I dunno man this shit is rough. I am 6 hours in and there is one attack and bosses die in less than 10 hits. I didn't grind for at all, and yet I seem to one shot everything. The story is extremely primitive and yet totally fails to be charming (compared to say, the early DQs). I was prompted to drop this when I genuinely dozed off mid combat. I may be an extremely biased turn based apologist, but this is infinitely more boring than giving commands.

This is the second time I put off a Mana game for simply being boring and seemingly directionless. Maybe it's just not for me. Or maybe I'm objectively right and everyone who disagrees is wrong. Only time will tell.

Hm....
Personally, I think games should be more obtuse.
I mean this genuinely.

I didn't press F1 until hour 10 and realize that I can use skills on things. This was awesome.
That item on the ground? Personally I don't want it to be distinguishable from the background to any degree.
A timer marking my imminent loss causing anxiety anytime I waste time? This is awesome. Your daughter is kidnapped? Sorry bro - I got shit to do.
Peak obtuseness was me realizing that reading a book and failing a repair passed like 12 hours of time. At this point the radx I took started to wear off (the radiation system is also obtuse and awesome), and my character casually remarks that their hair is falling out and their body is hemorrhaging.

I go back to a certain area after a certain amount of time passes... OOPS! Gorsh, golly!
>I beat the game but I took a little bit too long
A GA A HORSH
You specced 1 intelligence and 1 agility ? ? That's real.

Half the settlements don't know a single thing about each other, aside from traders. This weird separation combines with how desolate the wasteland actually is, is super good.
My favorite example of this is every settlement acting like you're an insane child for believing in Deathclaws. Meanwhile, in a certain settlement, the citizens are like "Deathclaws? points they're over there. We can't go over there any more because of thems. We hired guards to stop them from MAIMING us"

Ok final thought - the Mutant threat? Awesome. Mutants one hit killing me? Awesome. A mutant escorting me to an end game location, only to either have me instant game over or beat me within an inch of my life, lock me up, and take all my items? These things are awesome. Didn't save recently? you're an imbecile.

teleports into Todd Howards home
Can I get more of this?
The gunplay in fallout 4 was awesome ........ BUT STOP!!! KNOCK IT OFF. no more speaking protgagnoinst.. Givem e .. world record for dialogue in gaming! spits at mr Howie NO MORE 4 CHOICES THAT ARE THE SAME?!? HAD TO MOD THAT OUT BRO!!!! Borderlandas looting ???? BLEEDING EFFECT ON MY GUN ; RNG DEATHCLAW ALPHA NUMERICAL DEAATHCLAW MOTHER +6,000XP holding bleeding sledgehammer and raider left arm? NO! Starfield ELDERS SCORL??? QUIT IT NO gets strappedi nto the sl;op feeding machine



NO * * NO

Small town. A few brahmin herds, and a single watering hole. I step into the musty saloon. A local girl slithers up to me, complaining about her quiet farm life. She tells me about a local Vault - Vault 15. She mentions it by name. I press the "ask about" button and ask her about Vault 15. "Never heard of it" she says. I try to ask her about anything else whatsoever. She's never heard of anything. Alright. Keep your secrets honey... I tell the local gay man, Ian, he will get paid if he follows me forever until his eventual inevitable death. He agrees immediately and eagerly, because I am very "good at speaking".

We wander to the Vault that doesn't exist. We wander back, because we forgot to bring 50 ropes. We try again - the dungeon takes 10 minutes and nothing happens. A weapon is hidden in the bathroom smeared by 10 layers of poop, piss, pixels and blood. We find what we came here for (it's nothing), and go back to town. "Noo you gotta save my girl she's gonna get boiled in shit". I find the raider camp - I tell them I will fuck their mom. They let the girl go for some reason.

8 hours later my dog and all 3 of my friends I tricked in the same way as Ian the Twunk die in a single dungeon because they won't wear any clothes thicker than a dress shirt. It's a Mad Max reference or something. The travel time on the overworld gives me time to think. I think about the giant, barren wasteland. I think about how far and dangerous there is between settlements. I think about how no one has grabbed a broom in 100 years. I think about telling murder mutants where my family lives. I don't know what my meds do and I'm not sure how to find out. I found a backpack in this videogame that I simply couldn't figure out how to use - What? I think about why I have 4 CHA instead of 1. I think about the 2 hours I spent getting this game to run on a modern PC and a 4K monitor. I think about so far only having found one character that allows me to sex and cum in the entirety of California. It's lonely out here. Many games would throw sex and cum at me. Fallout? In Fallout it's about the lack thereof.

Eventually my player character completes their quests and drowns in an ocean of jank - jank that would later continue on through an entire genre shift, a new company, several new engines and somehow be recognizable still as the same old jank. After being stuck for half an hour I had to google an alternate solution for one of the final dungeons because it bugged out on me. Luckily there was one, because many quests don't have that kind of privilege. Some bugs in this game somehow persist in Todd Howards' Starfield. No one knows how. It's beautiful in a sense. A red string of jank.

This game is unfinished - like half the quests have cut content and an entire act of the game got left on the floor. It's a good basis. I hope the sequel will use it well. I hope someone mods it for Steam Deck controls.

I would rate this game lower because of some of the art looking a little crusty and the abrupt ending that the average player is likely to get, as well as how poorly explained many of the plot points are, but I'm a big fan of the branching story tree and the fact that it has full voice acting, which is an insane ask for any VN, let alone a fairly niche unknown name like this.

it's creepy and mysterious at times, but does start to buckle under the weight of its story and the choices of its seven(!!!) protagonists towards the end

uno N-bomb @ 3:17

terrible thought: the lower class we had been demeaning (vita players) might have been on the right side of history

its 2d air juggle combo game with lite-ivalice art, lite-ivalice story, real-ivalice music - how could i be honestly mad at all

the only things i can really complain about is its small scope, quite a bit of repeating levels and some slow menus, but generally i am cumming . i am comboing and i am cumming. i am doing a cumbo

You see these type of “spot the difference” games dont work when sasuga unreal engine farts out visual and audio glitches onto my screen. “Has this room always been this bright? Has the rolling trolley always been silent?” Well these are going to be the most subtle anomalies you’ll come across, and they’re not even intentional. Also thanks for a ‘game over screen’ that is functionally identical to just failing the loop?
Idk, it’s not as bad as my review makes it out to be, but I cant type without sounding mad after playing an unreal engine game.
P.S. the unreal engine info’s source is that i made it the fuck up