Poppi
It's not on the same level as the first two. It's very grindy and based around procedural generation to find the things you need to fill out a Log and Mystery Tiles. It's got a lot of poorly laid out design elements and frustrating decisions...however I am still enjoying myself a lot?
It might be my love of Marine Biology but exploring with my friends is really fun even 15 hours in, filling out the logs together and progressing has just been chill. You'll load into a map not knowing what to expect and find Dinosaurs or super deep Abyss zones with so many cool creatures (Not sure why there are no Jellyfish or Octopodes but...sure).
Story mode is ass though, its basically 30 seconds to 2 minutes of a basic mechanic with a cutscene or sometimes just the cutscene and then you're back to the menu. I can't do the last Story mode mission without filling out the Board though so I guess we'll see what happens there.
Otherwise if you just want a kinda fun Marine exploration game to play with someone or even by yourself, it's not half bad.
It might be my love of Marine Biology but exploring with my friends is really fun even 15 hours in, filling out the logs together and progressing has just been chill. You'll load into a map not knowing what to expect and find Dinosaurs or super deep Abyss zones with so many cool creatures (Not sure why there are no Jellyfish or Octopodes but...sure).
Story mode is ass though, its basically 30 seconds to 2 minutes of a basic mechanic with a cutscene or sometimes just the cutscene and then you're back to the menu. I can't do the last Story mode mission without filling out the Board though so I guess we'll see what happens there.
Otherwise if you just want a kinda fun Marine exploration game to play with someone or even by yourself, it's not half bad.
2016
This is the best MH clone that you can play.
We're only a little bit into this season but it's pretty bad. The new items are kinda meh and the loot pool sucks ass.
The new Areas are interesting but every other area has basically been reduced to nothing because all of the bosses and vaults have been removed. As a result over half of the map is a bunch of shitty boring mansions with very little variety. That was a huge problem last season but at least the vaults made them slightly interesting. Now it's just terrible.
Talking about the Loot pool again, the weapons they kept overshadow a lot of the new weapons. The Gatekeeper shotgun is really fun when used well but other than that, most of the weapons are either just carried over or pretty fucking bad. The Sniper is a pointless weapon since the DMR exists and the new Olympian items are weirdly balanced. The wings are cool at first but they just make you a BIG target, the Lightning Bolts are overpowered and way too dangerous, the Chain of Hades is awful.
We're about to get the Avatar crossover and I just don't care. I usually would but It means I have to play this season to experience it.
All I'm doing is AFKing Lego FN to get EXP so I can finish the BP and not worry about playing it.
Also as a side note, all the Skins in the BP are absolute piss compared to their concept art. FN has this nasty habit of ruining the designs of all their art over the last year and I'm pretty tired of it.
The new Areas are interesting but every other area has basically been reduced to nothing because all of the bosses and vaults have been removed. As a result over half of the map is a bunch of shitty boring mansions with very little variety. That was a huge problem last season but at least the vaults made them slightly interesting. Now it's just terrible.
Talking about the Loot pool again, the weapons they kept overshadow a lot of the new weapons. The Gatekeeper shotgun is really fun when used well but other than that, most of the weapons are either just carried over or pretty fucking bad. The Sniper is a pointless weapon since the DMR exists and the new Olympian items are weirdly balanced. The wings are cool at first but they just make you a BIG target, the Lightning Bolts are overpowered and way too dangerous, the Chain of Hades is awful.
We're about to get the Avatar crossover and I just don't care. I usually would but It means I have to play this season to experience it.
All I'm doing is AFKing Lego FN to get EXP so I can finish the BP and not worry about playing it.
Also as a side note, all the Skins in the BP are absolute piss compared to their concept art. FN has this nasty habit of ruining the designs of all their art over the last year and I'm pretty tired of it.
2024
It's ...alright. It's got smooth and fun gameplay and feels good to play overall, but it kinda gets very repetitive. I feel the Drill based gameplay never evolves in new ways enough to keep it fresh. Stuff like the grapple hook feels underused and some mechanics like the gun feel very meh overall. The bosses range from pretty fun to very annoying.
The enemies have ass hitboxes though, I feel like sometimes you get hit by something you wouldn't get hit by any other time you play.
It's a very short game but I've never really felt that's a problem if its replayable and I think it has that going for it overall.
Still it's a good time to be had, just kinda forgettable.
The enemies have ass hitboxes though, I feel like sometimes you get hit by something you wouldn't get hit by any other time you play.
It's a very short game but I've never really felt that's a problem if its replayable and I think it has that going for it overall.
Still it's a good time to be had, just kinda forgettable.
2024
This review contains spoilers
What a fucking DOWNGRADE? The combat has improved a decent amount and the world is much more fun to explore but that's really as far as the pros go for me.
Overall the enemy variety is abysmal and even when you get into the postgame it barely changes. Monsters from DD1 are just completely missing such as the Hydra, Cockatrice and the Evil Eye. New enemies are mostly just the absolute worst to fight, especially the Dullahan. Encounter rates are also terrible, you're fighting goblins or harpies every 4 steps and they aren't even tough fights, they just take up time.
The story overall is fucking awful, it feels like nothing has happened and then boom you're at the ending. It's such a big load of nothing with very little going for it.
Most "Setpieces" function very poorly and aren't as big and cool as they wanted them to be. The Gigantus is a major one where you have to stop it by destroying all the crystals on its body. Problem is the climbing in this game is absolute dogshit compared to 1 and if you're any class that isn't thief, climbing it is a nightmare. It also just keeps walking once you destroy all the bits and you're just meant to wait without it being conveyed to you.
That's what half this game is, things happen without information being conveyed to you properly.
Speaking of classes, don't pick any class except Thief, It's not worth it. Thief does insane damage output and solos the entire game. Every other class gets absolutely fucked over in every department.
The Pawn system is somehow worse? They never do anything they're told to do. You'll be scrambling around on the floor or staggered, getting eviscerated by an enemy and they'll just stand there casting heal or ignoring you. They run off to fight enemies you have no interest in fighting every two seconds, they fall off cliffs and just disappear needing to be summoned again. They never shut the fuck up about running places. Honestly, just terrible.
Traversal is also absolute ass. At first I didn't mind walking everywhere. It's fun to explore and find new things....but only for so long. Fast travel is limited to a very expensive and rare resource (or you can spend real money, thanks capcom!) and while I don't mind that at first, it gets absolutely tedious when you're spending 90% retreading the same paths over and over. Ox Carts are another way to get around but most of the time you're spending money to wake up mid ride with the cart being demolished by a monster and having to walk the rest of the way. The Developer has said "If you make exploring fun, there's no need for fast travel" well you fucked up making exploring fun, the rewards for 90% of exploring are terrible.
I wanna talk about the post game or rather...the real game. When you get the "true ending" (Which without really looking it up or asking someone you probably wont get) you are taken to the Unmoored World and the games title screen changes to "Dragons Dogma 2" which while kinda neat feels like this is the real game. It's the original map completely demolished with insanely OP enemies everywhere. It's pretty neat at first...until you realise you have not only one life to beat the entire area, but also if you rest too many times you will end the game and be forced into NG+. This essentially limits your exploration time in this world massively and makes it feel more like a chore you're speeding through to avoid taking too much damage to need to rest. It's honestly a terrible concept and just takes all the fun out of the game for me.
Overall the game is very interesting and can be pretty fun in places, but that fun is soon overshadowed by repetitive nonsense, abysmal writing, poor game direction and poor cohesive instruction to inform the player of things happening.
Also the Dragons Plague being a mechanic is terrible, whoever thought it was a good idea to make your own party able to wipe out entire towns is an asshole.
Overall the enemy variety is abysmal and even when you get into the postgame it barely changes. Monsters from DD1 are just completely missing such as the Hydra, Cockatrice and the Evil Eye. New enemies are mostly just the absolute worst to fight, especially the Dullahan. Encounter rates are also terrible, you're fighting goblins or harpies every 4 steps and they aren't even tough fights, they just take up time.
The story overall is fucking awful, it feels like nothing has happened and then boom you're at the ending. It's such a big load of nothing with very little going for it.
Most "Setpieces" function very poorly and aren't as big and cool as they wanted them to be. The Gigantus is a major one where you have to stop it by destroying all the crystals on its body. Problem is the climbing in this game is absolute dogshit compared to 1 and if you're any class that isn't thief, climbing it is a nightmare. It also just keeps walking once you destroy all the bits and you're just meant to wait without it being conveyed to you.
That's what half this game is, things happen without information being conveyed to you properly.
Speaking of classes, don't pick any class except Thief, It's not worth it. Thief does insane damage output and solos the entire game. Every other class gets absolutely fucked over in every department.
The Pawn system is somehow worse? They never do anything they're told to do. You'll be scrambling around on the floor or staggered, getting eviscerated by an enemy and they'll just stand there casting heal or ignoring you. They run off to fight enemies you have no interest in fighting every two seconds, they fall off cliffs and just disappear needing to be summoned again. They never shut the fuck up about running places. Honestly, just terrible.
Traversal is also absolute ass. At first I didn't mind walking everywhere. It's fun to explore and find new things....but only for so long. Fast travel is limited to a very expensive and rare resource (or you can spend real money, thanks capcom!) and while I don't mind that at first, it gets absolutely tedious when you're spending 90% retreading the same paths over and over. Ox Carts are another way to get around but most of the time you're spending money to wake up mid ride with the cart being demolished by a monster and having to walk the rest of the way. The Developer has said "If you make exploring fun, there's no need for fast travel" well you fucked up making exploring fun, the rewards for 90% of exploring are terrible.
I wanna talk about the post game or rather...the real game. When you get the "true ending" (Which without really looking it up or asking someone you probably wont get) you are taken to the Unmoored World and the games title screen changes to "Dragons Dogma 2" which while kinda neat feels like this is the real game. It's the original map completely demolished with insanely OP enemies everywhere. It's pretty neat at first...until you realise you have not only one life to beat the entire area, but also if you rest too many times you will end the game and be forced into NG+. This essentially limits your exploration time in this world massively and makes it feel more like a chore you're speeding through to avoid taking too much damage to need to rest. It's honestly a terrible concept and just takes all the fun out of the game for me.
Overall the game is very interesting and can be pretty fun in places, but that fun is soon overshadowed by repetitive nonsense, abysmal writing, poor game direction and poor cohesive instruction to inform the player of things happening.
Also the Dragons Plague being a mechanic is terrible, whoever thought it was a good idea to make your own party able to wipe out entire towns is an asshole.
This season is alright. It started off pretty buggy but it's got some cool shit. The battle pass is alright with some fun characters. My main gripe with the map is almost every POI is a mansion or the exact same buildings everywhere else on the map. It's probably the most boring set of POI's we've ever had. The fact they nerfed sprint so hard and the storm moved at insane speeds was the worst, they kinda fixed that though. The train is a really fucking cool addition though and the medallions are a fun idea. I still am baffled at the state it was left in over the holidays though.
This is the worst season ngl. Absolute dogshit map with barely anything on it. Visually ugly as shit. One of the weakest battle passes in the entire series. Finished all off by a giant event that thousands of people couldn't get into that they had to repeat 3 times. This sucked.
It was alright. I liked the mini heists in each era and the new POI's were kinda cool. The battle pass was...kinda the worst one we've had in ages.
This season was ass. The Jungle was gigantic and so samey all the way through. The BP isn't very interesting and the Boomerang is awful.
The katana is cool as fuck and Highwire is a neat skin. Mega City kinda blows? It's not really that big and most of the buildings are two floors...the bottom and the top. I wish it was more fleshed out.
2022
The new map was pretty good and the hammer was so much fun. However there wasn't a lot to this season outside of that. Still okay though.
The chrome was kinda cool but it made the map really ugly. The Herald was an okay boss.
Meow Skulls on the battle pass saved it for me.
Meow Skulls on the battle pass saved it for me.
This was my first season. I joined really late I know. It was pretty damn fun, I loved the map and the loot pool. Evie is one of my fav characters to use. Long live the Rave Cave.
It's been lovingly remastered and rebuilt in an entirely new engine. The visuals are gorgeous and it keeps all the extra content (even finishing some for TR3 that never came out).
Modern controls are ass tho. Back or slide flipping are limited to the guns being out and it just doesn't work. The free camera also breaks endlessly to the point where it's impossible to see.
I'd also say that the remastered visuals make some pickups almost impossible to see.
Other than that, pretty damn good.
Modern controls are ass tho. Back or slide flipping are limited to the guns being out and it just doesn't work. The free camera also breaks endlessly to the point where it's impossible to see.
I'd also say that the remastered visuals make some pickups almost impossible to see.
Other than that, pretty damn good.
An amazingly fun platformer with incredible movement tech. The visuals are super charming and the music is really damn good. The bosses are....very buggy and not that great and there's a good few platforming bugs too. But a few patches could probably fix those up easily. It can be a bit easy to overshoot your jumps due to the way the game controls but once you get movement down it becomes a real joy to power through levels with it. The levels differentiate themselves enough but the layouts can still look very similar.
Overall a great experience with some small letdowns, but I honestly want to see more of this.
Overall a great experience with some small letdowns, but I honestly want to see more of this.