Recent reviews by Funkatron G

A marvelously grounded take on the concept of a Coming Of Age story. Get it - on sale if you must. If you value story highly, it's worth every penny.

Play it, no spoilers.

Even if you're not a Sonic guy, that's fine; get it on a sale. First playthrough took ~24 hours on Normal doing as many side things as I could be assed to remember. Hard mode gives incentive to playing even more of it, as well as gives more story content, so you'll find no shortage of stuff in this title.

Would recommend just about every competent individual play on Hard mode with the fast-paced movement choice, as "difficulty" doesn't change much and the controls can be customized if it turns out to be *too* fast.

It's pretty friggin' great.
Worth the wait.

Good gravy. It's good.
Wedged myself in between a wall and a door and killed 8 people in like 5 seconds.
That's a good thing.

It's Elder Scrolls but online. Like some sorta MMORPG type thing. I've never heard of one of those before, ever, for realsies, swear on my third uncle's life, but if I HAD, I'd say that as far as those MMORPG thingies go, this game is like Splenda. Not as good as the real thing to me, but still sweet. Hell, some people even like it better.

PROS:
Runs well, plays well (even better with friends), looks great, and sounds great.
Decent story that works well enough with an open world. Simple objective (beat the main baddies) with many ways to build up to that point. Excellent atmosphere as well. Voice actors really pull through, with 4 out of 5 actors of named characters on average delivering incredible performances and the other 1/5 still being acceptable. Joseph's speech when you defeat all three main baddies sounds so genuine, and the voice acting during the ending has real weight to it.

CONS:
Reeeeaaaally didn't like one main baddie's region. Faith, to be precise. Without spoilers, interactions with her make no sense and are tedious. She also distorts your view on the animals of the landscape, sometime fabricating them right in front of you, which has made navigating the area to be quite the nuisance on occasion. All three baddies nab you, but only John's method is legitimate. Faith and Jacob's methods just sort of... happen, and it feels more like an interruptive experience than John's method for this reason. Then, for a game grounded in reality (at least more so than other iterations), Faith's witch-like abilities (you'll know what I mean if you play) and Jacob's box affect the protagonist in ways that made me scratch my head exasperatedly, not than feel fear or worry.

THE POLARIZING ENDING:
Separating this because it's big. I liked the ending a lot right up until the VERY end. In this game, you set out to accomplish "Goal X", and through doing "Goal Y"s, you take steps to "Goal X". Unfortunately, the game ends with you building up everything only to actually make negative progress. It wouldn't even be so bad if the final diabolus ex machina plot device didn't ruin everything in the last minute before the credits. To further clarify, the premise of the ending is very cool, and the final segment is actually handled exceedingly well (again, excellent atmosphere). However, pulling away "Goal X" from the player with the final cutscene makes the player feel bad. Not in a heart-wrenching, depressing kind of way, but more of a "Oh, what? Come on..." kind of way.
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OVERALL:
If you're anything like me, you'll probably have a lot of fun, but you might find some parts of the story (or some characters) tedious, arbitrary, and seemingly like it's bad events just for the sake of it, which might take you out of it a little. Then, the ending might make you feel completely let down as a player. This is the quintessential 2018 version of "Journey, not the Destination", because the game goes well enough, but the destination is kind of rubbish.

7.5/10
Very good, but not great.
The last bit of the ending actually seriously definitely 100% took of a whole point. Yep.

You will never- not for a second- forget you're playing a video game. That's not a bad thing either. It's over-the-top, it's guns blazing, it's high risk/high reward. That part of it is the part that I care most about. The writing is fantastic for what it is, and the voice acting is on-point, as well; BJ's voice actor is a stand-out example (which is good, he's the protag).

Unfortunately, it feels like it's not tuned for higher difficulties very well. Hard mode felt more unfair than challenging sometimes, but not overly so. Even higher difficulties, though? I feel as though that'd kill me. Back to the writing, I said it was "fantastic for what it is". Thing is, some characters are a pain. It doesn't feel like you hate the way they're written or voiced, you just don't like THEM. Grace tried my nerves, for instance. And Wyatt. He has one incredible speech toward the end, but that's it.

Overall? I give it a whopping two Sturmgewers up, with a solid 7.5/10.

(Buggy and unpolished especially by today's standards, but what can you expect from a studio's 2nd title from 2006?
Crashed a lot for me, but that's likely due to bad Windows 10 optimization.)

PROS:
>Intricate combat. I only played melee, but magic can be very helpful and feels powerful if used well.
>Good level design. Can feel like a maze, but it's really just many roads to the same place.
>SMART level design. Many solutions to a given problem.
>Kicking and throwing, while funny, actually play an important role, and it feels good to utilize.
>Engaging item system and skill tree gives you choices with how to play.
>Gods-darned Fire Sword. There's a fire sword. Aaaaaah! Can't figure it out? Google it! Get it! Use it!

MIXED:
>Entertaining but cheesy story. Fun to either make fun of or just competent enough to get by. Nothing special.
>Voice acting. By and large, a crapshoot. Some characters are alright, and even the bad ones have some alright lines. Overall endearing, yet... amateur.

CONS:
>Hard Mode is not recommended. This is a game where hard simply makes certain bits tedious and unfun.
>Untelegraphed attacks. I found myself taking damage when I thought the enemy was done swinging, and it feels more likely a result of jumpy AI than intentional design.
>Inconsistent combat. Enemies knocked down may stay down for 5 seconds- may stay down for 1. I found myself dying even though I was blocking, and the enemy appeared to have done nothing. Perhaps this is folly on my end, but bear this in mind. In addition, hit detection can be wonky. Infrequent, but still prevalent enough.
>Hard Mode SUPER not recommended. The above problems probably left more of a mark due to me playing on Hard Mode.
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OVERALL: If this game was revisited and rereleased today, built from the ground up (with new voice acting), and with a good chunk of technological errors ironed out, I'd give this a solid 8/10. Maybe 8.5. From start to finish, despite suffering through Hard Mode, I was entertained enough to keep playing. Worth $10 for anyone who likes old games or wants to try out the addicting combat, but nab it on a sale if you can help it.

For now? Tentative 7/10. Good stuff.