and it's INVERTED, with no option to change. I get little bit anxious. Again I said let's push on, first mission was about finding a weapon and returning back, it was simple so I didn't mind it. Then the second mission came, it was about exterminating all the monsters, I said okay let's do it, then opened the map and saw trillions of red dots, also everywhere filled with enemy spawners, I also met with flying bug creatures that forces you to look up or down with the shitty camera, I get even more anxious, finishes the level finally with all sweat and tears. Looks up the timer, it says 30minutes. Seeing that, I said to myself: let me shelve this until someone makes a improved controls mod for this game(probably never gonna happen)
Edit: But then, I did the best desicion. I readed a game guide to learn more tricks. Learned to fast turn, invinsibility 25 combo and meteor attack. (funny that game doesn't explain in the game itself)
Then I opened on emulator and rebind my buttons. There is a program called ds4windows and with that, I bind l3(analog left) to r1, r3(analog right) to l1. I did this because pressing analog sticks make me frustrated after a while. Also you need to press both of them for the meteor attack and it does make things easier.
It still wasn't easy but after getting the ultimate meteor attack at the half point of the game. Game get better for me, I started to finally do some cool shit, dodge enemies, fly to the air unlimitedly, destroy enemies with super fast etc. Even with that, last two missions still kind of hard for me. Mission that before last is about a heavy enemy gauntlet that keeps spawning to protect a core and final one is the of course final boss itself. But final boss fight taught me how to use invinsibilty reliably(or forced me to learn) and the moment I learned, I kicked his head to the infinitium!
I finally learned how to enjoy at gunvalkyrie!
But still... I can't give 5/5... Why? Because...
1-even with fast turn, I still wished a free camera, especially for turning left and right. Because you have to keep using fast turn just because an enemy is a bit too left or right to lock on and it gets bad in frantic situations
2-some bad enemies. Some enemies are both super fast and small so you can get needless damage from out of the camera's side. Also there is an enemy that can go invisible, it's such an annoying enemy to fight. Because you have to wait for himself to show up again and again. Also rest of the enemies are boring ants. They are boring tbh. I would rather get enemies that are well designed and challenging to fight over quantity for the quantity sake
3-Bad map. More than half of the game's objectives are, destroy all the enemies or all the enemy spawners. It wouldn't be bad but map is 2d. But there is a lot of both vertical and horizontal maps in the game. So you know what happens most of the time? You are searching for that one damn enemy that you lost and waste your damn time
4-there is no remapping settings. I know first xbox controller have some weird quirks okay, so it would be important to give to the player an option to remap buttons also invert the camera options. But there is none. If I couldn't remap the keys with the emulator, I wouldn't continue this game. I am not kidding
5-also a locking camera to the enemy option would be nice, especially for the bosses. Because I can't count how many times I get damaged from an attack I couldn't see. For example the "A" button is unused. Why not use it for locking on to the nearest enemy? I don't understand? It still wouldn't take away from the challenge after all you need to continue dodging enemies yourself.
So yeah that's my thoughts on the game. I wish there would be a sequel with a better settings option, more varied arenas to fight and focuses on less numbered but more clever designed enemies. If this happens one day, It would make me happy with finally realizing true potential of this game.
Thanks for reading everyone!
After the game that felt like a demo but stretched to 2 hours(zoe1). This game finally takes more advantage of the movement with adding environmental grapples, ability to move while using gadgets(except one, because it's a heavy missile). Also of course with this better movement also there is more stronger and faster enemies to fight. Also gadgets have a better use this time fortunately, because some enemies dies more easily with certain gadgets. Also this game have a better pace, rather than hiding bosses to the end of the game, almost every level ends with a boss fight in this game. this bosses are excellent made btw, because they have gimmicks that you need to solve to beat them rather than just holding the shoot button like the first one. Not just that, levels are now more fun with making it more lineer but with a lot of variety(some in the air, some in mountains, some in valleys etc). Also fortunately you don't go key hunting the entire time in this one.
For the story, it's fine. It's more convoluted than the first one, but still more on the simple side and it's fine for me. Voice acting is a bit iffy but it's miles better than the shitty voice acting of the first one(maybe I should return one day for trying the newly released japanese voice patch for that game). Also they made the excellent choice of whenever a character shows up, it just shows a 2d portrait or full 2d animation rather than clumsy 3d models and animation of the first game.
My only complaint would be slow and inverted camera I think, but game rarely forces you to use it, because game handles everything with lock on anyway, so it's fine for me.
So I think this game is a masterpiece. If you haven't played it and you like fast movement with interesting gadgets/weapons, play this game!
For the story, it's fine. It's more convoluted than the first one, but still more on the simple side and it's fine for me. Voice acting is a bit iffy but it's miles better than the shitty voice acting of the first one(maybe I should return one day for trying the newly released japanese voice patch for that game). Also they made the excellent choice of whenever a character shows up, it just shows a 2d portrait or full 2d animation rather than clumsy 3d models and animation of the first game.
My only complaint would be slow and inverted camera I think, but game rarely forces you to use it, because game handles everything with lock on anyway, so it's fine for me.
So I think this game is a masterpiece. If you haven't played it and you like fast movement with interesting gadgets/weapons, play this game!
2001
I think I can just name this game, a first timer developer's take on the evangelion. Why? Because you have an annoying kid main character that complains about everything, but forced to save the planet. Of course I can't say evangelion influence is certain or not, but after evangelion there was a big trend for making the robot user a kid so I don't know. But I didn't have that much fun with the story.
Now this game have excellent movement, but does it make a good game? Not for me, because this game isn't fleshed out. Firstly gadget usage sucks because you have to stop to use it, so I didn't use it if it's not necessary. Secondly, game have only three-four enemy type, it really gets boring after a while. Thirdly, every level feels the same, you find couple of keys then you unlock the next one, only one I remember different is, you need to protect the city so you have to fastly kill enemies before city damage gets too much, that's it. Fourthly, for some reason pacing is terrible, you get level after level after level, then game says, congratulations with beating the levels, now here is the boss after boss after boss. I said What the hell? Of course. This is what I meant when I said a first timer developer, because I think every experienced developer knows to pace things to not get monotonous or grating.
I am sorry to say but in this 2-3 hour game somehow managed to bore me. It's not a bad game but feels like only have half hour content that stretched to it's limit.
Now this game have excellent movement, but does it make a good game? Not for me, because this game isn't fleshed out. Firstly gadget usage sucks because you have to stop to use it, so I didn't use it if it's not necessary. Secondly, game have only three-four enemy type, it really gets boring after a while. Thirdly, every level feels the same, you find couple of keys then you unlock the next one, only one I remember different is, you need to protect the city so you have to fastly kill enemies before city damage gets too much, that's it. Fourthly, for some reason pacing is terrible, you get level after level after level, then game says, congratulations with beating the levels, now here is the boss after boss after boss. I said What the hell? Of course. This is what I meant when I said a first timer developer, because I think every experienced developer knows to pace things to not get monotonous or grating.
I am sorry to say but in this 2-3 hour game somehow managed to bore me. It's not a bad game but feels like only have half hour content that stretched to it's limit.
This is my first or close to first game that I have ever experienced. Only thing I remember about is you use mouse click for places to move. Also for some reason funny monster really scared the hell out of me. But now to me, looks like a cashgrab that copy pastes other point&click games to me
Damn.. this garbage game.. For some reason this is my first played big game(actually there was also bionicles 2 and lego racers too and for some reason mgba emulator games???). I remember the excitement when I first saw the cover. I was a big spiderman fan and I was dying from excitement to play it's game(for some reason first movie's game didn't worked on my pc at the time so I left with this). After playing a bit with my dad, I felt some things are not right but couldn't put my finger on, now of course I know what is the problem but at the time being an excited kid blinded my eyes. This game is flaming garbage, for some reason you can only use web swing at certain marked points, for some reason game's levels are designed like a maze(especially the shitty bank level, I can't forget about), combat uses point and click mechanics for some reason??? Saying they work wonky is an understatement, also this game is damnnn glitchy, I still remember mysterio level took me months because you have a gimmick for throwing rocks but it damages you for some reason in my computer???(It didn't in my cousins computer). After I finished, I never returned to this game because I found the spiderman 2002 ps1 game on my aunt's ps1 and even at the time I realized it was a more fun game, even with the blocky graphics than this garbage
2002
I couldn't finish this game, for some reason still don't know how to beat second fight of the Yosemite Sam. Also I always wondered why they decided on making a stealth game about tazmania?? It was weird. But had a lot of fun tho when I was a kid.(Also frustration with the wonky platforming and stealth system)
2005
This is a story about what happens when you escape from your destiny. It's really interesting one for me. People like to dunk on this game, because yakuza 0 and also other characters don't have much screen time in it, but I disagree. Because this is Kiryu's game from beginning to end! We as a Kiryu, see how Kamurocho is an unforgiving city and how this city never forgives people that tries to escape from it. What I mean is Kamurocho feels threatening in this game, really really threatening, compared to the later titles it's so good at atmosphere even the "remake" of this game can't capture it.
My complaint's mostly about the game mechanics, but before that, only thing I didn't like about this game's story is, the character Yumi and how she used in this game. She is mostly a plot device to get story to an another point rather than a character of it's own and I feel like it's hurts the story a bit. Because her motivations and what she does in the story doesn't match, so this takes the story a bit down for me.
When it comes to my gameplay problems: firstly lock on only works if you are directly looking at the enemy, because of that you need to manually reposition yourself after every attack.
Also you can't change attack direction once you start it. It's no big deal once you understand how it works, so you always make sure you are in the right position before attacking also getting the back attacks upgrade helps a lot, but you need time to learn it and for that it's a bit down for me
Other than that, it's completely the same Kiryu's dragon style without charge and ground grapples so it's still a lot of fun for me. Also you get really fast heat in this game, so I have to say finishing grapples pretty overpowered in this game, so try to unlock it if you have a hard time.
Btw If you want "to experience this game, find the "yakuza restored" patch, it's fixes the translation and also changes voices back to Japanese voices, I think this patch is vital to this game
My complaint's mostly about the game mechanics, but before that, only thing I didn't like about this game's story is, the character Yumi and how she used in this game. She is mostly a plot device to get story to an another point rather than a character of it's own and I feel like it's hurts the story a bit. Because her motivations and what she does in the story doesn't match, so this takes the story a bit down for me.
When it comes to my gameplay problems: firstly lock on only works if you are directly looking at the enemy, because of that you need to manually reposition yourself after every attack.
Also you can't change attack direction once you start it. It's no big deal once you understand how it works, so you always make sure you are in the right position before attacking also getting the back attacks upgrade helps a lot, but you need time to learn it and for that it's a bit down for me
Other than that, it's completely the same Kiryu's dragon style without charge and ground grapples so it's still a lot of fun for me. Also you get really fast heat in this game, so I have to say finishing grapples pretty overpowered in this game, so try to unlock it if you have a hard time.
Btw If you want "to experience this game, find the "yakuza restored" patch, it's fixes the translation and also changes voices back to Japanese voices, I think this patch is vital to this game
Hearing the witcher franchise happened with the witcher 3 like everybody else, but after trying out couple of hours I realized this game builds what came from before, there is a lot of people that said witcher 3 is a good beginner point and I certainly don't agree with them. Because when Geralt says that character is important to him you don't understand what he meant, because all you can go for is a 3 minute flashback. But after reading the books, I really really get it Geralt and I am glad I did because if I didn't, I would leave this game and not finish it at all.
(Also my thoughts about books are conflicted with how it goes off the rails especially after the 4th book with introducing trillions of characters and can't connect them together naturally and brokes the pacing badly, but at least I can recommend first and second books to everyone because they are not novels, they are short stories that is quick and have excellent pacing also it's slowly develops Geralt to the man we know it today)
Why? Because majority of the main story kinda sucks. You will ask "what the hell do you mean??? Everybody says it's excellent??" Actually yeah it's excellent but only some parts. What I mean is, there is a two story that is going on. One is hunting down a magician that stole the witcher secrets and other is, bonding with your loved ones and teaching a powerful kid to how to live a life. Problem is, magician part of the story is really cliche cartoon like events, what I mean is, you follow the clues to find where the villain is, you run to his door, he escapes and then you repeat this multiple times to comical level, also he is a really boring cliche power loving villain. Just for this reason alone, I thought leaving the game several times.
So as a book reader you can assume that I liked the second part of the story and yes I liked it, especially seeing the previous folk after events of the books and seeing their struggle really touched my heart, also teaching the kid part was really touching as well with how it references ciri without naming it. But one thing really let it down for me is... Really disappointing final act of this game... Kid plot gets rushed, stories of your loved ones doesn't have a proper conclusion, game throws plot back to back with no time to breath and then it ends. Ending really confused me and I had to watch a video to learn really what the heck just happen and I really didn't liked that.
So what I mean is, main story have a potential, but it's all wasted with badly paced events, boring villains, and rushed final act.
World
Maybe people gonna disagree with me, but when it comes to atmosphere witcher 1 is the best, with it's haunting sound effects, people that crying everywhere, constant garbage everywhere etc. You really feel how disgusting this world is. Unfortunately I feel like they don't do that as well in the sequels to make the graphics better and more colorful.
There is one thing bad about the world is... There is so many copy paste npc models that it gets confusing who is who after a while. I am not a fond of that.
There is a slight problem with the world unfortunately and that is walking. There is multiple maps in this game and for some reason only way to go between them is walking to the end of the map. Buy a boat ticket, watch a cutscene and then you can continue and it gets monotonous to walk all the way to the end in every map is an UNDERSTATEMENT. It's pissed me so much that I had to download a faster movement mod, it breaks some of the enemy movement but it's worth it for me.
So I like world but game's systems didn't aged good for it I think.
Side content
This is where the game truly shine in my opinion, I wasn't expecting but side stories is that awesome is that game, why? Because they tie to the main story seamlessly. You solve a person's problem and bum he is there to help in the main story or you want to get more information about the people you met in the main story and bum here is his/her entire life story, not just that there is so many references and connections to the book characters that It resulted with me getting immense pleasure from it. Only side content isn't important I could say is, the hunting missions. Unfortunately they are basic go kill 10 of this 5 of that kind of missions, but other than that I found the side content excellent
Combat
This is the part that many people divided upon, but for me, this is the best game that "gets" the books. People really dislike the combat because it uses hotbar skill system rather than action system like the sequels does. But I think hotbar system helps in it favor in this case, why do you ask?
Because in books, witchers are always "gets prepared" for their next mission and what is hotbar combat is about? Having larger damage numbers and larger defense numbers than the enemy. How do you get that? Finding information about the enemy you will hunt and preparing the correct potions/equipment/magic buffs/oils/stances/swords for the enemy and it really puts you to the mind of the witcher for me and I really liked it.
But there is one vital problem to the combat and that is... You can only do buffs and potions on a campfire and that is bullsh*t right there. Why? Because main story missions loves to suprise you with new enemy variations, so only way to know to prepare is, go into a mission, see the enemy, then load previous save... Or if you are like me, downloading the "mediate anywhere" mod solves everything actually. But in the vanilla it sucks there is no going around it.
Also people really hate, you have to click your attacks like a rythym game but for me it's not such a bad thing, i wasn't that hard to get used to
Lastly inventory. This isn't that much of a loot heavy game, but unfortunately you can't store more than 2 swords to your inventory and only way to store them is go into a bar and store into a chest. I find this really frustrating because sometimes I am not sure if I should get that sword or not and I don't want to return to the bar everytime. You can solve this with storing mod but it's a pain in the vanilla game unfortunately.
Bugs
For me it wasn't that much of a clear experience, t-pose problems, crashes, wrong enemy spawns etc. but one bug really made me nervous... Why? Early in the game, you have a ring to give to a someone so he will let you in. The problem is, next day I open the game it wasn't there. Did I sell it I thought and looked every merchant and it wasn't there, I looked every...where... My previous save was too old so I didn't want to return it either, I almost left the game but I found out that there was an alternate way to get the ring from someone and finally finished the quest. Unfortunately this quest really sticked to my head with the trouble it gave so unfortunately this game isn't bugless even with the enhanced edition somehow.
So if there is a lot of jank in it, then why 4/5? Believe it or not, but for me, world was that much of immersive and side content was that much of impressive to me that it overcomes the jank part for me. If I look at it objectively it's 3/5 but as a personal review, I give this 4/5 with it's world, interesting characters, fun references to the books and enjoyable side content
(Also my thoughts about books are conflicted with how it goes off the rails especially after the 4th book with introducing trillions of characters and can't connect them together naturally and brokes the pacing badly, but at least I can recommend first and second books to everyone because they are not novels, they are short stories that is quick and have excellent pacing also it's slowly develops Geralt to the man we know it today)
Why? Because majority of the main story kinda sucks. You will ask "what the hell do you mean??? Everybody says it's excellent??" Actually yeah it's excellent but only some parts. What I mean is, there is a two story that is going on. One is hunting down a magician that stole the witcher secrets and other is, bonding with your loved ones and teaching a powerful kid to how to live a life. Problem is, magician part of the story is really cliche cartoon like events, what I mean is, you follow the clues to find where the villain is, you run to his door, he escapes and then you repeat this multiple times to comical level, also he is a really boring cliche power loving villain. Just for this reason alone, I thought leaving the game several times.
So as a book reader you can assume that I liked the second part of the story and yes I liked it, especially seeing the previous folk after events of the books and seeing their struggle really touched my heart, also teaching the kid part was really touching as well with how it references ciri without naming it. But one thing really let it down for me is... Really disappointing final act of this game... Kid plot gets rushed, stories of your loved ones doesn't have a proper conclusion, game throws plot back to back with no time to breath and then it ends. Ending really confused me and I had to watch a video to learn really what the heck just happen and I really didn't liked that.
So what I mean is, main story have a potential, but it's all wasted with badly paced events, boring villains, and rushed final act.
World
Maybe people gonna disagree with me, but when it comes to atmosphere witcher 1 is the best, with it's haunting sound effects, people that crying everywhere, constant garbage everywhere etc. You really feel how disgusting this world is. Unfortunately I feel like they don't do that as well in the sequels to make the graphics better and more colorful.
There is one thing bad about the world is... There is so many copy paste npc models that it gets confusing who is who after a while. I am not a fond of that.
There is a slight problem with the world unfortunately and that is walking. There is multiple maps in this game and for some reason only way to go between them is walking to the end of the map. Buy a boat ticket, watch a cutscene and then you can continue and it gets monotonous to walk all the way to the end in every map is an UNDERSTATEMENT. It's pissed me so much that I had to download a faster movement mod, it breaks some of the enemy movement but it's worth it for me.
So I like world but game's systems didn't aged good for it I think.
Side content
This is where the game truly shine in my opinion, I wasn't expecting but side stories is that awesome is that game, why? Because they tie to the main story seamlessly. You solve a person's problem and bum he is there to help in the main story or you want to get more information about the people you met in the main story and bum here is his/her entire life story, not just that there is so many references and connections to the book characters that It resulted with me getting immense pleasure from it. Only side content isn't important I could say is, the hunting missions. Unfortunately they are basic go kill 10 of this 5 of that kind of missions, but other than that I found the side content excellent
Combat
This is the part that many people divided upon, but for me, this is the best game that "gets" the books. People really dislike the combat because it uses hotbar skill system rather than action system like the sequels does. But I think hotbar system helps in it favor in this case, why do you ask?
Because in books, witchers are always "gets prepared" for their next mission and what is hotbar combat is about? Having larger damage numbers and larger defense numbers than the enemy. How do you get that? Finding information about the enemy you will hunt and preparing the correct potions/equipment/magic buffs/oils/stances/swords for the enemy and it really puts you to the mind of the witcher for me and I really liked it.
But there is one vital problem to the combat and that is... You can only do buffs and potions on a campfire and that is bullsh*t right there. Why? Because main story missions loves to suprise you with new enemy variations, so only way to know to prepare is, go into a mission, see the enemy, then load previous save... Or if you are like me, downloading the "mediate anywhere" mod solves everything actually. But in the vanilla it sucks there is no going around it.
Also people really hate, you have to click your attacks like a rythym game but for me it's not such a bad thing, i wasn't that hard to get used to
Lastly inventory. This isn't that much of a loot heavy game, but unfortunately you can't store more than 2 swords to your inventory and only way to store them is go into a bar and store into a chest. I find this really frustrating because sometimes I am not sure if I should get that sword or not and I don't want to return to the bar everytime. You can solve this with storing mod but it's a pain in the vanilla game unfortunately.
Bugs
For me it wasn't that much of a clear experience, t-pose problems, crashes, wrong enemy spawns etc. but one bug really made me nervous... Why? Early in the game, you have a ring to give to a someone so he will let you in. The problem is, next day I open the game it wasn't there. Did I sell it I thought and looked every merchant and it wasn't there, I looked every...where... My previous save was too old so I didn't want to return it either, I almost left the game but I found out that there was an alternate way to get the ring from someone and finally finished the quest. Unfortunately this quest really sticked to my head with the trouble it gave so unfortunately this game isn't bugless even with the enhanced edition somehow.
So if there is a lot of jank in it, then why 4/5? Believe it or not, but for me, world was that much of immersive and side content was that much of impressive to me that it overcomes the jank part for me. If I look at it objectively it's 3/5 but as a personal review, I give this 4/5 with it's world, interesting characters, fun references to the books and enjoyable side content
The best witcher story, the worst witcher gameplay
This game did the unthinkable for me, when I was reading books, I was thinking about how mr. Saphowski sucks at naturally connecting multiple people and plot points to each other, he shows multiple kingdoms, their conflicts, their ideals and the war that goes around them, but what it amounts to the Geralt(main character), just a couple of pages of slicing army guys... That's it. Books(especially novel ones) just really loves to throw unnecessary plot points and characters that breaks the pace, goes nowhere, have nothing to do with Geralt's main objective. So I thought what if they really connected to Geralt in more ways than one? And this game... Man this game gave me that.
A witcher that blamed for killing a king, now needs to prove his innocence to the world while magicians and kings try to take advantage from his unfortunate situation. Not just that, game have 2 big sides this time, kings side and elves side. Depending on your desicion about helping the which side in the first half changes the last half ENTIRELY and that is simply amazing.
Unfortunately all big ambitions have it's setback tho...
World
For some reason this game ditched to travelling between maps option from witcher 1, what it means is once you do enough main story, you need to say bye bye to old map and say hello to new map, so this means this game is lineer right?
Yes and no, it's more of a sandbox type. What I mean is, every map still have it's own side content, it's own characters and it's own atmosphere, unfortunately it sometimes results with tiny frustrating moments because if you leave a sidecontent in the old map, it instantly marked with fail sign, but at the same time I am happy because this move makes sure the player never breaks the pace with going between maps and waste time until they get bored to never return to the game again.
Also this time maps feels smaller yet dense with content, what I mean is, fortunately you don't need to walk the amount you do like in the witcher 1 or 3 but still get the same or even more amount of side content in less time. I found it awesome and in my opinion that's why world wise it's my favourite in the trilogy(also sidecontent is awesome just like the witcher 1, only thing I dislike is how they butchered the fist fighting minigame)
Also damnn... The world really feels handcrafted. Even though like I said it's small, it really doesn't feel like that with how it's full of with details in Every. Step. Of. The. Way....
Also I have to say this game have one of my favourite cities and that's a really unique dwarf mountain city. Unique word is an understatement so see for yourself I would say. It's one of my favourite fantasy maps in the ENTIRE rpg genre. It's that amazing.
Also do you want to know what is even more awesome? Remember that I said depending on who you side, second half of the game changes, yeah maps are also different too! You go to an entirely different map depending on your choice and how awesome is that???
Even though I kind of like the depressing atmosphere of the first game(this game chooses to be really colorful), I can still say this game's world is a hard slamdunk for it's favor
Gameplay
Unfortunately when I was talking about setbacks I was thinking this when writing that line because this is the place I have to get immensely negative
This game have the worst action rpg combat I had played in my entire life. It's really that really glitchy and broken:
Lock on that breaks constantly???
Attacks that doesn't damage the enemies randomly???
Enemies that have some of the worst hitboxes known to man or in gaming EVER(fighting with giant enemies is a chore with how they can damage you without even touching you???)
Potion system sucks hard with super short timed use???
Really stingy skill system???(even with doing every side content you can only fill %65 of it)
Attack animations that randomly decides to f##k you over(because game randomly decides to do a long sword animation and gets you killed, funnily enough same problem exists on witcher 3 on lesser amount)
Also quick time events that comes from nowhere without any warning????
And last thing is, I don't think even the developers themselves tested the Letho fight, it combines every bad thing in the game into one giant shitty fight with bad hitboxes, randomly missing attacks, lock on that does not work etc. It's one of the worst boss fights I had pleasure to experience in my life...
Do I need to continue? I think I really give what a clusterfuck of a game that is. If I didn't enjoyed the story I would give this game 1/5 like I am not joking it's that BAD. I never thought I would but this game made me miss the first game's gameplay, because at least it worked...
So an awesome World and Story and Shit broken gameplay...
If this game had the good gameplay I would say this game is 5/5, not just that, I would say this is the greatest Witcher game everrr(In my opinion witcher 3's story isn't good and filled with empty npc quests, compared to it's nice characters), but unfortunately with every big ambition, there is shortcomings as well...
It's sad to say this but for this reason it's impossible for me to go higher than 4/5 with all of the frustrations it caused. But still wants to recommend people that likes choices and uncovering political mysteries, seeing incredible fantasy worlds, but I don't want to recommend this to people that expects a good action... no a functional game. Because it's not.
This game did the unthinkable for me, when I was reading books, I was thinking about how mr. Saphowski sucks at naturally connecting multiple people and plot points to each other, he shows multiple kingdoms, their conflicts, their ideals and the war that goes around them, but what it amounts to the Geralt(main character), just a couple of pages of slicing army guys... That's it. Books(especially novel ones) just really loves to throw unnecessary plot points and characters that breaks the pace, goes nowhere, have nothing to do with Geralt's main objective. So I thought what if they really connected to Geralt in more ways than one? And this game... Man this game gave me that.
A witcher that blamed for killing a king, now needs to prove his innocence to the world while magicians and kings try to take advantage from his unfortunate situation. Not just that, game have 2 big sides this time, kings side and elves side. Depending on your desicion about helping the which side in the first half changes the last half ENTIRELY and that is simply amazing.
Unfortunately all big ambitions have it's setback tho...
World
For some reason this game ditched to travelling between maps option from witcher 1, what it means is once you do enough main story, you need to say bye bye to old map and say hello to new map, so this means this game is lineer right?
Yes and no, it's more of a sandbox type. What I mean is, every map still have it's own side content, it's own characters and it's own atmosphere, unfortunately it sometimes results with tiny frustrating moments because if you leave a sidecontent in the old map, it instantly marked with fail sign, but at the same time I am happy because this move makes sure the player never breaks the pace with going between maps and waste time until they get bored to never return to the game again.
Also this time maps feels smaller yet dense with content, what I mean is, fortunately you don't need to walk the amount you do like in the witcher 1 or 3 but still get the same or even more amount of side content in less time. I found it awesome and in my opinion that's why world wise it's my favourite in the trilogy(also sidecontent is awesome just like the witcher 1, only thing I dislike is how they butchered the fist fighting minigame)
Also damnn... The world really feels handcrafted. Even though like I said it's small, it really doesn't feel like that with how it's full of with details in Every. Step. Of. The. Way....
Also I have to say this game have one of my favourite cities and that's a really unique dwarf mountain city. Unique word is an understatement so see for yourself I would say. It's one of my favourite fantasy maps in the ENTIRE rpg genre. It's that amazing.
Also do you want to know what is even more awesome? Remember that I said depending on who you side, second half of the game changes, yeah maps are also different too! You go to an entirely different map depending on your choice and how awesome is that???
Even though I kind of like the depressing atmosphere of the first game(this game chooses to be really colorful), I can still say this game's world is a hard slamdunk for it's favor
Gameplay
Unfortunately when I was talking about setbacks I was thinking this when writing that line because this is the place I have to get immensely negative
This game have the worst action rpg combat I had played in my entire life. It's really that really glitchy and broken:
Lock on that breaks constantly???
Attacks that doesn't damage the enemies randomly???
Enemies that have some of the worst hitboxes known to man or in gaming EVER(fighting with giant enemies is a chore with how they can damage you without even touching you???)
Potion system sucks hard with super short timed use???
Really stingy skill system???(even with doing every side content you can only fill %65 of it)
Attack animations that randomly decides to f##k you over(because game randomly decides to do a long sword animation and gets you killed, funnily enough same problem exists on witcher 3 on lesser amount)
Also quick time events that comes from nowhere without any warning????
And last thing is, I don't think even the developers themselves tested the Letho fight, it combines every bad thing in the game into one giant shitty fight with bad hitboxes, randomly missing attacks, lock on that does not work etc. It's one of the worst boss fights I had pleasure to experience in my life...
Do I need to continue? I think I really give what a clusterfuck of a game that is. If I didn't enjoyed the story I would give this game 1/5 like I am not joking it's that BAD. I never thought I would but this game made me miss the first game's gameplay, because at least it worked...
So an awesome World and Story and Shit broken gameplay...
If this game had the good gameplay I would say this game is 5/5, not just that, I would say this is the greatest Witcher game everrr(In my opinion witcher 3's story isn't good and filled with empty npc quests, compared to it's nice characters), but unfortunately with every big ambition, there is shortcomings as well...
It's sad to say this but for this reason it's impossible for me to go higher than 4/5 with all of the frustrations it caused. But still wants to recommend people that likes choices and uncovering political mysteries, seeing incredible fantasy worlds, but I don't want to recommend this to people that expects a good action... no a functional game. Because it's not.
So The famous Witcher 3... The game that did it all! The game that have the best gameplay, best atmosphere, best story, best characters, best side quests, best side content! Best at everything it does!!
If so, then why I left disappointed?
Overbloated World
So, this time Witcher goes full open world!... So how is it then...? It was boring. Too boring in fact. Why? Because world feels like big for the sake of it. Game world feels empty, only important places are just the settlements and it's just the %5 part of the map. I understand that they want to varied up the world with seperating to 4 maps and adding how many places to visit as they can. But the problem is it's designed to look good, not functional. What I mean is, the most you do in the maps are uncovering the question marks beside main and side quests and they are ubisoft quality at best. Copy paste enemy camps or monster camps or boring loot chests everyhere. After I realized that, open word lost all of it's magic for me. Only thing I did after that is, go to the another fast travel point and use it to arrive to another quest location. That's it. Neat thing is, some of the places doesn't have enough fast travel points. So you know what that means? More horse riding of course. It would be bearable maybe if the horse riding did work but it doesn't.. this game's movement physics and horse riding sucks literally. You and horse keep stuck at smallest peeble or wood, physics takes precedemment over input, so if it's a slope and you start sliding, say goodbye to your controller because it will refuse to listen you, horse refuse to do listen your input as well when it's near a wall or fence and makes tight places infuriating. Also depending on the location you are, jump button changes it's mind and does it's own thing, for example if you are near the sea, it's always does the dive move, or if you are near a wall, it decides to climb on it even if you didn't intend to and animation lock you depending on how long the wall is etc. Strange thing is, people like to dunk on red dead 2 but at least it's horse riding works (also world feels more alive with the constant random events it throws at you), but still acts like witcher 3 is the masterpiece??? If you can say rdr2 have this problem, I am sorry but witcher 3 have as well. Only thing I can say good about the world is, there is optional caves to fight a strong monster then collect it's loot. At least it felt a bit more handcrafted then rest of the side activities. Other good thing is Novigrad city is feels handcrafted with how full of content it is compared to the rest of the settlements. But even with that, I couldn't shake off the boredom with the world.
Badly paced Main Story
Main story is all about Ciri, where is Ciri? What happend to Ciri? How Ciri disappeared etc.
And it's boring for me as well. Why? Because story feels like it doesn't progress until the last quarter of the game.
You go into a place, ask Ciri, find someone knowledgeable, that person shows you previous location last Ciri showed, you investigate the place, ask the people that happened to see her, watch a flashback of it, then with the flashback information, you learn about an another place where Ciri can be. Repeat this 4 damn times. Then you come to the last quarter of the game, game decides to finally progress the story. In the last quarter game becomes more interesting yes, but also feels rushed as well. What I mean is, there is a lot of cool moments but the big "Threat" of this game feels undercooked. He is poorly explained and just does things because he is the cliche, I want power kind of bad guy. I know for a fact that he acts the same in the books as well, but that doesn't mean game couldn't add on his own depth to him. But unfortunately it didn't, because of this, the "confrontation" part of it feels underwhelming. At least Geralt's friends feels pretty fleshed out so emotional moments still hit you but unfortunately pacing issues and boring cliche villains makes it the main story a meh for me.
Gameplay
It's miles better than Witcher 2, because this time it works... but that's all I can say... it works. But it's not enough to carry an 80 hour game for me. It's an "rpg" but doesn't have enough variety in it for some reason. The most you can do is, get a more flashy version of your magic spells, other than that most of things are just more numbers, that's it. Also I said it's better than witcher 2 but that's not a big compliment, combat still feels doesn't flow that well, because animations are too long, you still don't feel like you are in control entirely, like I would go as far as to say this game just loooooves to eat your inputs and that's just bad. Also Enemies are not interesting either, there is giant enemy type, ghost enemy type, flying enemy type, fast jumping type, 4 legged dog like type and that's it. Their numbers can look big but when the animations look the same but only with a different skin, it gets boring as well. So what that's result of this? Repetitive game. You feel like doing the same attacks to the same enemies again and again. There is not enough variation for anything for this long of a game unfortunately. It gets boring.
Side Content
I already talked about the side content a bit on the world part. Enemy camps, monster camps, Treasure hunts, monster caves, side quests, and also free skill giving statues to find and famous gwent card game as well. The most interesting part of them is side quests of course and some of the monster caves. Of course like all the other previous witcher games, this game have good sidequests as well. There is cliche kill that, kill this ones, also there is full of twist and depthful ones as well. Some of them is even more interesing than the entire main story for me and that's pretty nice. But for some reason people act like this was special to witcher 3? That was same for the previous games as well, even in witcher 1, there was a lot of sidequests that explore characters backstories, shows cruel part of the world, gives you desicion to shape someones future as well. So I didn't understand when people said this is what makes Witcher 3 special. Yeah it's good. Also gwent card game is pretty fun as well. But like I said in the world part unfortunately most of the content is copy paste enemy camps or boring treasure hunts. So I can't say it's a full slam dunk for it's favor.
Glitches
I thought, with the next gen update, I was gonna get the best witcher 3 experience... I didn't get that unfortunately. There is still a lot of glitches. The ones that I come across is, when riding horse with full speed and jumping from it near a locked door, I somehow get glitched and teleported past the door. Some "locked" doors don't have colitions and you can walk past them for some reason (especially Whoreson Junior's hideout for some reason have a lot of them), flying enemies or charging enemies keep stuck inside walls when they attack, horse keeps glitches it's legs when you try to progress through a downward slope and other shit I forgot.
But one of them was really anoyying and that was a side quest not counted glitch. For some reason, in one of the treasure hunt side quest, after I found the chest, opened it and collect everything, it didn't count but also removed the chest as well... Do you know what I had to do? Load a previous save... imagine my frustration.... I was pissed off! Not suprising to see Cyberpunk and it's glitches now actually. Especially if this is the "complete experience"
So yeah, I did not have much fun with this game, maybe if it had better pacing I would say this is a better Witcher 1 game, but unfortunately all the padding with overbloating it's content doesn't vibe for me. For this reason I give it 3/5. It's a meh for me. I didn't saw the masterpiece of the game everybody talked about unfortunately
If so, then why I left disappointed?
Overbloated World
So, this time Witcher goes full open world!... So how is it then...? It was boring. Too boring in fact. Why? Because world feels like big for the sake of it. Game world feels empty, only important places are just the settlements and it's just the %5 part of the map. I understand that they want to varied up the world with seperating to 4 maps and adding how many places to visit as they can. But the problem is it's designed to look good, not functional. What I mean is, the most you do in the maps are uncovering the question marks beside main and side quests and they are ubisoft quality at best. Copy paste enemy camps or monster camps or boring loot chests everyhere. After I realized that, open word lost all of it's magic for me. Only thing I did after that is, go to the another fast travel point and use it to arrive to another quest location. That's it. Neat thing is, some of the places doesn't have enough fast travel points. So you know what that means? More horse riding of course. It would be bearable maybe if the horse riding did work but it doesn't.. this game's movement physics and horse riding sucks literally. You and horse keep stuck at smallest peeble or wood, physics takes precedemment over input, so if it's a slope and you start sliding, say goodbye to your controller because it will refuse to listen you, horse refuse to do listen your input as well when it's near a wall or fence and makes tight places infuriating. Also depending on the location you are, jump button changes it's mind and does it's own thing, for example if you are near the sea, it's always does the dive move, or if you are near a wall, it decides to climb on it even if you didn't intend to and animation lock you depending on how long the wall is etc. Strange thing is, people like to dunk on red dead 2 but at least it's horse riding works (also world feels more alive with the constant random events it throws at you), but still acts like witcher 3 is the masterpiece??? If you can say rdr2 have this problem, I am sorry but witcher 3 have as well. Only thing I can say good about the world is, there is optional caves to fight a strong monster then collect it's loot. At least it felt a bit more handcrafted then rest of the side activities. Other good thing is Novigrad city is feels handcrafted with how full of content it is compared to the rest of the settlements. But even with that, I couldn't shake off the boredom with the world.
Badly paced Main Story
Main story is all about Ciri, where is Ciri? What happend to Ciri? How Ciri disappeared etc.
And it's boring for me as well. Why? Because story feels like it doesn't progress until the last quarter of the game.
You go into a place, ask Ciri, find someone knowledgeable, that person shows you previous location last Ciri showed, you investigate the place, ask the people that happened to see her, watch a flashback of it, then with the flashback information, you learn about an another place where Ciri can be. Repeat this 4 damn times. Then you come to the last quarter of the game, game decides to finally progress the story. In the last quarter game becomes more interesting yes, but also feels rushed as well. What I mean is, there is a lot of cool moments but the big "Threat" of this game feels undercooked. He is poorly explained and just does things because he is the cliche, I want power kind of bad guy. I know for a fact that he acts the same in the books as well, but that doesn't mean game couldn't add on his own depth to him. But unfortunately it didn't, because of this, the "confrontation" part of it feels underwhelming. At least Geralt's friends feels pretty fleshed out so emotional moments still hit you but unfortunately pacing issues and boring cliche villains makes it the main story a meh for me.
Gameplay
It's miles better than Witcher 2, because this time it works... but that's all I can say... it works. But it's not enough to carry an 80 hour game for me. It's an "rpg" but doesn't have enough variety in it for some reason. The most you can do is, get a more flashy version of your magic spells, other than that most of things are just more numbers, that's it. Also I said it's better than witcher 2 but that's not a big compliment, combat still feels doesn't flow that well, because animations are too long, you still don't feel like you are in control entirely, like I would go as far as to say this game just loooooves to eat your inputs and that's just bad. Also Enemies are not interesting either, there is giant enemy type, ghost enemy type, flying enemy type, fast jumping type, 4 legged dog like type and that's it. Their numbers can look big but when the animations look the same but only with a different skin, it gets boring as well. So what that's result of this? Repetitive game. You feel like doing the same attacks to the same enemies again and again. There is not enough variation for anything for this long of a game unfortunately. It gets boring.
Side Content
I already talked about the side content a bit on the world part. Enemy camps, monster camps, Treasure hunts, monster caves, side quests, and also free skill giving statues to find and famous gwent card game as well. The most interesting part of them is side quests of course and some of the monster caves. Of course like all the other previous witcher games, this game have good sidequests as well. There is cliche kill that, kill this ones, also there is full of twist and depthful ones as well. Some of them is even more interesing than the entire main story for me and that's pretty nice. But for some reason people act like this was special to witcher 3? That was same for the previous games as well, even in witcher 1, there was a lot of sidequests that explore characters backstories, shows cruel part of the world, gives you desicion to shape someones future as well. So I didn't understand when people said this is what makes Witcher 3 special. Yeah it's good. Also gwent card game is pretty fun as well. But like I said in the world part unfortunately most of the content is copy paste enemy camps or boring treasure hunts. So I can't say it's a full slam dunk for it's favor.
Glitches
I thought, with the next gen update, I was gonna get the best witcher 3 experience... I didn't get that unfortunately. There is still a lot of glitches. The ones that I come across is, when riding horse with full speed and jumping from it near a locked door, I somehow get glitched and teleported past the door. Some "locked" doors don't have colitions and you can walk past them for some reason (especially Whoreson Junior's hideout for some reason have a lot of them), flying enemies or charging enemies keep stuck inside walls when they attack, horse keeps glitches it's legs when you try to progress through a downward slope and other shit I forgot.
But one of them was really anoyying and that was a side quest not counted glitch. For some reason, in one of the treasure hunt side quest, after I found the chest, opened it and collect everything, it didn't count but also removed the chest as well... Do you know what I had to do? Load a previous save... imagine my frustration.... I was pissed off! Not suprising to see Cyberpunk and it's glitches now actually. Especially if this is the "complete experience"
So yeah, I did not have much fun with this game, maybe if it had better pacing I would say this is a better Witcher 1 game, but unfortunately all the padding with overbloating it's content doesn't vibe for me. For this reason I give it 3/5. It's a meh for me. I didn't saw the masterpiece of the game everybody talked about unfortunately
So... They made a dlc that is somehow have excellent pacing, story that makes you think, characters to admire, have lots of new bosses as well....
Someone did a really good decision with focusing only the main story as much as they could in 10 hour runtime. Because it reminded me why I liked Witcher in the first place. If they have the power to do that, then why they overbloated and paced badly the base game's story... One only can wonder.. (Maybe it's because they didn't realize an overbloated version of Witcher 1 would do no favors for no one)
This is a story about how Geralt had to make a deal with a devil to save himself from dying and then have to pay for it with helping him for his previous victim.
With helping, of course I mean we need that victim's 3 wishes to come true. So we need to do what that victim says 3 times. Of course when we are doing that, also we start to uncover what victim's story is and devil's story is.
Damn what a heartbreaking also evil as heck story that is.
When you finish it you wonder, who was right in the first place? No one? Everyone? Now that is a good one
Someone did a really good decision with focusing only the main story as much as they could in 10 hour runtime. Because it reminded me why I liked Witcher in the first place. If they have the power to do that, then why they overbloated and paced badly the base game's story... One only can wonder.. (Maybe it's because they didn't realize an overbloated version of Witcher 1 would do no favors for no one)
This is a story about how Geralt had to make a deal with a devil to save himself from dying and then have to pay for it with helping him for his previous victim.
With helping, of course I mean we need that victim's 3 wishes to come true. So we need to do what that victim says 3 times. Of course when we are doing that, also we start to uncover what victim's story is and devil's story is.
Damn what a heartbreaking also evil as heck story that is.
When you finish it you wonder, who was right in the first place? No one? Everyone? Now that is a good one
So cd project said, witcher already uses fairy tale elements in it's story, then why don't we go full on fairy style with embracing it's wackiness?
This is a wacky world where wine is everywhere, everybody acts highly and arrogant, but gets crazy as more and more wine used. I have to say variety is off the charts with this one.
Returning enemies from witcher 1 ✅
Grandmaster armors that change the gameplay with special features ✅
New boss fights ✅
Even more wackier side missions that some of them will guarantee to get a chuckle from you ✅
Fairy tale looking atmosphere with an awesome colorful towns as well✅
Another overbloated map with stupid question marks that feels copy pasted ❌
Probably the worst main story cast in the witcher franchise ❌
When I started the dlc I was hopeful, but unfortunately as I get near to the end, I felt less and less connected to the characters and in the end only thing I felt was anger.
This is a story about no one says what they truly meant to the other one, because of that they continue to be hurtful each other. So what this results with? Unnecessary conflicts.
Ending felt like a soap opera for me, it was like, "oh you did that because you thought I hated you?" or "I didn't thought not saying the truth would result like this" or "I never talked because I thought I didn't need to correct things" etc. I hate this kind of "misunderstanding" conflict, so millions of people died because of some sort of a "misunderstanding". So funny, ha ha ha
So main story and how the main cast built is a hard pass for me. I can even say it was worse than the base game's main story, at least emotional moments still felt even with the bad pacing.
This is a wacky world where wine is everywhere, everybody acts highly and arrogant, but gets crazy as more and more wine used. I have to say variety is off the charts with this one.
Returning enemies from witcher 1 ✅
Grandmaster armors that change the gameplay with special features ✅
New boss fights ✅
Even more wackier side missions that some of them will guarantee to get a chuckle from you ✅
Fairy tale looking atmosphere with an awesome colorful towns as well✅
Another overbloated map with stupid question marks that feels copy pasted ❌
Probably the worst main story cast in the witcher franchise ❌
When I started the dlc I was hopeful, but unfortunately as I get near to the end, I felt less and less connected to the characters and in the end only thing I felt was anger.
This is a story about no one says what they truly meant to the other one, because of that they continue to be hurtful each other. So what this results with? Unnecessary conflicts.
Ending felt like a soap opera for me, it was like, "oh you did that because you thought I hated you?" or "I didn't thought not saying the truth would result like this" or "I never talked because I thought I didn't need to correct things" etc. I hate this kind of "misunderstanding" conflict, so millions of people died because of some sort of a "misunderstanding". So funny, ha ha ha
So main story and how the main cast built is a hard pass for me. I can even say it was worse than the base game's main story, at least emotional moments still felt even with the bad pacing.
What the hell? That was really fun heartfelt adventure. I immensely enjoyed it
Story
Our lovable dork Kaito learns his ex returned even though she is supposed to be dead and somehow there is a kid of hers?? Of course you slowly uncover what really happened and it's a fun adventure with Kaito learning to be with a kid.
There is stupid and really long tailing mission and middle part of the story is a tad bit slow but other than that I really enjoyed it with the story
Combat
Kaito uses brawler and beast from yakuza 0 with small differences that comes from lost judgment mechanics like get a big speed/defense buff depending on the style or slide attacking while running, also yakuza 5 grapple is back for some reason? It was enjoyable even if it felt lesser than og judgment. My only major gripe with it is comes from lost judgment itself. Stun times is still too long. It was annoying in lost judgment but with Kaito it's more annoying because Kaito don't have a stand up fast from ground move. So when you fall to the ground, you need to spam the buttons as fast as possible every time, only way to get less stun is taunting for some reason? As long as you don't get hit there is no problem also equipment help as well, but beginning part kind of not nice
Also it's looks like they added new way to unlock skills in this game, in the base game you need skill books right? But now in Kaito files some of the skills also wants you to execute a certain move couple of times with the required skill book. I actually liked this change because you actually start experimenting for how you can do the required moves, it's a nice change.
So it's a nice dlc, but just a dlc so if you can wait for a discount I would say. But know that if you are like me and play rgg games for the main content, you will enjoy this dlc.
Story
Our lovable dork Kaito learns his ex returned even though she is supposed to be dead and somehow there is a kid of hers?? Of course you slowly uncover what really happened and it's a fun adventure with Kaito learning to be with a kid.
There is stupid and really long tailing mission and middle part of the story is a tad bit slow but other than that I really enjoyed it with the story
Combat
Kaito uses brawler and beast from yakuza 0 with small differences that comes from lost judgment mechanics like get a big speed/defense buff depending on the style or slide attacking while running, also yakuza 5 grapple is back for some reason? It was enjoyable even if it felt lesser than og judgment. My only major gripe with it is comes from lost judgment itself. Stun times is still too long. It was annoying in lost judgment but with Kaito it's more annoying because Kaito don't have a stand up fast from ground move. So when you fall to the ground, you need to spam the buttons as fast as possible every time, only way to get less stun is taunting for some reason? As long as you don't get hit there is no problem also equipment help as well, but beginning part kind of not nice
Also it's looks like they added new way to unlock skills in this game, in the base game you need skill books right? But now in Kaito files some of the skills also wants you to execute a certain move couple of times with the required skill book. I actually liked this change because you actually start experimenting for how you can do the required moves, it's a nice change.
So it's a nice dlc, but just a dlc so if you can wait for a discount I would say. But know that if you are like me and play rgg games for the main content, you will enjoy this dlc.
1992
I think this is one of the best jrpg gameplay experiences I had. Variety and freedom in combat is simply OUTSTANDING
This is my second final fantasy (first was ff4) and what can I say that did not be said? This game franchise is awesome.
Combat
Ffv uses job system that is different than ff4. What job system means is, there is multiple jobs that you can select for all of your characters. You can make everyone a magician or bard or dancer or knight or samurai or monk etc. Also once you level up a job, you unlock more skills that job has. There is so many variants and neat thing is this is not the greatest part. This time, game lets you equip one more learned skill on top of your selected job. Do you know what that means? You can mix jobs together! Possibilities are endless! Knight that can sing magical songs, magician that can punch really hard, monk that can dance and many many many more...
That is also probably it's greatest downfall for beginners. Because more options makes the game more overwhelming as well, also game sucks at teaching you what jobs does what and what skill can be unlocked with them, there is an optional teacher that shows how things work but on a surface level. So that results with you looking at a guide to learn which skill does what so you can do your dreamy build. I have to say this kind of turned me off at first. Then I decided to push on after seeing a lot of positive reviews and I am glad I did, because this game made me grind voluntarily just to see which skills, which combinations, which techniques to execute and experiment with and that is the biggest compliment I can give it for (because I hate grinding)
Story
Compared to the gameplay, story is much more basic, even more than ff4 I think. Yes when we look at the surface level they are similar good guys vs bad guys story but what ff4 does different is, it makes the character's much more fleshed out, for some reason ffv doesn't try to flesh them out the level ff4 did, main characters only get only 1 or 2 small chapters about them what it more cares about is it's goofy moments. There is a lot of goofy comedic moments in this game even more than ff4 and new expressions characters have helps in that regard greatly. Unfortunately and that is, unsatisfactory enemies and not connecting to the characters. What I mean is, when the story is not that serious, it's hard to invested for the fight of the big baddy. I didn't had any motivation to take him down, because I felt it's not gonna improve my experience. Then I forced myself and finished it, so just to not miss out anything, but I don't know if it was worth it. Felt like marking the checklist for me, so I get it when people say they like ff4 more. But I don't agree ffV is lesser than that, after all everything comes to personal taste and question is this: do you rather see an engaging story or gameplay focused story. Even if I like the engaging stories, ffv fun story is really entertaining one as well, so don't worry about any disappointment or anything like that.
World
Like the ff4, there is optional town's to visit, small side quests to see, but this time there is more of them like optional summon fights or finding hidden pianos or hidden special items or learning magic songs from town people.
Also like ff4, there is boats to ride, flying ships to control, animals to master. Only not nice thing is, this time there is two worlds in this game and repeating same things to get a flying animal for the second world kind of felt repetitive to me, It felt a bit like padding to me.
Other than that, I found dungeons pretty fun. Every one of them had a gimmick like locked doors that opens with corresponding buttons, river that lets you down from floors, sand places that moves you away and many many more. There wasn't an aggravating one like ff4's stupid magnetic cave I think.
So ff5 still good as ever when it comes to world so nothing to worry about that
Conclusion
This game is good. So if you enjoy light hearted cartoon like stories like me and also like freedom in combat, you probably gonna like this game. I recommend it.
This is my second final fantasy (first was ff4) and what can I say that did not be said? This game franchise is awesome.
Combat
Ffv uses job system that is different than ff4. What job system means is, there is multiple jobs that you can select for all of your characters. You can make everyone a magician or bard or dancer or knight or samurai or monk etc. Also once you level up a job, you unlock more skills that job has. There is so many variants and neat thing is this is not the greatest part. This time, game lets you equip one more learned skill on top of your selected job. Do you know what that means? You can mix jobs together! Possibilities are endless! Knight that can sing magical songs, magician that can punch really hard, monk that can dance and many many many more...
That is also probably it's greatest downfall for beginners. Because more options makes the game more overwhelming as well, also game sucks at teaching you what jobs does what and what skill can be unlocked with them, there is an optional teacher that shows how things work but on a surface level. So that results with you looking at a guide to learn which skill does what so you can do your dreamy build. I have to say this kind of turned me off at first. Then I decided to push on after seeing a lot of positive reviews and I am glad I did, because this game made me grind voluntarily just to see which skills, which combinations, which techniques to execute and experiment with and that is the biggest compliment I can give it for (because I hate grinding)
Story
Compared to the gameplay, story is much more basic, even more than ff4 I think. Yes when we look at the surface level they are similar good guys vs bad guys story but what ff4 does different is, it makes the character's much more fleshed out, for some reason ffv doesn't try to flesh them out the level ff4 did, main characters only get only 1 or 2 small chapters about them what it more cares about is it's goofy moments. There is a lot of goofy comedic moments in this game even more than ff4 and new expressions characters have helps in that regard greatly. Unfortunately and that is, unsatisfactory enemies and not connecting to the characters. What I mean is, when the story is not that serious, it's hard to invested for the fight of the big baddy. I didn't had any motivation to take him down, because I felt it's not gonna improve my experience. Then I forced myself and finished it, so just to not miss out anything, but I don't know if it was worth it. Felt like marking the checklist for me, so I get it when people say they like ff4 more. But I don't agree ffV is lesser than that, after all everything comes to personal taste and question is this: do you rather see an engaging story or gameplay focused story. Even if I like the engaging stories, ffv fun story is really entertaining one as well, so don't worry about any disappointment or anything like that.
World
Like the ff4, there is optional town's to visit, small side quests to see, but this time there is more of them like optional summon fights or finding hidden pianos or hidden special items or learning magic songs from town people.
Also like ff4, there is boats to ride, flying ships to control, animals to master. Only not nice thing is, this time there is two worlds in this game and repeating same things to get a flying animal for the second world kind of felt repetitive to me, It felt a bit like padding to me.
Other than that, I found dungeons pretty fun. Every one of them had a gimmick like locked doors that opens with corresponding buttons, river that lets you down from floors, sand places that moves you away and many many more. There wasn't an aggravating one like ff4's stupid magnetic cave I think.
So ff5 still good as ever when it comes to world so nothing to worry about that
Conclusion
This game is good. So if you enjoy light hearted cartoon like stories like me and also like freedom in combat, you probably gonna like this game. I recommend it.