pelirod
1996
the music, animation, voice acting, and story/setting are all great, but it offends modern players with pointless, time wasting puzzles that force us to do dreadfully slow backtracking. I still wouldn't recommend watching on Youtube since, like many games in this genre, the frustration and stumping are part of the intended experience.
2021
a bit too derivative of undertale. music is fine but nothing i'd listen to again. the story and characters didn't keep me interested. the gameplay was well balanced and fun and there were 2 or 3 moments of genuinely inspired visuals as part of the combat experience.
2023
pros: fantastic pixel art and music. cool setting. gameplay is simple and enjoyable.
cons: they didn't evolve or explore the setting very much. a lot more could have been done to present a fresh experience on that front. the story isn't very compelling and the npc dialogues are very repetitive. the weapons' unique properties were underutilized in combat leading to just using the mace unless you really need to block.
looking forward to post-launch content if it gets any, or blasphemous 3!
cons: they didn't evolve or explore the setting very much. a lot more could have been done to present a fresh experience on that front. the story isn't very compelling and the npc dialogues are very repetitive. the weapons' unique properties were underutilized in combat leading to just using the mace unless you really need to block.
looking forward to post-launch content if it gets any, or blasphemous 3!
cons: way too bloated to ever be a cohesive experience. crashes a lot on PC which is unacceptable for a modern AAA game. as with any ubisoft title it has a lot of unnecessary mtx, but it's all ugly compared to base game items anyway.
pros: everything else. I enjoyed sinking 100 hours into this. Eivor and Sigurd's relationship felt very genuine, and the parallels between them and Alexios and Kassandra were interesting. the mythological chapters were definitely the highlight of the game, but also had one of the worst bosses i've ever fought, which unfortunately hampered my enjoyment a bit. who thought it was a good idea to give a boss that already has twice as much health as any other a repeating 30s invulnerability phase where it can bug out at any moment and force you to restart the fight? the fact that I persevered instead of uninstalling right there is testament to the game's charm I suppose.
pros: everything else. I enjoyed sinking 100 hours into this. Eivor and Sigurd's relationship felt very genuine, and the parallels between them and Alexios and Kassandra were interesting. the mythological chapters were definitely the highlight of the game, but also had one of the worst bosses i've ever fought, which unfortunately hampered my enjoyment a bit. who thought it was a good idea to give a boss that already has twice as much health as any other a repeating 30s invulnerability phase where it can bug out at any moment and force you to restart the fight? the fact that I persevered instead of uninstalling right there is testament to the game's charm I suppose.
no fix to any of botw's major problems: there's more menu scrolling than ever, still no incentive to do most of the ubisoft-style content, the storytelling is mostly done in uninteractive flashbacks that your actions have no effect on. the only area that's majorly improved is the addition of caves to add more exploration opportunities. it's fun if you loved botw and/or the far cry series!
2015
even with all optional effects turned off it's still too visually overwhelming to play. the sky is full of giant ash particles like a volcano is constantly erupting. every light source produces a massive lens flare. there's dirt on the lens. the reflections are so poorly implemented that a bathroom with no windows has tiles that reflect trees and surrounding buildings. every door is reflective like it's covered in a layer of wet slime. on top of that it loads slow.
2016
great level designs and beautiful graphics. gameplay and story are lacking.
2017
would be 5/5 except the environments are so ugly in graphics and design, also there's a nasty washed out gray fog over everything.
cool MitHC world-building. blazkowicz's characterization was enjoyable. comfiest hideout ever. unfortunately they added some bullshit halfway through that kinda undermines the premise.
the graphics are overall good, but it has some pretty serious issues as well. there's texture pop-in due to the notorious supertexture system, and it's locked at 60 fps without a mod. the head bob strained my eyes, but disabling it with a cvar prevents use of the sniper rifle. I ended up just not using the sniper rifle.
I eventually lost interest due to the repetitive combat where unarmored enemies are a joke but mechs and armored guys are bullet sponges (hard difficulty).
the graphics are overall good, but it has some pretty serious issues as well. there's texture pop-in due to the notorious supertexture system, and it's locked at 60 fps without a mod. the head bob strained my eyes, but disabling it with a cvar prevents use of the sniper rifle. I ended up just not using the sniper rifle.
I eventually lost interest due to the repetitive combat where unarmored enemies are a joke but mechs and armored guys are bullet sponges (hard difficulty).
2021
the gameplay is well-balanced with plenty of challenging yet not frustrating encounters and elegant level designs. what elevates this game is the wonderful music and atmosphere. every npc is interesting in some way. perfect length.
2022
competently made, enjoyable to play, yet lacks the originality and soulfulness to rise above average.
2017
fun but the lack of a proper save system is baffling
2019
short, easy, great music, bright and colorful artstyle.
Played the beta test and a bit of the live game in the months before it shut down. It was just as awful as everyone said. Gameplay was laggy and trash boring grindfest.
However there were a few upsides. The music was great, most of which was carried over to ARR. The models, textures, and animations were all fantastic but they had to be downgraded for performance reasons in ARR. It attempted to be a true successor to legacy MMOs rather than an online action game or JRPG experience as ARR went on to do.
There's still a yearning for a more holistic MMORPG experience that those older titles offered but hasn't been satisfied since, as evidenced by the interest in Classic WoW and OSRS. Unfortunately FFXIV 1.0 failed to achieve that.
However there were a few upsides. The music was great, most of which was carried over to ARR. The models, textures, and animations were all fantastic but they had to be downgraded for performance reasons in ARR. It attempted to be a true successor to legacy MMOs rather than an online action game or JRPG experience as ARR went on to do.
There's still a yearning for a more holistic MMORPG experience that those older titles offered but hasn't been satisfied since, as evidenced by the interest in Classic WoW and OSRS. Unfortunately FFXIV 1.0 failed to achieve that.
The game systems are now seemingly feature complete. Unfortunately there are still glaring issues that don't look to ever be resolved with this game.
Each action you take has an inherent lag which prevents playing reactively. Everyone has had the experience of dying even though your corpse is in a completely safe spot. It's not an issue for XIV enjoyers because after a while your brain adjusts to the lag, but people who play both this and WoW will always notice how laggy XIV feels (not to excuse the blatant server lag WoW has suffered from since Legion).
At this point it's inexcusable that new players have to sit through a hundred hours of unlocks and cutscenes to be able to play with their friends. In 2022 we expect to hop on an online game and play with our friends right away. Shockingly few of XIV's systems are even multiplayer-enabled for a so-called MMO. The game is best enjoyed as a singleplayer JRPG experience. Now players can even use NPCs ("Trusts") to play through the majority of dungeons if they are feeling unsociable.
The RPG aspects of the game are laughably basic. Equippable items have no special effects and can be reduced to one 'ilvl' stat. If you do bother with optimal stat builds you will see little difference in results and no impact on the feel of combat. The jobs offer no customization and 90% of combat situations call for the same static rotation on every job.
The thing this game is supposed to excel at, which is storytelling, is almost all done through cutscenes with no player input (recent expansions allow you to choose between options that will determine... one line of dialogue). They quickly become repetition of three characters slowly walking into a room followed by you nodding or craning your head to the side. Buckle up because this is the majority of the 300 hours of content this game has.
Quest design is abysmal - mostly you are asked to teleport to the nearest crystal to your objective and fly the rest of the way, or collect a few objects off the floor. If you're lucky you get to fight an enemy or two. The quests in this game make WoW's notorious fetch quests look fun.
With all that said it's comfy. The music is fantastic. The cast of characters is lovely. The community is much more friendly than other online games and the GMs do a good job of maintaining that atmosphere.
Each action you take has an inherent lag which prevents playing reactively. Everyone has had the experience of dying even though your corpse is in a completely safe spot. It's not an issue for XIV enjoyers because after a while your brain adjusts to the lag, but people who play both this and WoW will always notice how laggy XIV feels (not to excuse the blatant server lag WoW has suffered from since Legion).
At this point it's inexcusable that new players have to sit through a hundred hours of unlocks and cutscenes to be able to play with their friends. In 2022 we expect to hop on an online game and play with our friends right away. Shockingly few of XIV's systems are even multiplayer-enabled for a so-called MMO. The game is best enjoyed as a singleplayer JRPG experience. Now players can even use NPCs ("Trusts") to play through the majority of dungeons if they are feeling unsociable.
The RPG aspects of the game are laughably basic. Equippable items have no special effects and can be reduced to one 'ilvl' stat. If you do bother with optimal stat builds you will see little difference in results and no impact on the feel of combat. The jobs offer no customization and 90% of combat situations call for the same static rotation on every job.
The thing this game is supposed to excel at, which is storytelling, is almost all done through cutscenes with no player input (recent expansions allow you to choose between options that will determine... one line of dialogue). They quickly become repetition of three characters slowly walking into a room followed by you nodding or craning your head to the side. Buckle up because this is the majority of the 300 hours of content this game has.
Quest design is abysmal - mostly you are asked to teleport to the nearest crystal to your objective and fly the rest of the way, or collect a few objects off the floor. If you're lucky you get to fight an enemy or two. The quests in this game make WoW's notorious fetch quests look fun.
With all that said it's comfy. The music is fantastic. The cast of characters is lovely. The community is much more friendly than other online games and the GMs do a good job of maintaining that atmosphere.