Recent reviews by Constantine

Specs: 7800X3D + 64GB DDR5 + RTX 4090
4K Max, DLSS 60%, no FG: 70-90fps depending on what's going on
Not on the latest driver, so performance number can perhaps improve

=First Impression=
I've only played around the first area so far and fought (died) against the first boss, the performance, although not ideal, seems to be decent... (as in playable)

Based on what I've seen, it seems that some settings includes RTX features in them, which would explain the performance issue that most people are experiencing, if you are one of those people, try lowering some of them, especially GI and Shadow, given that those are probably the ones that involves RTX

I'd like to put the blame mostly on the devs in this regard, as the game should've properly disclose these things, especially given that RTX can hit your game performance HARD, or, you know... separate the settings like most other game does?

But man, based on my very limited time with the game so far, the fidelity of the game looks really amazing, I would probably compare it to Stellar Blade, minus the optimisation

I can't say for sure how the experience for the rest of the game will be as I play more, but for now, everything seems to be fine and I'll be recommending it, since my experience aren't really in line with what most people have described in their negative reviews, just watch out for the settings that you are using, even on mid-high tier HW, your PC will struggle if you crank the settings high enough.

PS. Given my low hours on the game currently (if only I don't have work to do...) this might be a skill issue on my end, but when I fought the first boss, the attack telegraphs seems to be a bit of a hit and miss. Maybe it's intended or maybe it's because I literally just played the game for the first time, but I was definitely having a hard time reading some of the pattern despite having experience on this genre...

EARLY REVIEW

Spent around 40h in the 1st act area, finished most of the quest in the area (that I knew of)

I'm really liking the game so far, but has some gripe that I just can't get over so far, so I'm bumping it down to 7/10 for now

They're doing both good and bad job of providing players with a sense of agency, there are lots of quests that would play out differently depending on how you approach them, and I like how certain options would only shows when you fulfill certain criteria (talked to certain NPC, found certain item, etc)

But they seem to be having trouble with providing actual consequences in some parts, despite acknowledging your actions, maybe due to budget/time constraint, ex: You can get excalibur super early and the game gives you an achievement for it, but the story that plays out is the same as if you had play through the entirety of that main quest, instead of actually conforming to your actions Killing caradoc early gives you an achievement, wearing his armor when you talk with him again next time gives you an achievement, but he barely acknowledges the 1st one (if at all) and straight up ignored the 2nd one in your interaction with him


Due to that, it causes some obscurity in which option actually impacts your playthrough or just purely for flavour, or maybe it does impacts your gameplay, just not your story, too much gray area IMO, especially if some of the results would only play out in the long run

Also, some conversations seems to lead toward certain directions but then felt like its abruptly cut off, ex: Vrann and Orlaith interactions felt like they were heading somewhere, with you being able to joke around with them and them reciprocating your personal questions/statements, only to fall off completely once you finish the convo. The same about Fearghas, given the impact of the main quest on him, you would think you can approach him after Maybe romance with Conchur and Sirja, given your very early interaction with them and the fact that they got a page in the lore section, but I haven't met them again, so maybe it is possible later on

=1ST IMPRESSION=

I've yet to progressed the story so far, instead opting to get a feel of the open world, exploration and the gameplay

Plenty solid for a AA game experience, but I felt like a lot of polish is needed for this game, especially when it comes to things like UI and QoL

I'd give it 7.5/10 for now

Things that I think can be improved:
- The font is way too modern and clean, jarring considering the Fantasy theme
- The Inventory UI is horrible, whether it's for equipping menu or managing inventory, there are a lot of steps involved which could've been cut off entirely, floating menu for equipping armaments and tabs for different types of certain things instead of having everything in 1 page and requiring scrolling down
- NPC that allows you to change how you look perhaps? I mean come on, this is a fantasy game, if resurrection and immortality is a thing, changing appearance and sex should be an easy thing to do
- Night enemies (wyrdspawns) are visible beyond the fog for random reason
- Fall damage is a bit too much IMO, you basically receive damage for anything beyond 2m, which is dumb IMO
- Considering how dark and gruesome the game's get, I was semi expecting gore system
- Basic parkour system perhaps? things like mantling or climbing ladders would've been really nice and opens up how I approach the gameplay a bit more
- Ability to change crafting ingredient when possible (ex: switching types of alcohol when crafting potion)
- Different colors for map icons, especially for 1-time redeemables like shrines or fast travel stones
- Pressing jump during swimming will cause massive slowdown due to the jump being queued
- Origin Potion should be craftable (even if it's hard), allowing for more player flexibility

There might be more things I'd find as I keep playing, but for now, these are all the things that came to my mind

Faster-paced, Coop-focused Elden Ring

The game dripfed you with lore drops as you play through the game with each character presented, though some are arguably harder to use than other (Executor is clunky af ngl)

Though the game is great in its current state, it definitely could use some refinement and hopefully long-term support/updates every month or two

Random encounters and map-changing modifier could be happening more often, with more variety of bosses, and perhaps occasional new contents from Fromsoftware, this game could be their platform to develop a Monster Hunter competitor in some ways, which can be a good thing, given the current state of MH:Wilds as of this review's writings

And given the postive reception of the community thus far, I really hope that they will stick with it for the coming years

PS: FROMSOFT, STOP DOING MAINTENANCE ON THE WEEKENDS FFS

The technical limitation is somewhat obvious in some areas, but the artistry and atmosphere as a whole are so amazing and immersive that I just can't really say anything bad about it

One comparison that comes in mind is actually Elden Ring, zooming in that game, it is obvious that the game "cuts corner" on its technical aspect, things like texture quality, invisible barriers, low poly assets and such, but no one truly cares about that stuff (coming from a graphic snob btw), good graphics are nice to have, but never a top priority, especially with the kind of art direction and experience it gave you, graphic would be much lower on the priority list...

Everything that I said about Elden Ring just now, applies nearly 1 to 1 to Clair Obscur

Day 1 PC Main, currently UL80 (current lvl cap), I spent on this game and basically owned every characters & weapons in the game up till the day this review is posted, but I've experienced the game both the easy/whale way (using characters with max copies) and the hard/F2P way (fighting without levelling up/using characters with no copies)

The review is being done per my experience up till V2.2, as I've yet to play through V2.3 and as a part of the anniversary patch, it may skew things too positively with plethora of free gifts

I'm not the biggest fan of gacha system in games as you can probably tell by my Steam library but i have in fact played other gacha games, I used to play Genshin (Day 1 too) & HSR, and I'm still playing ZZZ, PGR, GFL2, Nikke & Infinity Nikki

This is probably the closest gacha games have been to a full on AAA anime game experience has ever been in terms of the whole package. Graphics and characters look gorgeous, music and gameplay are frankly amazing, but the story can range from servicable to peak cinema depending on which part of the game you're playing and your preferences, so YMMV

The worst part of this game is honestly the gacha mechanics, say what you want about how the company needs to make money, it doesn't change the fact that having gacha changes the game design direction as a whole for the worse

That is why even though I like this game so much, it'll never be the perfect game for me

At the same time, they did a great job on balancing the game, because they've also inserted an aspect of player skill into the game, while this makes it less casual friendly, it also means that provided you're willing to spend the time, you can definitely win through the challenges since it's not purely reliant on numbers or specific characters, which means you won't have to spent as much money on it!


Probably one of the best looking gacha game that currently exist, even beating the likes of Infinity Nikki, heck, it probably beat most of anime games out there if we were to strictly talk about the fidelity of the graphics, the amount of attention to detail in this game is insane, down to things like leaving footprints on sand and the way the waves moves very much realistically, from this aspect alone, most people would've forgotten that this game is free to play
With every update, they've made better and better music, but unfortunately, if you're anew player, then chances are you will have to through the earlier areas in Jinzhou, which are mostly bland in terms of BGM and overall music, but the good news is, it only gets better from there, as you go through the stories and reach new areas
Now this is pretty subjective, but for me, it's one of the best combat system that I've seen in a gacha game, think of DMC style of combat with abit of a souls-like in the mix, you can dodge and parry in this game, both of which will be essential especially in certain type of challenges, and there's a certain depth to the gameplay that can be explored should you be interested in getting good in the game, things like quickswapping, animation cancel, and even some stuff that usually only exist in fighting games like kara cancelling and negative edging
It starts off bad IMO (i'll dive into it more in the other section), but the story picks up a lot as you progress through the game further further, currently, we're in version 2.3 and the story so far has been far better both in terms of actual story, storytelling, and even has more cinematics, one of the best offering in the game is probably the character quests, where you get to know them more
Current main quests: ~22H in total
Current side quests: ~18H in total
For the genre, the world and exploration aspect of this game has some of the best detail i've yet to seen, rivalling some single-player open world games that I've played, the NPCs look surprisingly good with some amount of variety, the scenery looks awesome, and exploring felt good, especially as you go through the more recent areas where you can fly (Rinascita), moreover, there are lots of references and easter eggs hidden all over the game world, and
Visual-wise, they look FREAKING AMAZING, like I'm talking nearly 1-to-1 copy to their 2D pictures, and if you know anime, you know how hard that is to do, and story-wise, the ones that they do touch upon has a lot of depth, unfortunately some characters have little to no game presence, which I hope they would change that in the future
Earlier, I mentioned that the story starts off bad, the reason is that early on, the game was basically walk and talk sim while they barraged us with lorebombs and new terms, so the first few hours of the game was honestly a bit overwhelming, now I'm one of the people that wasn't too affected to it as I was able to piece together things by myself, but I can definitely see it being an issue for a lot of others, thankfully, the devs said that they had improved the early game experience, that and the new Glossary feature which can help you understand the in-game terms much easier should help ease out those first few hours
The main endgame content, Tower of Adversity & Whimpering Waste, are your typical time-attack, currency farming, periodically reset content you see in other gacha games, which are honestly really bland, they do however have events that, if turned into actual endgame contents would be really fun, and probably serves as a unique selling point for the game (Illusive Realm & Virtual Crisis FTW)
There's a lot of controversy on the gearing system in this game, which are called echoes, It is technically better than some other gacha where your gear farming are strictly limited by the stamina system, here, you can also farm echoes in the open world, however, I can see the complain that people are having in regards of the whole sytem being very RNG: first the drop chance, then hopefully you get the main stat that you want, then hopefully you roll the substats that you want, multiple times. but for me, I see this in the same light as ARPG games, the likes of POE and Diablo, where you have to grind a lot in order to find the perfect item for your builds
How the gacha works in WuWa:
80 pulls guarantees a 5* - for characters: 50% banner character / 50% standard characters, but for weapons: 100% banner weapons

Starting from 65th pulls onward, your chance on getting a 5* are higher, up till the 80th pull where you're guaranteed to get them

While I mentioned seeing this game in the same light as ARPG games like POE and Diablo earlier, I can't say the same to the gacha system, where there's literally 0 way of you getting ahead of other players with effort, i'm not talking about building up your game skill, but rather, your resources and currencies, these stuff are strictly timegated and paywalled, bcs you are limited to a certain number of currencies every period unless you swipe on the game, which is something i really hate, because there's just no option to substitute that with effort instead

Despite my complain however, wuwa is still one of the more generous gacha games in the market, offering more pulls in general per patch, lower pity and guaranteed weapon banner. The fact that the game also involves some player skill means that you'll be even less dependent on this system

If you like to collect everything like I do however, you'll prob hate it like I do...

Pure unadultered fun, very much well worth the price even without the sale if i'm being honest

and with steam workshop/modding support, i can see this game lasting long term with enough dedicated fanbase

if you're looking for a good challenge and mindless fun, this would probably be one of my recommended go-to game!

GOOD
- The world felt much more alive, NPC patrols around the map, they converse and walk back to their spot after cutscenes
- The combat felt much more responsive and flexible, I personally love Focus Mode
- The weather system looks awesome, fighting during storms n such felt so epic
- "By my own order, I shall slay Zoh Shia" scene + the whole final battle is such an epic moment IMO
- Monsters does in fact look better than the previous game, graphically speaking
- Getting materials are less of a chore now since you get more drops overall from each hunts
- Being able to do hunts continuously without pause feels great, every monster within your rank gives you quest which means more money on average too
- Scripted scenes during the main story arc can be really cool at times

MEH
- Overall hunt is now faster, from the usual 20-30m to around 10-15m, whether it is good or bad is up to your preference, personally, it felt a bit too fast, but maybe its because its still early game
- The world design doesn't really feel expansive, but more akin to MH Worlds map connected to each other, I was expecting the open world to be actually "open", but they just mostly replaced the loading screen with a discreet path between each region, prob more of an expectation problem on my end
- The story is definitely more palatable, as in easier to understand, with more emotional (or at least trying to be) scenes , but it is now shorter than the old game (at least main arc), the theme is pretty cliche and overall very meh. Again, preference thing
- The game doesn't just feel faster, it also felt easier and more casual, depending on your expectations for the game, you might not like this, some people prefer to be challenged after all, I personally like the QoL improvement but also really wished that the fights were a bit harder, maybe that'll change once the real end game starts
- Lipsync is a bit jarring at times, lots of awkward pauses, though it might be due to the game not being designed for EN voiceovers(?)
- Multiplayer system is improved compared to previous game, but i feel like it could still be better and simpler than this...

BAD
- Performance is atrocious, the graphical improvements does not warrant the massive performance hit that it currently has, this game needs more time in the oven ngl... I'm running top tier PC (7800X3D/4090 @ 4K Max) and I still had to rely on DLSS + Frame gen to maintain smooth experience, which i think is BS
- Pop-in is a recurring problem, very much noticable especially when doing quick camera flicks, texture has noticable delay before being fully rendered, applies to even the terrain geometry in some cases
- The story fights felt too easy that it might be a bit of a trap for new players, I barely had any need to upgrade my equipment throughout the whole main story arc (15-20h) so I'm concerned that some people might get lulled into a false sense of security when they finally reached High Rank
- I kinda miss the sense of danger that we get from MH World, things like Anjanath lurking around during your early Low Rank hunts or Bezelguise during your early High Rank hunt, that feeling of unknown threat is missing, at least throughout the whole main story arc, because fights are much more hand-crafted and safe....
- Game keeps buggering me about internet connection on the menu, THIS IS A SINGLEPLAYER GAMES, STOP TRYING TO MAKE SINGLEPLAYER GAMES ALWAYS ONLINE (you can probably play with steam offline mode, but the fact that the game keeps trying to connect to internet when you have no connection is FKING ANNOYING)

Frankly, I'm really disappointed with the current state of the game, Seasun have managed to somehow regressed the game to a worst state than it was during the Playtest

While I have to acknowledge the fact that they made some good changes to the game:
+ They've tweaked energy consumption to be much fairer, which is especially noticable if you use a mech that depends on them (ones that flies or uses melee weapon)
+ The prologue/opening section of the game has been tweaked, it is definitely more cinematic now

However, the general direction of the overall changes have been worse
- Overall progression in the game felt slow, especially in its current state, making the game felt grindier, matches doesn't give you currencies, instead, you're fully dependent finishing missions or getting certain achivements, which is bullcrap IMO oh btw, you can only progress missions on the ranked mode, casual mode doesn't give you any mission progressions...
- The game is very much leaning toward P2W elements, with battlepass (contract) allowing you to take more missions per week, combined with how the game gives you the currencies, it is straight up ♥♥♥♥♥♥ IMO
- PERFORMANCE IS FKING ABYSMALL, EVEN COMPARED TO THE PLAYTEST VERSION FROM MONTHS AGO, the problem seems to come from the all new hangar (player hub of sort) and definitely-much-improved player character that they have now, everytime i see my character bewbs n ass jiggles on the screen my FPS went down to ~20-30 fps... ON A 4090!!! WHILE I APPRECIATE EYE-CANDIES, I DON'T WANT IT TO COME AT THE EXPENSE MY PERFORMANCE...
- although the opening section are more cinematic now, I kinda hate how hand-holding and forced the tutorial is, though this is a much more common problem and not just exclusive to this game
- The mission system is just bad, each missions are tied to a specific mech, doing specific action, on a specific missions/area, which, if you combine it with the progressions issue i listed before, means your mission option is limited to what mechs you have, oh also, the missions/area are randomized so good luck on that too
- Had one of those typical Asian online game matchmaking problem, a lot of the matches that I played felt like bot matches, and the occasional actual human players that i've met are super organized / sweaty, so the matches are either too easy or just straight up impossible to win, no inbetween
- no actual PVE mode, which combined with the way progression works, means you will get kicked in the ass by the sweaty/P2W players, and there's just no way around it if you wanna progress the game and unlock more Mechs


So all in all:
I'm definitely not as excited as I was before with this game, now to be fair, all these problems can still be fixed and changed, the gameplay is fundamentally fun, it's not perfect, not groundbreaking, but decent enough, especially considering that it is a free game

But everything else that is surrounding it right now is bad, the progression is slow and grindy, the performance is awful, the game felt P2W since the gap between free and paying players is very noticable, which does not bode well when the game is mainly PVP

Currently, the game just felt like Overwatch/Marvel Rivals, but with mechs instead of heroes, and instead of just skins MTX, it's P2W since your progressions is gated when compared to people that spend money...

Remember when you were young?

It's the weekends, schools are off, it's dark and raining, as the world outside is finally asleep, you got snacks and soda ready to go, you boot up whatever gaming setup you had and you started a game, one that just sucks you in, as you locked in and experience it, and before you even realize, the sky is turn bright outside and the sun has already risen

YES, IT'S ONE OF THOSE GAMES

Courage and honour, my brothers, for our pledge is eternal service, and salvation is our reward!

A solid 10/10 game for me, not because it's a perfect game, but because it was such an experience, and not even once I've regretted spending all that time experiencing it, the sense of pride and accomplishment when you beat the enemies, of peacefulness when you ride Torrent throughout the Lands Between, and of awe as you discover new areas

It does everything well, it has plenty of breathtaking view, it gives me a sense of challenge that seems so frustating to surmount, and yet so fair (except the Promised Consort, ♥♥♥♥ YOU... jk... but am i?), and moreover, so exhilarating when you finally managed to win (TAKE THAT YOU PIECE OF ♥♥♥♥ PROMISED CONSORT!!!), it doesn't hand hold me all the time, but still gives me enough information to know how to play, and most importantly, the amount of depth and content they put in this game is so insane, I'm still finding new things 300+ hours in (I kid you not, the amount of stuff i found out i've missed when i finally moved on to NG+ is astonishing...)

Even better, this game even made me grew up as a person, I'm now much more in control of my emotions that going into online multiplayer games doesn't frustate me as much anymore (again, thank you Promised Consort, but also, ♥♥♥♥ YOU...)

Now if I could nitpick, then I could probably find a bad thing or two to say, like they could've done more with the Abyssal woods, or perhaps another crumb of expansion, Fromsoft? but honestly, for most people, they should just go ahead and experience the game themselves, because it's worth it...

ONE OF THE FEW GAMES I WOULD 100% RECOMMEND EVEN AT FULL PRICE!