taigasaejimafan
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This review contains spoilers
THIS GAME MAKES ME WANT TO LIVE BUT ALSO DIE WHY CAN'T MAKOTO JUST LIVE AND ADOPT KOROMARU AND EVERYTHING BE OKAY
This review contains spoilers
i literally could not think of a better send-off for kiryu and his focus in the franchise if i tried. this is so carefully crafted and wraps every possible thing up so nicely and sets such a good precedent for his character in infinite wealth
shishido is a very unexpectedly good final villain for kiryu, he doesn't necessarily mirror a lot of traits that kiryu has like a lot of other villains, but that shit still feels personal because it sort of is by the time the end of the game comes around. the amount of screen time he gets feels just right, not short enough to undercook his character, not long enough to make him take away any of his intrigue or anything like that, he still maintains a larger than life presence, which is entirely necessary for a yakuza villain to have real impact (at least imo), but also grounded enough to make his struggle feel real and actually there. and man is it so fucking cool to see everything you learn about him come to a head at the end, with subtle hints that he might not actually have that much of a reason to go along with the plan to end the organization he's spent his life suffering to get on top of. every part of it feels completely earned and like a natural progression of what information you've been given and experiences you've been through alongside him, which cannot be said for other rgg villains (hirose and aizawa come to mind). the part of the ending where he actually overpowers saejima and majima feels completely earned, and that is a really difficult thing to do within the context of the series, and it's only because of how well every encounter up to that point with him was executed, that he is allowed to do that. his entire boss fight just felt like the spirit of the entire yakuza was condensed into one guy and that was what kiryu had to overcome to move on, which may be the actual symbolism there now that i think about it lmao
anyways as for the combat, i think it's pretty good, i will say that agent style feels ridiculously underpowered until you have like a lot of its upgrades, but it spikes pretty hard when you get them, but it made me avoid it entirely for 95% of my playthrough. yakuza style starts good and stays good the entire game, so there isn't really much reason to use agent over it a lot of the time. OH GRABBING IN THIS GAME SUCKS IDKY, trying to use agent style grabs is so not enjoyable, it's fine with yakuza style because why wouldn't it be, but still.
substories in this game are probably my favorite execution of them, you get a marker for a bunch of fetch quests that take like 2 seconds to do, you go back to akame, and then you do wacky goofy stuff, it's nice, and is weirdly enjoyable in spite of how repetitive it gets. (i realize judgement has a slightly less evolved version of this now that i think about it, still though)
what a game. tears were in my eyes. i hope kiryu doesn't die in infinite wealth. that would suck.
shishido is a very unexpectedly good final villain for kiryu, he doesn't necessarily mirror a lot of traits that kiryu has like a lot of other villains, but that shit still feels personal because it sort of is by the time the end of the game comes around. the amount of screen time he gets feels just right, not short enough to undercook his character, not long enough to make him take away any of his intrigue or anything like that, he still maintains a larger than life presence, which is entirely necessary for a yakuza villain to have real impact (at least imo), but also grounded enough to make his struggle feel real and actually there. and man is it so fucking cool to see everything you learn about him come to a head at the end, with subtle hints that he might not actually have that much of a reason to go along with the plan to end the organization he's spent his life suffering to get on top of. every part of it feels completely earned and like a natural progression of what information you've been given and experiences you've been through alongside him, which cannot be said for other rgg villains (hirose and aizawa come to mind). the part of the ending where he actually overpowers saejima and majima feels completely earned, and that is a really difficult thing to do within the context of the series, and it's only because of how well every encounter up to that point with him was executed, that he is allowed to do that. his entire boss fight just felt like the spirit of the entire yakuza was condensed into one guy and that was what kiryu had to overcome to move on, which may be the actual symbolism there now that i think about it lmao
anyways as for the combat, i think it's pretty good, i will say that agent style feels ridiculously underpowered until you have like a lot of its upgrades, but it spikes pretty hard when you get them, but it made me avoid it entirely for 95% of my playthrough. yakuza style starts good and stays good the entire game, so there isn't really much reason to use agent over it a lot of the time. OH GRABBING IN THIS GAME SUCKS IDKY, trying to use agent style grabs is so not enjoyable, it's fine with yakuza style because why wouldn't it be, but still.
substories in this game are probably my favorite execution of them, you get a marker for a bunch of fetch quests that take like 2 seconds to do, you go back to akame, and then you do wacky goofy stuff, it's nice, and is weirdly enjoyable in spite of how repetitive it gets. (i realize judgement has a slightly less evolved version of this now that i think about it, still though)
what a game. tears were in my eyes. i hope kiryu doesn't die in infinite wealth. that would suck.
i really liked this game. like a lot. it has its ups and downs but for the most part stays consistent, the main things are obvs the characters and stories being told and the world and atmosphere etc but there is a lot of little things to appreciate as well
out of every companion you come across i think karlach and astarion are probably my favorites. both for similar but kinda different reasons.
karlachs story is based on that she's had time taken away from her, yet she faces the possibility of death because of the circumstances she had escaped, which is a really fucking good setup, and no point does the game fumble with her. same with astarion, he only wants to do things that would benefit him, but he isn't necessarily evil, and that builds the foundation for a really interesting character.
there's not much that's unique that i can say about the games world, it's pretty filled with life, or has life waiting to be discovered, and is enjoyable to explore
as for the combat, it's pretty hit or miss but when it hits, it really hits. cc spells are very unfun to play against though, if you get aoe slowed your party doesn't get to do anything for a few turns and it gets very boring very fast. with that being said though it does feel good to play as a fighter and use 3 attacks, use action surge, do it again, and watch enemy healthbars melt, there's a lot of satisfaction when it wants to give you it.
now that i got all the good things about it out of the way, this game does have very glaring issues that while i won't fault the game for having them, i will also feel like a crazy person if i don't talk about them.
i think the main one isn't actually a product of the game itself, but that literally everyone who has played it are very good at inflating their playtimes, and making it seem as though it has much more than it actually does. there are like 14 sidequests in act 1, all of these take about an hour or so to do, or are otherwise linked to the main story (or in my case i got timelocked out of them, i will be talking about that in a bit). and while the act 1 maps have a pretty good amount of stuff to see and explore, it doesn't take that long to do so. as such, i finished it in like 20 hours. i felt like i was crazy, but no, i had seriously done everything that was available to me for that section of the game, in that playthrough. i checked every sidequest list and interactive map i could find. i did not miss anything (that i was not timelocked out of) and this kept coming back to me throughout my playthrough in the back of my head like okay i've apparently done everything yet i have 40-80 less hours than other people what's up with that? and i still don't know what's up with that. but i can say that it was very disappointing at first to not have the amount of things to do that i thought there would be. but that's fine, the game still has enough replayability and variables in situations to make up for it. i just wish i had known that there was more quality than quantity going in.
the second thing that i wanna talk about or my head will explode is quest design in general, the games quests are so unintuitive and half the time don't give you markers or any idea as to where you're supposed to look for things. (the examples i'm using are just so i don't put spoilers for anything in this) so in my playthrough i saved the druids grove, but eventually got the save zevlor quest. but my dumbass didn't know that uhh actually, you have to wait until you are literally about to start the act 2 final boss to save him. like, are you serious? another part of this that i got irritated at was that i've heard so much about how this game is very dynamic and will always take your choices into account and give you a unique outcome, which is true. SOME OF THE TIME. after i had finished the druids grove storyline, i came across a letter in the swamp that was basically saying "hey actually kagha wants to do a coup after all", and i wanted to see if there was anything more i could do here, so i took the letter and went to kagha. nothing happened. that was very disappointing lmao. oh yeah, and about timelocked quests FUCK THAT SHIT IT'S SUCH TERRIBLE DESIGN WHAT DO YOU MEAN I MISS CONTENT BECAUSE I WAS UNAWARE OF ITS POSSIBLE EXISTENCE and no i'm not talking about "oh i sided with x, i probably shouldn't be able to do this with y", if you rest too many times you just miss things. i understand it incentivizes replayability but it doesn't feel very good. ah whatever i'm doing a second playthrough anyways, just sucked for this one lmao
i think that's about all i have to say that i haven't seen other people say, good game, will do a second playthrough soon
out of every companion you come across i think karlach and astarion are probably my favorites. both for similar but kinda different reasons.
karlachs story is based on that she's had time taken away from her, yet she faces the possibility of death because of the circumstances she had escaped, which is a really fucking good setup, and no point does the game fumble with her. same with astarion, he only wants to do things that would benefit him, but he isn't necessarily evil, and that builds the foundation for a really interesting character.
there's not much that's unique that i can say about the games world, it's pretty filled with life, or has life waiting to be discovered, and is enjoyable to explore
as for the combat, it's pretty hit or miss but when it hits, it really hits. cc spells are very unfun to play against though, if you get aoe slowed your party doesn't get to do anything for a few turns and it gets very boring very fast. with that being said though it does feel good to play as a fighter and use 3 attacks, use action surge, do it again, and watch enemy healthbars melt, there's a lot of satisfaction when it wants to give you it.
now that i got all the good things about it out of the way, this game does have very glaring issues that while i won't fault the game for having them, i will also feel like a crazy person if i don't talk about them.
i think the main one isn't actually a product of the game itself, but that literally everyone who has played it are very good at inflating their playtimes, and making it seem as though it has much more than it actually does. there are like 14 sidequests in act 1, all of these take about an hour or so to do, or are otherwise linked to the main story (or in my case i got timelocked out of them, i will be talking about that in a bit). and while the act 1 maps have a pretty good amount of stuff to see and explore, it doesn't take that long to do so. as such, i finished it in like 20 hours. i felt like i was crazy, but no, i had seriously done everything that was available to me for that section of the game, in that playthrough. i checked every sidequest list and interactive map i could find. i did not miss anything (that i was not timelocked out of) and this kept coming back to me throughout my playthrough in the back of my head like okay i've apparently done everything yet i have 40-80 less hours than other people what's up with that? and i still don't know what's up with that. but i can say that it was very disappointing at first to not have the amount of things to do that i thought there would be. but that's fine, the game still has enough replayability and variables in situations to make up for it. i just wish i had known that there was more quality than quantity going in.
the second thing that i wanna talk about or my head will explode is quest design in general, the games quests are so unintuitive and half the time don't give you markers or any idea as to where you're supposed to look for things. (the examples i'm using are just so i don't put spoilers for anything in this) so in my playthrough i saved the druids grove, but eventually got the save zevlor quest. but my dumbass didn't know that uhh actually, you have to wait until you are literally about to start the act 2 final boss to save him. like, are you serious? another part of this that i got irritated at was that i've heard so much about how this game is very dynamic and will always take your choices into account and give you a unique outcome, which is true. SOME OF THE TIME. after i had finished the druids grove storyline, i came across a letter in the swamp that was basically saying "hey actually kagha wants to do a coup after all", and i wanted to see if there was anything more i could do here, so i took the letter and went to kagha. nothing happened. that was very disappointing lmao. oh yeah, and about timelocked quests FUCK THAT SHIT IT'S SUCH TERRIBLE DESIGN WHAT DO YOU MEAN I MISS CONTENT BECAUSE I WAS UNAWARE OF ITS POSSIBLE EXISTENCE and no i'm not talking about "oh i sided with x, i probably shouldn't be able to do this with y", if you rest too many times you just miss things. i understand it incentivizes replayability but it doesn't feel very good. ah whatever i'm doing a second playthrough anyways, just sucked for this one lmao
i think that's about all i have to say that i haven't seen other people say, good game, will do a second playthrough soon