A series that I always wished to get into, after my initial 25h playthrough, the last time I tried to play DD1 was right after a date was announced for DD2, and when I inevitably dropped the prequel again, needless to say, I was not holding my breath for the sequel.
Still, I came across the advertising on socials and could see the huge hype the community had for it, and when the Character Creator Demo was released, I obviously had to try and make my beloved characters.
Regardless of my history with the series, this sparked my interest, but what really put the nail in the coffin was the gameranx Before You Buy video, where he compared exploring in DD2 to Elden Ring.

The Dogma

The story revolves around the main character, the Arisen, chosen directly by the Dragon who steals its heart binding the two together.
The Arisen has then the objective to become inhumanly powerful to challenge the Dragon, win its heart back, and save the world, with the help of human-looking immortal otherworldly beings known as pawns, that respond exclusively to the Arisen.
As long as the dragon lives, the Arisen cannot die.
The main pawn of the Arisen can be created freely, while the other two can be hired to have a group of four. The Arisen is not a one-man army and requires the support of a well-made team of pawns to succeed.
In the setting of DD2, Arisens are now by default the king of the city of Venworth, yet our journey begins as slaves, after having lost our memory.
That being said, the story of the game is not the primary focus and has low roleplayability when it comes to choice-making. The subplots especially in the second half, leave a lot to desire. The "bigger picture" of the world does the heavy lifting, being the more interesting part.

A world worth exploring

What DD2 does amazingly, is feel like a breathing world with a plethora of NPCs that can give quests, often responding to our actions.
The Vermundian Forest and the Batthali Desert are the 2 biomes available with cities and occasional new structures or areas in some specific parts of the map.
Besides fighting, questing, and the 240 collectibles around the map, caves/dungeons are one of the few activities available in the open world. These can be as small as a few rooms, to medium-sized, but usually share the same style and design.

The enemies' variety, although fun to fight against, is almost identical to DD1, making it blatant that, ignoring re-skinned variants, there are roughly 20 enemy types in total, including bosses. This lack of variety is extended to loot, with some chests rewarding equipment, but many offering consumables.
All this is somewhat aggravated by the constant barrage of enemies the player has to fight, to the point of making one of the alternatives to foot travel, hard to use.
The first time I took one of the carts that go by the main roads I wanted to sit and enjoy the whole trip, instead of taking a nap. We were attacked 5 times back to back and the cart was destroyed for taking too much damage.
Moreover, these carts although not supposed to travel by night in the lore, some travels are so long that if awoken, it'll be night. A simple fix for an immersion-breaking mistake.

Like in the aforementioned example, the beautiful and dynamic world of DD2 does not communicate to the player its lore with its design, enemy placement, or loot. There is often no special reason behind why a certain group of enemies is there, or why that greatsword was in that cave, instead, the world is simply where everything happens.

One of the design points that is both controversial and well-known in the series, is that fast travel is not easily accessible, by design. The creator believes that fast travel is a crutch for a bad world design and that it's a reflection of a boring world.
I could not disagree more.
While yes, fast travel can be a crutch to a less interesting world design, providing that commodity does not make the world less interesting by default.
Forcing the player to walk everywhere and constantly fight enemies didn't incentivize me to explore every corner, just like Elden Ring's fast travel did not deter me from it.
Where in Elden Ring I found myself going from A to B, having as the incentive the much more varied world, loot, enemies, etc. in between, in DD2, it's how dynamic the experience of going toward B that motivated me, because what happens during the travel often counts more than the destination.

Interactivity beast

This game shines in its combat system and the interactivity that it offers. Vocations, or classes, can be changed on a whim at no cost and completely change the fighting approach complimented by amazing animations.
Vocations have their own weapon, with a starting moveset just as complex as any From Software game. These level up only when using them, and unlock both core abilities, active abilities - basically 4 additional weapon skills, and passive abilities - that can be used on any vocation.

I started the game as a fighter using a sword and shield and later moved to the warrior with a two-handed greatsword. By the time I unlocked the magic warrior with a twin spear, my mind was set to only level up the vocations that I was interested in. When I noticed that my main pawn as an archer had unlocked a passive to deal more damage to weak points, I changed my mind and decided to level all of them.
One of the core abilities of a fighter is to absorb fall damage by landing on the shield. Right after changing back to this vocation a griffin attacked near the town's exit, and during the fight tried to fly away while I was on its back. I proceeded to attack it until we both fell from the sky, but the griffin being bigger fell faster, so with my death impending, I remembered I could land on my shield to hopefully dampen my fall, which was funnily right on its head, dealing a lot of damage.
Another highlight was how at some point I was exploring a part of the map and noticed that where I wanted to go was inaccessible to me because of a high cliff. From the near high ground, I then noticed a cyclop was sleeping not too far from the edge of the cliff. Since I was playing archer, I hit it at a distance to lure it closer, and once weakened it, pushed it against the wall of the cliff, climbed on its back, and used its height as a way to reach the top of this cliff.

All these interactions happened not because they were scripted but simply because different systems in the game worked together. If you think you can do it, you likely can, and that's the real magic of this game.

Micro optimization

A lot of rightful noise was made at the game's release because of microtransactions and PC performances, and don't get me wrong, I denounce both.
Not to be devil's advocate, but when it comes to microtransactions, while it's disgusting they included them, it is of the lesser ugly of sorts, with items that are easily accessible and available in-game. Even rift crystals used to hire pawns are readily available, and useless since hiring current-level pawns is free.
Just like for other recent Capcom releases, it's mostly a scam to less savvy players.
Stunning as it might be, the PC port runs poorly and even with my hardware, I had to fall back on DLSS Frame Generation to have a stable frame time inside the city and avoid VRR flicker. The game's graphic options do little to nothing for performance gains, with a major visual impact.

"2"

For a sequel, the title builds on the already solid gameplay base of DD1 and adds some, resulting in a magical gaming experience that I won't forget and motivates me to play the prequel and to keep playing. Although flawed, the game stands as a unique experience; one that I strongly suggest.

9.8/10

The final expansion of FF:XVI, this DLC brings the player to the north of Valisthea in search of the lost Leviathan dominant.
The DLC is set in a completely new map that brings out the worst of PS5, with a density of vegetation and detail so high the drops in framerate were never more noticeable, but, that said, was stunning to look at and never suffered during fights as it was common for FF:XVI already.
Two new ability trees are added and both have class actions and abilities that I both mastered and made part of my final loadout because of how fun they are. The level cap has also been removed and raised to 100, but in my time I barely made 2 levels, not sure how long it would take to grind to 100.
Compared to the previous DLC this adds a lot more lore and information about the world and overall felt like a worthy experience for both the asking price and the time investment.
Lastly, the game adds an endgame "roguelike" activity of 20 levels, with gauntlets of enemies and bosses, rewarding the player on each level with currency for the mode, and often items that can be used in normal play including a few new weapons, although they are mainly reskins of the same one for each element from what I've seen.
Allegedly there is a secret boss when completing all the levels on Final Fantasy difficulty, but as much as I might love this game, I don't love it as much as to put myself through that.
Overall I had a lot of fun on the DLC and it brought back interest in the game, but I must say especially for the final story boss fight the DPS check was quite punitive and very demanding, but still not a deal breaker.
Strongly suggested, although part of me wished even more I had waited for the PC version of the game just to enjoy this at a better performance.

I'm now a long-time fan of From Software's work, but a newcomer to the Armored Core series. Nonetheless, when I finally saw the 6th installment being announced after just as many years of rumors as Bloodborne's remasters, I could not wait to jump into it. Knowing that I am not generally a fan of any big mechs media and especially videogames - besides Evangelion - I still embarked on it regardless solely because of From Software's pedigree.

Not an old engine, just slow adoption.

Armored Core VI, just like Sekiro and Elden Ring runs on the in-house engine of From Software, not Pyre as many still think to this date. An engine that wasn't failing the test of time yet, unlike Bethesda's Creation Engine; with Elden Ring, though, debates and doubts did spark. The biggest offender was the forced lock at 60fps on an engine modders have been unlocking days after release, consistently. This is a hindrance only to the longevity and futureproofing of the title, especially when hardware becomes more powerful and inevitably newer heavier games become lighter and more performant.
At the time, the promise and consequent addition of ray tracing to the game had kindled hope in me that it was not a problem with the engine at all, but Armored Core took those cinders and made them burn, removing that doubt completely.
The game has 120fps lock and ray-tracing - the latter just in the garage - at lunch.
Sadly, the anti-aliasing remains not necessarily the strongest option on the market and I strongly hope soon they'll start implementing FSR and DLAA in their titles, but, it's not unserviceable.
The options I was perplexed about and removed immediately were the Depth of Field and Motion Blur combo, which added this weird blurry effect at the edges of the camera and on distant objects. Still, it is possible to turn it off, so no complaints there.
Graphically the game is stunning, performance are great, solid, and stable which is what such a fast-paced game needs.
I was happy to finally see a photo mode that could make the inner photographer in me rejoice in being able to take stunning, planned, HUD-less screenshots in these games, and that made me even more hopeful that with Shadow of the Erdtree we might also hopefully - please, please, please - get it in Elden Ring alongside the 120fps lock option!

Raven's wings of freedom.

The game's story follows your character, 621, call name Raven. You're a fourth-generation augmented human - of which currently there are ten generations in total to my understanding - capable of controlling the giant mechs known as Armored Core.
The augmentation is performed using Coral; think of it as a very flammable fuel capable of reproducing itself that can apparently be used as a drug, gas, and it can also control wave properties, digital and electronic equipment, etc. but deadly during extended contact with humans.
Coral is very important to the various corporations who fight for it, but at the same time need to control it to avoid a rendition of the Fires of Ibis. The Fires of Ibis was a previous cataclysm where the coral, again, very flammable, took fire starting from Rubicon 3 and killed countless people and burned away the majority of life in this solar system, as well as destroying technology and infrastructure, wiping out all of the system's civilization. A fire so hot it would burn the very stars.
Back to 621, we work under Handler Walker, who'll guide us through the basics and provide us with missions for us to complete as a freelancer.
Honestly, the mobility of the mech, the inertia, the weight of your actions, and the amazing scale of the world around you are enough of a reason for you to purchase this game alone because they did a wonderful job!
Missions are not too long, often being just the right length around 20-30m, if not shorter, besides some selected story missions. Each mission will then have a payment reward, from which costs are reduced, and with the rewarded credits, you can buy more parts to change your mech up.
It's possible to pause the game at any time, and on death, there's the option to restart from checkpoints that are automatically made during missions. It is even possible to change which parts your mech has equipped - but not buy new ones - without ever leaving the mission and losing your progress.
The game, like Nier: Automata, features multiple endings achievable through multiple playthroughs and different choices in New Game +, which - another big shocker - does not increase difficulty. So playing the game over and over is a playground for you to use more and more stuff and builds to face your threats.
This is on top of mission replayability to get better scores in them, secret caches with new parts around the maps, enemies hidden with logs, lore documents, etc. There is a lot to do!
When it comes to Arenas, there are PVP rooms available where you can fight other players - up to 6v6 I think - and there is also an offline virtual ranked Arena where you can fight ACs of other pilots you meet in the game, which will unlock some more weapons, and customization options. Speaking of which.

Exploration is customization.

One thing that I did wrong in this game was entering with the idea exploration was key, or so I thought. Exploration is key, but whereas in a Souls/RPG you'll be exploring your surroundings, the world, and what you find in it, here, you need to explore different builds, from the get-go. This took me so out of my element, especially with the steep learning curve, that I am thankful I had purchased the game and made a commitment to it because it gave me the strive to keep hitting my head against the wall until making new builds and trying new approaches became the default. It brought back memories of my early days playing Dark Souls 1, teaching me to focus on the lessons learned from challenges rather than dwelling on setbacks. Each failed try against a boss here it's just another opportunity to learn it better or try something else.
While later mech and weapons parts might be stronger, the game overall is very balanced around making every option viable to the player and any option performs just as well. Difficulty, while the game might become more complex going forward, won't stop you from using the shotgun you bought at the start of the game. Other options you'll be given will be different, instead of better. You can't improve these parts and for everything they offer more than the one you currently use, it takes away somewhere else.
Customization doesn't stop at being able to change parts or simply color them but goes in depth from sheene, to wear, to being able to make your own custom decals and such. I've seen people making YouTube tutorials on how to make a paint job feel more realistic, i.e. adding small white dots on bolts, or wear lines of the primary color on top of accent lines to add to the wear the fact that the top layer has pealed off but not the main paint job. With more than 40 slots available for customization for each mech part, this is seriously the Disney Land of mech fanatics. This is the level of attention to detail I put into Skyrim through modding, but it's a default. Amazing!
Last but not least, builds including looks can be shared with everyone, who, with a build code and the right parts can import it with a few clicks!

Conclusion.

Overall, although it's not my next Elden Ring, I enjoyed my time on the title sometimes making me wish I would have been playing this on some evenings over Baldur's Gate 3. It was fun, like with Sekiro, to see another facet of From Software, and familiar mechanic concepts applied in new innovative ways and I think I will be looking out for what's next for this series, hopefully in less than 10 years!

7.9/10

After Epic Games gifted this game and brought it to my attention, I decided to buy it because I'm that petty towards EGS.
That said, I was very interested in the art style and the premise of this game, I was in the mood for a Journey-like relaxing adventure game, where exploration, music, puzzles, and the world are the highlight, and that is exactly what I got.
Compared to a title like the First Tree, this game's approach to world, puzzle, and story design are completely different and I would argue better without discrediting the other title. Although it's still possible to see the indie-ness, especially in the re-usage of the assets, the game is a wonderful short adventure with cute puzzles and a nice world to explore.
The soundtrack is beautiful, although there are not a lot of tracks, and can start being a bit repetitive with time compared to other titles of the genre, still features very enjoyable tracks.
I strongly suggest it to all who want a relaxing adventure in a game that does only that, but well.
Definitely worth it, here or on EGS, doesn't matter. Play it, because it's definitely worth your time!
7.0

Although I had forgotten about this game, I bought it on launch day after reading the news about it coming out. By the time I got home from work, I was also reading about how the game was not in a great state when released so because I was playing other things I pushed it aside until yesterday.
First of all, let me say this game is a really nice first-person shooter with really good gunplay and funny Rick-and-Morty-esque humor. It reminds me of old story-driven FPS games like Bioshock and Borderlands.
Now that that's out of the way, this game for me, after these many months was still unplayable.
This was the first time in my gaming life I got physically sick from playing a game. I felt motion sick, had my eyes crossed, feel tired a few hours after waking up, and kept tearing up if I focused too hard during a fight. It has one of the worst combinations of FOV, camera shake, and Anti-Aliasing I've EVER seen.
The camera shakes too much, more than it would in many games at the max setting. The FOV even at max still does not really stop everything from being too close especially when aiming down sight, and the AA must be the worst TAA implementation in years leaving ghosting on everything. Everything looks under a constant Motion Blur even when removed! Look at this picture I took! The only time I remember such a bad TAA implementation was RDR2, but I was running it on an old computer that could only run it at 30FPS. Usually, TAA at, and over, 60FPS should not be that bad and yet this was bad at 144FPS too. There were moments where if a gun was moving a lot in the frame, it would ghost all over and look almost like a low bit-rate .mp4. And this picture is of a foreground object, focusing on something that was far when going towards it or, God forbid, enemies was impossible for me.
It's not a bad game, although the recent news about Justin Roilands doesn't make it easy for me to suggest it, but that is a grey area I won't get into. The whole "separate the art from the artist" and that there are countless more people behind this other than him and such.
Anyway, just keep in mind, the game while not bad and genuinely fun, can be hard to get through for the reasons I listed.
I looked forward to it for a long but, but because of technical problems with the way the game is rendering, I'll give it a: 6.9.

Ever since enjoying P5 Royal and Strikers, I was ecstatic about the rumored P3 remake.
I did not, though, appreciate the shady release of P3 Portable months before the announcement of the remake. P3 has many versions out there, and normally, remakes are complete editions of said game, yet, this lacks the female main character route, and the DLC/epilogue of the game at lunch.
This is an expensive game all things considered, especially in its Deluxe Edition; but I still went for it thinking this was a one-time purchase as they openly said they had no further plans for the game. Although I am happy and will look forward to The Answer aka Episode Aigis coming to Reload as well, considering it's almost the same price, had I known, I would have spent that money on the literal epilogue of the game over a few costumes and DLC Personas...
I know these choices are not up to the developers, but I still think Sega and Atlus should have aimed at delivering a full experience, instead of squeezing every penny from their exhausted community to the point of specifying there won't be a "Royal" like version of this game.
That said, each penny was worth it and this game left an impression on me.

Evoking Context

P3R follows the adventures of the, canonically, Makoto Yuki, and his friends. In this world when midnight strikes, some people can exist within what's known as "Dark Hour", a time in between days when normal people transmogrify into a coffin and don't perceive it unless they have the potential. The potential is not only to exist in the dark hour but to wield a Persona; a reflection of their own self, that gives power to the wielder, similarly to a stand in Jojo.
Whereas in P5 they'd awaken their persona by accepting themselves, in P3R, persona-users normally use a fake gun called an "evoker", and symbolically shoot themselves. I like to think it's because of an understanding of life, acceptance of death, and sacrifice - as these are themes recurrent in the game - but the fan-base consensus seems to be that this is just a way to summon their power without too much explanation or depth into it, unlike the mask in P5.
The main character, as a staple in Persona, can wield multiple of them at the same time, making them the chosen of our story. During the Dark Hour a giant structure known as Tartarus appears, with our objective being to understand its connection to the Dark Hour.
In short: what an amazing story!

RELOADED

As in P5, the appeal of the game to me is the dailiness, allowing you to really live in these character's shoes for months at end. It's not possible to rush through the story, as each day must be experienced besides some story-related time skips, even if only by going home early after school and going to sleep early. Because of this, going out with friends - social links - or doing activities, while it does make the experience longer, is the best choice.
I had the impression confidants were not as memorable as in P5, but the game is simply a late bloomer, with many of the most interesting social links available in the second half of the game.

In P5 for each main boss, there is a unique dungeon with unique mechanics. As a side yet required activity, Mementos is a procedural extensive dungeon that is unlocked as you progress through the story.
P3 obviously being older, in simple terms features only Mementos. Tartarus is a finite procedural dungeon that gets unlocked as you defeat the main bosses. Tartarus as well is mandatory, but in this case, is also the only dungeon of the game, with main bosses happening in other locations on their given day.

I decided, knowing the format of the game, to use a non-spoiler calendar guide, only to make it easier to keep track of everything and go for 100% on my first playthrough. When it came to Tartarus, I thought the guide was just trying to optimize my days as much as possible, but that's not the case. Tartarus' design invites the player for longer sessions, with bonuses given when exploring that will stack during the same session, and when maxed out, will raise the quality of rewards. This leads to binging to the next block, with a strong change of pace, and especially difficult early with fewer characters.

When it comes to the dungeon itself, I must give my kudos to the developers for doing as much as they could to zhuzh-it up, making each block of Tartarus different in its aesthetic and tileset. Still, this does not change the exploration is quite limited to running around, attacking enemies, and opening chests. Compared to Mementos, there are also a lot of important dialogues within the exploration of Tartarus, demanding your attention during a repetitive task.
I overall enjoyed it still, but dreaded the long session change of pace sometimes.

The combat flows amazingly, and boss fights are interesting from the get-go. Each boss is unique, without falling too much into crutches of artificial difficulty. I'm sure they have rebalanced a few of the fights as P3 was well-known for some unfairly broken fights.

1 MORE [...]

Although a newcomer to P3, I informed myself on some, but not all, of the additions of the remake after completing it.
New is the ability to pass the turn to allies when matching weaknesses or doing a crit, and new are also special abilities - like ultimates - for each character.
Much more of the game has been dubbed, and more activities have been added to pass the time.
Should you forget to save, a great new addition is the "Rewind" mechanic, similar to autosaves, that keeps a few savegames made before an activity was chosen; say you enter Tartarus and forget to buy new equipment, you could just rewind to the start of the evening should you have not saved in a while. I hope this will come back in future games!
Many additions were made for Tartarus too, adding a "Shuffle Time" when fighting well, allowing you to choose for some bonuses like ability cards, more XP, money, etc.
New are also destructible statues around the map that when destroyed can award items of any type, from gems that can be sold for money to HP/SP restoration items.
Taking from P5, the UI has been completely redesigned and while it does not reach the same heights, it does fit the game well and is stunning.
All soundtracks are either new or have been rerecorded to fit the new package better. I can guarantee you many will make their way into my personal playlists as it happened for P5.

Unreal Remake

Last, but not least, I just want to make a note for the game's optimization and polish. While graphic options may not be many, the options are there, with unexpected ones like ray-tracing on all glass/wet surfaces.
When playing at 1080p I had the game's internal resolution at 125-150% to avoid aliasing with the many straight lines the game has, but when I moved to 1440p, the game looked fine at 100% internal resolution. Still, it would have not hurt to have DLAA, or any of the image reconstruction techniques like DLSS, FSR, and XeSS, as an option. Regardless, the game runs great with no issues that I could notice.
The idea that for Metaphor: Re Fantazio I need to go back to the same in-house engine as P5 makes me cry. I have never seen Persona look so good, lit so good, and run so well even in busy environments.

~𝐹𝒾𝓃~

In conclusion, Persona 3 Reload is a wonderful remake of the roots that led to masterpieces like Persona 5 Royal, with the potential to be called nothing less than that.
It is sadly not the complete package, lacking an entirely different path for the main character and epilogue that I think should have been there from the beginning.
As the first of its genre, it's rough around the edges on many things, that the remake has tried to smooth out.
I'm happy I had the chance to play this, and I'll be begrudgingly waiting for The Answer in September!

7.9/10

I was there on day one, at 4 am my time when Sekiro got released. I still remember vividly being awake because I was extra nervous for a job interview the same morning at 9 am. Could not sleep, picked up my phone and a friend told me it was available. The wait for the unpacking of the preload was torture!

I also remember losing my first 5h of playtime to my mother opening yet again the laundry machine and oven, on top of my PC, the fridges, etc.; a killer load for our electrical system. My UPS had recently died, my PC went off during a save and it corrupted. Don't get me wrong, my 5h were less than 1 when knowing where to go and what to do, but it still scorched me so bad I keep setting hourly backups of all the active games I play! 😂

For reasons I can't even understand, I'm five years late for this, but it's time I get around to reviewing Sekiro.
And what better time than now, right after playing through it again? Shoutout to Chad of Astora for the video about the intricacy of the maps in From Software's titles, as that reminded me how wonderful Sekiro is.

Ikuzo, SEKIRO!

The main character, Wolf, is a servant to Kuro, the Divine Heir, who is blessed with the ability to grant immortality to those who serve him. An ability that shapes the world of Ashina into obsession, considering it's so rare. Said blessing, is the lore explanation for why we as the main character can die and resurrect at least once during a fight, but also at the familiar idol checkpoints in the game when failing, but not without a cost.

Being a shinobi, Sekiro can't win a strength contest but excels in ability and agility. Sekiro's mobility is one of the best parts of the game. The grappling hook feels amazing, and the wall jump, plus grab ledge ability, really gives complete freedom of movement.
Gravity is not deadly anymore, and fall damage is a lot more lenient and can be canceled by anchoring where possible with the grapple, regardless of height.

The world's interconnectivity, heavily inspired by Dark Souls 1, is second only to the aforementioned, and Elden Ring. It's possible to explore and do so much before even completing the first objective after the prologue.

The stealth mechanics and the ability to assassinate from behind walls, above, or behind enemies are so fun and well executed! The game is better at assassin's-creeding than any of the last games of the series.
Combined with all the shinobi tools you're given, unlockable skills, and shinobi arts, there is a good amount of customization and build-making available while keeping all the options viable.

Lastly, the collaboration with Activision has given us a great introduction and tutorial.

Stagnant Flaws

Although set in feudal Japan, Sekiro is surprisingly varied when it comes to its environment and design, with plenty of cultural nuances. It's sad that for a foreigner many remain obscure because of a lack of cultural understanding.

Sekiro is extremely transparent with its story and is probably their most story-driven title to date with plenty of cutscenes and dialogues. It leaves little to speculate, and descriptions take the place of instructions for usage, more than pieces of a puzzle.

Compared to Western tropes, it seems to me some subjects are dearer to the Japanese narrative, and are often included in many mediums. For example, the cyclicity of a world/universe can be seen in Dark Souls, Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Dragon's Dogma, Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, and Evangelion which I can think of. Much like the Moonlight being present in almost all From Software titles in one way or the other, some subjects and mechanics are bound to be improved and reintroduced in new ways.
The subject Sekiro focuses on is stagnancy, accompanied by a familiar mechanic that had not been seen since Demon Souls, abeit less punishing.
I mentioned all this because, for the longest time, the Dark Souls community was stuck in the misunderstanding - caused by a flawed translation - that the flow of time for those games was "convoluted" when the actual translation was "stagnant".
Stagnancy in Sekiro is so excruciatingly explained that in the process, it gives a better idea of what that looks like in Dark Souls.

In Sekiro, my favorite example that sent me into a rabbit hole of research is the character "源” used for the name of an area. Although translated correctly, it also translates to Minamoto, the most powerful and important clan out of four great clans that dominated Japanese politics during the Heian, Kamakura, Muromachi, and Edo periods, who in the Genpei Wars crushed the Taira clan, which the Ashinas were related to.
It's a small history nuance, and not as major as the translation flaw in Dark Souls hindering the understanding of the world, but sad nonetheless as a history buff, when the main setting of the game is Japan, and we could have been exposed to more things like this.

Mastery is victory, hesitation is defeat.

I consider myself a From Software veteran, but there is one boss, my favorite actually, I would say I know like the back of my hand. I can easily tell exactly what it'll do next, and take perfect spacing from its attacks.
I don't say this to boast myself, but to depict a picture of what killing any and all bosses in Sekiro is like. Mistakes are heavily punished, while ability is greatly rewarded.

Learning a fight and its pattern is, for lack of a better example, like learning a track on a rhythm game. It's not just about knowing the song, but knowing how to execute it to a level that will allow you to complete it.
When you learn how a boss moves, the objective shifts from using their windows to damage them, to using what they do against them.
Deflecting attacks will slowly chip away at their posture, giving you the opportunity, if well executed and with enough aggressivity to perform a death blow on a boss with almost all its vitality intact. At the same time, taking some of the vitality down will make their posture recover slower during breaks.
Not all attacks can be deflected, some must be avoided and others must be countered, and it's this intricate dance you do with each enemy that is the magic of Sekiro.

This rhythm, the bosses' ability to dodge or tank after consecutive hits, and the moveset of your attacks being a 4-hit combo with a long recovery on the last move, make the game a souls-lite, although it misses many key components of the genre.
The moveset combo idea worked well in Bloodborne, fast-paced and with low stamina usage, and made its way into Sekiro. The new posture system and rhythm of the boss attacks solve both the attack and roll spam Dark Souls 3 suffered from. All this then made its way into Elden Ring, making it the peak of their work yet.

I never lost a fight without understanding where my mistake was and learning from it, and I was never victorious without feeling like I could do it again.
Sekiro's punishing yet rewarding gameplay is what made me celebrate audibly for defeating a boss I had already defeated in the past, just because I didn't learn it so well at the time, but mastered it now.

Memories of Extraordinary [...]

After winning GOTY - might I remind everyone against Control, Death Stranding, and Resident Evil 2 Remake - almost a year after, a patch was released that added both a boss replay mechanic and three boss rush modes that award different outfits for Sekiro.
This is something I always felt was missing, and I'm glad made its way into it, although breaking a LOT of mod compatibility in the process. This also added some asynchronous online functionalities, like player ghosts and messages.

Although seemingly more restrictive at a glance, Sekiro offers some of the best visuals, gameplay, and movement in gaming.
It all builds up to the best reward for skill and ability of any of the From Software titles, and it makes me hope the true ending is nothing but a nudge to a sequel that would be more than welcome.

10/10

Purchased under the suggestion of a friend who was also interested in it, somehow Jusant had gone under my radar.
I had heard of it, I knew it was a game about climbing from Dontnod, the same devs of Life is Strange, but that is all I knew.

The game has a delightful art style and uses Unreal Engine 5 masterfully with global illumination, shading, and nanites to achieve a very unique look.
Slightly flawed on PC the port has some issues due to the engine, most notably traversal stutters, that while did not impede my enjoyment of the experience, I have to keep in mind considering how the experience will be much worse on weaker rigs closer to the minimum requirements, especially on mechanical hard drives.
Still, devs have updated the game a lot and ironed out most of the issues.

The experience of the game is quite unique, almost like QWOP, an online running flash game where each foot must be controlled individually. Like that but not stupid, in Jusant, each arm's grip has to be controlled individually, including even switching hands when you can't reach your next anchor point. Although climbing kind of is a "puzzle", more than having to fight the right way up, it often felt like I had to find my way up. During the climb, it's also possible to put checkpoints in case of a fall, and later in the game, during longer climbs without a break, there are relays that restore stamina.
Speaking of which, any climbing action in the game consumes stamina, that can be replenished at any given time. When too many heavy actions are performed consecutively, for example wall jumps, the maximum stamina will permanently decrease until the next relay or break from climbing.
The game adds more to the experience with unique addition on each level, to keep things interesting.

I am really happy I decided to cave in to my completist side and play Jusant directly with a non-spoiler collectibles guide, as most of them are letters, shells aka memories, and paintings that speak of this world, and I don't think I would have enjoyed it as much missing out on so much of the narrative. I would strongly suggest it too, unless finding everything on your own is something you strive for!

Both the game and Steam on launch suggest playing with a controller, so while it does support mouse and keyboard, I for once listened to the developers since this was a shorter experience. But as a player who often is stubborn when it comes to this, I can easily guarantee that with each hand as a mouse click, and spacebar for jumping, I don't see how it could be any harder or worse than with a controller, besides vibration feedback I guess, but on anything that is not haptic I would consider it more a bore than a feature.

I planned to play it slowly, but ended up dropping everything else; what a gem! The experience that Jusant gave me, from its world to its music, all on top of this wonderful special gameplay, felt as if the devs were holding down the grip button until I finished it, much like I had to do in the whole game.
It started as a sleeper for me and ended as a heavy hitter.
Jusant put Dontnod back on my radar and interest has now become expectance for what they'll cook up next!
9/10

A journey into the 5 stages of grief, Gris is a relaxing platformer that says a lot, without ever saying anything to you, while touching one of the hardest subjects.
With interesting puzzles and mechanics, well introduced and developed, Gris sets the atmosphere with stunning animation in its hand-drawn meets watercolor art style, while the amazing soundtrack sets the mood.
An amazing, experience, one that found me fighting the urge to take a screenshot of everything.
Short but stunning. I could not suggest it more, seriously.
8/10

I won't discuss Skyrim as a videogame because it's such a gaming pillar, I think there's not much to say. When it comes to this release, though...
When Skyrim SE was released and I got it for free I was extremely negative about what Bethesda was doing. On PC it was mostly a re-release with the HD Texture Pack included.
Years after and with a modlist that is not 50 items but more than 450 I now appreciate Skyrim SE and it’s my only way of playing Skyrim. And while that might seem somewhat of a large number: it’s still Skyrim. It just plays better.
Performance is much better in SE, and it’s a more stable canvas.
The only negative side I can find is Bethesda still updating the game. Don’t get me wrong, patches and the AE content are a useful and welcome addition, but for the way Bethesda games work most of the time the update of the executable, which screws most mods, is really unnecessary. It adds little to nothing every time, except splitting one of the biggest modding communities.
Modding has reached such a high and polished level that I sadly doubt anything Bethesda will put out with Starfield or TES6 will be at the level of what can be achieved today on Skyrim.
The engine while it still has a problem and is cumbersome, it’s a lot more stable than Legendary Edition and so a lot of modders are choosing to only support Skyrim SE.
Do keep in mind the most supported versions of the game as of now are 1.5.97 and 1.6.363. I’m currently on the latter and it seems the best supported by modders, but 1.5.97 has a better crash logger.
That said, the game is still a legendary RPG, and even if you think it might not fit your liking perfectly, 100% there is a mod for it.

I absolutely suggest this gem to everyone, and I suggest it, even more, when modding is an option.
It's one of the games I always come back to, and I'm always up to play it again.

8.9/10

T̶h̶e̶ Lords Of The Fallen 2̶ development, almost a decade long, started right after the first as a sequel from the original studio CI Games. Later it was canceled, and continued by Deck 13 with the project scope changed to open-world. After being canceled again, it was lastly revived by Hexworks. All three companies are part of CI Games.
The title, rumored as Lord of the Fallen 2, on PC has the executable called LOTF2, and the final product is 100% a direct sequel. Announced as The Lords of the Fallen, before launch it was renamed to Lords of the Fallen - identical to its 2014 namesake.

The devs clearly love the Souls genre, and with 5 heavy-hitters From Software titles out in the 9 years between the two Lords of Fallen, one would have hoped they learned from them, just like From Software improved their games after each release.
With plenty to choose from, devs took the sequel status and went to town with it getting inspired only by Dark Souls 2, and although I can see some ideas being inspired by later titles, the end result was passed through the same mediocreness and frustrativeness filter before it got into the game.

Fallen "Soul"

Running on UE5, while performance has been not ideal, devs had some good calls like mixing real-time and legacy shaders. Between lumen and nanites, surrounded by a cartoony-looking skybox, the game looks quite detailed and realistic but lacks a strong art direction and sense of style. The level of detail although impressive, ends up being extra noise.

The character creation lacks many sliders and offers little choice with the defaults. It starts by merging three faces to make your own, and not allowing you to customize any of the preset components but the default. Even the eyes, instead of heterochromia the secondary color option is for the pupil, and the same as the eye by default, giving an uncanny look to these already lifeless eyes.

The UI and menus have no consistency in size or function. They're very busy, not properly aligned, and lack basic functions like sorting items, or confirmation before transactions. Lastly, there are maps to find but are just doodles of the areas, and serve no addition to exploration.

The exploration of the world falls short of understanding the format of the game they dared compare to. I could count 2 shortcuts between areas, but nothing even akin to Sekiro, let alone Dark Souls 1. Maps are covered with doors that can't be opened and will offer shortcuts that often save you less than a staircase. Filled with platforming, I was never certain I could make a jump, likely because of the closeness of the camera and lack of FOV options. The character often gets stuck, especially on nanites. The lack of linearity in the exploration is admirable, but the steep difficulty curve and NPC quests breaking from entering a map are not.
Main checkpoints are often far from each other, and although players can make their own in designated spots, a more thought-out experience with normal checkpoints over a superfluous extra mechanic would have been better.

Umbral, although an interesting idea, is entered by dying willingly or not, and only adds tedium with the constant enemy spawn and bland-washing area's aesthetics covering everything with its creepy bones and bits. Just like a Detective Vision, it forces to constantly check if there are secrets, paths in the gaps of the maps where a bridge is missing, or anywhere there is a body of water. Ways to return to the world of the living are not rare, and since it recharges your extra life, it's welcome. When remaining in Umbral too long a "terrifying" reskin of a basic enemy with 20x the health and hyper-armor will hunt you down.

Devs often chose the cheapest way to add difficulty, with perfect snipers at any distance, enemies behind corners at all times with no window to react, and areas filled to the brim with dumb enemies that will overpower you just in quantity over wits. Most of the enemies, of which there is little variety of, can't even understand your placement vertically often falling to their death trying to reach you.
A hidden bar fills when attacking enemies and will grant them hyper-armor allowing them to tank your hits and respond. While hyper-armor is not new to the souls genre, it's frequently given on specific attacks, not assigned at random, especially in a game that does not allow to cancel the animation queue.

Bosses are all forgettable and often have minor enemies with them for added difficulty in arenas that are just flat. Only the second boss, heavily inspired by Malenia from Elden Ring, is worth mentioning for being an unfair wall. Most disappointingly, many mini-bosses become normal enemies right after their fight

Armors look anonymous yet have some strong design choices, like a belt made of severed hands. All suffer from clipping elements even in full sets and the character, with normal proportions, two-handed will oftentimes have the armpit clip out.

Weapon movesets are identical between all weapons of the same family reducing weapon selection down to numbers, with at best 6-hit combos and transition attacks between one and two-handed. Dual-wielding is an option, although limited to 3 movesets.
Combos have no hit-drag, animations are not clear and there's no concept of motion value, instead increase the damage of X on each consecutive hit based on weapon type, i.e. +5 for Greatsword.
Throwables, ranged weapons and casting tools share all the same slot, forcing you to either choose one or constantly switch.
Parries won't open the enemy to an attack, instead will lower their posture, and when broken, a riposte does little to no extra damage. It's not possible to backstab at all.
Using the lantern, enemies can have their soul pulled out for a damage window but will attack immediately once finished. Useful to show them off the edges for when they return to their bodies.
Apparently, devs have listened to the feedback of veteran players on the matter of animations, which somehow led to not even including consistent fall protection when attacking like in Elden Ring, who did not even need it.

Even when it comes to the co-op, the saving grace for me, after bolstering how it had the best co-op system of the souls genre, the only good addition are not being kicked out after a boss, and the shared enemy loot. While it was nice exploring without interruptions, the client has a very tight tether to the host making "seamless" a synonym for a glamourized dark fantasy conga.

Lor-meh

With a world relying on lore, elements must have a reason to exist, and it's important to build the lore with few elements that are deeply connected.
There is no explanation for most of what you'll see, starting from the giant hand-shaped mountain - of which this title never even speaks of - to the permanent eclipse in the game.
The story of the world is told with "memories", stills of a moment, around the map, frequently with no dialogue. NPCs, usually over-acted, talk often of their objectives exclusively, adding nothing about the world they're in.
Most descriptions are locked behind a stat requirement, hiding its content and leaving only the first line available, which is a different wording of the object name. The descriptions I could read often add more to the plate instead of explaining what's there already.
This world is not speaking to you, but the final boss is, and for 5m. Uninterruptedly.

Conclusion

I can see the devs constantly updating the game, improving performance, promising more free content and QOL additions, but that will never change the overall experience.
I left much out because of the character limit, and whereas I know my review focused on the negative, I still find myself suggesting it with my reservations, because it's not bad, it's just...not good.

5.9/10

I have been following this game since 2018, got obsessed with the idea in 2019 with its official announcement, since I hadn't yet put my hands on Bloodborne which seemed it share a lot aesthetically, and bought it not once but twice.

I bought the game on release on my phone in 2020, but then COVID happened and out of nowhere all my friends were home all the time so I ended up dropping it, turns out quite close to the end. Then, two years ago when it was announced for Steam, I bought it there too. At launch, many PC features were missing, but devs were promising to work on these issues in their community posts. That brings us to now, and I must say: the devs did patch the game and put effort into it, but there are still some issues.

The game is a mobile port to PC and has basic options for graphics, keybindings, audio, etc.
Sadly, some of these options are not working well and there are some issues in the port. I'll list some of the ones I noticed enough to take note of.
- V-sync, regardless of your screen's refresh rate locks FPS at 60.
- Anisotropic Filtering is not implemented at all but can be forced on a driver level.
- The camera sensitivity of your mouse scales with the FPS, so if you leave it completely unlocked, not even max sensitivity will be enough at high framerates.
- FOV options don't save when restarting the game.
- Audio mixing is a problem in the game, for example, when attacking two enemies the audio will get much louder, and some boss fights are just loud out of nowhere for no reason.
- UI can't update unless you restart, especially for keybinds.
That said, these were not deal breakers to me as I still kept playing the game, but I wish devs kept updating the game and made the PC port more polished!

My best suggestion to new buyers is to open the game and play through the first level understanding how much of Terrence's playstyle they like. Although the game has multiple characters, 4 including one from a DLC during the story, that can be used and have different playstyles, abilities, weapons, and skills, this game is about Terrence and Terrence alone. It will always come back to him, making some characters unavailable during specific story moments.

The game has a very strong sense of identity and it's graphically ambitious. The maps of the game, especially for running on mobile, are quite complex, big, and interconnected. The movement in general of the characters is quite clunky and slow, making movement in general not its highlight. Often during exploration, you'll find yourself opening all the pesky doors that could not be opened from that side by simply being meticulous with your exploration, although sometimes there might be just a tad bit too many of them.
Devs clearly took heavy inspiration from Dark Souls, down to some ugly map choices of Dark Souls 2 like small debris blocking you from accessing an area when you climb stairs that are double its size.

The story, while it's not the best I've ever seen, has a good delivery of it is well thought out and interesting. Still, there are a lot of new concepts and new characters thrown at you when exploring maps that have little depth besides a small side mission or no explanation. The subtitles never match what's being said 100%, often having very important info only in the not-so-good voice acting. The English translation in general leaves much to desire, but I could see the effort, especially in the many notes around the world.

Enemies AI is not the brightest and often just abuses hyper-armor to tank through your hits and get one or more of theirs in, in a game that does not feature animation queue cancellation and has no poise for most characters, except in specific moves. There's little to no way to escape during a combo, which you will always be in because enemies never got harder just spongier, with lots and lots of HP.

While exploring you'll find "Dark Mist" areas, which are just small bubbles with a chest and overpowered enemies you can ignore to only get the loot and leave, a bit sad as it could have been more, especially for what it's implied to be on a lore-level.

Throughout the whole game, there's the mechanic of "Sanity" that chips away the more you fight and can be restored with sanity potions, of which you can bring max 10, that can be crafted for the equivalent of "souls".
Bosses have a unique mechanic dependent on sanity, which when fully lost will make you a lunatic, and bosses will unlock a new moveset and recover to half of their health.

Out of all the DLCs that add costumes and more - thank god for the costume of Terrence - Tides of Oblivion is the only one I decided to get into because it was story-related. Other DLCs from what I saw are either enemy arenas or speedrun modes. The DLC was actually quite well done although a bit too long, Bosses were really fun and complex, making me enjoy the process of learning them regardless of their big health pool and damage output. One thing I was frustrated by, especially as it's never explained, is that around the DLC map, there are these "red swords sigils" you can interact with and it says you can't open them, yet, you just need to attack them. In a game that never ever had destroyable objects, it was quite a surprise and one I discovered in desperation when I had no idea how to reach the final DLC fight.

Lastly, I was a bit disappointed by the final boss of the game, as it's quite simple but clearly plays with a different set of rules from everything else in the game, starting from the fact it has three phases, resetting its health fully each time. The three phases are all very similar to each other but increasingly more frustrating.
The boss can summon enemies from the game without a cooldown unless you stun them until they go in hyper-armor and summon anyway. Enemies that while they only stay for one move/combo, start in said move, so out of nowhere there's a knight jump attacking you, a monster spewing poison, etc. At worst, I saw up to three different monsters on screen at the same time, with more to come right after.
The boss is also able to parry without the correct timing your attacks with little to no wind-up, can grab you without a way to escape as it spawns the grab under you, and can attack you while you're downed. This is just the first phase.
In the second phase, for no reason whatsoever, they can summon one of your allies to fight for them.
In the third phase, this is worsened with more attacks spawning directly on you. They can shoot perma-stunning bullets that unless you spam roll and pray you won't get hit, will be your demise if you don't start dodging them in advance. It has a move at the last third of health of the third health bar, that if you don't learn how to interrupt is a 100% death requiring you to restart from scratch only to attempt to learn how to interrupt it.
A very sour ending.

While I don't think this is the best souls-like out there, my time on it was enjoyable and I looked forward to playing it and finally seeing the full package I had been waiting for, for years. Although the game is enjoyable, I think 82 achievements and 5 playthroughs is a bit too much commitment considering the end product. From checking the wiki, and reading the Steam guides from "( ͡o ͜ʖ ͡o)" it doesn't even looks like I missed a lot.
Souls-likes are not scarce nowadays. Games like Blasphemous, Salt and Sanctuary, Lord of the Fallen (2014), Nioh, The Surge, etc. are much better and more polished experiences at the same if not lower price point. At 10€ on sale for this game, with half of that, you could get Lords of the Fallen 2014 and The Surge. At 6€ Blasphemous and at 10€ there's Nioh. I think the game is good, and I think you should get it if you really want to, but I think between the 7 From Software Souls games out there and plenty of better souls-likes, both 3D and 2D, we are spoiled with choice and this should be your last resort.

5/10

Coming from Divinity 2, with some reservations about it, I could not wait to finally be able to gather my trusty friend and jump into this new adventure now that it was officially released.

We started the game excited about what was to come and it took us a total of two months to the clock to finish it. In our case, we decided to go with two custom characters and build relationships with the various origins characters in the game. We created our characters and thrust ourselves into the new campaign, both completely new to the world of Baldur's Gate, but not new to the work of Larian.

The game's writing is amazing, with every choice having the weight you'd expect if not more. The approach to the narrative, storytelling, and story progression is in your hands completely. From smaller things like specific races and backgrounds having extra options during certain dialogues giving more depth to your story, to annihilating an entire faction. Easily one of the best implementations of DnD to a game.

8h into the game, while exploring, we unlocked a way to reset the levels of our characters. Considering this was a title developed after Divinity 2, I went into it expecting there would be the possibility to change your character's appearance, but that wasn't the case. When the option wasn't available alongside the respec, especially as it has less actual impact on the game, I decided a quick search was mandatory as both me and my friend wanted to change a few things about our characters we were not happy with.
Although a way to change your looks has now been patched into the game, that was not the case more than two months ago and in an attempt at enjoying the many more hours we'd have on the title, we restarted from scratch, recreated our characters and quickly got back to where we were.

After that, it was smooth sailing. We kept exploring every crook and cranny and would never leave a region before making sure all loose ends were close and we had explored everything. The quantity and quality of content the game offers it's magical and calls for multiple playthroughs just to see how much love and attention has been put into it. We took our time - clearly - and made sure to play as meticulously as we would alone not letting the coop get in the way of attention to lore, books or dialogues. We had a wonderful time, really. Great game to play with the right person!

All dialogues have so much depth and have been motion acted! There is a moment in the late game, where one of the dialogues has such amazing voice acting and animation that it has forever engraved itself in my mind. That's how good it was. Another moment that comes to mind is a discovery we made during a mission. Something very unexpected, yet it was the truth and completely changed our objectives going forward, at least for our roleplay whereas for others it might have motivated them even further. This is the beauty of this game, everything you do and every approach is just as valid as the next one. This was not unique in these 160 magical hours. Throughout all of them, me and my friend kept being shocked by the level of detail, interaction, and ramifications of the story. There are so many other examples I could give.

But where there is good, there is bad. During the final Act we did encountered a few bumps. Still god-tier, but it is worth mentioning. Progression in particular felt sluggish, as if at every corner we would meet a wall that would make all our choices and plans crumble somewhere else as a consequence. It took us many hours, with a lot of different approaches to our progress to find the perfect balance for what to do first.

Regardless of our best attempts and careful approach, during our finale, we could not forsee this turn of events. We had to make a really hard choice to get the best outcome and find common ground with my friend, so I was already saddened by that. Right after that, my favorite origin character, my romance and companion through most of the run took a steep turn I didn't expect in their story. I was so confused by this end result considering the path we had both walked on was not the one they were now choosing, even slightly hinting at it being also my idea when it never was. I later learned shortly after seeing the finale that what I thought was an inconsequential choice made during a dialogue - one I would even say was quite neutral - was the dialogue that would permanently determine their story. This was prior to even learning and talking about the potential alternative new objective for this origin character. There is no other dialogue or check of any sort that can change that and, in my experience, nothing in the game made me understand things would have gone this way after I made this choice. Hell, it even sounded like it was still up for debate. 70h after I learned my price.

For the whole game, I have been preaching this, so: I know it's technically the result of my own choices, and since then I accepted the end result and found many ways to level with it when it comes to roleplay. That said, I stand my ground that having the choice to determine which path the character will follow, prior to knowing what are the options, and with a neutral response isn't well done, not when for everyone else it was quite clear. A simple dialogue after the events would have done it.

Add to insult injury, although I was the host, my friend during the whole finale was the only character visible besides the origins, only because he had the character that could defeat the final boss in his group. That was the case even for dialogues with my romance and companion. The coop never had any such issues until now, often having our characters at least in the background during dialogues.

The game is a solid top-down CRPG, and controls very similarly to Divinity 2. I wished for some of the prior games' limitations not to show up again. After all these years of early access and a new camera zoom that can go close to third-person perspective, I was disappointed in not having the choice to bind movement to WASD when that is the default for controller players. Especially in a game that, with all the dev's good intentions, still struggles with camera angles and environment objects at times. Yes, things become transparent when too close to the camera, but are still interactable making your character move in the wrong direction or teleport back to the area you just came from simply cause it's a big door and its hitbox is still in front of your mouse.
As a hoarder, something I also was hoping would have been improved is inventory management. There are plenty of bags in the game to order your items around, although you can't name them. When sorting, identical items will not merge into one stack, making entire lines of the same spell scroll unless you manually stack them, which I obviously did. A small icon next to books to let us know if we had read them would have also been a nice addition, especially with the large amount of literature available.
Other than that, the game plays perfectly fine and it's an extremely polished experience, with almost no gameplay limitations but your imagination.

Still, you know what they say: it's not the destination, but the journey that matters. Although I had wished for a better ending to my adventure, nothing can change our journey. What really matters is how excited, happy, and impatient I was to come home and play this game, and no amount of sour endings could erase that. I made a mark in this world and shared this crazy adventure with a friend, with highlights we'll bring back for likely the rest of our lives as already do with other titles, or until the next Larian game.

I find myself already thinking of what to do on my next run. No matter how hurt I may be from how a part of my story ended this time, it clearly can't keep me away from this game or lower it's magnificence, and that speaks volumes.

10/10.

I always enjoyed 3D platformers since I was a kid, and although I do own a PS5, because I had never played Ratchet and Clank when this game was released I was definitely interested in general because of how polished it looked but without any rush. I was interested in the many technologies they used to achieve the end result, especially because of Insomniac and their mastery of ray-tracing 60fps which I thoroughly enjoyed in Spiderman Miles Morales.
Years have passed since, and my excuse of waiting for the price to go down became worthless the moment it was announced on PC with even more technologies I wasn't only interested in, but had built my PC for. Graphics are not everything, but it's not a bad incentive to get into a new title while also benchmarking the hardware.

Out of Rift Apart, as a complete newbie who hasn't even seen an introductory video about the story, I expected nothing but a fun 3D platforming experience. Overall, the game satisfied me and gave me all I wanted. It's just the right length, exploring and the characters' mobility in platforming is fun, guns are great to use, and lastly, the Dualsense haptics and adaptive triggers enhanced the experience.

The story, while entertaining is simple, a bit like in Crash Bandicoot games, but I didn't expect more, although I must say during cutscenes I felt a disconnection between the mobility of the characters in-game and in-cutscene.
Don't get me wrong, animations in this game are a delight to see. Every detail and second movement part of their bodies, for example, when jumping, shows a level of attention to detail that is just breathtaking. That said, the characters in cutscenes feel more grounded and realistic than a double-jumping lombax. It feels like cutscenes have the same mobility Nathan Drake has in Uncharted, which felt out of place to me.
The progression in the game, new abilities, and collectibles were handled masterfully. For example, although there is an arena, you can't do all trials immediately which I was a fan of as I'm the type of player that would.
Compared to other games I played in the last period, Rift Apart also handles completion well, where mostly everything can be done whenever, and especially weapon-related achievements can be done in the arena in a controlled environment, which I don't take as granted after Final Fantasy 16 which forces you to do it in the overworld, with companions.
When it comes to bosses maybe there's a bit too much repetition after the first third of the game, but because of how fun fighting is while it wasn't amazing to have to fight yet another of the same giant robot, it wasn't too bad.

I was sad to see again, though, that challenges in the arena are affected by difficulty while offering the same rewards. I don't want to sound like an elitist or anything, but I'm always mixed when it comes to this because I like that choice is given to the player, but at the same time I think a challenge should be the same for everyone to also create a sense of community in who completes it. Rewards could have been given out either in other ways leaving the arena just a challenge or by rewarding them for a partial completion. That is the case for other parts of this game completism, where you only need 5 bolts out of 25 for platinum, for example. I just wish that like in many new Nintendo games - i.e. Koroks in BOTW and TOTK where you need 500-ish to max your inventory but there are 900 - or like the platinum of this title, the choice would be between completing or leaving it at the minimum necessary, instead of being between changing or not changing difficulty since the reward is the same.

I loved this time Sony used Nixxes for the PC port, and I would say overall it was definitely more polished than TLOU:P1 on PC just a few months ago.
The game on PC is not perfect, though. In my first hours of gameplay, I experienced many crashes, some just for equipping armors in the menu but this has improved since, maybe because of the patches that were released or because I progressed further.
The game also struggled a bit with clipping. Mainly some alpha textures that are layered incorrectly in some posters in the first planet and some 3D fish models clipping through the walls of an underwater tunnel come to mind. I also noticed with some armors the fur of Ratched and Rivet clips through, but I think that happens on console as well.
On PC the game is likely one of the most technically advanced ports to date, supporting ray-traced reflections, ray-traced shadows, ray-traced ambient occlusion, DLAA (and DLSS, FSR, etc.), and Direct Storage.
All things that as mentioned before, I was interested in testing on my new computer, built with them in mind. I must say, it was a pleasure to play with all these technologies and although they are quite heavy, the game handled it well for most of it, except for one moment towards the end where all the effects on-screen dropped it to 30 for a moment. Funnily enough, this happened to me in Miles Morales too on PS5, towards the end. Solid the whole way through, except for one moment of the game.
After watching videos comparing the PS5 to the PC version by Digital Foundry, plus my experience with the game, I must say I think the ray-traced reflections are the ones I would go without. It seems the equivalent of PS5 quality on PC would be high, but considering the resolution being halved I would argue the screen-spaced reflections and their grainy look might deliver a better result. I had ray-traced reflections at Ultra and there are moments in the game where there is a glass floor, and you see these awesome reflections on the floor that are wonderful to look at. That said, the game doesn't have a lot of glass surfaces and I am almost certain the ray-traced reflections are still being used on these opaque surfaces, which I think at that point is just a waste of resources. Maybe there was a smarter way to implement them, with a hybrid between ray-traced and screen-spaced reflections so that you don't use that much power for blurry opaque reflections, which, actually was the case when I had those frame drops. In Miles Morales on PS5, it happened in a glass room, as the boss was breaking glass. In Rift Apart I was in a wooden boat with some details of opaque metal. It might be the case that there is a hybrid application going on, but that doesn't change how heavy they are for how little result they yield. For these reasons, I would say a game like Spiderman is a better-suited title for ray-traced reflections and I think it would be better to use screen-spaced in this title. That said, the other ray-traced technologies work amazingly and I strongly suggest them. On the dinosaur bosses, the Grunthors, there were some issues with shadows, and I think it might have been the ray-traced ambient occlusion. It's a minor issue in something that adds a lot to the game so I would still keep it on.

In conclusion, I liked my time on the game. I liked it was just the right length and didn't overstay its welcome even while going for 100%. I liked the gameplay and while this is not the birth of a new passion for a new series, I will for sure be looking out for the next one with more interest than I had before.

7.5/10

DISCLAIMER

I just finished the game for the first time, and while I acknowledge that I must not have done everything, I had a pretty good run. It could have been better, but I don't plan for it to be the only one.
This review is my fresh raw opinion of the game, just as I finished it.

TL;DR

This game has hands down the best and most entertaining combat system of the genre I've ever laid my hands upon. I'm not a person who enjoys turn-based combat, yet I loved fighting in this game! So getitgetitgetit, especially if you like a good RPG and a great turn-based combat system!

THE GOOD AND THE NOT-SO-GOOD

Now with that out of the way, I got into Divinity 2 thanks to a friend who wanted to play it and asked me to play through it together. I knew about Larian Studios but I've never played a game from them before. I had heard this was a great RPG title, but that's essentially all I knew, before purchasing it and going in full-blind while giving it a try.
I gotta say that, while we did have some idea of what we were getting into when it came to this type of game, we were not prepared for the length of it. We clocked in at 111h of co-op just for the first run in "Normal" - called "Classic" in the game - and we did get some hints during the run from some friends and sometimes checked the wiki when we were really stuck or before leaving a map.
This game features 6 "Origin Stories"; think of them as unique quests for each of these characters, all having their own motive and individual endings. Surprising but quite welcomed, the characters are fully dubbed! We went for Ifan and Fane, plus we recruited with us The Red Prince and Lohse.
The creation of the character doesn't allow you to change the characters too much and has no sliders whatsoever, but you can choose between a dozen faces/hairs/beards. Customization comes through especially with attributes and talents giving you a good start, added to the great selection of starting skills from your class, so you can already somewhat set an objective for your build right from the start.

The game has some really great design choices. For example, once the very lengthy introduction and 1st Act are finished you unlock the possibility to respec the character stats and change their appearance as many times as you want, which is great because by then we knew the game enough to have an idea of what to change and how we wanted to proceed going forward. The interactions with NPCs are amazing, for example, it's possible to steal from a merchant while a friend talks to them because, obviously, they're distracted. The game gives you constant choices and a lot of opportunities to build and approach situations the way you want, and it's just fun to play with different ideas! I do gotta say, the interaction with the world and your choices are astonishing, really. Your actions have consequences not just at the end of the game in a finale scene, but during the whole game and with various NPCs you'll meet in your journey.

Amidst the great ideas, there are also not-so-good ones, but I'll mention just a few that stood out to me. is such a strong talent that, when playing solo, it's almost a borderline no-brainer pick. In the last Act, we met enemies who could constantly resurrect thanks to x while being able to make more x, and that was really frustrating.
We played in Normal, and it gave us a decent challenge, but sometimes it felt a bit unfair. Two levels can make a huge difference for armor and weapon values, but that would also mean that we'd get destroyed just because a level 12 enemy stabbed us and we are a fresh level 11 with level 10 equipment.
I know the game is inspired by D&D, but on a gameplay level when you're on such a big map and you go a couple of meters ahead at level 11 you don't expect 12 to be completely impossible until you gear up, although on a lore level, it might be reasonable, at least not in Normal. Following that, I read Easy is just too easy, to the point we forced ourselves to continue in Normal even during hardships pulling out crazy strategies to go forward, and sometimes going around and checking the wiki just to be sure we did all fights and quests available in that area we could at that level, just to make sure we were at the highest level and had all equipment we could by that point.
The key for us was when we stopped using only loot we dropped from fights but started investing into buying stuff from merchants since they have some new items immediately when you level up, at your new level, so it's definitely something to keep in mind. Not as strong as something you drop, but when the difference between level 10 and 11 is a few hundred points in defense, it all adds up.
The design of the maps, story, and enemies is just stellar, with so many little details that it just felt like a very well-done campaign, and one I want to revisit. When it comes to story Acts they are very balanced getting more focused closer to the end, having most of the side content earlier in the game, that way there was no need to leave the main quest on pause!

CONCLUSION

I enjoyed my hours on this game, and I'm looking forward to the future when I'll do a second and even third run!
It's great, and it could have been even more, but I wonder whether some things could have been even better or more polished thanks to a higher budget and some more time in the oven, but I guess we'll find out with Baldur's Gate 3. :^)
This wonderful title is 100% recommended by me, with a solid 8.9/10.