6 reviews liked by Alekks
I hate to give this one a mixed review because I love the setting and many aspects of it are truly impressive. However, the open world design ultimately overshadows its positive features.
Despite attempts to mask its core Ubisoft open-world formula, with the environment guiding you to points of interest, it quickly devolves into the usual routine of repetitive tasks. It becomes monotonous very fast, and exploring the same Inari shrine ten times within a few hours just isn't enjoyable. It also features the typical "liberate this camp" activity, which I find tiresome. There are no surprises, and everything feels predictable after about five hours.The random encounter rate is too high, with only about three variations. Sometimes, these encounters are so close together that I rarely enjoyed exploring. Despite the beautifully to look at open world, you're constantly interrupted by tedious events every five minutes or so, leaving no room for relaxation or immersion.
The art design, however, is stunning. The vibrant color palette combined with a romanticized depiction of Japanese nature is pure eye candy. It's mesmerizing to watch the wind sweep through fields of flowers or see sunlight and moonlight filter through dense forests or when wisps of mists hoover over wide grass fields. There is also a lot of variety, from golden woods and open fields to quaint fishing villages.
The combat is the ultimate samurai power fantasy. There's a cool feature where enemies drop their weapons and flee when you execute certain mythic moves or land perfect parries. The chiburi blood shake after a victorious battle, with three different animations, looks incredibly badass and satisfying. While the overall flow and responsiveness don't quite reach the heights of Sekiro, it does come close in some aspects.
The story and some of its characters are another major letdown. They lack depth and constantly dump lore on you, with a predictable plot leading to formulaic missions. Having watched "Shogun" just days before, the difference in writing quality is especially noticeable. It does have one or two standout character moments, such as the quest chain involving Jin's family housemaid, or when jin abandons his code of honour for the first time. Ultimately though it never goes beyond the themes introduced in the first two hours.
Despite attempts to mask its core Ubisoft open-world formula, with the environment guiding you to points of interest, it quickly devolves into the usual routine of repetitive tasks. It becomes monotonous very fast, and exploring the same Inari shrine ten times within a few hours just isn't enjoyable. It also features the typical "liberate this camp" activity, which I find tiresome. There are no surprises, and everything feels predictable after about five hours.The random encounter rate is too high, with only about three variations. Sometimes, these encounters are so close together that I rarely enjoyed exploring. Despite the beautifully to look at open world, you're constantly interrupted by tedious events every five minutes or so, leaving no room for relaxation or immersion.
The art design, however, is stunning. The vibrant color palette combined with a romanticized depiction of Japanese nature is pure eye candy. It's mesmerizing to watch the wind sweep through fields of flowers or see sunlight and moonlight filter through dense forests or when wisps of mists hoover over wide grass fields. There is also a lot of variety, from golden woods and open fields to quaint fishing villages.
The combat is the ultimate samurai power fantasy. There's a cool feature where enemies drop their weapons and flee when you execute certain mythic moves or land perfect parries. The chiburi blood shake after a victorious battle, with three different animations, looks incredibly badass and satisfying. While the overall flow and responsiveness don't quite reach the heights of Sekiro, it does come close in some aspects.
The story and some of its characters are another major letdown. They lack depth and constantly dump lore on you, with a predictable plot leading to formulaic missions. Having watched "Shogun" just days before, the difference in writing quality is especially noticeable. It does have one or two standout character moments, such as the quest chain involving Jin's family housemaid, or when jin abandons his code of honour for the first time. Ultimately though it never goes beyond the themes introduced in the first two hours.
Avoid on PC. One of the worst ports ever even after the updates.
Very refreshing platformer, and the shakeup that mario really needed. The challenge courses got really hard but remained fun. Great swan song to mario on the switch
SoulCalibur II
2002
First off, this is one of the funniest fucking games I've ever played. Beating someone within a pixel of death then taking one wrong step and getting blasted out of the ring for it? Getting launched 20 feet into the sky by Taki? Voldo, in general? All comic gold.
As a kid I ate up the Weapon Master mode, which is the best single player campaign I've ever seen in a fighting game to this day. Recently we started running this at my fighting game locals, and it's got as much depth as the best games in the genre. So excited to keep digging into this game and to plumb the depths of its easy-to-learn-lifetime-to-master mechanics.
It's a shame that all the following SC games added universal mechanics that essentially invalidated the unique character traits and turned this into one big RPS. SoulCalibur II stands as the most pure, probably the most well-balanced, definitely the most fun in the whole series.
TLDR: An easy frontrunner for best 3D fighting game ever made.
As a kid I ate up the Weapon Master mode, which is the best single player campaign I've ever seen in a fighting game to this day. Recently we started running this at my fighting game locals, and it's got as much depth as the best games in the genre. So excited to keep digging into this game and to plumb the depths of its easy-to-learn-lifetime-to-master mechanics.
It's a shame that all the following SC games added universal mechanics that essentially invalidated the unique character traits and turned this into one big RPS. SoulCalibur II stands as the most pure, probably the most well-balanced, definitely the most fun in the whole series.
TLDR: An easy frontrunner for best 3D fighting game ever made.
This review contains spoilers
THANK YOU. I love when I play a game and i can tell that the people who made it cared. Its got all of the good things from the first game and more. This is so refreshing afternthe whole soulless mario movie thing. The characters were amazing the story was simple but effective MY GIRL ROSALENA WAS THERE! Its a true delight.
Loop Hero
2021
unique concept. really good for awhile and then it kind of just keeps going on without getting more interesting. kind of a shame. optimized horribly and the slowdown on full maps makes it so much worse