AbsentHobo
2023
Bad, would have been better, if the youtuber shut the fuck up for longer than 10 seconds
2024
Final Review
Initial thoughts
-YES DIFFICULTY OPTIONS (I love games with difficulty options so I can replay on harder difficulties)
-Didn't expect such a detailed character customisation, not usually a fan of custom characters but these look cool
-Weak start
-Parry isn't great
-Clunky movement
-Game is having an identity crisis
-Trying to do too many things and not developing them
-Story is hard to care about
-Ton of graphical bugs
5 hours in
-Story is still boring to me
-Combat has improved
-Got some better gear
-Combat and traversal feel more varied
-Horse movement is awful, some of the worst I have ever used
-Still riddled with graphical bugs
-Should have picked the Odachi straight away
10 hours in
-Wow the combat is cool
-So many ways to customise your combat approach
-Outfits are cool
-Horse is still awful
-I'm liking the glider
-Skill trees are cool
-The parry still isn't great, but getting used to it
-My god the graphical bugs
-Some pieces of terrain have broken hitboxes/collisions
-Some textures just dont even load in
-Still dont care about the story
15+ hours in
-THERE'S OTHER REGIONS?
-Oh they're basically all just grass and some rocks
-Maybe could have picked some more varied areas of Japan
-World design isn't bad
-Not much to do in the world other than enemy bases
-Combat is still cool
-The cool combat and stealth is held back by the open world and bad graphics
-Should have been a linear game or just put more stuff in the world
-Can only go in like 10% of the buildings so the villages/towns feel empty and boring even though they are full of buildings
-Gliding is so cool
-A lot of stuff should have been explained better
-Story still struggles, the custom character makes character development and telling a strong story very difficult
-Still infested with graphical bugs
-Some gameplay bugs, nothing gamebreaking, but definitely annoying
Overall, a solid game held very far back by a weak start, weak story and bad graphics/visuals. Would have been better if it didn't try to have a serious, historical story and instead had a ridiculous, over the top story like the devil may cry series or the yakuza series. Should have been pushed as a good way to get into souls games, as its difficulty options do make it more approachable and accessible to more players (ironic as its accessibility is limited because it is a playstation exclusive)
Initial thoughts
-YES DIFFICULTY OPTIONS (I love games with difficulty options so I can replay on harder difficulties)
-Didn't expect such a detailed character customisation, not usually a fan of custom characters but these look cool
-Weak start
-Parry isn't great
-Clunky movement
-Game is having an identity crisis
-Trying to do too many things and not developing them
-Story is hard to care about
-Ton of graphical bugs
5 hours in
-Story is still boring to me
-Combat has improved
-Got some better gear
-Combat and traversal feel more varied
-Horse movement is awful, some of the worst I have ever used
-Still riddled with graphical bugs
-Should have picked the Odachi straight away
10 hours in
-Wow the combat is cool
-So many ways to customise your combat approach
-Outfits are cool
-Horse is still awful
-I'm liking the glider
-Skill trees are cool
-The parry still isn't great, but getting used to it
-My god the graphical bugs
-Some pieces of terrain have broken hitboxes/collisions
-Some textures just dont even load in
-Still dont care about the story
15+ hours in
-THERE'S OTHER REGIONS?
-Oh they're basically all just grass and some rocks
-Maybe could have picked some more varied areas of Japan
-World design isn't bad
-Not much to do in the world other than enemy bases
-Combat is still cool
-The cool combat and stealth is held back by the open world and bad graphics
-Should have been a linear game or just put more stuff in the world
-Can only go in like 10% of the buildings so the villages/towns feel empty and boring even though they are full of buildings
-Gliding is so cool
-A lot of stuff should have been explained better
-Story still struggles, the custom character makes character development and telling a strong story very difficult
-Still infested with graphical bugs
-Some gameplay bugs, nothing gamebreaking, but definitely annoying
Overall, a solid game held very far back by a weak start, weak story and bad graphics/visuals. Would have been better if it didn't try to have a serious, historical story and instead had a ridiculous, over the top story like the devil may cry series or the yakuza series. Should have been pushed as a good way to get into souls games, as its difficulty options do make it more approachable and accessible to more players (ironic as its accessibility is limited because it is a playstation exclusive)
2024
Rise of the Ronin: Initial thoughts- 3-4 hours in
Rise of the Ronin starts off unsure of what it wants to be. It tries to dip its hands in multiple pots but won't commit to any of them. There are clear elements of soulslikes in this game throughout my playthrough of the admittedly short time I have spent in this game.
The Combat
The combat is very soulslike, in the worst way, I say this as someone who is not a fan of souls combat, its clunky movement and poor control layout simply cover up what it is at its core, boring combat. Souls like combat creates synthetic difficulty, it's not difficult because its a well thought out, complex combat system that forces you to adapt to each fight or a combat system that teaches as you go, so you are always learning something new, its a basic hit and block combat system that disguises itself as difficult through the covers of a poor control layout that employs outdated and unusual button mapping and combines this with enemies that take little damage but deal a lot and a character who deals little damage but takes a lot.
The worst part of the combat is by far the “parry”, although in this its referred to as a counterspark, it is a slow move, so the timing is a mess, this makes the “parry” practically useless outside of bossfights, and the game expects you to almost rely on it in bossfights, expecting you to rely on the most unreliable move you have, meaning you spend the majority of the combat simply moving around the fight area waiting for the enemy to do a red move^. And to make it all worse, this game employs the feature of a stamina bar/meter, now, that isn't a problem if that's all it is, a stamina bar, but this stamina bar is decreased by six things; running, dodging, combat rolls, parrying, attacking and blocking. Essentially there is nothing you can do in this game during combat that doesn’t use your stamina, which caused me to be in too many situations where I was unable to avoid or block attacks. The game does this for a reason, and I'm pretty sure i know that reason, because this issue is easily avoidable, if you spend the boss fights with a great distance between you and your enemy, only briefly going closer for attacks after parrying a red move then regaining that distance, which practically doubles the amount of time it takes to finish a bossfight. This is a problem for two reasons; A) it's a lazy attempt at lengthening the game, and B) it's mostly Katana like combat, which should be quick, turning that into slow drawn out combat damages the feel of combat that this game needs.
After more time spent in the game, you get used to the combat “system” more and it becomes easier, but is still held back by the clunkiness and poor control layout, so even after becoming more adept at the controls, it's still quite weak.
The Movement
The movement, for lack of a better word, is rough. It's clunky and like the combat this causes it to feel slower than it should be, again, this is reminiscent of soulslikes. The already clunky and harsh movement is worsened by its control layout, again. The key example of this, is, to dodge you press circle, to combat roll you double press circle, and to run you press circle for slightly longer than to dodge, so a lot of the time when you are trying to run your character dodges, or when you're trying to dodge, instead they run. But despite all this, the character’s movement on foot is perfection compared to the horse movement. I am not exaggerating when I say that this game has some of the worst horse mechanics that I have ever used.
The World
The world is ok, it's not bad in design but the graphics do hold its visuals back (I will explain later). I had multiple occasions where items in the world, whether they were walls, rocks, fences etc, had no collisions whatsoever, so there were times where I would fall off of the edge of a cliff (a low cliff so I did not die) due to there being nothing to collide with, and times where I was able to pass through what should be solid surfaces. However, there were other times where the items had very clear collision, for two reasons; sometimes the hitboxes were higher than the item so I could stand, floating above the surface, and other times the hitboxes were made clear by the fact that instead of my character walking over a slight slope or a low rock, he would clip on top of the surface, changing the movement of my character from clunky to powerpoint slide. The world seems to be mostly made up of enemy bases and small collectables, very reminiscent of the stereotypical problems people have with another game developer, who I think yoU will Be understandIng aS tO why this review won’t aFfirm The name of said developer.
Visuals
Not too much to say about the game visually, it seems to borrow a lot of visual style from soulslikes, but from a visual quality side, it’s honestly pretty weak. The game offers 3 presets for visuals, and then allows you to change settings individually, the 3 presets are; Prioritise FPS, Prioritise Graphics and Ray Tracing.
Irrelevant of which you pick the graphics do not really change that much, there is the slightest difference between using ray tracing and not, but other than that nothing else that noticeable, however the fps is really noticeable, going from prioritise FPS to Graphics is very jarring, seeing the framerate drop significantly, to the point where i recommend everyone play it on prioritise FPS as the other presets, to me, were unbearable.
Overall
Rise of the Ronin doesn't know what it is. Throughout my time playing, I noticed elements of games like; Ghost Of Tsushima, Star Wars The Force Unleashed, The Assassin’s Creed Series, Sekiro Shadows Die Twice and Devil May Cry. But none of these styles were fully developed so it just resulted in a game that feels like a poor, improvised mashup of all of them rather than its own entity.
There were positives I found, although not many; as simple as it sounds, the fact that this game has dismemberment was a positive to me, I respect that. The character customisation, it's more than I expected and it's pretty well done. The theme and setting, Japan in 1863 is a cool setting, and an era of Japan we haven't really seen much of in media. The HUD, I'm a fan of the HUD and most of the overall UI. It's not too busy, shows you just what you need to know and fits the style very well, this includes the map, which is pretty nicely detailed and easy to use. Unfortunately, that is where the positives I found end
^Red move: a move that can only be parried, unable to simply block it and typically cannot dodge it.
Rise of the Ronin starts off unsure of what it wants to be. It tries to dip its hands in multiple pots but won't commit to any of them. There are clear elements of soulslikes in this game throughout my playthrough of the admittedly short time I have spent in this game.
The Combat
The combat is very soulslike, in the worst way, I say this as someone who is not a fan of souls combat, its clunky movement and poor control layout simply cover up what it is at its core, boring combat. Souls like combat creates synthetic difficulty, it's not difficult because its a well thought out, complex combat system that forces you to adapt to each fight or a combat system that teaches as you go, so you are always learning something new, its a basic hit and block combat system that disguises itself as difficult through the covers of a poor control layout that employs outdated and unusual button mapping and combines this with enemies that take little damage but deal a lot and a character who deals little damage but takes a lot.
The worst part of the combat is by far the “parry”, although in this its referred to as a counterspark, it is a slow move, so the timing is a mess, this makes the “parry” practically useless outside of bossfights, and the game expects you to almost rely on it in bossfights, expecting you to rely on the most unreliable move you have, meaning you spend the majority of the combat simply moving around the fight area waiting for the enemy to do a red move^. And to make it all worse, this game employs the feature of a stamina bar/meter, now, that isn't a problem if that's all it is, a stamina bar, but this stamina bar is decreased by six things; running, dodging, combat rolls, parrying, attacking and blocking. Essentially there is nothing you can do in this game during combat that doesn’t use your stamina, which caused me to be in too many situations where I was unable to avoid or block attacks. The game does this for a reason, and I'm pretty sure i know that reason, because this issue is easily avoidable, if you spend the boss fights with a great distance between you and your enemy, only briefly going closer for attacks after parrying a red move then regaining that distance, which practically doubles the amount of time it takes to finish a bossfight. This is a problem for two reasons; A) it's a lazy attempt at lengthening the game, and B) it's mostly Katana like combat, which should be quick, turning that into slow drawn out combat damages the feel of combat that this game needs.
After more time spent in the game, you get used to the combat “system” more and it becomes easier, but is still held back by the clunkiness and poor control layout, so even after becoming more adept at the controls, it's still quite weak.
The Movement
The movement, for lack of a better word, is rough. It's clunky and like the combat this causes it to feel slower than it should be, again, this is reminiscent of soulslikes. The already clunky and harsh movement is worsened by its control layout, again. The key example of this, is, to dodge you press circle, to combat roll you double press circle, and to run you press circle for slightly longer than to dodge, so a lot of the time when you are trying to run your character dodges, or when you're trying to dodge, instead they run. But despite all this, the character’s movement on foot is perfection compared to the horse movement. I am not exaggerating when I say that this game has some of the worst horse mechanics that I have ever used.
The World
The world is ok, it's not bad in design but the graphics do hold its visuals back (I will explain later). I had multiple occasions where items in the world, whether they were walls, rocks, fences etc, had no collisions whatsoever, so there were times where I would fall off of the edge of a cliff (a low cliff so I did not die) due to there being nothing to collide with, and times where I was able to pass through what should be solid surfaces. However, there were other times where the items had very clear collision, for two reasons; sometimes the hitboxes were higher than the item so I could stand, floating above the surface, and other times the hitboxes were made clear by the fact that instead of my character walking over a slight slope or a low rock, he would clip on top of the surface, changing the movement of my character from clunky to powerpoint slide. The world seems to be mostly made up of enemy bases and small collectables, very reminiscent of the stereotypical problems people have with another game developer, who I think yoU will Be understandIng aS tO why this review won’t aFfirm The name of said developer.
Visuals
Not too much to say about the game visually, it seems to borrow a lot of visual style from soulslikes, but from a visual quality side, it’s honestly pretty weak. The game offers 3 presets for visuals, and then allows you to change settings individually, the 3 presets are; Prioritise FPS, Prioritise Graphics and Ray Tracing.
Irrelevant of which you pick the graphics do not really change that much, there is the slightest difference between using ray tracing and not, but other than that nothing else that noticeable, however the fps is really noticeable, going from prioritise FPS to Graphics is very jarring, seeing the framerate drop significantly, to the point where i recommend everyone play it on prioritise FPS as the other presets, to me, were unbearable.
Overall
Rise of the Ronin doesn't know what it is. Throughout my time playing, I noticed elements of games like; Ghost Of Tsushima, Star Wars The Force Unleashed, The Assassin’s Creed Series, Sekiro Shadows Die Twice and Devil May Cry. But none of these styles were fully developed so it just resulted in a game that feels like a poor, improvised mashup of all of them rather than its own entity.
There were positives I found, although not many; as simple as it sounds, the fact that this game has dismemberment was a positive to me, I respect that. The character customisation, it's more than I expected and it's pretty well done. The theme and setting, Japan in 1863 is a cool setting, and an era of Japan we haven't really seen much of in media. The HUD, I'm a fan of the HUD and most of the overall UI. It's not too busy, shows you just what you need to know and fits the style very well, this includes the map, which is pretty nicely detailed and easy to use. Unfortunately, that is where the positives I found end
^Red move: a move that can only be parried, unable to simply block it and typically cannot dodge it.
2022
this game has no right to be this good
2022
I envy Dave
I loved the original, and have played it nearly a dozen times, but I never got to play the console version of the remake, so when it came to pc I decided to stream it. Worst. Port. Ever.
I'm only giving it higher than 1 star because I know the last of us is a great game, but the port is shocking, I've seen better graphics in games from 2006 and would have less issues trying to run Elden ring on a fucking apple watch
I'm only giving it higher than 1 star because I know the last of us is a great game, but the port is shocking, I've seen better graphics in games from 2006 and would have less issues trying to run Elden ring on a fucking apple watch
2023
Honestly, almost on par with the original, which has big shoes to fill, but as a big resident evil fan, I was blown away by how fun and impressive this remake was.
2023
Killing Children for 30 hours
Honestly a bad game
As much as I enjoyed it as a kid, its not good, poor graphics, even for the time, mid gameplay, and there's barely any story, but because of nostalgia I have a lot of love for this shitty game
As much as I enjoyed it as a kid, its not good, poor graphics, even for the time, mid gameplay, and there's barely any story, but because of nostalgia I have a lot of love for this shitty game
Really Disappointing Sequel
Feels Rushed and lazy, 100% sure this game was nothing more than a cashgrab
Feels Rushed and lazy, 100% sure this game was nothing more than a cashgrab
This review contains spoilers
Realistically a good game.
It's held back by it following the phenomenal Arkham city, there was such a big leap both graphically, and gameplay wise from asylum to city, but there was practically no leap between city and origins, which makes it seem disappointing and meant it didn't live up to expectations, but if you play this before Arkham city I think you would find it very enjoyable.
My One complaint about the story is the Joker is yet again the main villain, don't get me wrong I love the joker, but I was excited for black mask to be the antagonist, the series as a whole is very joker heavy, I get he's batman's most iconic villain, but Jesus Christ.
It's held back by it following the phenomenal Arkham city, there was such a big leap both graphically, and gameplay wise from asylum to city, but there was practically no leap between city and origins, which makes it seem disappointing and meant it didn't live up to expectations, but if you play this before Arkham city I think you would find it very enjoyable.
My One complaint about the story is the Joker is yet again the main villain, don't get me wrong I love the joker, but I was excited for black mask to be the antagonist, the series as a whole is very joker heavy, I get he's batman's most iconic villain, but Jesus Christ.
Story is gripping, gameplay is the perfect balance of pirate action and assassins creed stealth, one of my all time favourites.
2018
Creative idea, but became too repetitive very quickly.
This review contains spoilers
I think the ai and graphics hold this one back, I personally love it but I guess it only really appeals to fans of the film series as it contains a lot of references and call-backs to aliens movie scenes and characters, and contains some aspects from the overarching Alien Lore, I think a remake would turn this game into what it could have been, because ai and graphics aside, at its core, its a fun game, and has some genuinely fun and creative missions, that I'd love to see remade.