Recent reviews by Azure79

A game that's a bit hard to get into, either because of technical issues (though it works better for me than WotS 4) or from gameplay being poorly explained. The fact the tutorial is an area that isn't told only exasperates that issue. I love this game, with all its quirky humour, jank, imperfect and outdated systems. One thing this game nails, is it's ability to feel like an alive world with how many things could occur. You could really treat this game like a visual novel with travelling, scheduling and samurai duels once you get your bearings in.

I over-explain a bunch here... because the game only explains the bare minimum (just the fact they exist).

The game's story really is told though 'inklings' on the map, with you only able to do some based on your actions, and only allowing 12 before the climactic event. If you've played any 'social sim' game before, like Persona or more closely... Stardew Valley, then it's like that. Through all of these events there are at least 21 named endings, though a majority are small variations of others, making it really 8 endings with multiple variations of most of them. The game doesn't have a set number of days (unlike the other games in the series), allowing you continue forever before you get an ending.
Over my playtime, I did eventually enjoy the characters. On a first playthrough, you feel randomly dropped into these people's lives and it feels hard to connect with them, but as you play more you see what kind of person they are and who they will be. I didn't feel a personal connection to anyone, but I did enjoy their presence and that's perfectly fine.

Combat feels very simple, but has some surprising nuance to it which gets lost as soon as you discover how to juggle enemies permanently. Many weapons have capabilities to launch enemies, and if it's fast enough you have time to stand next to your target, block their get-up/ wait for them to begin standing allowing you to repeat it. Fighting occurs as a one-on-one, regardless of how many enemies are around.
An interesting mechanic unique to this series. While attacking (with light attacks) you may hold forward to 'push' an enemy's blade when they block. Conversely, you may 'pull' on the defensive (by holding away) to knock attacks to be unstable. The catch: attempting to pull only works when the enemy is pushing (red icon above head), otherwise you lose balance, enemies will do this against you when there icon is blue. The result of that is the constant need to be attacking, as defence is harder to do and generally less rewarding except on regular enemies.
A new mechanic added in this instalment, allowing a perfectly timed guard to start a QTE to instantly kill the attacker. Doesn't work on Unique enemies (have a purple border on their health bar). Successfully doing it allows you to reattempt it on a nearby enemy, but with a random button as the QTE. This mechanic trivialises enemy encounters entirely.

You keep items, money, weapons, cosmetics and whichever partner you have living with you. Between playthroughs, you gain "samurai points" based on your actions, unlocking some gameplay additions, cosmetics and extras. You need a lot of money to do things, unless you decide to rob shopkeepers.
Partners are a mechanic unique to WotS 3 (to other games in the series). Aside from annoying you, they have benefits and or downsides. Their most useful function is to generate compound interest on your savings.
Weapons have randomised stats (within a range). Upgrading weapons is semi RNG, and doing specific thing allows you to add titles which give +100 stats to them. They level up as you use them, slightly improving stats and unlocking more moves for use from their stance type (it is set for each weapon), certain items skip this skill grind. This system generates quite a lot of variety, at the cost of being grindy and making weapon swapping a pain.
A very fun extra feature, to make your character more personal. Either by attaching accessories, or using a model of an NPC you like. There very much is some jank here: smaller characters have smaller hitboxes, letting you dodge attacks from big characters occasionally; female characters (with 2 exceptions) cannot run while sheathed, but unsheathing in unarmed stance gets around that without causing most NPCs to get aggressive. I did in fact do this for most of my playtime and you get used to doing it if you decide to use a female character.

For a PS3 game, it's honestly quite good (slightly better than old gen monster hunter in terms of graphical fidelity). The only issue one could really have is the number of reused assets in the game, making it look cheaper.
Music is fitting for the game, but cuts out in combat frequently (due to fading out the instant no enemies are around). There aren't that many tracks, but they are all used well, but there is some multi-layering issues: battle at Castle Minori after Nobunaga event plays both the area theme and the battle theme, though it would be good if it was made into a full version.
Menu sound effects regularly play from a kilometer away for some reason.

I still have no idea how Squeenix decide that Lighting was the protagonist here, she's in every piece of marketing and like she really doesn't feel like it in game.

I very much like the story, it's weirdly relatable for me. The boys really are side characters tho, altho that just may be my perspective. Characters sometime reiterate stuff you already know or... do something extremely stupid and part of the ending is incomprehensible for me.

While the game feels dated at times, like with slow menu-ing in a real-time action game, it is still very good with an amazing combat system. However its sometimes less than stellar enemy designs that do not take advantage of it and overall bloated battle lengths diminish the experience. Start of chapter 11 was a bit frustration for me due to the huge exp gap you can have when getting into that point (I took a break for a couple days cause of Amphisbaena. Blinking red to signify an instakill (at that point), while you're also blinking yellow due to stagger (which should be a damage phase) is simply bad design) and the very slow movement speed at the beginning of that chapter.

The port is garbage, cannot fullscreen, extremely compressed cutscenes (you can fix this with mods), and depending on region you're locked into certain dubs. In SEAsia, I was forced to use the JP dub, and I very much prefer the English dub for this.

You can watch the cutscene budget fall in real time for chapter 11, I understand but it is an understatement to say FF14:ARR has higher quality cutscenes than chapter 11...


There is no world where Fang has less health than Sazh... except this one. I guess they needed to give him something decent. It's just that she looks like she would have more health, but alas woman (/s). All the gals are in the same health range relatively (lowest to highest goes Hope, gals, Sazh, Snow). Altho do note this is coming from someone whose ranks Fang as their fav character (followed by Vanille, Lightning, Sazh, Snow, Hope, I do not think Hope deserves the hate he gets tho)

People complain that the game is a 'hallway simulator'... you do realise that the first half of the game is the character struggling to survive, and doing things simply because they have to, not because they want to. With that context I really don't mind that decision (especially with how disjointed things can feel otherwise *cough* (13-2) *cough*). as it establishes feeling similar to the characters. If you can't stand having no choice then stay away. They probably should have added more things into those sections gameplay wise to keep people interested.

Music is really good, and makes use of a certain motif a lot, which can make the overall soundtrack feel very same-y at times altho I am someone who has listened to it in full half a couple o' times.

Game somehow feels very queer for me. Hear me out (Big Spoilers). The characters are chased by a religious authority, escaping to Australia (reminder that I be SEAsian where that is my real life experience), one of the Australians (they literally have the accent in the English dub and are from the world below), Fang, has a rainbow necklace and constantly talks about Vanille and how "I'll tear down the sky to save her" and calls Vanille 'her partner' (and they were roomates). Also Lightning literally gets deadnamed by the Pope in front of the whole party lmao

It's like if fallout was made in the sims 1

Girlboss ultraslay queensweep

You can probably tell by my profile that I'm a former player of both Girls' Frontline (up to Isomer, EN server) and Neural Cloud (EN, Up to Clukay), enough to make some niche character (why isn't she in NC when she was in its promo material) in them as my profile. I was excited to see this game announced cause it allowed me to enjoy its story properly (I had played the original with no story understanding). So I have some bias there, but it also allows me to appreciate recurring themes (music remasters/remixes, mostly) and rehearse some lore that makes the experience less confusing for me.

Enjoying the game so far, will update review later with full thoughts, but just know this fangirl thinks the game is good. Oh and ig this helps against the review bombing, but i would've posted this anyway.

Only minor issue so far is that lore docum
ents are cut off like that for some unknown reason, and only those documents afaik (at least when you read them mid level).

sniper buff make them go slide. brain be happy :]

Good game, just mad that when the free trial features became equal to starter pack features a couple years ago (when free trial got level 60) my account stayed standard edition.

Also steam client locked into one account (my old, starter edition account) due to steam linked accounts. Download the launcher from the website instead and this issue doesn't exist.

Struck a nice balance between serious tones and comedic situations. Music fits the atmosphere and every character is interesting. Somehow characters are able to get away with saying the dumbest thing and I love it.

Death valley is goals.

Rough around the edges, but I'm enjoying it so far.

I greatly enjoyed the music with its jazz tones mixed with dance. Adaptive music added to the battles is a fantastic touch I can't praise enough, with a 1x, 2x, and paused version of the battle theme. Music player in the phone is nice, but I wish I could set it to play random or make playlists.

The overworld artstyle feels derived from Arknights while having a certain own take on the style. The character portraits are well drawn in a style I can't quite identify the inspirations of.
I can certainly feel Va-11 Hall-A inspirations, like the articles available on the phone (the comments are a welcome addition to it, I wish Affogato made comments about the articles after reading them, though), drinks making (altho this may be closer to coffee talk, which I have yet to play) and returning to the room at the end of the day, which may be a Persona thing. Speaking of which, the fact there is a looming calendar date, plus use of tarot card reminds me of it, especially with there being 3 social stats which bars you from progressing relationships and the free-roam city is similar to Persona, if only there was a quick travel home tho.
The unique menu items have fun little descriptions, I wish that side bar was a little less clunky by maybe using categories or having it focus on the opened recipe instead.
Mephista is funny, altho this may come at a cost of the tone given the first story arc is about suicide.
Lindsay has my favourite outfit I've seen so far, but she basically has Fluttershy's personality, minus the animals (plus for me, but might make you hate her).
Natalie is your typical burnt out journalist, and I think is quite a mood.

Issues so far:
Lack of a content warning for suicidal thoughts, and POV of someone jumping off a building. As someone that's been there, that scene was slightly terrifying... (I'm way past it now b
Shop customisation could have benefited from a separate menu, rather than simply using items in your bag
Forced to follow a specific order to make certain coffee, for example if you add milk to an Espresso, it makes 'Caffe Latte' and stops you from creating 'Caffe Mocha' despite both using milk.
Affogato's walk animation looks awkward since her hands swing faster than she takes her steps.
UI translations have been a bit sub-par, 'reorganise' and 'restart' are too similar
Card descriptions don't include stats, or what their children/spawned cards do.
Counter for how much mana the hermit has generated would be nice.
Lack of sound FX when beating a boss really takes you out of the moment.

Clunky controls in battle:

• Sometimes I'm unable to focus target enemies...
  
• Hotkeys not working sometimes (specifically changing battle speed)
  
• Unit placement, sometimes I place them behind yet they end up in front, I wish it pulled up a little UI addition for where in the party the unit is placed.
  
• When units get de-synced, such as from certain enemy attacks, your front unit (usually Chariot) may end up behind where they lose their purpose (tanking/ aggro) and your squishier units will die. This is fine as it adds difficulty, but the players have no way to stop and reorganise the team making it feel out of their control.

Writing issues:
I have no clue why we are shown the start of the Aoi demon fight at the start of the game, it feels like it shows no narrative purpose and spoils that entire section since we are already shown: That she made a contract and why she made the contract.

Took a bit past chapter 1 for me to really get interested, but it was worth it. I'm sure part of it is that it's meant to feel a bit uncomfortable, which I'd say it managed.