quinnman89
The more I play the less I like it.
Waited for the dub patch before playing. Yong did a fine job. The writing in this title is really well done and keeps scenes mostly interesting. Music is decent. Game looks good. Loved the customization and dress-up, even if it was a tad limited.
Ultimately, I found this game to be pretty empty and full of meandering. I don't see myself ever playing it again and will be forgetting everything that wasn't in a marketing trailer within the week.
New "Agent style" is whatever. Giving Joryu a grapple hook wire sounds cool, but it's so lame. It's a crap-shoot if the wire even works. The best tactic for large group fights is to get some drones out to distract while you lay explosive cigs around the arena.
"Yakuza style" is a bit more fun and the charge moves work well enough to combat the constant kneeling and heaving most grunts do. Them hunched over would mean kicks fly right over their head- they are immune to throws as well. Not a fan. The best strat for the little guys is to mash light punch while they're down and tank damage with yakuza-style for the big guys. A certain part of me misses the old style of gameplay. Pop an energy drink, try to see as many unique heat moves as possible. New heat moves in this title are few and far between. Really lacking in that area.
Akane is a pretty neat addition, offering most of the "side content" and adding an additional currency to manage. Though, I gotta say, I did not like a single side-story. The best optional stuff to me was recruiting fighters for the coliseum- but even that side of things got old quick.
If this was a launch title for a new console generation, I could see some merit here. A little taste of what makes this series good in a cheap package. But that's not what we got. What we have is a story that could be summarized in 2 sentences, stretched out to make us feel like it was "worth more." That brings with it all the implied padding as well. I could see players who are new to this franchise liking this a bit more than the die-hards.
Now, why do I dislike this more than ground zeroes?
I think it's because Ground Zeroes was NEW. It was a bold taste of the next generation of metal gear. It was something to be excited for.
I was going to be excited for 8 because 7 was good. Not this mini adventure.
Just watch the cutscenes online if you really wanna know.
(This game also destroyed my entire SSD. The game crashed and caused the entire drive to fail. It's hilarious. I promise that had nothing to do with my score.)
Ultimately, I found this game to be pretty empty and full of meandering. I don't see myself ever playing it again and will be forgetting everything that wasn't in a marketing trailer within the week.
New "Agent style" is whatever. Giving Joryu a grapple hook wire sounds cool, but it's so lame. It's a crap-shoot if the wire even works. The best tactic for large group fights is to get some drones out to distract while you lay explosive cigs around the arena.
"Yakuza style" is a bit more fun and the charge moves work well enough to combat the constant kneeling and heaving most grunts do. Them hunched over would mean kicks fly right over their head- they are immune to throws as well. Not a fan. The best strat for the little guys is to mash light punch while they're down and tank damage with yakuza-style for the big guys. A certain part of me misses the old style of gameplay. Pop an energy drink, try to see as many unique heat moves as possible. New heat moves in this title are few and far between. Really lacking in that area.
Akane is a pretty neat addition, offering most of the "side content" and adding an additional currency to manage. Though, I gotta say, I did not like a single side-story. The best optional stuff to me was recruiting fighters for the coliseum- but even that side of things got old quick.
If this was a launch title for a new console generation, I could see some merit here. A little taste of what makes this series good in a cheap package. But that's not what we got. What we have is a story that could be summarized in 2 sentences, stretched out to make us feel like it was "worth more." That brings with it all the implied padding as well. I could see players who are new to this franchise liking this a bit more than the die-hards.
Now, why do I dislike this more than ground zeroes?
I think it's because Ground Zeroes was NEW. It was a bold taste of the next generation of metal gear. It was something to be excited for.
I was going to be excited for 8 because 7 was good. Not this mini adventure.
Just watch the cutscenes online if you really wanna know.
(This game also destroyed my entire SSD. The game crashed and caused the entire drive to fail. It's hilarious. I promise that had nothing to do with my score.)
I should've had a guide at my side to avoid some headaches, but overall a swell time.
Best pacing and characters in the trilogy. A few of the puzzles or "decisions" were a bit too obtuse for my liking, thankfully there were more fun puzzles than not!
Best pacing and characters in the trilogy. A few of the puzzles or "decisions" were a bit too obtuse for my liking, thankfully there were more fun puzzles than not!
This game takes way too long to get interesting, every single character is unlikable. ESPECIALLY compared to the cast of the prior title.
The biggest offender: Boring. I was so bored for a majority of the game.
This goes for the story AND gameplay.
They will explain the bracelets and "BP" and the chromatic doors over and over and over and over. The game will hammer in every little detail over and over. You start getting the gist of how the game works and start questioning why they need to repeat themselves SO MUCH.
You will watch the same hallway walk, the same doors, entering the same elevator CONSTANTLY. There is a total of 1-hour of traversing via the map screen and there is nothing you can do to speed it up. Agonizing.
I'd say the ratio for fun to annoying puzzles is 1:9. Some puzzles were as simple as "write down this text string and then enter it later" or "count how many things are in the bin and enter said number into a keypad."
Others had you doing sliding puzzles or click-one-tile-to-transform-the-tiles-around-it. AKA ones where the game doesn't give you any hint and it's just about doing it via trial and error. Time stuck will vary.
The inventory screen is mid. It gets bloated pretty quick and cycling through stuff is just slow.
The easy mode switch for puzzle rooms goes from "zero help at all" to "flat-out gives you answers to puzzles." The penalty for switching to easy doesn't even make sense. Once you have the secret file safe code, just go back in and enter it again while in "hard mode" (the code doesn't change between difficulties.) Bizarre choice.
The story... No spoilers from me but uh-
I did not really care? There's so many branching paths and """endings"""" that the whole experience blends together into this mush. You will see the same plot points repeated over and over with slight variations being who's with you. and because it's technically "new dialogue" you can't skip it.
The game cheats its audience by having a pretty interesting ending. I can see why there are fans of this title and why this game is currently sitting at 4 stars average. A good ending will leave people happy. I'm sorry. I do not forgive the other 25 hours of SLOP I endured. This game got on my nerves. Never want to revisit this one ever again. ZTD time.
The biggest offender: Boring. I was so bored for a majority of the game.
This goes for the story AND gameplay.
They will explain the bracelets and "BP" and the chromatic doors over and over and over and over. The game will hammer in every little detail over and over. You start getting the gist of how the game works and start questioning why they need to repeat themselves SO MUCH.
You will watch the same hallway walk, the same doors, entering the same elevator CONSTANTLY. There is a total of 1-hour of traversing via the map screen and there is nothing you can do to speed it up. Agonizing.
I'd say the ratio for fun to annoying puzzles is 1:9. Some puzzles were as simple as "write down this text string and then enter it later" or "count how many things are in the bin and enter said number into a keypad."
Others had you doing sliding puzzles or click-one-tile-to-transform-the-tiles-around-it. AKA ones where the game doesn't give you any hint and it's just about doing it via trial and error. Time stuck will vary.
The inventory screen is mid. It gets bloated pretty quick and cycling through stuff is just slow.
The easy mode switch for puzzle rooms goes from "zero help at all" to "flat-out gives you answers to puzzles." The penalty for switching to easy doesn't even make sense. Once you have the secret file safe code, just go back in and enter it again while in "hard mode" (the code doesn't change between difficulties.) Bizarre choice.
The story... No spoilers from me but uh-
I did not really care? There's so many branching paths and """endings"""" that the whole experience blends together into this mush. You will see the same plot points repeated over and over with slight variations being who's with you. and because it's technically "new dialogue" you can't skip it.
The game cheats its audience by having a pretty interesting ending. I can see why there are fans of this title and why this game is currently sitting at 4 stars average. A good ending will leave people happy. I'm sorry. I do not forgive the other 25 hours of SLOP I endured. This game got on my nerves. Never want to revisit this one ever again. ZTD time.
Boring. Dreadful. Go click cookies instead.
This review contains spoilers
For this one to work, you really have to have a lotttttt of VNs under your belt. This one is for the mega degen fans.
The story tries to soften constant 4th wall breaking by introducing an actual in-universe "video game" and blurring the lines built there- but... It's so corny. Both love interests are so 1-note and icky. Crazy Tsundere or the Sexy Pervert Kitty Robot. Pick your poison.
I understand that including a Tsundere type is kind of necessary for a story like this to work, but I really don't think she EARNED the redemption by the end. Choosing Aoi doesn't feel good either. She doesn't fit in. She's mentally innocent and alien by design. They are both UNHEALTHY AND TERRIBLE OPTIONS.
I found the game way more interesting before the big twist.
Once you get there, it's like "ah, this is what we're doing now. Okay." Time's up on developing the cast. What goes on this point forward is all "what-if" glitch-y timeloop interactions.
They try to sell this "friendship triangle!!!" between the 3 titular you's me's and her's but at no point is it believable or worth salvaging.
Going back to my opening statement, the game's characters are pretty run-of-the-mill and don't try to stand out. (Their interests and backstory are LITERALLY randomized per playthrough.) It's all for the meta purpose of selling a "just another love triangle visual novel!" to make the twist hit that much harder. Going all-in on the twist with a build up this small feels a bit... cheap.
When the plot isn't moving, you're learning basic trivia (or raising your "bond") during boring dates in a timeloop. I don't want to call it "padding" because I truly do not believe it was created this way to stretch longer playtime. If anything- it's a lack of respect towards the player, knowing that if you're this far in, we can throw whatever we want at you. It goes to some pretty funny extremes. Then the joke is done and you're left wanting to move on already.
There are quite a bit of secrets and easter eggs to find online which could please anyone. Yes, the secret scenes and following specific steps to enter secret codes stuff IS COOL, but it doesn't really fix any of the core icks I have towards the overall experience.
Great art, music is really solid. Voice acting adds a lot to it.
There's some neat timeloop ideas and dialog events that appear when picking different options, but that's really doing the bare minimum for this type of story.
Maybe play this when you've already read them all and nothing excites you anymore. This is certainly "different."
The story tries to soften constant 4th wall breaking by introducing an actual in-universe "video game" and blurring the lines built there- but... It's so corny. Both love interests are so 1-note and icky. Crazy Tsundere or the Sexy Pervert Kitty Robot. Pick your poison.
I understand that including a Tsundere type is kind of necessary for a story like this to work, but I really don't think she EARNED the redemption by the end. Choosing Aoi doesn't feel good either. She doesn't fit in. She's mentally innocent and alien by design. They are both UNHEALTHY AND TERRIBLE OPTIONS.
I found the game way more interesting before the big twist.
Once you get there, it's like "ah, this is what we're doing now. Okay." Time's up on developing the cast. What goes on this point forward is all "what-if" glitch-y timeloop interactions.
They try to sell this "friendship triangle!!!" between the 3 titular you's me's and her's but at no point is it believable or worth salvaging.
Going back to my opening statement, the game's characters are pretty run-of-the-mill and don't try to stand out. (Their interests and backstory are LITERALLY randomized per playthrough.) It's all for the meta purpose of selling a "just another love triangle visual novel!" to make the twist hit that much harder. Going all-in on the twist with a build up this small feels a bit... cheap.
When the plot isn't moving, you're learning basic trivia (or raising your "bond") during boring dates in a timeloop. I don't want to call it "padding" because I truly do not believe it was created this way to stretch longer playtime. If anything- it's a lack of respect towards the player, knowing that if you're this far in, we can throw whatever we want at you. It goes to some pretty funny extremes. Then the joke is done and you're left wanting to move on already.
There are quite a bit of secrets and easter eggs to find online which could please anyone. Yes, the secret scenes and following specific steps to enter secret codes stuff IS COOL, but it doesn't really fix any of the core icks I have towards the overall experience.
Great art, music is really solid. Voice acting adds a lot to it.
There's some neat timeloop ideas and dialog events that appear when picking different options, but that's really doing the bare minimum for this type of story.
Maybe play this when you've already read them all and nothing excites you anymore. This is certainly "different."
2023
Can't even be a contrarian if I wanted to. Even if you see clips everywhere, it doesn't dampen the fun with friends.
In-game voice chat is used really well and brings a special charm to the "hang out" experience.
Game is all about risk. Some better players will use every trick in the book to fight back the monsters and maximize loot. The less skilled can still help by carrying items and managing the teleporter/monitor at the ship. Sometimes just getting out ALIVE is enough to keep a run going.
Survival is an easy enough concept to grasp, allowing the player to spend less time on learning game rules and more time on unraveling the bizarre world and its rules.
I wish the game allowed for larger player lobbies than just 4 and incorporated a few of the quality-of-life mods out there but I understand it's an early access release. Congrats on the big success and I hope the developers keep the updates coming.
In-game voice chat is used really well and brings a special charm to the "hang out" experience.
Game is all about risk. Some better players will use every trick in the book to fight back the monsters and maximize loot. The less skilled can still help by carrying items and managing the teleporter/monitor at the ship. Sometimes just getting out ALIVE is enough to keep a run going.
Survival is an easy enough concept to grasp, allowing the player to spend less time on learning game rules and more time on unraveling the bizarre world and its rules.
I wish the game allowed for larger player lobbies than just 4 and incorporated a few of the quality-of-life mods out there but I understand it's an early access release. Congrats on the big success and I hope the developers keep the updates coming.
Fun ride. Some puzzles bring it down and the quirky rants/story twists range from interesting to boring. Characters are nice and memorable. Didn't hate any of them. That's a blessing in a story like this.
Voice acting in the steam version is fantastic (okay not a fan of Junpei tbh).
I didn't have to use a guide once but I certainly got close a few times. They give you a calculator to use in-game but you can't open it during puzzles...? I think? Useless.
I'm also not really a fan of replaying certain parts to get some true ending, it made certain events blend together and confusing when nearing the end. I wish the different branches were more distinct/interesting. Even when the branches DO feel unique and provide some answers, they feel the need to re-spell it out on the true ending path. I'd prefer if it was just 1 route with player choice being different doors- any bad end resulted in re-doing the last pivotal choice or whatever.
Still, I enjoyed the world of 999 and I am excited to play VLR soon.
Voice acting in the steam version is fantastic (okay not a fan of Junpei tbh).
I didn't have to use a guide once but I certainly got close a few times. They give you a calculator to use in-game but you can't open it during puzzles...? I think? Useless.
I'm also not really a fan of replaying certain parts to get some true ending, it made certain events blend together and confusing when nearing the end. I wish the different branches were more distinct/interesting. Even when the branches DO feel unique and provide some answers, they feel the need to re-spell it out on the true ending path. I'd prefer if it was just 1 route with player choice being different doors- any bad end resulted in re-doing the last pivotal choice or whatever.
Still, I enjoyed the world of 999 and I am excited to play VLR soon.
2004
It's like.... a cute idea- but why is it so needlessly harsh??
2021
Why did I stay up late to see the "true ending."
You see everything the game has to throw at you in the first 30 minutes. 1 ending is all it takes. Don't repeat me and my friends' mistake. Don't 100% it- Don't play it.
Spiteful and ugly. You will not come out of this a better person or even a happy person.
You see everything the game has to throw at you in the first 30 minutes. 1 ending is all it takes. Don't repeat me and my friends' mistake. Don't 100% it- Don't play it.
Spiteful and ugly. You will not come out of this a better person or even a happy person.
Came back to this one years later and yeah. It's... poker against the computer. They talk (repeat lines) WAY too much but turning down the dialog in settings makes the experience a tad flat.
Get ready for another adventure in: Read the Wiki.
Survival crafting like you've seen it before.
Survival crafting like you've seen it before.
2023
I want to like this game. I really do. What's here at launch is just so... small. The game feels way more fun to play, stealth getting the biggest makeover coming from Payday 2. It's just a darn shame there are only 8 missions and the cosmetics/progression is just barren. The masks, perks, and lobby system are such a step down it kills the entire desire to grind.
The controls are NOT customizable enough. They give us a "legacy" control style to mimic the control style of PD2 but it's not even close. PD2's control scheme was FINE. Why did they change it and then make it worse by not letting us use it as an option??
Always Online. Okay, sessions with friends will just END because servers decided to die that day. It happened EVERY. SESSION. I feel for the developers, servers are hard to maintain, surely. But to not let players even enjoy the content solo till servers are back up is INSANE.
Even when the servers are working as intended there is no way to stay in a matchmaking lobby between missions. After every mission you are booted to the main menu to re-matchmake. WHY? It's hard to make friends or form bonds with strangers when there is NO pre-game or post-game chat or they get whisked away after every mission! There is no way to confirm before a mission starts if we're going loud or stealth. This is a pretty big deal when I'm locked into the loadout before being able to chat! They want to stealth?? oops!!! impossible to tell! didn't bring the stealth loadout I made! Zero way to go back and switch now!!!! backing out means re-queueing with new players!!! horrid.
Communication is key and I feel like It's hard to do that. The Quip wheel is borderline useless. Can't even say GGs after a successful heist because chat turns private as soon as you see the results screen.
At least stealth is still fun even with 0 stealth skills.
The controls are NOT customizable enough. They give us a "legacy" control style to mimic the control style of PD2 but it's not even close. PD2's control scheme was FINE. Why did they change it and then make it worse by not letting us use it as an option??
Always Online. Okay, sessions with friends will just END because servers decided to die that day. It happened EVERY. SESSION. I feel for the developers, servers are hard to maintain, surely. But to not let players even enjoy the content solo till servers are back up is INSANE.
Even when the servers are working as intended there is no way to stay in a matchmaking lobby between missions. After every mission you are booted to the main menu to re-matchmake. WHY? It's hard to make friends or form bonds with strangers when there is NO pre-game or post-game chat or they get whisked away after every mission! There is no way to confirm before a mission starts if we're going loud or stealth. This is a pretty big deal when I'm locked into the loadout before being able to chat! They want to stealth?? oops!!! impossible to tell! didn't bring the stealth loadout I made! Zero way to go back and switch now!!!! backing out means re-queueing with new players!!! horrid.
Communication is key and I feel like It's hard to do that. The Quip wheel is borderline useless. Can't even say GGs after a successful heist because chat turns private as soon as you see the results screen.
At least stealth is still fun even with 0 stealth skills.
2021
This game sounds fun on paper! Mid. The fun comes from trying to nail a good build using the limited options the game gives you. Ultimately it's up to luck though and the gameplay stops there. Spin the wheel. That's it. You get items to steer things in your favor but this idea is done way more fun in other roguelikes/lites.
2023
The open beta had me raising some eyebrows. The game feels cheap. Menus are sprawling, way too many currencies. BUT-
the game can be fun with friends. Winning is also fun.
Losing is not.
There are times where you finish an enemy and just need to pick up a specific item that dropped. Your bag is full and you are short on time. You aim at the level up card/revive card. You just picked up the shield potion ontop instead. Your bag cannot fit the desired item. You take a few steps away to make room in your bag. Drop the items and head back. You picked up another potion instead. You walk away and empty three slots in your bag this time out of desperation. Your team is dead wondering where you were.
the game can be fun with friends. Winning is also fun.
Losing is not.
There are times where you finish an enemy and just need to pick up a specific item that dropped. Your bag is full and you are short on time. You aim at the level up card/revive card. You just picked up the shield potion ontop instead. Your bag cannot fit the desired item. You take a few steps away to make room in your bag. Drop the items and head back. You picked up another potion instead. You walk away and empty three slots in your bag this time out of desperation. Your team is dead wondering where you were.