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Recent reviews by The coin tossing Bard

Showing 1-7 of 7 entries
No one has rated this review as helpful yet
1 person found this review funny
37.8 hrs on record (34.8 hrs at review time)
Unfortunately it's a lot like Elden Ring. Some aspects it overtook from the main game were improved upon but that's it. If you want to have fun, play something else.

You might have noticed my playtime. It has most likely increased quite a bit since the post of this review. I'm only powering through for the achievements.

EDIT: About one fourth of my playtime was dedicated to gain an RNG achievement. This game is not good.
Posted 9 June. Last edited 17 June.
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No one has rated this review as helpful yet
38.3 hrs on record
If you want a mediocre Open-World game with less than good gameplay, a story that is good but only in the last 15% of it and an absolute imbalance in difficulties, you should buy this but only with a major discount. Else, don't.

Apparently, the sequel should fix some of the problems: the abyssmal climbing, the practically non-existent melee combat, (hopefully) i-frames because why should you dodge if you get damage anyway, and an actual reason to regularly (!) switch weapon types.

Don't get me wrong, I collected all achievements because the first 10 or so hours seemed fun. After that for a long time (until the story got interesting), it was tedious. the general gameplay feels whacky. I played with Keyboard and Mouse and it felt absolutely squishy. Riding mounts is awful, the climbing is first of all taking pace out of the already clunky movement and at points, the game wants from the player, to not use the actual climbing system but spamming space for regular jumps (like not even a small thing, in a Story quest, you have to do this.)

The dialogues don't feel good at all. For some reason, some cutscenes are not skippable, which is imo just inconsistent. I like collecting achievements, therefore I endured the Ultra-hard mode. I say endured, because it is painstakingly clear that the developers didn't do much besides adjusting some stats which turns any enemy into arrow sponges. Aloy is two-shot with the best gear and modifications the game offers and fights are tedious. With the aforementioned missing i-frames, combat encounters not in the open-world are simply awful.



All in all, a good 4.5/10, wouldn't play ever again
Posted 20 July, 2024. Last edited 20 July, 2024.
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1 person found this review helpful
75.8 hrs on record
Please keep in mind, this is a review based on MY experience with the game and therefore purely subjective :) Also, I will try to be as spoiler-free as possible but there might still be some!

I pre-ordered the deluxe version of the game as I'm a big fan of the first game which I put hundreds of hours in.
The items provided don't really give you a noticeable advantage (as a matter of fact, at the time of writing this, I actually haven't used any of those items)

The character creator
I created my character beforehand in the provided Character Creator and imported both my Arisen's and Pawn's appearance into the main game. Character creations are a big thing for me and it really is one of my absolutely favourites! There is a lot of possibility for customization, and I spend quiet some time in it. In-game you have the option to change your appearance, some of it only via an item called the "Art of Metamorphosis" bought with one of the to currencies, the Rift Crystals (more to them further down), you also have the option to acquire dye which unlocks more options in the character creation. As in the first game, the proportion of the body has effects on stamina, max carry weight etc.

The story and world
The first two hours, I was hooked but after that, I near completely lost interest. It faded away quickly. At around the midway point of the story (mind, if you focus on those quests, you get there in around three to four hours) a disappointing climax of the first arc happened which really had me lose the tiny rest of interest until a point later on.
One incredibly positive point for me is the "Dragon's Dogma" aspect of the story which I won't go into detail more. I loved it in the first game, and I really liked it in this one.

Also, the fan-service very late on had me excited again!

The side quests are well-balanced in interest, especially a very tedious (in a good way) set of side-quests which had me actually take a step back and think before doing them. There are also some tedious (in a bad way) quests which are simply annoying and for a perfectionist like me absolutely awful.

Overall, it seems like the storytelling seems incomplete and rushed at points..

Traversing happens either by foot, a fast-travel system which can be used as a slow-travel system, and teleportation. At first, exploring was fun but it quickly got frustrating. It feels like every 5 metres, a group of mobs spawn and ambush you. This is only a small issue in the first big area, a much bigger, hundredfold more annoying and frustrating experience in the second area. More to that in the next section.

The combat, progression and items
There are quite a few vocations in the game, all have their own playstyle and most of them need to be unlocked in a unique way. Each vocation also has its on leveling and motivates (or should at least) to play with it and unlock every ability. There are also "Maister" skills which are acquired by finding, well, Maisters of that vocation.

Pawns are more useful in this game than the first although they seem to have a thing for ladders and chests (the container).

Unfortunately, to actually finish the game, I had to play solely thief because beside one other vocation who also has semi-decent movement. The pure amount of mobs spawning in the world and the sheer amount of staggering and knockdown power they have make this game barely playable. I kid you not, if you're only a little bit unlucky, you ill find yourself in a group of enemies that keep you on the ground for a good 30 seconds, diminishing your max health bar to a minimum.

The general movement feels good if you're on even terrain, as soon as there is some verticality, the characters start sliding down slopes, this is especially noticeable in the south, more mountain-y part of the map.
Climbing on big enemies feel so much better compared to the first game but it still occasionally happens that your character clips through to the other side. Also, there are now ragdoll physics which seem very dependent on the overall performance. I got yeeted into oblivion a few times when a big enemy spawned in a city.

Armor and Weapons found in the wild are usually weaker than the ones bought at shops, but I really like that there are different ways to upgrade gear and change different stats.

Overall, the game gets trivial if you're about level 45, but you can still get kind of one-shot by a simple pack of wolves if you're unlucky :) Exploration only seems interesting at first and towards the middle of the game it seems like chore.

The graphics and performance
The RE Engine is amazing and the game looks absolutely beautiful! I play on the highest settings and had only two crashes. The cities and another location (actually the most npcs) have problems with characters popping in, and exploring the world had mobs spawn right in my face quite often.



This game (sadly) is a weak 6/10
but still enjoyable in a few aspects. Therefore, it's a very weak recommendation.
Don't buy this game at a full price, get it at at least 25% off, if not 50%

I will collect the rest of the achievements and maybe play a DLC if it has that special "Dragon's Dogma" aspect.



Posted 5 June, 2024. Last edited 27 November, 2024.
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No one has rated this review as helpful yet
11.0 hrs on record (7.7 hrs at review time)
A real blast from the past
Posted 21 November, 2023.
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No one has rated this review as helpful yet
125.9 hrs on record (89.1 hrs at review time)
Nice graphics, nice music, rage-quit uninstalled it about 5 10 times

6 weak 5/10
Posted 22 November, 2022. Last edited 20 July, 2024.
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No one has rated this review as helpful yet
3.9 hrs on record
A very relaxing game.
Posted 26 November, 2019. Last edited 1 December, 2020.
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1 person found this review funny
34.6 hrs on record (33.9 hrs at review time)
It's a real good game
Posted 25 October, 2014.
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Showing 1-7 of 7 entries