Malevolence
2020
Everything else is great but the skill system is a huge step down from Original Sin 2 in my opinion
This is easily the densest game I've ever played. The amount of content per area is staggering.
2023
Overall good game if a bit overrated; narrative and acting are the strong points here but actual gameplay is nothing impressive imo.
+ I've played Alan Wake and Control and the story in Alan Wake II is more than good enough to make me interested in another sequel.
+ Combat is solid enough and feels good.
+ Impressive acting/voice acting and facial expressions.
- I particularly don't like the way they introduced exploration in the game, it doesn't feel important at all and can be almost completely ignored.
- Looking for lunchboxes and nursery rhymes is boring, feels like they were put there just to make the game seem longer.
- Graphics are great but performance is all over the place. I can run the game fine on pc but fps varies wildly from 40 to 90 depending on the scene. Lowering settings barely makes any difference on fps unless you tank the graphics all the way down with agressive upscaling. Performance is at it's worst in forest environments, which are a huge part of the campaign.
- The constant cheap jump scares are so lame and there are so many of them ALL THE TIME... I really don't understand why they did that. There are so many jump scares that after a few hours they don't even work anymore, I literally don't even blink when screaming faces show up on screen at this point.
+ By the time you finish Alan Wake II you will be immune to jump scares. Seriously.
+ I've played Alan Wake and Control and the story in Alan Wake II is more than good enough to make me interested in another sequel.
+ Combat is solid enough and feels good.
+ Impressive acting/voice acting and facial expressions.
- I particularly don't like the way they introduced exploration in the game, it doesn't feel important at all and can be almost completely ignored.
- Looking for lunchboxes and nursery rhymes is boring, feels like they were put there just to make the game seem longer.
- Graphics are great but performance is all over the place. I can run the game fine on pc but fps varies wildly from 40 to 90 depending on the scene. Lowering settings barely makes any difference on fps unless you tank the graphics all the way down with agressive upscaling. Performance is at it's worst in forest environments, which are a huge part of the campaign.
- The constant cheap jump scares are so lame and there are so many of them ALL THE TIME... I really don't understand why they did that. There are so many jump scares that after a few hours they don't even work anymore, I literally don't even blink when screaming faces show up on screen at this point.
+ By the time you finish Alan Wake II you will be immune to jump scares. Seriously.
The Witcher 3 is a real legend of the industry and an amazing experience. I would definitely recommend it for the story and quest design; those are incredible enough to obfuscate the negatives and for me to give it a high rating. As for game design, The Witcher 3 has many many flaws IMO, so here's a negative review about it, even though I'm still giving it a 4*:
- Extremely slow character progression.
- Maps have an obscene amount of points of interest, which seems great until you realize that 9 out of 10 are worthless and a waste of time.
- Lots of pointless systems that serve the sole purpose of annoying the player, like inventory weight limit and equipment durability. Mods are available to eliminate those.
- 99,9% of the equipment in the game is complete trash, including craftables.
- Absurd amount of crafting components and resources, but i can count on my fingers how many times I've crafted anything in the whole game.
- Prices don't make sense, 53 coins for a piece of bread what the hell is going on
- A level 25 quest made me donate 40 crowns to a poor family to help them survive. A level 26 quest made me pay 50 crowns for "cheap booze" to bait some monster. ??
- Early game quest rewards are a joke, couldn't buy half a cup of ale with one contract's pay.
- Late game quest rewards are huge, and by then, money becomes negligible.
- Terrible combat design.
- Timing and range may differ between melee strikes, and every time you press the button/key, a random attack is unleashed, meaning you never know what your move will be before you attack, just hope that its faster than the enemy's move.
- Blocking is completely useless and blocking a monster attack is actually worse than getting hit, because literally any monster strike will break your posture and leave you stunned like a fool.
- Unbalanced skill trees: melee critical damage is always too strong and makes everything else pointless.
- Signs are mostly useless if you don't build around them and are too weak early on even if you do.
- Alchemy was crap on The Witcher 2 and it's even worse on 3, the skill tree can't sustain itself and there's no real reason to invest points in alchemy buffs instead of damage.
- Potion effects run out too quickly to be useful unless you have invested points in the alchemy skill tree.
- Concoctions are weak, useless, over-detailed, and downright nonviable if you haven't invested points in toxicity.
- Like everything else in the game, bombs have no damage unless you have invested points in the bomb skill tree.
- You have several bombs but can only equip 2 at a time on the quick slots, meaning you have to open your inventory in combat to switch bombs if you want to make use of all of them.
- You have a sh!tload of potions and consumables but can only equip 4 at a time on the quick slots, meaning you need to open your inventory if you want to use potions that are not equipped.
- Oils are essential for combat but, if you want to make use of them, you need to open your inventory and apply oil to your blade EVERY TIME you enter a fight or whenever the blade runs out of oil mid-fight. A mod is available for applying oil automatically.
- Having to pause real time battles to manage inventory is the worst and most anti-immersive thing possible in an action game.
- If you're defeated by guards, ALL OF YOUR MONEY gets confiscated; or sometimes they'll randomly leave a few pennies; anyway, you're immediately bankrupt; what the hell kinda penalty is that? Obviously you'll reload your previous save file because no one is gonna just accept that.
- Health regeneration penalty on Blood and Broken Bones (hard) difficulty is too heavy on early game when you can't pay for food but becomes negligible once you have a swallow potion and enough alcohol to refill it whenever you want.
- Legendary witcher jumps from 4 meters high and dies.
- Extremely slow character progression.
- Maps have an obscene amount of points of interest, which seems great until you realize that 9 out of 10 are worthless and a waste of time.
- Lots of pointless systems that serve the sole purpose of annoying the player, like inventory weight limit and equipment durability. Mods are available to eliminate those.
- 99,9% of the equipment in the game is complete trash, including craftables.
- Absurd amount of crafting components and resources, but i can count on my fingers how many times I've crafted anything in the whole game.
- Prices don't make sense, 53 coins for a piece of bread what the hell is going on
- A level 25 quest made me donate 40 crowns to a poor family to help them survive. A level 26 quest made me pay 50 crowns for "cheap booze" to bait some monster. ??
- Early game quest rewards are a joke, couldn't buy half a cup of ale with one contract's pay.
- Late game quest rewards are huge, and by then, money becomes negligible.
- Terrible combat design.
- Timing and range may differ between melee strikes, and every time you press the button/key, a random attack is unleashed, meaning you never know what your move will be before you attack, just hope that its faster than the enemy's move.
- Blocking is completely useless and blocking a monster attack is actually worse than getting hit, because literally any monster strike will break your posture and leave you stunned like a fool.
- Unbalanced skill trees: melee critical damage is always too strong and makes everything else pointless.
- Signs are mostly useless if you don't build around them and are too weak early on even if you do.
- Alchemy was crap on The Witcher 2 and it's even worse on 3, the skill tree can't sustain itself and there's no real reason to invest points in alchemy buffs instead of damage.
- Potion effects run out too quickly to be useful unless you have invested points in the alchemy skill tree.
- Concoctions are weak, useless, over-detailed, and downright nonviable if you haven't invested points in toxicity.
- Like everything else in the game, bombs have no damage unless you have invested points in the bomb skill tree.
- You have several bombs but can only equip 2 at a time on the quick slots, meaning you have to open your inventory in combat to switch bombs if you want to make use of all of them.
- You have a sh!tload of potions and consumables but can only equip 4 at a time on the quick slots, meaning you need to open your inventory if you want to use potions that are not equipped.
- Oils are essential for combat but, if you want to make use of them, you need to open your inventory and apply oil to your blade EVERY TIME you enter a fight or whenever the blade runs out of oil mid-fight. A mod is available for applying oil automatically.
- Having to pause real time battles to manage inventory is the worst and most anti-immersive thing possible in an action game.
- If you're defeated by guards, ALL OF YOUR MONEY gets confiscated; or sometimes they'll randomly leave a few pennies; anyway, you're immediately bankrupt; what the hell kinda penalty is that? Obviously you'll reload your previous save file because no one is gonna just accept that.
- Health regeneration penalty on Blood and Broken Bones (hard) difficulty is too heavy on early game when you can't pay for food but becomes negligible once you have a swallow potion and enough alcohol to refill it whenever you want.
- Legendary witcher jumps from 4 meters high and dies.
2023
It's 2023 and they're still making us follow NPCs that move faster than our walk speed but slower than our run speed.
Pros
+ Amazing quest design. Bethesda really can't mess this up.
Cons
- Bad optimization.
- Both space and land combat are mediocre.
- Boring skill tree.
- The space setting seems irrelevant when I just fast travel everywhere and see no reason to do otherwise.
- Boring and unrewarding exploration.
- I will never understand why Bethesda keeps filling their levels with so much collectable trash.
- Way too many non-essential systems that are annoying, cumbersome, time-consuming and unexplained, that just divert your attention from what matters in the game: quests.
- Having to pick up and manage resources is a chore.
- If I wanted to build stuff I would go and play Minecraft. I wish devs would let go of this base-building crap in games that don't need it.
I'm really sad because the quests are damn great but I can't stand everything else.
Pros
+ Amazing quest design. Bethesda really can't mess this up.
Cons
- Bad optimization.
- Both space and land combat are mediocre.
- Boring skill tree.
- The space setting seems irrelevant when I just fast travel everywhere and see no reason to do otherwise.
- Boring and unrewarding exploration.
- I will never understand why Bethesda keeps filling their levels with so much collectable trash.
- Way too many non-essential systems that are annoying, cumbersome, time-consuming and unexplained, that just divert your attention from what matters in the game: quests.
- Having to pick up and manage resources is a chore.
- If I wanted to build stuff I would go and play Minecraft. I wish devs would let go of this base-building crap in games that don't need it.
I'm really sad because the quests are damn great but I can't stand everything else.
2012
Insane game, the fights are a real spectacle. A must-play for anyone who likes shonen anime.
Amazing original RPG, ahead of its time. Bitterblack Island was a great addition too. Can't wait to see the improvements on the sequel.
2012
RE6 is great as long as you can accept that it's an action game and not a survivor horror by any means. It would probably be much better rated if it was the exact same game under a new IP instead of a Resident Evil installment. Same goes for RE5.
Still the best Need For Speed of all time, only Heat comes close.
Objectively speaking, I wouldn't say this game is a 10; it has flaws: the combat lacks a bit more complexity and the level design is really basic and repetitive, there's not much challenge as long as you level up enough and the game makes you walk a lot, which is boring.
My rating is a subjective one. This is one of my favorite games of all time. It's very unique and it just got me hooked in a way that few other titles could. The characters are really memorable, I love the story and it got me very emotionally engaged and thrilled. Combat is really fun, though it could have a little more mobility and variety. The audiovisual feedback from connecting hits and skills feels very satisfying to me, and winning battles that had a stake on the story felt meaningful. Outside the main questline, I also felt motivated to grind for better weapons and skills. The desktop system and the game setting as a whole are incredibly immersive imo. I usually don't like reading non-essential stuff inside any game but, in this case, exploring the lore was very engaging, especially in the forum system.
I think the biggest reason why I find this game so good and immersive is that everything you do feels deeply connected to the story. Gameplay and progression feels meaningful because every step you take brings Haseo closer to his goals; even just grinding levels is an essential part of his journey to get his former power back. Nothing feels like a waste of time in this game. It's an amazing experience if you let yourself get immersed in The World.
My rating is a subjective one. This is one of my favorite games of all time. It's very unique and it just got me hooked in a way that few other titles could. The characters are really memorable, I love the story and it got me very emotionally engaged and thrilled. Combat is really fun, though it could have a little more mobility and variety. The audiovisual feedback from connecting hits and skills feels very satisfying to me, and winning battles that had a stake on the story felt meaningful. Outside the main questline, I also felt motivated to grind for better weapons and skills. The desktop system and the game setting as a whole are incredibly immersive imo. I usually don't like reading non-essential stuff inside any game but, in this case, exploring the lore was very engaging, especially in the forum system.
I think the biggest reason why I find this game so good and immersive is that everything you do feels deeply connected to the story. Gameplay and progression feels meaningful because every step you take brings Haseo closer to his goals; even just grinding levels is an essential part of his journey to get his former power back. Nothing feels like a waste of time in this game. It's an amazing experience if you let yourself get immersed in The World.
A brilliant game that took risks with novel ideas that ultimately paid off. It rewards smart and stealthy gameplay and it's incredibly immersive and fun even in the slow paced sections of the campaign. Absolutely unforgettable experience.
2005
Timeless masterpiece.
Maybe I'm just not experienced enough with the genre, but every little thing in this game is unnecessarily complex imo. There are way too many rules involved with every single action, which makes you spend too much time learning/analyzing/planning in a game that's already slow paced. Maybe if I kept pushing on I would get used to the mechanics and systems but it's just not fun having so many rules getting in the way of you actually playing the game.