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Going from first game to this game was a bit of a disappointment. Even from the first case I felt something was not right, every case feels seperate from each other and nothing connects to nothing, feels like bunch of filler dlc cases than a sequel with no focus or reason for it's existence, I struggled to continue multiple times, I even forced myself to continue with convincing myself it's gonna eventually be good and it didn't... until the grand and the best and the most awesome case in the entire goddamn franchise that is.
THE FINALE CASE
(and the sole reason I am not giving this game a 2/5)
THE FINALE CASE
(and the sole reason I am not giving this game a 2/5)
A game that throw me into a rabbit hole that changed me forever.
One day a relative of mine gifted me a nintendo 3ds. It was my first nintendo console and I literally didn't know what to do with it. Because I was mostly a pc and playstation gamer so I shelved my 3ds yet it keep bugging me out that I had nothing to play on that thing. One day I decided I will play on it to experience it fully and decided to look upon the internet what games can interest me to play on it. I bought couple of games from looking up to the most liked games. Mario 3d land, zelda 64 remakes, fire emblem etc. I had fun with them but one game from a list that I don't remember really interested me. Description said experiencing a lawyer's troubles at the court or something similar to that. Also it's cover image reminded me an capcom collection image I vaguely remember seeing when I was looking up about the capcom games. I liked capcom so that was a plus. Also I said experiencing a lawyer story sounds wacky but why not? And I tried it.
AND I FELL IN LOVE WITH IT.
I love this game. Still my favourite in the whole franchise. Yeah the first game. You can think I am strange but I think compared to the later titles it's simplicity with steady progression makes it the best in the franchise.
Story is...
It's about a beginner attorney that tries it's best to honor his mentor and your friends while everything is in your way to stop you from achieving that. Rise to the challenge and defeat those perky lying murderers that made your friends' lives hell! And take them down with finding the truth using your brain against all the odds and do the impossible even your mentor couldn't do and WIN.
This is truly a story about overcoming all odds against the impossible, rising to the top. But this isn't enough to make it great. What makes it truly awesome is it's collection of fun fellas you really want to save. Once you decide to save them and step into the court room, There is no going back.
I can't say too much about the story more but case wise I love all of them even it's third case(yeah fight me) and even it's finale bonus case(even tho I have massive issues with it's pacing, it's last day is simply nothing short of amazing)
Gameplay wise...
It's about finding evidence in the field, then using them in the court to pinpoint lies. Simple but enough to make it engaging with variety of situations you are thrown in.
But it's a long game, then how does this game holds it engaging the gameplay? It's with using every different type deceptions, lies, wrong information and pushing it's difficulty to the end.
In the start you have just a couple of clues to pinpoint lies, in the end you have lots of clues that connects to same event but also only one of them holds the truth, so challenge becomes not just pinpointing the lie, it also becomes what clue will truly take the tides to my side?
AND IT'S HECKING ADDICTING.
Unfortunately it doesn't do that for finding evidence part tho. It feels samey throughout in the journey with you end up clicking to every pixel. I kinda get why people hate them because of no challenge and also inclusion of a bit of obtuseness thrown inside. But on my end I am fine with them. Why? Because they have optional conversations.
You will ask, why does that matter? It does matter. They matter to me a hell of a lot. Because I genuinely love it's writing from the top of my heart(and especially on this entry and the reason it's my favourite with it's pure commitment on enjoyment and emotional drama).
While people roll their eyes upon every second that you spend outside of the court, I myself having a genuinely fun time with just reading every conversation what our main leads will say to daily things and this part is important to get the full enjoyment. I am gonna ask you a question, Do you still have your childhood funny guy inside at you? If so, then you don't have to worry because you will truly enjoy this game and all of it's offerings and even can be your favourite game of all time.
Because it's one of my all time favourites as well.
-Also a funny story, I didn't know I could save with the start button until the end of the game. I suffered a bit is an understatement
One day a relative of mine gifted me a nintendo 3ds. It was my first nintendo console and I literally didn't know what to do with it. Because I was mostly a pc and playstation gamer so I shelved my 3ds yet it keep bugging me out that I had nothing to play on that thing. One day I decided I will play on it to experience it fully and decided to look upon the internet what games can interest me to play on it. I bought couple of games from looking up to the most liked games. Mario 3d land, zelda 64 remakes, fire emblem etc. I had fun with them but one game from a list that I don't remember really interested me. Description said experiencing a lawyer's troubles at the court or something similar to that. Also it's cover image reminded me an capcom collection image I vaguely remember seeing when I was looking up about the capcom games. I liked capcom so that was a plus. Also I said experiencing a lawyer story sounds wacky but why not? And I tried it.
AND I FELL IN LOVE WITH IT.
I love this game. Still my favourite in the whole franchise. Yeah the first game. You can think I am strange but I think compared to the later titles it's simplicity with steady progression makes it the best in the franchise.
Story is...
It's about a beginner attorney that tries it's best to honor his mentor and your friends while everything is in your way to stop you from achieving that. Rise to the challenge and defeat those perky lying murderers that made your friends' lives hell! And take them down with finding the truth using your brain against all the odds and do the impossible even your mentor couldn't do and WIN.
This is truly a story about overcoming all odds against the impossible, rising to the top. But this isn't enough to make it great. What makes it truly awesome is it's collection of fun fellas you really want to save. Once you decide to save them and step into the court room, There is no going back.
I can't say too much about the story more but case wise I love all of them even it's third case(yeah fight me) and even it's finale bonus case(even tho I have massive issues with it's pacing, it's last day is simply nothing short of amazing)
Gameplay wise...
It's about finding evidence in the field, then using them in the court to pinpoint lies. Simple but enough to make it engaging with variety of situations you are thrown in.
But it's a long game, then how does this game holds it engaging the gameplay? It's with using every different type deceptions, lies, wrong information and pushing it's difficulty to the end.
In the start you have just a couple of clues to pinpoint lies, in the end you have lots of clues that connects to same event but also only one of them holds the truth, so challenge becomes not just pinpointing the lie, it also becomes what clue will truly take the tides to my side?
AND IT'S HECKING ADDICTING.
Unfortunately it doesn't do that for finding evidence part tho. It feels samey throughout in the journey with you end up clicking to every pixel. I kinda get why people hate them because of no challenge and also inclusion of a bit of obtuseness thrown inside. But on my end I am fine with them. Why? Because they have optional conversations.
You will ask, why does that matter? It does matter. They matter to me a hell of a lot. Because I genuinely love it's writing from the top of my heart(and especially on this entry and the reason it's my favourite with it's pure commitment on enjoyment and emotional drama).
While people roll their eyes upon every second that you spend outside of the court, I myself having a genuinely fun time with just reading every conversation what our main leads will say to daily things and this part is important to get the full enjoyment. I am gonna ask you a question, Do you still have your childhood funny guy inside at you? If so, then you don't have to worry because you will truly enjoy this game and all of it's offerings and even can be your favourite game of all time.
Because it's one of my all time favourites as well.
-Also a funny story, I didn't know I could save with the start button until the end of the game. I suffered a bit is an understatement
2017
If you combine Yoko Taro with Platinum games what you get? A Masterpiece Of cou... No? Kind of...
This is my first Yoko Taro game I also replayed last year, so I guess I have to feel some kind of nostalgia for making me interested in the Taro lore. But even at the time I realized other than good story telling there was some big glaring faults this game had.
Gameplay starts really fun but other than small gimmicky sections it's really repetitive. You don't need to do or learn any combos do beat the enemies. They are braindead easy on normal difficulty. Then play on hard you say? I tried actually and playing fine until realized that it's frustrating because they remove the lock on option... in a damn 3d melee action game...? So you have to manage camera too... no thanks.
Story begins really slow and also have bunch of filler parts. Ending B is the biggest offender of this with forcing you to repeat the entire game for you to just see 1 hour of new content... why? To troll original nier fans? Also no emotion rule kind of bother me, because other than robot Pascal, I didn't feel the connection between other characters that much. I feel like original nier or even every other yoko game did the main cast better with the fun banter in every corner compared to this game for me. Especially 9S character feels the least developed or rushed version of any male main character came before for me with how he gets developed because of stupid "misunderstandings".
Sidecontent and world is maybe a little bit better than original nier but they are still abysmally boring and repetitive. Also dungeons are less interesting to me because they have no light puzzles to solve compared to the original nier, at least they have some cool action moments in the dungeons at least.
But one thing saves this game for me and that is the existence of ending C,D and E and they are the reason for not giving this game a 3/5 for me. They are what sold me on this game. They make you think and force you to ask some dark questions to yourself. Cycle of War and Cycle of Life. Is this really the right way to go on? They are really thought provoking also hearth breaking.
Yeah that's my thoughts. I still like this game but with replaying again made me realize the bothersome parts of this game more unfortunately. Only thing I hope is, Yoko Taro to do a more focused and less filler parts in his games. Also I feel like his multiple endings gimmick hurts more than improving the story. Because he never have a big budget to fill every ending with a satisfactory end. But at least he managed to give an interesting experience and I can't say no to that.
This is my first Yoko Taro game I also replayed last year, so I guess I have to feel some kind of nostalgia for making me interested in the Taro lore. But even at the time I realized other than good story telling there was some big glaring faults this game had.
Gameplay starts really fun but other than small gimmicky sections it's really repetitive. You don't need to do or learn any combos do beat the enemies. They are braindead easy on normal difficulty. Then play on hard you say? I tried actually and playing fine until realized that it's frustrating because they remove the lock on option... in a damn 3d melee action game...? So you have to manage camera too... no thanks.
Story begins really slow and also have bunch of filler parts. Ending B is the biggest offender of this with forcing you to repeat the entire game for you to just see 1 hour of new content... why? To troll original nier fans? Also no emotion rule kind of bother me, because other than robot Pascal, I didn't feel the connection between other characters that much. I feel like original nier or even every other yoko game did the main cast better with the fun banter in every corner compared to this game for me. Especially 9S character feels the least developed or rushed version of any male main character came before for me with how he gets developed because of stupid "misunderstandings".
Sidecontent and world is maybe a little bit better than original nier but they are still abysmally boring and repetitive. Also dungeons are less interesting to me because they have no light puzzles to solve compared to the original nier, at least they have some cool action moments in the dungeons at least.
But one thing saves this game for me and that is the existence of ending C,D and E and they are the reason for not giving this game a 3/5 for me. They are what sold me on this game. They make you think and force you to ask some dark questions to yourself. Cycle of War and Cycle of Life. Is this really the right way to go on? They are really thought provoking also hearth breaking.
Yeah that's my thoughts. I still like this game but with replaying again made me realize the bothersome parts of this game more unfortunately. Only thing I hope is, Yoko Taro to do a more focused and less filler parts in his games. Also I feel like his multiple endings gimmick hurts more than improving the story. Because he never have a big budget to fill every ending with a satisfactory end. But at least he managed to give an interesting experience and I can't say no to that.
2013
A disappointment.
I finished all the dlc and all the endings(yeah including the D). Yet even with that... what the hell was this game...?
Who thought including as many as comedic moments wouldn't take away from the intended experience? What is the intended experience anyway? Does the game tries to focus on anything? Not just that, It's feels unfinished at places. Is it managament's fault or Yoko Taro's? I will never know but still... how the story constructed is the biggest disservice to this game.
There is worthwhile characters to meet, lore to explore, mysteries to solve etc. But it all goes out of the window because nothing feels fleshed out.
Zero's sisters? They are just a stereotype anime characters that have potential but game never deeply explores them. Zero's friends? They are goofy comedic bdsm addicted sidelines that are fun to be around but their stories are untold other than small snippets in dlcs. Zero herself? Probably the most worthful character that the moment story starts to unravel her mysterious background, you get interested in her painful story(to the point of she is my favorite yoko character), but it just ends so fast.
There are 4 endings that tell the world goes more corrupt like drakengard 1 but doesn't explain why the things happen in the endings(tell me what was the point of ending b and c?). Things happen randomly even without our actions... don't question it... I guess?
I readed 2 mangas that the game connects also. 5 sisters and shi ni itaru aka. They are somehow more close to a fully fleshed out drakengard experience than this game is. Yeah it's that bad tonally and feels rushed.
At least gameplay feels a bit fun with unlockable combos for the weapons for a while... until the dragon gets involved and fps tanks... Flying sections are mostly lineer like panzer dragoon this time. There is 2? Ace combat like free flying sections in the entire game and it's just a waste
I think the intention of this game was turning nier's story in it's head. What if we play as the bad looking person that kills everyone she finds. But actually, things isn't that simple, never that simple.
Could be a worthwhile story who knows. I don't know that because game doesn't flesh out anything or try to hold the atmosphere darker to take what is happening seriously. It rushes everything so quickly that any lasting impact just disappears. Disappointing.
I finished all the dlc and all the endings(yeah including the D). Yet even with that... what the hell was this game...?
Who thought including as many as comedic moments wouldn't take away from the intended experience? What is the intended experience anyway? Does the game tries to focus on anything? Not just that, It's feels unfinished at places. Is it managament's fault or Yoko Taro's? I will never know but still... how the story constructed is the biggest disservice to this game.
There is worthwhile characters to meet, lore to explore, mysteries to solve etc. But it all goes out of the window because nothing feels fleshed out.
Zero's sisters? They are just a stereotype anime characters that have potential but game never deeply explores them. Zero's friends? They are goofy comedic bdsm addicted sidelines that are fun to be around but their stories are untold other than small snippets in dlcs. Zero herself? Probably the most worthful character that the moment story starts to unravel her mysterious background, you get interested in her painful story(to the point of she is my favorite yoko character), but it just ends so fast.
There are 4 endings that tell the world goes more corrupt like drakengard 1 but doesn't explain why the things happen in the endings(tell me what was the point of ending b and c?). Things happen randomly even without our actions... don't question it... I guess?
I readed 2 mangas that the game connects also. 5 sisters and shi ni itaru aka. They are somehow more close to a fully fleshed out drakengard experience than this game is. Yeah it's that bad tonally and feels rushed.
At least gameplay feels a bit fun with unlockable combos for the weapons for a while... until the dragon gets involved and fps tanks... Flying sections are mostly lineer like panzer dragoon this time. There is 2? Ace combat like free flying sections in the entire game and it's just a waste
I think the intention of this game was turning nier's story in it's head. What if we play as the bad looking person that kills everyone she finds. But actually, things isn't that simple, never that simple.
Could be a worthwhile story who knows. I don't know that because game doesn't flesh out anything or try to hold the atmosphere darker to take what is happening seriously. It rushes everything so quickly that any lasting impact just disappears. Disappointing.
2010
Wars happen because the side that started the war believes they are the "righteous side". But is it that simple? Which side is right which side is wrong on whose perspective? These game reminds us that these kind of questions can't be taken lightly. Coins have two sides after all.
Also this game is slow burn type of game. You do chores, hunt animals, farm some plants etc. It works in it's favor in the first playthrough to show us the playable side is innocent as any other jrpg town. To the point you won't even realize this is Yoko Taro's another game in your first ending with how much it feels just an another jrpg that is about saving the town and their loved ones. Of course it is not that simple, it never is. To the point of your views about this game will change in every playthrough... After all What is the right choice to do at the brink of extinction?
This is a really interesting experience with lovable cast that make you feel conflicted about everything happening. Probably Yoko Taro's best side cast that he created to drive this point further. Emil, Kaine, Yonah, Devola, Popola... and it really really works.
Until the side content is introduced that is. Because it all goes to hell with boredom. My word of advice is just play the main content, do the first ending, then load your save again and play the second ending and then stop. Because Yoko Taro probably thought that giving jrpg like story wasn't enough he also had to give it's motonous side parts as well with super boring check list like side quests. Also this time I don't think it works in it's favor compared to the drakengard1. It doesn't support it's intented message it only takes away from it. Like... don't even get me started on fishing just throw it into the garbage bin. Also there is not just two but 4 endings but last two requires you to play the game again with weapon completion just only to add 10 minute of ending on a preivous one as a plus time(What the hell Mr. Yoko Taro....). Like I said only just experience the first two if you really value your time.
I am serious about this part. Because side content is so boring and meaningless that makes your views of this game get lowered more and more. It lowered mine because I did it all expecting interesting things... So don't say I did not warned.
Oh also combat is fine, it works enough and you get fun magic to use as well. I played the original version and it was nice, a bit mindless perhaps but getting interesting new magic in every progress felt rewarding to me. Balance goes out of the window the moment spears get introduced but I didn't get bored because of there is light puzzle dungeons and simple boss fights in the end of it. Combat maybe a bit on the forgettable side, but small light dungeon puzzles at least break the pace in a better way for me. If they focused on complex puzzle dungeons more maybe it would even go to the same level as majora's mask(there is even a mask reference in the game) for me... maybe... but that didn't happen of course. At least it's fine.
Also this game is slow burn type of game. You do chores, hunt animals, farm some plants etc. It works in it's favor in the first playthrough to show us the playable side is innocent as any other jrpg town. To the point you won't even realize this is Yoko Taro's another game in your first ending with how much it feels just an another jrpg that is about saving the town and their loved ones. Of course it is not that simple, it never is. To the point of your views about this game will change in every playthrough... After all What is the right choice to do at the brink of extinction?
This is a really interesting experience with lovable cast that make you feel conflicted about everything happening. Probably Yoko Taro's best side cast that he created to drive this point further. Emil, Kaine, Yonah, Devola, Popola... and it really really works.
Until the side content is introduced that is. Because it all goes to hell with boredom. My word of advice is just play the main content, do the first ending, then load your save again and play the second ending and then stop. Because Yoko Taro probably thought that giving jrpg like story wasn't enough he also had to give it's motonous side parts as well with super boring check list like side quests. Also this time I don't think it works in it's favor compared to the drakengard1. It doesn't support it's intented message it only takes away from it. Like... don't even get me started on fishing just throw it into the garbage bin. Also there is not just two but 4 endings but last two requires you to play the game again with weapon completion just only to add 10 minute of ending on a preivous one as a plus time(What the hell Mr. Yoko Taro....). Like I said only just experience the first two if you really value your time.
I am serious about this part. Because side content is so boring and meaningless that makes your views of this game get lowered more and more. It lowered mine because I did it all expecting interesting things... So don't say I did not warned.
Oh also combat is fine, it works enough and you get fun magic to use as well. I played the original version and it was nice, a bit mindless perhaps but getting interesting new magic in every progress felt rewarding to me. Balance goes out of the window the moment spears get introduced but I didn't get bored because of there is light puzzle dungeons and simple boss fights in the end of it. Combat maybe a bit on the forgettable side, but small light dungeon puzzles at least break the pace in a better way for me. If they focused on complex puzzle dungeons more maybe it would even go to the same level as majora's mask(there is even a mask reference in the game) for me... maybe... but that didn't happen of course. At least it's fine.
2005
Playing this game after 1 feels like complete subversion in a not so good way. Don't get me wrong I don't hate colorful and hopeful atmosphere. But feels like a parody of itself.
This game feels like a cliche bland anime. A Main character is super dumb when it comes to love... or any logical thing. A love triangle that does not improve the story in any form. Evil guys with the cliche evil laughs with dark clothing of course. Fanservicey hype moments. etc. etc. Is there a no worthwhile things in the story? There is actually, interestingly returning characters from the first game have still a good kinda writing with an actual effort put into it I felt like. Also our dragon is a complete ass to anyone other than us so it gives interesting moments. But that's just the small part of the story. Most of the story is a journey about destroying the magical seals with also lots of unneccesary misunderstandings that happen to prolong the story because characters are too stupid to communicate with each other like normal human beings. Like to the point of stupidity that our main character never tells his friends that bad guy tried to kill him, so they should be away from his bad guy group. Just like an anime that wants to do pointless conflicts to prolong it's episode time huh.
Gameplay
It works now like it supposed to be now! Dodge, guard, camera, combos, feels more smooth less clunky. But to be honest it's still the type of gameplay that too repetitive even with the multiple playable characters that have some advantages for different enemies. So it's not the flaming garbage like the last time at least but still feels meh.
There is also multiple endings like last time but I also heard it's just adds couple of minutes to the first ending of the game. But to get that you have to play the entire game again for some reason so no thanks.
If you are the kind of person that addicted to fanservicey anime moments you will have fun, but if you are the type of that have the expectation of experimental writing... you will not find this here. It's meh kinda bland that you will forget about the next day you wake up
This game feels like a cliche bland anime. A Main character is super dumb when it comes to love... or any logical thing. A love triangle that does not improve the story in any form. Evil guys with the cliche evil laughs with dark clothing of course. Fanservicey hype moments. etc. etc. Is there a no worthwhile things in the story? There is actually, interestingly returning characters from the first game have still a good kinda writing with an actual effort put into it I felt like. Also our dragon is a complete ass to anyone other than us so it gives interesting moments. But that's just the small part of the story. Most of the story is a journey about destroying the magical seals with also lots of unneccesary misunderstandings that happen to prolong the story because characters are too stupid to communicate with each other like normal human beings. Like to the point of stupidity that our main character never tells his friends that bad guy tried to kill him, so they should be away from his bad guy group. Just like an anime that wants to do pointless conflicts to prolong it's episode time huh.
Gameplay
It works now like it supposed to be now! Dodge, guard, camera, combos, feels more smooth less clunky. But to be honest it's still the type of gameplay that too repetitive even with the multiple playable characters that have some advantages for different enemies. So it's not the flaming garbage like the last time at least but still feels meh.
There is also multiple endings like last time but I also heard it's just adds couple of minutes to the first ending of the game. But to get that you have to play the entire game again for some reason so no thanks.
If you are the kind of person that addicted to fanservicey anime moments you will have fun, but if you are the type of that have the expectation of experimental writing... you will not find this here. It's meh kinda bland that you will forget about the next day you wake up
2010
There was a time that I was a big fan of animes. I watch 10 episode in one day, keep reading side materials to get the lore of it and have a really good time(until realizing most of the animes using the same handful of character stereotypes that started boring me to death and that realization came with when I was trying to understand why I don't enjoy fairy tail like everybody else).
In that time I found the "best visually looking" anime fate zero, of course I watched it and fell in love with it, both the story, visuals and characters was awesome, then watched fate unlimited blade works and somehow found it less visually, character and story wise. Then when I searched about it, I found that it was just one part of it's visual novel not the whole story, oh also that there were games about it as well! Of course I get excited and read the visual novel immediately, it was awesome. Then I read Tsukihime vn from the same writer, it was awesome too! Then I read Kara no Kyoukai novel and... it wasn't awesome for me because how it felt disjointed but that's beside the point. The point is, when I learned there was a fate game after finishing the anime that is about an alternate universe I wanted to play it of course.
It started as an strange game, where you are a limbo like school place, you need to choose one servant from 3 different servants(I choose Archer) and need to find information from npcs and enviroment in the school until the fight day comes, also you need to finish the "dungeons" before the fight day happens(I didn't play persona at the time but now looking back it's funny realizing that they just copied the whole structure with less content from persona). But it was such a slog.
I think I played near 10-15 hours and wanted to tell my experiences about it.
Combat
Combat is paper rock scissors simulator. That's all there is. Only strategy you can use is when fighting memorize your opponent's attack strategy(because most of the time same enemy type use the same attack type) and if you die, just use what you learned.. that's all there is. Also both enemies and dungeons are super boring. They are repetitive looking to the mindnumbing level. THERE IS NOTHING INTERESTING.
Probably the most boring jrpg combat system stretched to it's limit in my opinion. First 5 minute gameplay is equal to my last 15 hours of gameplay. That's all there is.
School sections
These are also a slog too. What you need to do is, interact "everyone" to find one helpful scripted character to learn about the new upcoming master fight, interact with your servant to learn nothing interesting and lastly, farm enemies to level up and also get to the end door of the dungeon before the next fight comes. My favourite activity (Sarcasm).
Story
From what I played it had an interesting premise, you are in a simulation that you don't know anything about or how did you get there or you don't even know who you are. But from what I played, story didn't move one bit. Probably "everything will be explained in the end" type of story this is. But also it made me run out of my patience. Also game have a lot of fanservice characters, but I suspected they are just a "simulation" and not important with how they force them to your face without no reason at all in the first place. Unfortunately I can't say anything about the story as a whole but if I talk about what I played until choosing the abandon is, it's a waste of time.
Lastly, I want to remind everyone that I am just talking about the experience I had until the 15 hour time(I think last place I was Nursery Rhyme fight), so if the game gets good or something like that I don't know. But I have a right to criticize what I played and the parts I had played wasn't just the worst jrpg experience it was also the worst and the most boring gaming experience ever for me to the point of abandoning a game(I rarely abandon games, I even finished drakengard 1 aka. the worst melee combat the game). It's unfortunate saying that but that's all I feel when thinking about this game.
Monotonous boredom simulator.
In that time I found the "best visually looking" anime fate zero, of course I watched it and fell in love with it, both the story, visuals and characters was awesome, then watched fate unlimited blade works and somehow found it less visually, character and story wise. Then when I searched about it, I found that it was just one part of it's visual novel not the whole story, oh also that there were games about it as well! Of course I get excited and read the visual novel immediately, it was awesome. Then I read Tsukihime vn from the same writer, it was awesome too! Then I read Kara no Kyoukai novel and... it wasn't awesome for me because how it felt disjointed but that's beside the point. The point is, when I learned there was a fate game after finishing the anime that is about an alternate universe I wanted to play it of course.
It started as an strange game, where you are a limbo like school place, you need to choose one servant from 3 different servants(I choose Archer) and need to find information from npcs and enviroment in the school until the fight day comes, also you need to finish the "dungeons" before the fight day happens(I didn't play persona at the time but now looking back it's funny realizing that they just copied the whole structure with less content from persona). But it was such a slog.
I think I played near 10-15 hours and wanted to tell my experiences about it.
Combat
Combat is paper rock scissors simulator. That's all there is. Only strategy you can use is when fighting memorize your opponent's attack strategy(because most of the time same enemy type use the same attack type) and if you die, just use what you learned.. that's all there is. Also both enemies and dungeons are super boring. They are repetitive looking to the mindnumbing level. THERE IS NOTHING INTERESTING.
Probably the most boring jrpg combat system stretched to it's limit in my opinion. First 5 minute gameplay is equal to my last 15 hours of gameplay. That's all there is.
School sections
These are also a slog too. What you need to do is, interact "everyone" to find one helpful scripted character to learn about the new upcoming master fight, interact with your servant to learn nothing interesting and lastly, farm enemies to level up and also get to the end door of the dungeon before the next fight comes. My favourite activity (Sarcasm).
Story
From what I played it had an interesting premise, you are in a simulation that you don't know anything about or how did you get there or you don't even know who you are. But from what I played, story didn't move one bit. Probably "everything will be explained in the end" type of story this is. But also it made me run out of my patience. Also game have a lot of fanservice characters, but I suspected they are just a "simulation" and not important with how they force them to your face without no reason at all in the first place. Unfortunately I can't say anything about the story as a whole but if I talk about what I played until choosing the abandon is, it's a waste of time.
Lastly, I want to remind everyone that I am just talking about the experience I had until the 15 hour time(I think last place I was Nursery Rhyme fight), so if the game gets good or something like that I don't know. But I have a right to criticize what I played and the parts I had played wasn't just the worst jrpg experience it was also the worst and the most boring gaming experience ever for me to the point of abandoning a game(I rarely abandon games, I even finished drakengard 1 aka. the worst melee combat the game). It's unfortunate saying that but that's all I feel when thinking about this game.
Monotonous boredom simulator.
2003
This is the worst game I have ever played. But also the game that reminds me games are art and they are experiences as much as any other art form. Weird comment right? It's weird but this game uses it's faults to it's advantage knowingly or not knowingly, maybe subconsciously? This is also a game that impossible to get rereleased in this "modern", "sensitive" times with it's grotesque/violent/disgusting content. Let me explain:
This game have the worst broken combat mechanics in the square enix catalog(I mean from what I played from them this is the worst one). I mean the ground combat part. Not the dragon riding part(there is a ace combat like free dragon riding missions that actually works). Ground combat is broken because: There is a guard button for example, it's also a lock on button and it's just doesn't work and does it's own mind and keep changing it's locked enemy itself without your request??, there is a dodge button and it's satanicly designed to change your camera view without your request and destroy your flow!?. Attacks are boring and repetitive with there is only one 3x combo with optional explosion attack at the end. Also there is magic that does a room kill move or a protection buff(depending on your weapon). There is multiple weapons and playable characters that feel the same with only difference is their range, magic and damage values. Also not just that, you can't play on easy to cheese the game if you want to get all the endings, because last ending is exclusive to side content completion that can only be done on normal difficulty. Do you want to know what is side content completion? Getting all the weapons in the entire game that have satanistic requirements like, do this mission but on 2 minutes! Or kill 500 enemies in 50 minute. Or find that hidden enemy in the shitty arena that is impossible without a guide. Sounds fun? No. It's not.
But also story is genius with going insane with the same pace as the player, you go insane as the story go insane. You do messed up shit, as the story does messed up shit. You somehow connect to characters in a spiritual level? Now for those who don't know, this game have probably the darkest characters and the darkest story Yoko Taro wrote in gaming (actually mangas are on another level to the point of torture p#rn but that's beside the point). To explain myself, I want to give the beginning of the story.
Game starts as the main character fights against an evil empire to protect his sister, but gets injured and finds a injured dragon like himself. To live, he does a pact(something like sharing life force I guess?) with the racist dragon that hates humans but wants to live as well. Then after we continue slaughtering the enemies and arrive at our sister's place. Then we get a cutscene that shows the main character Caim stabs a soldier over and over and over again even tho soldier is dead already. Then we realize, the character we play as isn't sinless as the enemies we fight. He is a pyschopath.
And the story continues. You go insane, characters you play go insane, story goes insane, enemies become more grotesque, hope disapears, despair inflicts and you start to connect with the game. A cycle that goes to infinitum. A repetition that never ends. Characters that are maniacs. Disgusting violent actions you take to progress.
And in the end, you just want characters to kill more and more. Because you are a psychopath yourself now aren't you?
Because. You. Are. Insane.
This game have the worst broken combat mechanics in the square enix catalog(I mean from what I played from them this is the worst one). I mean the ground combat part. Not the dragon riding part(there is a ace combat like free dragon riding missions that actually works). Ground combat is broken because: There is a guard button for example, it's also a lock on button and it's just doesn't work and does it's own mind and keep changing it's locked enemy itself without your request??, there is a dodge button and it's satanicly designed to change your camera view without your request and destroy your flow!?. Attacks are boring and repetitive with there is only one 3x combo with optional explosion attack at the end. Also there is magic that does a room kill move or a protection buff(depending on your weapon). There is multiple weapons and playable characters that feel the same with only difference is their range, magic and damage values. Also not just that, you can't play on easy to cheese the game if you want to get all the endings, because last ending is exclusive to side content completion that can only be done on normal difficulty. Do you want to know what is side content completion? Getting all the weapons in the entire game that have satanistic requirements like, do this mission but on 2 minutes! Or kill 500 enemies in 50 minute. Or find that hidden enemy in the shitty arena that is impossible without a guide. Sounds fun? No. It's not.
But also story is genius with going insane with the same pace as the player, you go insane as the story go insane. You do messed up shit, as the story does messed up shit. You somehow connect to characters in a spiritual level? Now for those who don't know, this game have probably the darkest characters and the darkest story Yoko Taro wrote in gaming (actually mangas are on another level to the point of torture p#rn but that's beside the point). To explain myself, I want to give the beginning of the story.
Game starts as the main character fights against an evil empire to protect his sister, but gets injured and finds a injured dragon like himself. To live, he does a pact(something like sharing life force I guess?) with the racist dragon that hates humans but wants to live as well. Then after we continue slaughtering the enemies and arrive at our sister's place. Then we get a cutscene that shows the main character Caim stabs a soldier over and over and over again even tho soldier is dead already. Then we realize, the character we play as isn't sinless as the enemies we fight. He is a pyschopath.
And the story continues. You go insane, characters you play go insane, story goes insane, enemies become more grotesque, hope disapears, despair inflicts and you start to connect with the game. A cycle that goes to infinitum. A repetition that never ends. Characters that are maniacs. Disgusting violent actions you take to progress.
And in the end, you just want characters to kill more and more. Because you are a psychopath yourself now aren't you?
Because. You. Are. Insane.
2012
This is the best game Rgg/Yakuza team did. I am not joking.
Why do I think that way even though this game is a gears of war clone you ask?
Simple. I am a main story first, side content second kind of person, also I don't like pacebreaking moments in a game. Yakuza games loves to interrupt your main story progress unfortunately and I really dislike that. Don't get me wrong, I like side content but I like to do them when I want to do, not when they are forced upon my throat. This game doesn't do that. But it wouldn't be enough to get a 5/5 right? What also captivated me is it's engaging characters, optional conversations that explores character's life views, fun gameplay that is about breaking enemy limbs part by part(almost like a resident evil zombie system), collosal chaotic boss fights and it's light squad mechanics.
Squad mechanics works fine with commands and all (don't use voice commands tho, turn that thing off and use button commands). Except one thing and there is not retreat command. You shouldn't shoot your allies for the trust system (I am gonna get to that) and when they are in front of you, it's hard to do that because they don't retreat. Other than that it works most of the time with advance! Attack! Cover me! Etc.
So when it comes to only big negative I can give to this game is, to get the best ending, you need to almost complete the squad trust system I think?(yeah there is a trust system). It's actually a fun mechanic that demands you to engage with more of the characters, but unfortunately, depending on the story chapter you can't choose some of the characters to your team.
That results with frustrating moments that makes you want to open a guide and just read it to learn at what points you should select what character, if you want the best ending.
I fortunately get the happy ending in my first playthrough with killing as much as enemy I can at the infinitely spawning enemy missions. But I wish this mechanic was better implemented with being more forgiving.
Some people wouldn't even think this point as a negative anyway and just rush through the game, but still I wanted to bring it up, because I really liked the characters That Much! and wanted to get a good ending. But requirements of the trust system bothered me a bit.
So yeah solid game. If you are like me and love main content focused games you will have fun with this one(hopefully)
Also like I said turn off the voice commands. Button commands do fine.
Why do I think that way even though this game is a gears of war clone you ask?
Simple. I am a main story first, side content second kind of person, also I don't like pacebreaking moments in a game. Yakuza games loves to interrupt your main story progress unfortunately and I really dislike that. Don't get me wrong, I like side content but I like to do them when I want to do, not when they are forced upon my throat. This game doesn't do that. But it wouldn't be enough to get a 5/5 right? What also captivated me is it's engaging characters, optional conversations that explores character's life views, fun gameplay that is about breaking enemy limbs part by part(almost like a resident evil zombie system), collosal chaotic boss fights and it's light squad mechanics.
Squad mechanics works fine with commands and all (don't use voice commands tho, turn that thing off and use button commands). Except one thing and there is not retreat command. You shouldn't shoot your allies for the trust system (I am gonna get to that) and when they are in front of you, it's hard to do that because they don't retreat. Other than that it works most of the time with advance! Attack! Cover me! Etc.
So when it comes to only big negative I can give to this game is, to get the best ending, you need to almost complete the squad trust system I think?(yeah there is a trust system). It's actually a fun mechanic that demands you to engage with more of the characters, but unfortunately, depending on the story chapter you can't choose some of the characters to your team.
That results with frustrating moments that makes you want to open a guide and just read it to learn at what points you should select what character, if you want the best ending.
I fortunately get the happy ending in my first playthrough with killing as much as enemy I can at the infinitely spawning enemy missions. But I wish this mechanic was better implemented with being more forgiving.
Some people wouldn't even think this point as a negative anyway and just rush through the game, but still I wanted to bring it up, because I really liked the characters That Much! and wanted to get a good ending. But requirements of the trust system bothered me a bit.
So yeah solid game. If you are like me and love main content focused games you will have fun with this one(hopefully)
Also like I said turn off the voice commands. Button commands do fine.
This review contains spoilers
I am conflicted with this game. It does some things better than any yakuza game but at the same time it does some things so sloppy that I am not sure what they were thinking
Story
What it does better is main character. Whenever story revolves about the ichiban himself, story hits so damn hard your heart starts pumping. But rest of it... Feels like a bunch of unfocused ideas.
Corrupt friends, corrupt politicians, corrupt justice force, corrupt civilians, corrupt yakuza. There is a lot of ideas here and none of them are fleshed out other than ichiban the protagonist himself. One idea gets introduced then later it gets solved like nothing happened or story itself forgets about it until remembering and rushing it's conclusion to finish it. Almost feels like they tried to combine multiple yakuza games(especially 1 and 2) into a one game but end up unfocused as a result
I only heard pure good things about the story but unfortunately I don't agree with that sentiment. There is pacebreaker parts as much as good parts for me. To describe what I really meant is, I didn't enjoy any story chapter that doesn't involve the Arakawa storyline. I mean they weren't bad but they didn't support the main story nor connect it in any interesting way in my opinion. It's really easy to see that Arakawa family and Ichiban's relationship is the main dish. But the time spent on mostly separate side character's storylines somehow 2 times longer than that storyline and it just soured my motivation on following the story
Side content
There is dragon kart(mario kart), that feels weird to control and not so fun. Also once you realize drifting button is broken and you can hold infinitely to continue your burst, all the difficulty disappears.
There is movie sleep minigame. You need to press correct buttons to not sleep. Kind of like a harder karaoke game but ichiban's harsh comments about iconic movies really entertained me a lot.
Management minigame returns and it's the best evolution of it. Unlike the 0 incarnation, buying and assigning guards not enough. You can't buy places mindlessly because there is a limit. Every place needs a different kind of guard so you need to change your strategy in every buyout. Not just that, you can't spend your company money freely because this time your biggest enemy is shareholders and they want to big money to be happy. There is so many quirks to this minigame and that makes it so entertaining to play, so much so that it's the best part of the game for me. I had that much fun with it.
Karaoke also returns and it's still fun but... One thing kind of ruined it for me and that is how out of sync the karaoke is unfortunately It really bothered me to the point of leaving this minigame entirely unfortunately.
Side missions of course here and they are fortunately better then judgment games. But still... I can't say it's the best. Other than one substory(forget me not substory) most of them requires you to leave the area and return again and again and again maybe even more than 3 times and it's frustrating. Writing is fun but why the heck it doesn't finish right there and there and forces you to go back and forward multiple times I really don't understand! I didn't like this change so because of that I don't think substories are the best in this game.
Gameplay
Compared to the a lot of people I started pretty optimistic to this game's turn based nature. There were jobs(classes) to choose, magic to prepare, buffs and debuffs to throw etc. But unfortunately it's starts to lost it's magic once you realize the repetitive nature. Unfortunately combat is mostly surface level stuff, you: debuff-> buff-> attack-> heal, you repeat this order trillion amounts of times. Elements nor job systems doesn't change your experience that much, they only fasten your enemy beating time. You still repeat this order until the end of the game and nothing breaks this other than the boss before finale one(yeah that damn boss). Actually there is a lot of moves to spice your gameplay strategy but because of some problems that I will tell under this, they feel wasted.
First problem is big ranged attacks are pretty wack. They have a limited range and you can't even get creative with them where you choose to attack, because... you can't position your character. So you are up to the luck gods that gives you an enemy group that stays really close to each other so ranged attacks actually manage to hit multiple enemies.
Another thing I am not hot on is, you can't order your character to use environmental objects, you can only use them if they are super close to you. It's again, up to the luck gods that spawns you near an object at the beginning of a battle, otherwise you are out of luck.
Oh also, you can't change jobs freely in combat... That's not fun as well. Combine this with, sometimes only way to make enemies fall to the ground or stagger them is with a specific hard hitting or elemental attack. So... have fun with slowly doing chip damage hours and hours to some specific enemy types.
Last thing I didn't like the implementation of, is the environmental heat system. Only Ichiban's one job can do heat attacks and that job is the beginnner job. That's it. Feels like an afterthought to be honest. I think new summon system or job specific super attacks designed to replace the older heat system but I wish there was a way to use the old environmental heat actions more freely.
At least It was fine for me until... that sotenbori part... What killed this system for me is last quarter of the game ups the enemy levels at least 10-15 more than you. Even with doing every damn side content I found I was still underleveled, because they don't give experience that much for some reason. So, sudden level farming requirements with the repetititous gameplay managed to kill my enjoyment entirely unfortunately. I said Fu#k it! And opened trainer and selected immortality and exp booster. I don't have any shame because game forced my hand on this.
I have to congratulate for them tho. This game is probably the most difficult yakuza game compared to other yakuza games for all the wrong reasons. But also if they decided to continue in this bland/repetitious system without adding things to the combat system then I won't accept to play their game honestly anymore. Because repetitive gameplay with forced grind is a death sentence for this franchise fo me.
I can't portray my feelings enough about this part. I really really really hated that grind part and for that reason I probably never damn again replay this game. I would replay any yakuza game rather than playing this one again. Who the heck thought slowing the game to a halt was a good idea I really don't understand!
Pacing
It's not bad as Yakuza 5 but unfocused nature of it makes it frustrating to experience like lost judgment. Especially after the chapter 3, story completely stops and becomes mini stories collection and doesn't pick up where it stopped until last half of the game. At least when it's filled with character moments you have fun but that's only a part of it, it's not the whole story. Also couple of things make this worse. This game's full animation cutscene percentage is very. Very. Low... Most of the cutscenes are people standing still and only their mouths move like robots. This is in the every game right but this game have so much of it that it starts to wear down on you after a while and you start to get bothered from pacing more and more easily. So yeah, pacing isn't that great
So yeah It's a conflicting game for me. Emotional parts are so strong that it fills me with happiness, but lows are so sloppy that I never want to return to this game ever again.
Story
What it does better is main character. Whenever story revolves about the ichiban himself, story hits so damn hard your heart starts pumping. But rest of it... Feels like a bunch of unfocused ideas.
Corrupt friends, corrupt politicians, corrupt justice force, corrupt civilians, corrupt yakuza. There is a lot of ideas here and none of them are fleshed out other than ichiban the protagonist himself. One idea gets introduced then later it gets solved like nothing happened or story itself forgets about it until remembering and rushing it's conclusion to finish it. Almost feels like they tried to combine multiple yakuza games(especially 1 and 2) into a one game but end up unfocused as a result
I only heard pure good things about the story but unfortunately I don't agree with that sentiment. There is pacebreaker parts as much as good parts for me. To describe what I really meant is, I didn't enjoy any story chapter that doesn't involve the Arakawa storyline. I mean they weren't bad but they didn't support the main story nor connect it in any interesting way in my opinion. It's really easy to see that Arakawa family and Ichiban's relationship is the main dish. But the time spent on mostly separate side character's storylines somehow 2 times longer than that storyline and it just soured my motivation on following the story
Side content
There is dragon kart(mario kart), that feels weird to control and not so fun. Also once you realize drifting button is broken and you can hold infinitely to continue your burst, all the difficulty disappears.
There is movie sleep minigame. You need to press correct buttons to not sleep. Kind of like a harder karaoke game but ichiban's harsh comments about iconic movies really entertained me a lot.
Management minigame returns and it's the best evolution of it. Unlike the 0 incarnation, buying and assigning guards not enough. You can't buy places mindlessly because there is a limit. Every place needs a different kind of guard so you need to change your strategy in every buyout. Not just that, you can't spend your company money freely because this time your biggest enemy is shareholders and they want to big money to be happy. There is so many quirks to this minigame and that makes it so entertaining to play, so much so that it's the best part of the game for me. I had that much fun with it.
Karaoke also returns and it's still fun but... One thing kind of ruined it for me and that is how out of sync the karaoke is unfortunately It really bothered me to the point of leaving this minigame entirely unfortunately.
Side missions of course here and they are fortunately better then judgment games. But still... I can't say it's the best. Other than one substory(forget me not substory) most of them requires you to leave the area and return again and again and again maybe even more than 3 times and it's frustrating. Writing is fun but why the heck it doesn't finish right there and there and forces you to go back and forward multiple times I really don't understand! I didn't like this change so because of that I don't think substories are the best in this game.
Gameplay
Compared to the a lot of people I started pretty optimistic to this game's turn based nature. There were jobs(classes) to choose, magic to prepare, buffs and debuffs to throw etc. But unfortunately it's starts to lost it's magic once you realize the repetitive nature. Unfortunately combat is mostly surface level stuff, you: debuff-> buff-> attack-> heal, you repeat this order trillion amounts of times. Elements nor job systems doesn't change your experience that much, they only fasten your enemy beating time. You still repeat this order until the end of the game and nothing breaks this other than the boss before finale one(yeah that damn boss). Actually there is a lot of moves to spice your gameplay strategy but because of some problems that I will tell under this, they feel wasted.
First problem is big ranged attacks are pretty wack. They have a limited range and you can't even get creative with them where you choose to attack, because... you can't position your character. So you are up to the luck gods that gives you an enemy group that stays really close to each other so ranged attacks actually manage to hit multiple enemies.
Another thing I am not hot on is, you can't order your character to use environmental objects, you can only use them if they are super close to you. It's again, up to the luck gods that spawns you near an object at the beginning of a battle, otherwise you are out of luck.
Oh also, you can't change jobs freely in combat... That's not fun as well. Combine this with, sometimes only way to make enemies fall to the ground or stagger them is with a specific hard hitting or elemental attack. So... have fun with slowly doing chip damage hours and hours to some specific enemy types.
Last thing I didn't like the implementation of, is the environmental heat system. Only Ichiban's one job can do heat attacks and that job is the beginnner job. That's it. Feels like an afterthought to be honest. I think new summon system or job specific super attacks designed to replace the older heat system but I wish there was a way to use the old environmental heat actions more freely.
At least It was fine for me until... that sotenbori part... What killed this system for me is last quarter of the game ups the enemy levels at least 10-15 more than you. Even with doing every damn side content I found I was still underleveled, because they don't give experience that much for some reason. So, sudden level farming requirements with the repetititous gameplay managed to kill my enjoyment entirely unfortunately. I said Fu#k it! And opened trainer and selected immortality and exp booster. I don't have any shame because game forced my hand on this.
I have to congratulate for them tho. This game is probably the most difficult yakuza game compared to other yakuza games for all the wrong reasons. But also if they decided to continue in this bland/repetitious system without adding things to the combat system then I won't accept to play their game honestly anymore. Because repetitive gameplay with forced grind is a death sentence for this franchise fo me.
I can't portray my feelings enough about this part. I really really really hated that grind part and for that reason I probably never damn again replay this game. I would replay any yakuza game rather than playing this one again. Who the heck thought slowing the game to a halt was a good idea I really don't understand!
Pacing
It's not bad as Yakuza 5 but unfocused nature of it makes it frustrating to experience like lost judgment. Especially after the chapter 3, story completely stops and becomes mini stories collection and doesn't pick up where it stopped until last half of the game. At least when it's filled with character moments you have fun but that's only a part of it, it's not the whole story. Also couple of things make this worse. This game's full animation cutscene percentage is very. Very. Low... Most of the cutscenes are people standing still and only their mouths move like robots. This is in the every game right but this game have so much of it that it starts to wear down on you after a while and you start to get bothered from pacing more and more easily. So yeah, pacing isn't that great
So yeah It's a conflicting game for me. Emotional parts are so strong that it fills me with happiness, but lows are so sloppy that I never want to return to this game ever again.
This review contains spoilers
So a metal gear hack&slash game. Weird combination what I would say to that. But strangely it works... mostly
Gameplay
gameplay consists of combos you do with light/heavy attack combinations, blade mode that gives you ability to cut anything to pieces as long as enemy stunned or doesn't have an armor, a parkour button that doesn't work if the object isn't cubic enough for some reason and lastly a weird parry move.
When I started playing I stuck at the second doggy boss for at least 1 hour. Why? Because this game have probably the worst training section ever with giving you the wrong information to play the game.
Game doesn't tell you that block parry is essential. Not just that, parry description is also wrong as heck???? Game tells you that, you need to move analog stick to the direction of to the enemy attack direction.
I thought I needed to move analog stick back, because enemy attacks to "me".
No. You don't do that. Just move analog stick to the enemy's direction, not to the enemy's attack direction.
So spamming forward+attack then stop holding the analog, then do it again and again is the real way to play the game.
When I say, "real way to play the game" I am not kidding, there is no dodge button, also you can't stagger heavy enemies with your combos too... so...? Just parry -->attack -->parry -->attack. Then once the screen shines, activate the blade mod and cut them to pieces. Every fights ends the same way unfortunately.
Then the question is, if the game is that much repetitive, then why I say it works? Because game's focus isn't trying to be the next hack&slash game, it tries to be a cinematic action game mostly with giving you god of war levels of epic boss fights. Lots of quick time events too of course. Once I realized that I changed my expectations according to that. But I can't say it satisfied me fully because of it's barebones weapons system that hinder the combo possibility of this game. But still it was an enjoyable time.
Story
Terrorists killed the president, so let's get revengeance! "heh". Story is mostly a simple one man kills an entire army type of story, so enjoyable popcorn flick I would say. It's fun but no way deep nor phlosophical like the main metal gear's stories, also characters are mostly forgettable.
For some reason bosses feels like they came right from mgs4. " Hello main character, I am a bad guy, here is my sad story, let's fight!!! " I mean some of them is a bit better than that, but still... for example we have a rival character that named Sam. But he doesn't even have a big screen time, so it's weird when the unavoidable clash happens, you need to feel something I guess. Also for some reason this game decided to make Raiden's character a literal psycopath? I didn't liked that part. But other than that, like I said it's a fun, let's kill everything for revengeeee type of game so don't worry you will still enjoy it in the end.
Edit:Also I forget to talk about, but it literally makes no sense Raiden is the main character again. 4 ends with essentially Raiden dropping the gun to the ground and hugging to his family for becoming a better family man. At this point I can only assume this game is a fanfiction story that retcons mgs4's ending just to give hurrrahhhh killing is fun as long as you do it with justice hehuhuhehuhehu kind of stupid message.
Dlc
There is two dlc that expands? the story. One is about Sam, other is about Wolf. Sam's gameplay is more enjoyable then hecking Raiden for some reason with ability to charge and air dodge like Dante. Wolf is about stealth, actually you can just cut everything you want, but it takes a lot of time, because wolf's strength is really low, so stealth is encouraged more (but it's still not that necessary). They are enjoyable 50 minute stories.
So yeah, enjoyable yet not much replayable, a bit repetitious game I would say. I think 4/5 is good enough.
Gameplay
gameplay consists of combos you do with light/heavy attack combinations, blade mode that gives you ability to cut anything to pieces as long as enemy stunned or doesn't have an armor, a parkour button that doesn't work if the object isn't cubic enough for some reason and lastly a weird parry move.
When I started playing I stuck at the second doggy boss for at least 1 hour. Why? Because this game have probably the worst training section ever with giving you the wrong information to play the game.
Game doesn't tell you that block parry is essential. Not just that, parry description is also wrong as heck???? Game tells you that, you need to move analog stick to the direction of to the enemy attack direction.
I thought I needed to move analog stick back, because enemy attacks to "me".
No. You don't do that. Just move analog stick to the enemy's direction, not to the enemy's attack direction.
So spamming forward+attack then stop holding the analog, then do it again and again is the real way to play the game.
When I say, "real way to play the game" I am not kidding, there is no dodge button, also you can't stagger heavy enemies with your combos too... so...? Just parry -->attack -->parry -->attack. Then once the screen shines, activate the blade mod and cut them to pieces. Every fights ends the same way unfortunately.
Then the question is, if the game is that much repetitive, then why I say it works? Because game's focus isn't trying to be the next hack&slash game, it tries to be a cinematic action game mostly with giving you god of war levels of epic boss fights. Lots of quick time events too of course. Once I realized that I changed my expectations according to that. But I can't say it satisfied me fully because of it's barebones weapons system that hinder the combo possibility of this game. But still it was an enjoyable time.
Story
Terrorists killed the president, so let's get revengeance! "heh". Story is mostly a simple one man kills an entire army type of story, so enjoyable popcorn flick I would say. It's fun but no way deep nor phlosophical like the main metal gear's stories, also characters are mostly forgettable.
For some reason bosses feels like they came right from mgs4. " Hello main character, I am a bad guy, here is my sad story, let's fight!!! " I mean some of them is a bit better than that, but still... for example we have a rival character that named Sam. But he doesn't even have a big screen time, so it's weird when the unavoidable clash happens, you need to feel something I guess. Also for some reason this game decided to make Raiden's character a literal psycopath? I didn't liked that part. But other than that, like I said it's a fun, let's kill everything for revengeeee type of game so don't worry you will still enjoy it in the end.
Edit:Also I forget to talk about, but it literally makes no sense Raiden is the main character again. 4 ends with essentially Raiden dropping the gun to the ground and hugging to his family for becoming a better family man. At this point I can only assume this game is a fanfiction story that retcons mgs4's ending just to give hurrrahhhh killing is fun as long as you do it with justice hehuhuhehuhehu kind of stupid message.
Dlc
There is two dlc that expands? the story. One is about Sam, other is about Wolf. Sam's gameplay is more enjoyable then hecking Raiden for some reason with ability to charge and air dodge like Dante. Wolf is about stealth, actually you can just cut everything you want, but it takes a lot of time, because wolf's strength is really low, so stealth is encouraged more (but it's still not that necessary). They are enjoyable 50 minute stories.
So yeah, enjoyable yet not much replayable, a bit repetitious game I would say. I think 4/5 is good enough.
edit: I was at chapter 5 of the og version of the game. I shelved because of grind, then decided to return and finish it
The biggest reason for me to shelve this at the time is the GRIND. So I wanted to unlock skills to make the combat more bearable, how do I do that? Playing 100 man battle 50 times. This is not an exaggeration. This is the fastest way without including a rng way.
Then I wanted to upgrade my weapon, how do I do that? Materials that drop from mini dungeons that returns from dead souls of course!... Of course rng included! %1 chance to drop this item that item... So you need to play mini dungeons 50 times at least to get materials you wanted as well too! How nice of that??
Second reason is I found the combat not engaging. I thought it will become better and it did but focusing on unlocking skills with the slow as heck progression system made the progression flow unbearable for me. After Getting to 60 level, unlocking a new level takes at least half hour. Then it goes up to 1 hour just to unlock a new level.... frustration... (Yakuza 0 have a similar problem but At least you can punch big money enemies to get instant upgrade money in yakuza 0 at least. But not here.)
After putting myself to endless grind torture, at least I can talk about the combat more in depth now
Combat
Lock on: it feels really loose for some reason, or Ryoma/Kiryu turning speed is so low. If you use any style that have longer animations, you will realize that if enemy moves right or left just a couple of centimeters, you will miss and you will miss again. The amounts of charged or heavy attacks I miss just because enemy decided to walk a bit to the left is too high to count this fact diminished my enjoyment.
Sword style: instant guard ability makes this a good style for the one on one combat. But it's shit at group combat. Charging attacks protects you from stun but at the same time you get continous damage from other enemies and if I don't carry multiple health items, it just becomes a chore to use against at groups. But at least there is more than one combo it does have, compared to the other styles. But there is no reason to use it if it's not against a boss fight because of a shitty lock on and slow combos.
Wild Dance style: this style have good range also you have instant dodge so it's good to use it for the group combat. But there is things that ruins this style for me. One is this dodge have almost nonexistent invisibility. So there is always a one ranged or fast enemy that ruins your damn combo. Other one is, it feels really limited what it could do. You spin for attacking... And shoot at the end. There is nothing else to do other than that. Feels like a demo compared to the yakuza 0 majima's breaker style.
Gun style: feels like designed for the people that really want to skip combat. Just go to a corner and press shoot button. If you are so much badly bored, just equip a high damage gun. Also have only one combo. maybe rather than creating entire style for it, just include into the wild dance as a heavy combo? it would be a better choice I think.
Hand to hand: this is the weakest style against anything. To compensate for that, it does have a tanimura guard that makes you invisible against any attack, but unfortunately it's short, you can unlock a longer version that makes pretty essential but until that point, it feels worthless like the kenzan one. Because damage is low and combo speed is low as well... So there is no reason to use it until filling with lots of skill points. When you "unlock" that skill points in the first place of course. Have fun with that.
Main story
Kind of a drag at times, kind of a blood pumping fun at times. Pacing is similar to yakuza 5 unfortunately. But one thing that saves it compared to the yakuza 5 is there is only one character's story so you don't start, stop, start and stop that halts pacing to a crawl. I had fun with the story, especially beginning and the end(to be exact, starting from ch11 and to end gets super crazy and saves the entire game for me). But the middle part sucked. All of it was talk to that, talk to this kinda missions.
Also finale part does not make a lick of sense too. But if you enjoy with the fanservice you will enjoy the finale even if it does not make sense. One thing I really enjoyed a lot is, unfinished yakuza 5 characters used differently to show their other sides. They were entertaining to say the least. So main story is more on the plus side for me.
Side content
Substories are meh on this game, they are pretty short as well. There is one that I really liked that is about a family tries to find a place to bury their poor dog's corpse. That one tingled the feels, I wish there is more like that. Other than that, classic money scumming substories and I will beat you old man type of substories. Nothing too suprising.
Friendship returns with vengeance. Chop 500 wood, eat 30 times, give item 15 times etc. They are not fun and once I realized that, I left them to rot. Because they are repetitive. Also for some reason almsot all interactable npc have a friendship meter. No thanks.
Another life. This is similar to y0 Kiryu's business minigame. In this minigame, someone called "Haruka" wants your help to pay her debt. Yes that haruka is in this minigame for some reason. Then you travel to the house, select vegetables to plant, when they become big, collect them. Then sell them. I did it until completing the Haruka's trust meter. Probably this is the only game that I completed Haruka's trust because of a minigame tied to it. Also it gives you special small cutscenes so I had more of an incentive to go through with it.
Mini dungeons. They are labyrinths that have lots of enemies and also a mini boss at the end. Gets ridiculous as the floors go up and in the end every basic enemy one shots you for some reason. It would be an interesting challenge like dead souls, if you didn't need to return again for materials. That garbage requirement sucked the all enjoyment for this side activity for me.
Crafting. You give the materials, then create the weapon. Unlike kenzan, every weapon have it's own special seal. So new thing is, you can mix and match the seals to create your own overpowered build. Like ability to not get stunned or breaking guards faster etc. It can look unimportant at first, but if you want to go minidungeons and amon, you have to look up what seal does what. Because they are that brutal.
There is also courtesan minigame that you can play rock paper scissors and chicken race. I only did chicken race because to get money faster near the end of the game. But at least there is no romance hostess's this time I am glad.
Amon. For some reason this time amon isn't a pure challenge boss, he is also a level grind boss too. You do so little damage to him that it's almost comical. But he kills you in 2 hits, if it's special attack then it one shots you. I went insane trying to complete this amon, because I didn't "grind enough". Then grinded more and beat him. I got the full invinsibility with limit break on brawler. Then got the sword's parrying disarm ability with limit break. Yet his second phase was so brutal that he keeps one shotting me even with that. Then I found a cheese way, try to get a invincibility parry to yourself when the second phase starts, then try to do sword's light+light+charged heavy combo. If you manage it amon will be down. Then do it again and again, if he manages to hit you while getting up, just use heal and continue your combo immediately. Eventually he will down and get destroyed hopefully. But I have to say, I hated this incarnation of amon. It feels cheap with forcing you to grind.
So I would say, sidecontent is a mixed bag.
Conclusion
Meh combat
Meh sidecontent
Enjoyable story that isn't paced very well.
I enjoyed more than yakuza 5 but probably matches with yakuza 4
The biggest reason for me to shelve this at the time is the GRIND. So I wanted to unlock skills to make the combat more bearable, how do I do that? Playing 100 man battle 50 times. This is not an exaggeration. This is the fastest way without including a rng way.
Then I wanted to upgrade my weapon, how do I do that? Materials that drop from mini dungeons that returns from dead souls of course!... Of course rng included! %1 chance to drop this item that item... So you need to play mini dungeons 50 times at least to get materials you wanted as well too! How nice of that??
Second reason is I found the combat not engaging. I thought it will become better and it did but focusing on unlocking skills with the slow as heck progression system made the progression flow unbearable for me. After Getting to 60 level, unlocking a new level takes at least half hour. Then it goes up to 1 hour just to unlock a new level.... frustration... (Yakuza 0 have a similar problem but At least you can punch big money enemies to get instant upgrade money in yakuza 0 at least. But not here.)
After putting myself to endless grind torture, at least I can talk about the combat more in depth now
Combat
Lock on: it feels really loose for some reason, or Ryoma/Kiryu turning speed is so low. If you use any style that have longer animations, you will realize that if enemy moves right or left just a couple of centimeters, you will miss and you will miss again. The amounts of charged or heavy attacks I miss just because enemy decided to walk a bit to the left is too high to count this fact diminished my enjoyment.
Sword style: instant guard ability makes this a good style for the one on one combat. But it's shit at group combat. Charging attacks protects you from stun but at the same time you get continous damage from other enemies and if I don't carry multiple health items, it just becomes a chore to use against at groups. But at least there is more than one combo it does have, compared to the other styles. But there is no reason to use it if it's not against a boss fight because of a shitty lock on and slow combos.
Wild Dance style: this style have good range also you have instant dodge so it's good to use it for the group combat. But there is things that ruins this style for me. One is this dodge have almost nonexistent invisibility. So there is always a one ranged or fast enemy that ruins your damn combo. Other one is, it feels really limited what it could do. You spin for attacking... And shoot at the end. There is nothing else to do other than that. Feels like a demo compared to the yakuza 0 majima's breaker style.
Gun style: feels like designed for the people that really want to skip combat. Just go to a corner and press shoot button. If you are so much badly bored, just equip a high damage gun. Also have only one combo. maybe rather than creating entire style for it, just include into the wild dance as a heavy combo? it would be a better choice I think.
Hand to hand: this is the weakest style against anything. To compensate for that, it does have a tanimura guard that makes you invisible against any attack, but unfortunately it's short, you can unlock a longer version that makes pretty essential but until that point, it feels worthless like the kenzan one. Because damage is low and combo speed is low as well... So there is no reason to use it until filling with lots of skill points. When you "unlock" that skill points in the first place of course. Have fun with that.
Main story
Kind of a drag at times, kind of a blood pumping fun at times. Pacing is similar to yakuza 5 unfortunately. But one thing that saves it compared to the yakuza 5 is there is only one character's story so you don't start, stop, start and stop that halts pacing to a crawl. I had fun with the story, especially beginning and the end(to be exact, starting from ch11 and to end gets super crazy and saves the entire game for me). But the middle part sucked. All of it was talk to that, talk to this kinda missions.
Also finale part does not make a lick of sense too. But if you enjoy with the fanservice you will enjoy the finale even if it does not make sense. One thing I really enjoyed a lot is, unfinished yakuza 5 characters used differently to show their other sides. They were entertaining to say the least. So main story is more on the plus side for me.
Side content
Substories are meh on this game, they are pretty short as well. There is one that I really liked that is about a family tries to find a place to bury their poor dog's corpse. That one tingled the feels, I wish there is more like that. Other than that, classic money scumming substories and I will beat you old man type of substories. Nothing too suprising.
Friendship returns with vengeance. Chop 500 wood, eat 30 times, give item 15 times etc. They are not fun and once I realized that, I left them to rot. Because they are repetitive. Also for some reason almsot all interactable npc have a friendship meter. No thanks.
Another life. This is similar to y0 Kiryu's business minigame. In this minigame, someone called "Haruka" wants your help to pay her debt. Yes that haruka is in this minigame for some reason. Then you travel to the house, select vegetables to plant, when they become big, collect them. Then sell them. I did it until completing the Haruka's trust meter. Probably this is the only game that I completed Haruka's trust because of a minigame tied to it. Also it gives you special small cutscenes so I had more of an incentive to go through with it.
Mini dungeons. They are labyrinths that have lots of enemies and also a mini boss at the end. Gets ridiculous as the floors go up and in the end every basic enemy one shots you for some reason. It would be an interesting challenge like dead souls, if you didn't need to return again for materials. That garbage requirement sucked the all enjoyment for this side activity for me.
Crafting. You give the materials, then create the weapon. Unlike kenzan, every weapon have it's own special seal. So new thing is, you can mix and match the seals to create your own overpowered build. Like ability to not get stunned or breaking guards faster etc. It can look unimportant at first, but if you want to go minidungeons and amon, you have to look up what seal does what. Because they are that brutal.
There is also courtesan minigame that you can play rock paper scissors and chicken race. I only did chicken race because to get money faster near the end of the game. But at least there is no romance hostess's this time I am glad.
Amon. For some reason this time amon isn't a pure challenge boss, he is also a level grind boss too. You do so little damage to him that it's almost comical. But he kills you in 2 hits, if it's special attack then it one shots you. I went insane trying to complete this amon, because I didn't "grind enough". Then grinded more and beat him. I got the full invinsibility with limit break on brawler. Then got the sword's parrying disarm ability with limit break. Yet his second phase was so brutal that he keeps one shotting me even with that. Then I found a cheese way, try to get a invincibility parry to yourself when the second phase starts, then try to do sword's light+light+charged heavy combo. If you manage it amon will be down. Then do it again and again, if he manages to hit you while getting up, just use heal and continue your combo immediately. Eventually he will down and get destroyed hopefully. But I have to say, I hated this incarnation of amon. It feels cheap with forcing you to grind.
So I would say, sidecontent is a mixed bag.
Conclusion
Meh combat
Meh sidecontent
Enjoyable story that isn't paced very well.
I enjoyed more than yakuza 5 but probably matches with yakuza 4
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.
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.
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.