When I think of a 3/5 game, I think of either a game that is “totally fine”, or a game with equal amounts of interesting and odd choices counteracting each other. FF16 is the latter. A game I wish was better, because it showed so much potential.

tl;dr: You have already decided if you will play FF16. If you are somehow on the fence I would say:
Are you looking for an interesting story with multiple developed characters? Look elsewhere.
Are you looking for a fun action game with deep mechanics? Look elsewhere.
If you are looking for a fun romp that at times comes annoyingly close to achieving both? Check it out!

I don’t regret playing FF16, but I also don’t think I would tell anyone they need to play it? I came away from it not knowing who it was for, or if it was trying to achieve anything. Before I dive deeper into my


Extended Thoughts

I think I should

Establish my biases going into FF16:
A review is only useful if you understand the viewpoint of the reviewer. I think it’s only fair to explain my headspace going into FF16, since my view going in might differ greatly to yours. Aspects I'm critical of (or uninterested by) might not be true for you, so you might enjoy the game far more (which is a good thing!).

Final Fantasy
is a series I don’t know if I enjoy anymore? Or to be more accurate, because I’m not a MMO-guy, I haven’t enjoyed a mainline Final Fantasy game since 10. I couldn’t get through the first disc of FF13. I was excited for FF15 since it was Versus 13 (I even watched Kingsglave in a limited screening), to then 100% the 1.0 version of the game in its launch week, to then realise “hey, I don't think I liked that game”. More recently I finally played 12 (Zodiac Age port) and if not for the emulator-like ability to set the game to x4 speed, I don’t think I would have finished it.
The only things keeping me interesting in playing a Squenix dev’d RPG are:
1. Close friends that I trust regularly say FF14 is their favourite Final Fantasy (I trust them, I just don’t enjoy MMOs. I tried, it ain't for me).
2. FF7 “Remake” is a game I did enjoy a lot, and I'm (as of July 2023) excited for its follow ups.
3. The last new Squenix RPG I played was ‘NEO: The World Ends With You’, a game I deeply adore.

Traditional Fantasy
is also something I will bounce off of without a significant twist. Before the game came out I heard that “it took inspiration from stories like Game of Thrones” (which I don’t enjoy, so that is a big bias you might not share). Also a bigger red flag that I wouldn’t find the story interesting is despite being a fantasy setting, it was going to be devoid of people who weren’t white. I think this is ludicrous. It is one thing to say, have a story set in Tokyo, so your main cast are Japanese, and you might see 1 or 2 extremely minor side characters or NPC’s who aren’t ethnically Japanese. But this is because you are crafting a reflection or representation of a real location, in our real larger world. Crafting an entire fantasy setting, completely devoid of diversity will just result in the world feeling small.

So why did I even play FF16?
To directly quote a headline from a PC Gamer article I saw in June 2022, “Oh hell yeah, Final Fantasy 16's combat director worked on Devil May Cry 5 and Dragon's Dogma”. This instantly interested me enough that when I first saw a 6 second twitter clip of doing an enemy step I ordered the game. I kept the order after playing the FF16 demo, which interested me with both the combat and its prologue narrative to hook me in.

So I basically got hooked in early with the promise of cool combat, an intriguing fantasy mystery, plus a pretty compelling revenge plot (the prologue effectively sets up an extremely hateable villain). How did I get from having a good time, to just kind of going through the motions until credits?

Combat
is frustratingly both fantastic and not enough. This might just be a case of expectations too high, but with the credits on the game, the pedigree on display, the budget of a mainline Final Fantasy, plus a direct quote from Suzuki Ryota (the combat designer) saying his work on the game is “my own personal masterpiece”, I feel like I get to have those high expectations.
Bottom line, the combat feels satisfying, if we were judging it solely in comparison to other Action RPGs, FF16 is in the highest tier. However, compared to other action games, including those worked on by Ryota, nowhere near. I would understand if he meant “masterpiece” in that it feels as good as it does, but is still accessible by players who never touch action games, because FF16 excels greatly in that aspect. By default the game has both “story focused” and “action focused” difficulties that are tuned extremely well for both audiences. I think any player who has a far more casual (or has no) taste for action-oriented games, will be able to go through FF16 like a breeze with “story focused”. Plus most of the flashier moves they would want to do, aren’t inputs at the end of a combo string, but are just abilities on a cooldown. The game even has widely accessible optional “Assist Rings”, equipment unlocked from the start that dramatically changes how the game plays. Like having the game slowdown before every hit you would take so you can more easily dodge (like a cutscene QTE), or even just having the game auto dodge when able (as in anytime except during long Eikon moves that would require a manual cancel to stop) and making advanced attack strings happen automatically with one button press like in Bayonetta.

This is all great for someone who likes Final Fantasy, but has never touched something like Devil May Cry. But as someone who was here primarily for that combat? I wish there was as much care at the high end of the skill ceiling, as there was for the low. For each feature for someone with no patience for finely tuned action mechanics (or players who physically cannot engage with them), I wish there was something for people craving mechanical depth. There is one sword combo in the game. Actually let's establish this, the core kit you will fully unlock within the first 3 hours is:
- Triangle for ranged attacks
- Square for a four hit melee combo (you can press Triangle once after each swing for a mini combo extender. The final one acts as an ender. You can do this one only, so s > s > s > s > t.)
- Square also can be used for a three hit air combo
- Both Square and/or Triangle can be held to charge either a big swing with the sword, or a charged ranged attack. The square charge move in air is the closest thing to a traditional action game launcher
- If you use Square to swing your sword the moment the enemy would land an attack, you Parry (take no damage, the enemy is often knocked back a little, time slows down for a couple of seconds)
- R1 for a dodge, a last minute dodge can be followed up with a counter attack (either melee or ranged). After getting knocked down by an enemy, you can press dodge to immediately get back up (you still take the damage, so like a Kingdom Hearts ‘Recovery’)
- Cross for a jump, you can jump off enemies (enemy step) twice before landing on the ground to reset
- Cross + Square on land is a body projectile to close distance (like a DMC ‘Stinger’)
- Cross + Square in air is a falling attack to reach ground faster (like a DMC ‘Helm Breaker’)
- R2 + Touchpad is a taunt, useful to bait enemies into an easier to parry/dodge attack

This is everything part of the “core moveset”. While this is all tuned well, and each one of these actions feel satisfying to do. It is also extremely limited by action game standards. One sword combo is wild, I understand not wanting to have long complicated strings for the non-action game players. But that is why pause combos exist, being able to have a variety of different moves with different utilities, all accessible from the same button, fully dependent on timing is incredible design. For example s > s > s > s, would be a standard combo that knocks smaller enemies back, but s > s > s > pause > mash s, could be a combo unleashes rapid hits on one target, but not knocking back or hit stunning them, meaning it's risky to do if surrounded, or if the target isn't already knocked down. Not even having this level of variety and depth, especially with all the accessibility options, feels like all the time spent polishing the combat design went into the accessibility, and none into making it interesting. Worth noting while not the default kit (because there are times when you cannot use it) the dog Torgal has moves assigned to the d-pad. One of which is an aerial launcher that can launch smaller enemies into the air. Why this wasn't something closer to DMC like back on the left stick + square (while locked-on) to have Clive launch the enemy, hold square while doing this to also launch Clive with the enemy to follow in the air, is beyond me. Especially since that move almost exists in the game in the “spells”.

Everything unlocked outside of the core kit is either:
A/ Moves tied to an Eikon (activated with Circle), so you can have maximum 3 equipped at once. These mostly function similar to style abilities from DMC 3 onwards. For example, one is a dash to close in on the enemy targeted, one is a grapple that pulls in smaller enemies.
B/ Eikon abilities, which are effectively “spells” that go on cooldown after use (cooldown time depends on the ability itself), activated with R2 + either Square or Triangle.
One of my major issues with the game is how these function. Half of which I wish were far weaker and instead added onto the core kit as directional moves (like the Rising Flame move as a launcher, or Wicked Wheel as an additional aerial combo). But the main issue is that instead of cooldowns, these abilities could solve the most glaring issue with the combat.

While the combat has a tight game-feel, and can look flashy, there is absolutely zero incentive in normal play to do anything other than the most optimal damage. This is usually a combination of a set series of abilities in a row, then just filling time waiting for all the cooldowns to execute again. The only thing the game tries to do to encourage playing with variety are ‘Battle Techniques’. When you do something “neat” like a parry or perfect dodge, it says so in the bottom right corner with a little star next to it. However outside of the Arcade Mode (replaying levels with a scoreboard) Battle Techniques don’t do anything! And even if they did, there are techniques tied to most of the moves in the game, so even in Arcade Mode score isn’t based on skills and combat variety, just on getting dodges and landing specific attacks.

I'm ultimately just disappointed by the combat because with everything in the game, I think 3 tweaks would completely flip my feelings and make me praise FF16’s combat to anyone that would listen.
- Add multiple pause combos on land and in air, with different functions in combat (like the example I gave above)
- Make some of the Eikon abilities weaker, and make them part of the core kit, not abilities.
- Instead of abilities on cooldown, all abilities should cost MP. Then the incentive to fully experiment and do interesting things with the combat would be that getting hits on enemies would be the sole way you generate MP. With either an added style ranking, or just reworking of the Battle Technique, resulting in a faster increase in MP when playing with skill and combo variety. This way instead of idling playing with the core combat while waiting for the next time you can do big damage, you reward players with tying how often they can do big damage, to how well they are mastering the core combat.

I think with these changes, FF16 could have kept the gameplay interesting throughout the whole experience, while not at all compromising the accessibility options it has for players that wouldn’t wish to, or could not, engage with these systems fully.

I know this would have worked too, because an addition to the combat far later in the game, is a microcosm of my third point! Without spoiling, there is an Eikon move that does big damage, and it is solely charged through that Eikon’s abilities, or the 2nd sword combo in the game (which is tied to that Eikon). This late game addition, is to me, the most interesting add to the combat in the whole game. Albeit still too late, and not enough to retroactively make the combat as a whole more worthwhile. Now that was a lot of text to say “the combat could have been more interesting imo”, but to be fair it was the main reason I was here. That said, the other reason was the early story did hook me. So how did that turn out?


Story
is something I don’t want to spoil here (I might go into spoilers in the comments later after I let the game sit for longer?). My very spoiler free broad strokes are that I wish characters did more than one thing? I was talking about the characters with a friend before I finished the game, and I agree with her when she said “if you think all the characters other than Clive have no agency, the women have double no agency”. FF16 is a game where all the characters other than the singular protagonist, each do (on average) about one thing, they have one moment of character agency. I think it is wild that there are female quest givers that have more going on than the closest character to a female protagonist, Jill. I think Jill has exactly one moment midway through the story where she goes “I have to do this thing, this is what I need to do for my reason”. With everything before/after just being present. I lost count of the amount of cutscenes where there is a conversation between two men, and Jill is also there, just standing. Even worse is in the third act, there is a cutscene that may as well have Clive saying “your agency, let me take it, I can take it for you, you don't have to be a character any more!”. Which is all just frustrating, because there are multiple female characters that are recurring quest givers, that are seen having a goal and working towards it.
I think the only characters I will remember as being neat after finishing the game are three of the men. Cid, who is just fun in almost every scene he’s in, Gav who is a total bro, and Dion who I honestly think would have made for a more interesting protagonist.

The lightest details, here so maybe lightest spoilers for the rest of this paragraph?
The two story hooks for me were:
- The fantasy related mystery, which by the halfway point of the game, the player will have fully figured out, and is sadly pretty standard in comparison to its setup.
- The revenge plot, which is the side of the story more closely tied to the political narrative.
This is the big reason why I think Dion would have been more interesting to follow (or in a differently structured narrative, had joined as a “party member” by the halfway point”). The reason for the revenge plot, then subsequent introduction of the macguffins that need to be dealt with, all but remove Clive (and the player) from the political narrative, you aren’t actively pursuing the villain the prologue sets up. Dion on the other hand, is deeply entrenched in the politics of the setting and is put at odds with the prologue villain! Meaning Dion is the character most tied up in the more interesting human aspects of the story. Clive's only tie to the political plot is his part in helping free the slaves. I don’t want to speak glib, but the other weird aspect of the game is that the game spends way too much time “convincing” the player and Clive that slavery is bad? As if somehow the audience from second one isn’t on board with that sentiment? Also from Clives perspective, they make a point showing ‘he was always nice to the slaves, and seemed as if he thought it was wack’, then you know he becomes a slave for 13 years. Then even after that, characters are trying to convince Clive that “maybe this is all something we should try and stop?”. It comes off as weird that the game spends so much of its first act showing off how bad slavery is. As if the player (and Clive after living it) aren’t already in agreement that it's horrible?

(light spoilers end here)
To wrap up my feelings on the story. The political and more human stories (while some had moments) I think didn’t hit hard since the game itself side-lined them for the more fantasy aspects of the story. I don’t think said fantasy mystery ended up being very interesting as it became the main focus. And most of the characters felt pretty hollow due to lack of story participation and agency, especially the female characters. All of which took place in a world that ultimately felt small due to a lack of diversity (which itself is also infuriating, because at the same time I think the game took positive steps forward in LGBT representation!). Also for what it is worth, I think the ending was weak, but that is the most subjective take I’ve had in this pile of words.

I want to very briefly touch on the
Soundtrack
Some of the tracks were some of my favourites in a mainline FF, most of which are the tracks that don’t typically get put into a setting like this. Even many of the more “typical” tracks were also very good! My only complaint, to continue my feeling of ‘mixed bag’, was that once more interesting tracks started being used in boss fights, many other major boss fights lacking songs of equal quality made the fights feel hollow.


If you read all of this, ultimately what I want to communicate is this. While everything I’ve said might come off as overly critical, it comes from a place of disappointment, not hate. Final Fantasy is a series that when at its peak, changes videogames as an artform for the better. On a positive note, if not for the weird stance on diversity, I would say the FF16 while with issues, is a step in a better direction in comparison to FF13 and FF15. I do sincerely hope that for FF17, we finally get back to interesting stories, with engaging mechanics.

Very goofy (good way).

Two of the three games the dev team cites as major inspirations are Devil May Cry and Guilty Gear. Know that they specifically mean the first Devil May Cry. As for the Guilty Gear comparison, I understood it at the surface level (Roman Cancel + movement is similar). Then I reached the penultimate boss-fight of the game and had the feeling of "this game is now for people that place top 8 for Guilty at EVO".

Slave Zero X is the game that has kicked my ass the most since playing the original release of DMC 3 when I was a child. This is the first game in 20 years that I am putting on the "I'll finish someday" backburner solely because of difficulty. Game is pretty neat for that.

I will say there are still criticisms. For one the game often feels like it leaves the "DMC" inspiration in favour of a traditional Beat 'em Up or Musou. These moments can work briefly, but the later levels really lean into this, I think to the game detriment. As these are the moments where the game most heavily devolves into popping DT to spam EX moves as much as possible, then popping Burst to get full meter to repeat the cycle.

Also for a game that cares enough about player skill expression to put in a training room, it's weird there is not only no movelist, but the only time you can view the controls/see what the mechanics are is if you replay and skip the intro cutscene level.

Even with those gripes, I think the game mostly succeeds in what it's trying to do. If all of that sounds like something you need in your veins right now, I would definitely recommend. Visualy gorgeous with an OST that goes off, if you are looking for a challenge, Slave Zero X is a great option.

If you do pickup the game, I'll give two recommendations:
1. Go to volume settings and max out the Music track. Otherwise it will get completely washed out.
2. EX moves aren't L+H like it says, its a piano roll. So in very quick succession L>H (For the people coming here as a character action fan, like how you would pull off an Afterburner Kick in Bayonetta)

[Edit, literally the day after writing this: Beat the game, penultimate fight was the hardest fight for sure. The final boss right after was pretty weak imo.]

Update from Nov 15th 2023
Finished 1.0, got what was labelled the "true ending", but I know there is still more to discover. But yeah, my original thoughts still hold up, I would highly recommend Lunacid!

Original Post from Jan 11th 2023
In my eight hour playtime, I have had multiple moments where I have said to myself "Maybe [insert silly solution here] might work?" with little to no confidence. To then immediately call myself a Gamer God Genius™ when it totally actually worked.

So much cool stuff going on in this game, and I want to detail none of it. Lunacid is walking the fine line of wearing all its influences on its sleeve, while also being its own thing. Going into the game knowing any more than "inspired by King's Field/Shadow Tower " is too much.

Not only is Lunacid a strong and easy recommendation to everyone who has touched any FromSoftware game (or game inspired by one) in the last 30 years. But also I would recommend Lunacid to anyone even mildly interested in the look of it.

Currently the game is still early access (Sep 2022 Castle Update), which means I would normally not score it yet and tell people to wait for a 1.0 release. But with the level of quality already on display, Lunacid would have to shit in my bed and infect my PC with malware for me to lower my 5 star score at a later date. (Also the games full price is $10 AUD, that's like only $3 real dollars!)

All other "open-world" games are made for and by cowards.

DD2 is one of the coolest games I've ever played. There are things this game does that are so wonderfully spikey, it make perfect sense how many people bounce off it. The spikiness of game design results in some of the most extreme emotional reactions to gameplay I have both felt and witnessed since Morrowind. Both in valleys so deep that the unseasoned game players will be trapped in despair and swear the game off as "unplayable", and peaks so high that very few games will ever dare attempt to match, resulting in all future open-world game being judged against Dragon's Dogma 2.

DD2 is one of the few AAA games that makes full use of its budget to push the medium forward. I think everyone who cares about open-world games and/or action-RPGs, owes it to themselves to finish Dragon's Dogma 2.

Hell, the dev hours put into things that only 10% of players will see is in of itself astounding and worthy of praise.

Very neat, easily the best "Monster Hunter-like". Hopeful that this foundation could lead to a better sequel.

tldr; Do you need to play it?
If you are done with the current MonHun release, and desperately need to scratch that itch before the next one, go nuts.
If you're not that down bad, you can probably skip this, but still keep an eye out for a sequel.


Extra Thoughts
Simultaneously a bunch of interesting new ideas, spins on the genre, and QoL changes not found in MonHun. While at the same time creating new problems that reintroduce tedium issues that were smoothed out of later MonHun games. (Reverting weapon upgrades with 100% material return, very cool. Making the meal system insanely more intricate and making item farming more like PS2 MonHun, literally who wanted this, I hate this).

It feels like its a solid 50/50 split of choices being either because "it would be cool if [blank] was in MonHun", and "we should do [blank] to be different from MonHun".
The first half being fun twists, like having a building mechanic functionally replace, and addon to, the classic MH items (like Flashbombs and Traps). The later half being kinda wack stuff, like making all skills be hyper-specific ints/percentages, and then attaching those to an equipment alignment system, so the whole thing feels way more complex than it needed to be.

I ultimately enjoyed my time with Wild Hearts (at 50% RRP), but have little urge to play more of the post-game. I think a sequel to this could really be the competitor Monster Hunter needs to keep it honest and innovating. I think a sequel could be a game people stick with for far longer, and I have two big notes for it: (Other than increasing the monster amount which isn't really fair on Wild Hearts, since MonHun has been building its monster list for 20+ years):

1. Having 6 base Karakuri, but only being able to equip 4 feels like a big misstep. Outside of the annoyance of finding out through the skill-tree (or external means, that this genre has being wisely trying to avoid the last couple of years with additions like in-game Monster databases) that you missed unlocked specific fusions because you didn't bring the right combo to a specific hunt, or the "inspiration" moment just didn't trigger.
It puts the player in a constant situation where you are being punished for not knowing in advance the correct buildings for a monster. In MonHun you can bring every item you would ever need to every hunt, and as you learn the game you know what items you might not need. It feels weird in the game that is trying to remove the friction of needing to prep disposable items by replacing them with buildings + one global health item, that it would reintroduce said friction by limiting the building that can be done.
Assuming a sequel would have 6-8 basic Karakuri, I would suggest while holding L1, that the 4 face buttons and 4 d-pad buttons would contain all 6-8. Then keep R3 as destroy mode, and swap L3 to bring up the Dragon Karakuri menu. I feel like this was the biggest friction point that didn't need to exist, and without it the game could be far more fun. After all the specialisation in playstyle should come from the weapon choice, not Flashbombs.

2. I'm gonna harp on this again. The best thing to happen to Monster Hunter was basically removing the need to load up a map and collect materials (I only did this in my hundreds of hours in Sunbreak, I think a total of one hour to hit an amount of money I would never run out of).
Not only did I have to load up maps multiple times to either get specific ore or get materials from specific small monster. But the food system resulted in having to put harvesters + up to 4 types of food prep across multiple maps, which the only way to improve was to spend time "open world exploring" to get items to level up the max capacity for each map and I wanted to rip my hair out.
Please just do the Monster Hunter food system verbatim and make all weaps/armour materials from monsters. Anything that isn't hunting monsters isn't fun. I just want to hunt the monsters PLEASE.

"The S-Blade has a Hackblood charge!"

I'm conflicted on how to rate this. On one hand, as a standalone "boomer shooter" throwback this game is short and sweet, but nothing too crazy going on. On the other, its mere existence is wild and should be celebrated.
my tl;dr is;
If you finished Hypnospace Outlaw, this is required media.
If you didn't finish Hypnospace Outlaw, do that, then play this.
If you don't plan on playing Hypnospace Outlaw, treat this as a 3/5 game (meaning you definitely have a backlog of other fps throwbacks you should play before this).

Some more thoughts
Just as it's own self contained experience, my two big highlights are:
1. The Soundtrack.
It perfectly captures a late 90's-early 00's sound that will make you question if you heard it on the radio back in the day. I got some real nostalgic feelings for tracks I had never heard before.
2. The 'broken glass as shotgun ammo' mechanic.
It's a really elegant bit of game design that emphasises the type of destruction of Build Engine games, by making it part of the core game loop of early game ammo acquisition. (This was honestly so clever, it took me out of the games premise for a moment as I reeled back and said "no shot Zane would do something this clever on purpose"). It's a shame there weren't other similar mechanics, and the glass mechanic was less integral later in the game (although this being the case is more thematically appropriate).

My only real criticism is also the core reason the game should be celebrated. This whole game is an extratextual videogame to Hypnospace Outlaw. Slayers X core premise is the little shit Zane from that game, now 20 years older has found and finished a Build Engine shooter they were making when they were a teen. Slayer X at it's core is about peering into the mind of an insufferable character(now protagonist)/creator. Everything that makes this game standout from "what if the target demo of Duke3D made Duke3D?" hinges on this understanding. If you remove the lens of "this is the game made by that edgelord I know from that one forum", all you are left with is an edgy game you found somewhere online. Still the same solid Build Engine style throwback, but you don't know the dude who made it, and that makes a big difference.

What I'm getting at is, depending on your point of view you can either view Slayers X as a solid game elevated by this extratextual premise. Or a mid game that wouldn't be seen a favourably without being extratextual.

I choose the former and now eagerly wait for AAA studios to run with this same extratextual bit. I'm thinking a game similar to the God of War reboot, "created" by and staring Daxter of 'Jak & Daxter'?

Just hit credits on the final ending. Easily my favourite AC game since Last Raven, it might even be my favourite period?

An incredible game that manages to both be faithful to what make AC such a unique series, while being far more accessible to new players. (I have been witness to 3 friends who have instantly "clicked" with AC6, and will most likely go back to play the older entries!)

My only real criticism is while the soundtrack is still good, I wish it retained more of the "amateurish, outsider art feel" like in earlier games. (There are still a handful of tracks like this, so I can't even complain too hard. I do wish the song over the final ending credits was instead of the final ending boss fight.)

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 3900X
GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080
Starfield: Literally unplayable on the lowest settings

I'll check again in 9 months.

Neat idea, wild it is a full price game that is currently one PvEvP game mode.

With unlocks giving such dramatic advantages, that the singular gamemode can be wildly unbalanced. It makes it even more baffling there isn't an equally (or larger) sized PvE mode. It really feels like a PvE co-op game is what Exoprimal wants to be. It at least feels that way when my personal highlight was doing a 10-player PvE boss fight (in the beta).

Worth playing a couple times with friends for the price of free (gamepass), but it gets repetitive fast. I will 100% reconsider this stance if a year from now Exoprimal gets one of those classic "the game is good now" updates.

Equal parts interesting and jank. Truly a product of early Kickstarter.

Every cool thing here is countered by something that really needed a QoL pass. Or just an extra couple of "no new features" development sprints. While playing you can see issues stemming from an ambitious team, lead by industry vets, that were all learning UE4 while making a tight budget, multi-platform release. (Seriously, did you know they were trying to also release for Wii U and Vita for a while there?) There is a lack of polish that it would be easy to argue exists because instead of addressing issues during dev, the team instead has to prioritize Kickstarter stretch goals (they even had to resort to getting a publisher anyway because they absolutely didn't budget in enough of a safety net).

I don't regret kickstarting this back in 2015 (holy shit time is crazy), but I wouldn't say it should be high on anyone's list of Castlevania game's they need to play.

I would however love to play a sequel that hopefully learned the lessons the indie scene already figured out. While getting to put the time in to polish the core instead creating public funded stretch goals.

How the hell do you make wizard FPS this boring?!

I will bet $1000 that some EA producer said "In our focus testing, we found players didn't understand how to play the game." Which resulted in the worst tutorial since shooters from the genres dark-age of 2007.

EA apparently spent $40mil USD on marketing for this game. They literally blew so much money on marketing, that it was too scared to risk letting the devs make something actually fun. Now all those devs have lost their jobs and the earth has been salted so thoroughly that I will never get a Doctor Strange shooter.

This is all too sad. My hearts go out to the devs who clearly wanted to make something cool, and were held back in the most blatant example of publisher meddling I've seen in the last 10 years. Because not one creative that works in this industry could possibly have wanted to let this happen.

I should finally get around to finishing Amid Evil...