Recent reviews by Raguna

So, you'll see that I am, in fact, recommending this game. I hit yes. But the following review will likely confuse you, because it is going to be negative. Why? Because I do, genuinely, think most people will absolutely enjoy this game. My playtime on Steam is not reflective of my total time played - I originally bought it on PS5. So, yes, I got the game twice.

But I absolutely the ♥♥♥♥ don't. It is everything I have come to just be absolutely fatigued about games in lately.

Always online? Check.
Live service? Check.
An arbitrary leveling system that gates unlocks but has no real customization? Check.
Premium currency? Check.
Lack of story? Check.

Now, I don't think those things will bother most people? Absolutely not. I think most people will love it. It's cheeky, wears its Starship Troopers inspiration right on its sleeve and it controls great for an TPS. But I couldn't play it at all like the first week it was out because of servers being full and them not implementing any kind of AFK kick (and PS5 users could just put their console in sleep mode and save their spot). Then I finally got in to play and wanted to be hype but... the fatigue hit me like a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ truck and about an hour in with some friends I just really wanted to log off and play almost anything else. I played it again for about another 30 minutes with randoms and then another 30 or so with some friends. I was bored but I could see the appeal. Thought hey, maybe if I just play it on my PS5 for a few quick matches before bed instead of trying to play it more hardcore on my PC, I might enjoy it.

I sunk an additional 6ish hours in on my PS5, a bit with a friend, some with randoms. Nothing bad happened. Missions completed fine. People were friendly. Game worked well. But I was just so utterly bored. It felt so empty. It was doing just to do and what I was doing didn't feel... good. I was shooting a bunch of AI enemies just to eventually unlock slightly different way to... shoot more AI enemies. I do genuinely see the appeal and even played quite a lot of Helldivers 1 but... I dunno. I think I'm just completely and utterly "live serviced" out... and sadly Helldivers 2 is the game that finally broke me.

So did I like the game? No. I was bored and if I had bought it directly through Steam I probably would have refunded it. But I got it from a code which can't be refunded. But a game that doesn't get played in my Steam library is nothing new.

To everyone else? You'll probably have a great time with it. Go have fun spreading Democracy and remember that samples are shared. Just do it without me.

My hours are kind of a lie, since I left it idling almost an entire day when I went to work, but I wanted to give it an honest try. This was my first Tekken game - I'd mostly come from a background of SF and more anime 2D fighters.

Candidly, I wish I hadn't bought Tekken 8. I don't think it's a bad game - by all accounts if you liked the previous Tekken this one is absolutely supurb. I just know it isn't a game I have any interest in getting to learn or getting good at. I feel like it plays so differently from any other fighter I've played that I have to just learn so much nuance specifically for a single franchise that I also just... don't care about. None of the characters clicked with me - visually or gameplay wise.

But what it does? It does fine. Netcode is good. Graphics are good. Controls are responsive. Has a really good tutorial and solid training mode. I just have massive buyer's remorse as I know this is now a $70 digital paperweight on my steam account. That's on me - the Demo didn't win me over either but it also only had 4 characters and I thought for sure at least one character would speak to me. But, they didn't.

Anyway, that's why I'm saying I don't recommend it - for players like me, I don't. For fans of 3D fighters or previous Tekken games you'll probably have a blast. I doubt I'll be touching it again - I should have gone with my gut. A life lesson learned, I suppose.

Look, I'm gonna be that guy and say "No" I don't recommend it. Aside from a few bugs that were genuinely really annoying, most of it was enjoyable... up until the endings. I won't spoil anything here, will mark them below, but to say the endings were a disappointment on the same level as a certain sci-fi trilogy's endings.

It left such a bad taste in my mouth that I felt my near 80 hours with this game was, frankly, wasted.

[[SPOILERS BELOW THIS POINT, BUT I'LL STILL TRY TO BE VAGUE]]

I do fully understand that the point of the endings is to feel that way. Doesn't mean I have to like it. When a game actively comes and tells you not a single choice in your game mattered - that feels bad. And I'm not being hyperbolic - not a single choice save one at the very end matters - and it's a ME3 sort of "pick a color" ending. The big thing still happens, you just change who is around to see it.

I'm not a fan of nihilism in general and games that just rip the agency away from players are, frankly, awful. The ending genuinely renders everything pointless - what's the point of solving any of those problems when the ending immediately makes it all moot?

If you care more about gameplay than story and meaning, you might enjoy this. I didn't. I want my 80 hours back.

I love MHA. Deku is, unironically, one of my favorite anime characters of all time.

But this game honestly feels clunky to play and with all the visual effects going off once a fight pops off it's a lot of visual clutter that is hard to read or react to. The tutorial barely explains most of the mechanics and the bot matches are a terrible way to learn or practice anything as they - even on hard - do a ton of braindead shuffling around instead of doing anything close to what the players can and will do.

I wanted to love this game. I wanted to love this game so bad. But I just don't. And my friends have written it off completely. So I guess it's lost to me now too.

-The characters also only being available in a GACHA system is just absolutely braindead and will kill this game in the long run, I think.

Edit: the fixed the major bugs, swapping it to recommended. Leaving initial review intact for context.

I'm giving this a "no" right now because there is a genuinely gamebreaking bug that is, frankly, ruining the experience for me. Until the devs manage to wrangle this bug I genuine cannot recommend this game - it's simply broken.

The game is cute. It's fun. A lot of its systems work and the magic system is neat. The problem? There's a bug that, at random, makes the player 100% immune to all damage. Some might see that as a positive - but I don't. It negates an entire section of the game, invalidates an entire branch of upgrades and progression, and just feels bad. The only way to undo the bug is to fully shut down the game and load it back up. Which is tedious enough in singleplayer, but since I've been playing MP with my wife, it is a pain to make her stop what she's doing, log out, both restart the game, get back in, reinvite her, etc...

Normally I'm patient with these types of bugs but poking around this bug has been prevailent since mid July/Early August with no real fix or solution in sight.

I get that some people don't see "randomly can't die" as a negative, but I do. It's completely sucked the fun out of the game for me.

And yes, I am aware the game has a literal "invincibility" toggle in the options and yes I am 100% sure it is not toggled on. Was the first thing I checked.

I'm leaving my old review intact below, but changing it to a recommended for a good reason. I'm doing this to highlight how much better the game gets after you get into it further. I'm defeating stuff that gave me trouble now with minimal effort and it isn't just the upgrades (though they help). That said, I do think the first two chapters of the game are badly paced and do a poor job easing you into the mechanics of the game or explaining literally anything. I do also feel as if the stagger mechanic actively works against the fun of the game and hope future AC games drop it.

The later missions are a lot more fun and feel a lot more Armored Core at the, well, core. The bosses also mostly stop being these weird gimmicks after awhile and become more of the fast paced core on core action where the game shines its brightest. At the time of this writing I am on NG++ and about to get the third "true" ending.

I have yet to mess with the PVP much yet, though I do think the stagger mechanic makes a VERY clear shotgun meta. We'll see if that sticks.


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I write this with a heavy heart. As many, many others have stated the game is a blast and the story is good... until you hit a boss. The bosses are almost pure, tedious BS. Are they hard? No, not really. There are cheese builds to kind of just mindlessly brute force them in all honesty. It's just that fighting them the way that is "intended" is just kind of... a tedious slog. They clearly want you to build specifically for these bosses which feels kind of bad in a game all about mech customization.

The momentum and the tedium of these bosses is just... honestly not very fun. The entire "stagger" mechanic is taken right from Sekiro and just feels WILDLY out of place here. It means you need to carry a high impact weapon with you kind of at all times and those "death by a thousand cuts" types of builds just don't feel very viable or fun anymore.

I have not beaten the game at time of writing - I have been faffing around a bit too much and spent way too much time making my emblem. But I did make it into Chapter 3 and will say so far the Chapter 1 final boss was the hardest (and the most objectively tedious to deal with)... but it hasn't really gotten better.

Look back at the older AC games and their most iconic bosses - like Spirit of Motherwill and the fabled White Glint. Then compare them to the bosses you fight in AC6 (I won't namedrop to avoid spoilers). It isn't the same. It's way less about "outplaying" and once again going back to the souls formula of dodging, waiting for opening, small window to lay down some damage, repeat.

I expected to be sinking hundreds of hours into this game. I'm likely just going to beat a few of the paths and then shelving it mostly out of a stubborn desire to see it more than actually having fun.

God I hated writing this.

There's a particularly emotional and heavy story within the rather simplistic visual style. I played it almost a decade ago now and I still find myself occasionally thinking about the characters and story within. It might not be as instantly memorable as something like Doki Doki Literature Club, but without spoilers I can say that by the end of it I felt like I had naturally uncovered a story that was touching, thought provoking and also infuriating and heart-wrenching.

I can strongly recommend the game to anyone who likes VN and especially like a bit of a Sci-Fi tint to it, but be aware that some of the themes presented within the game can be pretty hard to stomach and one should not take part in the mystery if they can't handle some truly terrifying scenarios that, sadly, are not fiction for many people.

It's honestly not much of a game, so much as things happen and you kind of have some input over it. I played it enough to get a few achievements and feel confident I saw what it had to offer, but.... I can honestly say I never really felt like I was having fun. It got a few minor chuckles out of me but...

I'm admittedly not the target audience for this: I don't find this particular brand of humor that funny. It's a bunch of lowhanging edgy humor. Some of it made me smirk or get a light chuckle but most of it was just eye rolling.

Honestly you'd get way more value out of basically any free game on Kongregate, but if you wanna buy it, at least it's cheap as hell... but I got it for free off a Reddit give away back in like 2016~2017 and I still don't think it was worth the money.

There are a few Pride flag backgrounds and the like you can get from the game, so there's that if you wanted. Silver lining I guess?

EDIT: As some commenters have pointed out, it does look like there are plans to address this to some extent in 1.0. I'll leave my review as-is for the time being, but after the 1.0 drop may give this another look over and see if my feelings have changed.

Currently? No. The main draw of this game for me and my friends was playing together and the 2v2 battles... but the co-op actually HINDERS you. Leveling is quite the GRIND in this game, and wild tems give very little of it. Most of your XP will come from taking out the other trainers. The game is balanced relatively well around this FWIW.

However, this goes out the window in co-op. See only Tems that participate in battle get XP - and normally you would have 2 tems in battle getting that XP. But in co-op, you only have 1 tem in the battle and your buddy gets 1... see the problem yet? Co-op halves the XP your own tems get from each trainer, which then is also counted as beaten for both of you. If - and only if - you always only play with just each other, it isn't the worst... until you fight certain bosses (mostly the gym leaders so to speak) that force you to fight them solo.

There's a few ways they could fix this (increase the XP in co-op, add an XP share like feature, etc), and I won't pretend to know the best answer, but in its current state I'm objectively punished for playing with friends - with no mechanical benefit what so ever. It's almost all cons.

EDIT: changed to positive after the above points were fixed.

What can I say that hasn't already been said? Find monster, hit it until it stops moving, take its parts, make better weapons, find monster.... repeat.

Also, while I think Sunbreak does have the best story of all the MH games overall, MH isn't known for its story. If you're looking for a strong narrative, Rise won't change your mind on the series.