presidentevil
2018
Good to see a game set in a pre-colombian civilization that isn't mayan or aztecs. The biggest issue in my opinion is the combat, simple most of the times, but the lack of invincibility after being hit makes it easy to be stuck in attacks by multiple enemies without the ability to do anything to defend.
2022
Not an original descriptor by any means, but it really is Tony Hawk Pro Skater meets Max Payne.
Keeps the same addictive loop from THPS with a specific number of objectives needed to unlock levels. The issue is that THPS is designed to be played in sessions of two minutes with no missable objectives. In Rollerdrome it gets frustrating to dedicate a longer time in a mission and failed an objective last minute because you got hit or damaged and have to repeat the level. Even more noticeable on levels with multiple stages.
Keeps the same addictive loop from THPS with a specific number of objectives needed to unlock levels. The issue is that THPS is designed to be played in sessions of two minutes with no missable objectives. In Rollerdrome it gets frustrating to dedicate a longer time in a mission and failed an objective last minute because you got hit or damaged and have to repeat the level. Even more noticeable on levels with multiple stages.
2021
Finished both campaigns. Started with the Yuito campaign which I found more enjoyable storywise compared to the Kasane campaign. Even after playing the story from both perspectives I wasn't satisfied with how some plot points where handled.
The social link-like system gets kinda irritating during the second third of the game, when it gets difficult to justify that the characters would be interacting at that point of the story. Should have limited crossing over characters from one campaign to the other until everyone gets reunited during the story, but I guess now then the problem would be that you are cramming interactions with half of the cast during the last third of the game.
The combat isn't as deep compared to other third person action games, but it's serviceable enough. Even though the main characters use different weapons, their playstyles aren't any different in practice, both being closed ranged fighters. The difference is then relegated to the special abilities, since the two campaigns have different parties for two thirds of its duration.
Really liked that almost none of the Skill Tree upgrades were simple stat % increases, so most upgrades where inmediatly noticeable when unlocked.
The story is interesting enough, but I think its strength is in its worldbuilding. Really enjoyed that the campaigns focused on different aspects of the setting during their first two thirds.
A 7/10 game elevated by its setting and worldbuilding. I recommed at least playing Yuito's campaign and from there decide if you are interested enough in replaying the game a second time repeating the same levels with just a couple of changes in the story.
The social link-like system gets kinda irritating during the second third of the game, when it gets difficult to justify that the characters would be interacting at that point of the story. Should have limited crossing over characters from one campaign to the other until everyone gets reunited during the story, but I guess now then the problem would be that you are cramming interactions with half of the cast during the last third of the game.
The combat isn't as deep compared to other third person action games, but it's serviceable enough. Even though the main characters use different weapons, their playstyles aren't any different in practice, both being closed ranged fighters. The difference is then relegated to the special abilities, since the two campaigns have different parties for two thirds of its duration.
Really liked that almost none of the Skill Tree upgrades were simple stat % increases, so most upgrades where inmediatly noticeable when unlocked.
The story is interesting enough, but I think its strength is in its worldbuilding. Really enjoyed that the campaigns focused on different aspects of the setting during their first two thirds.
A 7/10 game elevated by its setting and worldbuilding. I recommed at least playing Yuito's campaign and from there decide if you are interested enough in replaying the game a second time repeating the same levels with just a couple of changes in the story.
First Star Ocean I have ever played. Finished a single playthrough with Raymond with no post-game done aside from farming for ultimate armors/weapons at the end.
I'm not really a fan of combat systems that use a single Action Point resource for all attacks/actions, specially when you are forced to wait in the middle of battle for it to recharge. Luckily this is not that big of an issue thanks to the ambush mechanic that allows you increase your AP bar before and during battle. I quickly set into one combo that I basically used during most of the game. Personally didn't have an issue repeating the same button combination 90% of the game but I think is something it needs to be mentioned.
Really liked that the EXP is shared between all party members, even if they aren't one of the four active ones. If you keep an eye on upgrading the equipment of your reserve members, you shouldn't have an issue when you inevitably unbench them. The difficulty curve was fine most of the time, only had issues with some bosses were I had no trouble with the dungeon but the boss at the end just straight up wiped the floor with me. Learned the hard way to have a save just before the boss encounter to be able to exit the fight without lossing the progress done during the dungeon.
The story is just serviceable. It showed some promise of adressing the issues of "futuristic" characters influencing the medieval characters during the first act, but I feel this was left aside at around the second half of the story. Not really a fan of how the Private Action scenes are handled, felt like you had to backtrack to previous locations after each story beat to see all of the conversations with your party.
My biggest issue is the heavy reliance the game has on RNG. Just straight up ignored most side quests that required gathering items from monsters, since I was burned up pretty early by some bad luck when farming item drops.
The crafting system also leaves you at the mercy of the RNG, but I guess its the price to pay to being able to just plow through the game with OP weapons and armors as soon as you unlock the smithing/crafting abilities.
I played on Xbox One in performance mode, they aren't kidding when they say that the resolution will be sacrificed since the game was a blurry mess. The issue is that the framerate still drops a lot both during combat with lots of enemies or effects, and during exploration in a couple of areas. Only had two crashes during all my playtime, both during boss fights which forced me to restart the encounters in both cases.
This is a "7/10" game in the most complimentary of ways. If other platforms can handle the game on a stable framerate and/or less blurriness I could increase the score to an 8, so looking forward to revisit the game on PC and hope the technical issues aren't as noticeable.
I'm not really a fan of combat systems that use a single Action Point resource for all attacks/actions, specially when you are forced to wait in the middle of battle for it to recharge. Luckily this is not that big of an issue thanks to the ambush mechanic that allows you increase your AP bar before and during battle. I quickly set into one combo that I basically used during most of the game. Personally didn't have an issue repeating the same button combination 90% of the game but I think is something it needs to be mentioned.
Really liked that the EXP is shared between all party members, even if they aren't one of the four active ones. If you keep an eye on upgrading the equipment of your reserve members, you shouldn't have an issue when you inevitably unbench them. The difficulty curve was fine most of the time, only had issues with some bosses were I had no trouble with the dungeon but the boss at the end just straight up wiped the floor with me. Learned the hard way to have a save just before the boss encounter to be able to exit the fight without lossing the progress done during the dungeon.
The story is just serviceable. It showed some promise of adressing the issues of "futuristic" characters influencing the medieval characters during the first act, but I feel this was left aside at around the second half of the story. Not really a fan of how the Private Action scenes are handled, felt like you had to backtrack to previous locations after each story beat to see all of the conversations with your party.
My biggest issue is the heavy reliance the game has on RNG. Just straight up ignored most side quests that required gathering items from monsters, since I was burned up pretty early by some bad luck when farming item drops.
The crafting system also leaves you at the mercy of the RNG, but I guess its the price to pay to being able to just plow through the game with OP weapons and armors as soon as you unlock the smithing/crafting abilities.
I played on Xbox One in performance mode, they aren't kidding when they say that the resolution will be sacrificed since the game was a blurry mess. The issue is that the framerate still drops a lot both during combat with lots of enemies or effects, and during exploration in a couple of areas. Only had two crashes during all my playtime, both during boss fights which forced me to restart the encounters in both cases.
This is a "7/10" game in the most complimentary of ways. If other platforms can handle the game on a stable framerate and/or less blurriness I could increase the score to an 8, so looking forward to revisit the game on PC and hope the technical issues aren't as noticeable.
2019
A perfect pick up and play game.
Not knowledgeable enough to talk about level design, the flow of levels and what not, but in a way that I can't explain everything about it works.
May need to finish the original Doom first to get a more complete opinion on both of them.
Not knowledgeable enough to talk about level design, the flow of levels and what not, but in a way that I can't explain everything about it works.
May need to finish the original Doom first to get a more complete opinion on both of them.
It's short enough to encourage multiple playthroughs, which will be needed since it's easy to miss some of the mudokons at the start if you don't know that you must look for them in secret entrances.
The fixed jumps will throw you off at first but it's easy to get used to them. Only had problems in later levels when using the mount and more precise long jumps are needed.
The fixed jumps will throw you off at first but it's easy to get used to them. Only had problems in later levels when using the mount and more precise long jumps are needed.
If you only play in consoles, this is the best entry point to the series. You may miss a couple of references from Memories of Celceta, but nothing that demerits from the experience.
Has a good variety of locations even if everything takes place in a single island.
The castaways stories are interesting and compel you to continue looking for them. Having the goal of reaching a specific location for each chapter makes for a good loop that doesn't get tiring.
I guess there's the same issue from the rest of this era of the series (Ys Seven to IX), where you will set on three specific characters for most of the game (Adol + two others to complement him) and leave the other three characters forgotten for the rest of the game.
Has a good variety of locations even if everything takes place in a single island.
The castaways stories are interesting and compel you to continue looking for them. Having the goal of reaching a specific location for each chapter makes for a good loop that doesn't get tiring.
I guess there's the same issue from the rest of this era of the series (Ys Seven to IX), where you will set on three specific characters for most of the game (Adol + two others to complement him) and leave the other three characters forgotten for the rest of the game.
2017
The worst of the four Nintendo Warriors games on the Switch. The same problem with FE's smash representation, where a big majority of the characters are sword wielding lords that don't give enough variety of play styles to choose from. Lance users suffer the most, with the only choice being flying mounts.
A celebration of a whole franchise that only focuses in the 2 newest games and the original one, with a single appearance from characters from Shadows of Valentia and Blazing Blade. FE Warriors fell flat on its face so FE Engage could run.
The story it's okay, you can easily overlook the way it forces the different factions to go into conflict.
I don't recommend playing it in hardcore / with permadeath, since it'll make it harder to grind some of the less used characters in later missions.
A celebration of a whole franchise that only focuses in the 2 newest games and the original one, with a single appearance from characters from Shadows of Valentia and Blazing Blade. FE Warriors fell flat on its face so FE Engage could run.
The story it's okay, you can easily overlook the way it forces the different factions to go into conflict.
I don't recommend playing it in hardcore / with permadeath, since it'll make it harder to grind some of the less used characters in later missions.
This review contains spoilers
Even though this game is a alternate universe / what-if prequel to BotW, its biggest deviations don't show until 2/3 of the way into the story, when even more of the time traveling aspect of the story is involved.
Has a reduced cast compared to the massive one available in Hyrule Warriors Definitive Edition, but it makes up for it with fun gimmicks for its characters.
It's less forgiving if you are underleved, and you can't rely on Link as much as in the previous game, so in a way it forces you to grind on less used characters to complete some of the missions that require specific characters.
Didn't noticed or care for the reported frame drops, so nothing to comment there.
Has a reduced cast compared to the massive one available in Hyrule Warriors Definitive Edition, but it makes up for it with fun gimmicks for its characters.
It's less forgiving if you are underleved, and you can't rely on Link as much as in the previous game, so in a way it forces you to grind on less used characters to complete some of the missions that require specific characters.
Didn't noticed or care for the reported frame drops, so nothing to comment there.
This review contains spoilers
Note: review based on having only played the Blue Lions routes in Three Houses and this game.
An excellent companion for Three Houses, fleshing out it's lore and backstory and fixing some of my complaints from the original game (Dimitri and Claude not being allies being the biggest one).
For some reason decided to lock weapon selection to classes, which affects some combinations of special weapons and it's intended user (Marianne with her sword, Annette and her axe).
Having a voiced protagonist was always the way to go, more notable with Byleth being voiced and a little more fleshed out this time. Was fun seeing the what if scenario with her in this timeline.
The business with Arval left much to be desired, putting the big conflict at the end on pause for a couple of missions just to try to give it a unsatisfying conclusion. Dunno if it would have worked better if done as an epilogue, since it's already awkward to have all three lords at the end I don't think its position in the timeline would've mattered that much.
An excellent companion for Three Houses, fleshing out it's lore and backstory and fixing some of my complaints from the original game (Dimitri and Claude not being allies being the biggest one).
For some reason decided to lock weapon selection to classes, which affects some combinations of special weapons and it's intended user (Marianne with her sword, Annette and her axe).
Having a voiced protagonist was always the way to go, more notable with Byleth being voiced and a little more fleshed out this time. Was fun seeing the what if scenario with her in this timeline.
The business with Arval left much to be desired, putting the big conflict at the end on pause for a couple of missions just to try to give it a unsatisfying conclusion. Dunno if it would have worked better if done as an epilogue, since it's already awkward to have all three lords at the end I don't think its position in the timeline would've mattered that much.
2023
Was expecting the ring mechanic to just be fan service, which it was, but the extra abilities that it gives you along with being able to inherit the traits allows you to make some interesting builds.
The story leaves much to be desired, and the cast is just to big to be able to bond to more than a handful of characters.
Never had a problem with the characters design, even from the trailers, and that remains the same for the full game.
Not an original opinion by any means, but the strategy is some of the best in a while, leaving behind the repeated maps from Three Houses and giving you a variety of locations and map conditions to play in.
The story leaves much to be desired, and the cast is just to big to be able to bond to more than a handful of characters.
Never had a problem with the characters design, even from the trailers, and that remains the same for the full game.
Not an original opinion by any means, but the strategy is some of the best in a while, leaving behind the repeated maps from Three Houses and giving you a variety of locations and map conditions to play in.
More of the same from Borderlands 2. Has the recurring prequel problem where it tries to explain the origin of every single thing that will happen in its sequel.
Not as cringy or dated as I expected when first going back to it.
No way to change the voice language, so stuck with the Spain dub.
The new additions are fun. Laser weapons with its own pool of ammo let's you have multiple "machine guns" with different elements. The ice element gimmick didn't get old, specially combined with the ground pound from the oxygen tank.
Oxygen tanks don't upgrade as linearly as expected, found a really good one at the start that never needed to change, since I didn't found any with better perks and/or capacity latter.
Not as cringy or dated as I expected when first going back to it.
No way to change the voice language, so stuck with the Spain dub.
The new additions are fun. Laser weapons with its own pool of ammo let's you have multiple "machine guns" with different elements. The ice element gimmick didn't get old, specially combined with the ground pound from the oxygen tank.
Oxygen tanks don't upgrade as linearly as expected, found a really good one at the start that never needed to change, since I didn't found any with better perks and/or capacity latter.
The non-linear nature of the game ends up hurting sacrificing the story's quality, with the characters teasing or questioning information that you already learned 20 hours ago.
The loop between depths, sky and land is simply addicting, compelling you to finish all of the shrines.
None of the complaints take away from this being an upgrade to an already "perfect" game.
The loop between depths, sky and land is simply addicting, compelling you to finish all of the shrines.
None of the complaints take away from this being an upgrade to an already "perfect" game.