You cock.

Edit: Hey this game is too fucking long. I get that EVERYTHING sucks and things get only worse and like that's like a metaphor for life and climate change and war mongers that control our lives but like I want to ride a chocobo.

Also why are items that make the game fun withheld from you? For a game this long, you get items you equip that change the mechanics to be more robust and fun. You get these items AFTER 60 hours of pressing three buttons in player controlled combat.

That Titan fight is the most expensive thing I have ever seen in a video game. That's where all the FF14 money went. Into some Metal Gear Rising Dragonball Z shit. Amazing.

I want to like this game more, but it couldn't feel like a game 5 different game studios super-glued together to make a unique product which I appreciate and in some ways love.

The rough edges are felt and cannot be ignored because this game is too goddamn long and dumbass casuals are not going to figure out there are items in their inventory that make the game fun. I get why they are separated so as to curate the game experience but like literacy rates are plummeting and motherfuckers are scrolling r/bigwhiteasses in between gameplay segments. This game would have been received better if the default player combat experience was more fun from the start.

The world's most expensive and exhilarating cutscenes are not going to prevent people being bored long-term if their participation is not up to par. You got the DMC5 combat designer in this bitch and his work is essentially hidden from plain view. Come on, now.

Between Tears of the Kingdom, Hi-Fi Rush and this game. 2023 was a juggernaut of soundtracks. I think FF16 had the best overall soundtrack of the game's I played. The dude who wrote most of the music had like stage 2 cancer while writing it, so the themes of death go hard as FUCK in a very emotional way. Goddamn this game will make you sad and terrified. It's good stuff.

I'm not going to dismiss this game as torture porn. But I think it's small glimmers of hope and joy that you do see in this game that are insanely powerful. Like the game puts you in a state of acceptance of slavery, poverty, plague and needless warmongering only to pull your head out of the water to make you look at the rare Moogle or Jill's boobs.

The ultimate villain is dumb and kind of ruins some themes the game was running with, but not since like Final Fantasy 6 do you feel somewhat hopeless at winning against them. It's awesome.

FF16 plays around in a miasma of human misery to highlight what's truly precious in life to those who want to know peace. Is it particularly niche and inaccessible? It is to mainstream audiences for now. I think appreciation for what's here will only grow in time.

They should releases this with a re-wired combat system so I don't fall asleep 40 hours in but like you know Square doesn't do anything 100% right. I'm cool with the final product, but not as much as I had hoped.

I can't wait for this to come out on PC and melt everyone's GPU.

Decent indie title that has weirdly got so much unnecessary hate on this site. It’s kinda short and it’s lacking some more complex bosses but i personally don’t mind if games like this are short as long as the content is well constructed and for the most part it is.
I think the opening area is the game at its best tbh, very similar to fire link shrine in DS1 not just in its aesthetics but also in its function. The way every dungeon is immediately accessible no matter its difficulty is something i dig. I started with one of the harder ones and it was really challenging for where i was at progression wise so i came back to the hub area and explored different pathways and then later in the game i returned to that dungeon and absolutely walked through it like it was nothing which was pretty satisfying. That being said the level design in the separate dungeon areas isn’t so satisfying, a lot of them are very linear and i think some areas in the game are pretty poorly paced and go on for too long which is pretty damning considering this game is considered to be quite short. Nevertheless the art direction is pretty cool and the combat can be cool most of the time. Bosses can be enjoyable but they are nowhere near the complexity of anything in the souls games and most of them are pretty easy.
As long as you are able to accept that the game is mechanically really quite unoriginal, i think it was a decent time.

I must be frank with myself: I'm really not having a good time with this game. There are cool mechanics, and some of the weapons are fun to use, but I don't feel motivated to go on cycle after cycle. I haven't played many rogue-likes; in fact, the only other game of the genre I played was Hades, and in my opinion, Returnal completely pales in comparison. Perhaps this game just isn't for me, which is why I'll refrain from rating it. I'd like to return some day, but for now, I've broken the cycle and am free from Atropos.

Sincerely heartbroken. I haven't been subjected to a AAA game this broken, unfinished, visually incoherent and unfun in a good few years. It especially stings as Arkane is one of my favorite developers working. Prey, Deathloop and the Dishonored series as a whole (alongside Arx Fatalis) are incredible, so it pains me to see the studio come out with an experience this dreadful...

Sigh...

Edit: On further reflection, Redfall is the worst AAA game I've played. Whew.

When you finish all the permanent upgrades at the runic gate and it still takes at minimum 40 minutes just to bum rush the first 3 bosses - only one of which actually poses any challenge (Crucix the Twiceborn) - and get to challenge the final 4th boss, repeated runs become really unfun. Also all the shell shades pale in comparison to the +20 base damage from Eredrim's Anointed Butcher so playing as the other shades for trophies/achievements makes you feel gimped to hell

Main problem boils down to how roguelike games just shouldn't take over an hour for successful runs - at least when every run is extremely samey like in this game and the failpoint is almost always the final boss (which doesn't change either). Makes losing runs very frustrating.

At least the axatana weapon that was added is very fun (but admittedly only because it's overpowered and buggy - the running attack should not be getting 3+ hits nearly every time)

Great fusion of Housemarque's experience in SHMUP design with the third-person shooter genre. Doesn't lose its step one bit and feels right at home along the likes of Super Stardust and Resogun. Movement is so responsive it never gets old dashing through enemy fire. I was worried that when the studio set aside the SHMUP genre they'd lose their identity, but instead they made a third-person shooter about abusing i-frames. It's a delight to play.

However, it suffers immensely from a feast or famine problem. The way health works—where your max health increases any time you pick up health items while at max health—means that players doing well keep doing well. If you're at max health, your max health merely continues to grow, setting you up for success by the time you hit the boss. Not doing so well? You'll constantly be scraping by, struggling to even regain what you've lost in each fight. It means a good run becomes an avalanche. And only good runs. Both of my victories—in the first and second halves of the game—came on runs where I didn't die once. Once the snowball starts rolling it's unbeatable. You get the artifact that leeches health on hit and the game becomes easy street.

It's always a hot or cold. You're either in the worst run and struggling to survive or the game feels like it's made for babies where it's impossible to die and aiming barely matters anymore. The game feels incredible, but it's a rebalance away from being truly perfect. Easily the quickest I've ever seen the end of a Roguelike.