Recent reviews by Silurius

I fought a gryphon out in the world. After a long fight I climbed into its back to deliver the mercy-strike. The gryphon then proceeded to lift off, taking me for a ride for a looong time, finally dropping me off in a misty, uncharted, undead-infested marshland with little to no consumables left, and somehow my main pawn who carried the camping kits had fallen into water. the game quickly turned from RPG power-fantasy to resource-managing survival horror.
Still 0/10 MTX bad.

Quite possibly the best plot and world building I've ever seen in a video game, and it's an MMO. Let that sink in. While ARR turns many people off from the game, I feel it's an important part of the game, giving the player a feeling and basic understanding of the world and its characters before upping the ante every other turn from heavensward onward.

The community is friendly and accepting to new players, with people generally being good at avoiding spoilers. The developers have shown time and time again that they care about the game and its players, and that they listen to the feedback that players are providing.

The gameplay is slow at first, but cranks up when you get more skills to fill in the gaps. the job system allows you to sample every class/job without having to roll alts or having to commit to any one job specifically.

There are a myriad of side-activities that could easily be considered just as much of a part of endgame as extreme trials, savage raids and ultimate raids, with many players opting to focus more on social aspects of the game and these side activities rather than the raid content. It's considered just as valid a pastime to lose hours and hours gambling in the gold saucer, crafting and gathering, constructing the perfect glamour set with painstaking detail or even playing a bard instrument with the perform action. Endgame is what you make it to be, and there are as many options as there are individual players. That being said, raid content is really good too, with a high skill cap and many challenging encounters to test your skill against.

Another thing to point out is the sheer quality of the soundtrack. Masayoshi Soken has shown time and time again his mastery of using leit motifs to support the plot and characters, with every expansion sporting its own motifs that are woven into a beautiful tapestry of themes, culminating in stunning pieces like "To the Edge", "Dragonsong", "Answers" and many more. (some of these are written by Nobuo Uematsu, but the brunt of the soundtrack is Soken's work)

All in all, there's a good reason it's become a meme to recommend this game and it's free trial (which, meme aside, is a great offer that includes a great piece of storytelling with a ARR and Heavensward alone.)
The game has upped the ante considerably for the genre, and games in general when it comes to storytelling, simply because the game takes its time, building the universe and the characters in it at a slow pace, which makes the big story moments have tenfold times more of an impact. These are characters that you end up caring for, and their victories are all the more sweet, and losses all the more heartbreaking for it.

10/10, looking forward to whatever's next.

This seems to be a good version of the old Astonia 3 game, with added cool stuff like extra spells, stances for melees, a new class (rogue) and a lot more. so far, so good. Looking forward to see what the devs do next.

The game that perfected the RTS genre is back! It is astounding how well this game fares when you compare it to its current competitors, and with the new steamworks-based online multiplayer replacing the dead and gone microsoft games lobby, the multiplayer is just as alive today as it was back in 99. The extra expansions also improve upon the games with new and exciting civs, new castle and university technologies for all civs, and a more balanced (read: not only based on early galley rushes) navy. The steam workshop support is also a nice feature, allowing for simple texture and sound alteration.

If you enjoy the RTS genre, get this game. It is and has been a mainstay of the genre for almost 20 years, and like many of the other masterwork RTS games it's easy to pick up, but oh so hard to master.

QTE's are NOT a fun gameplay mechanic to "pad out" your cinematics with. If I wanted to mash buttons while looking at button prompts, I'd play DDR or Guitar Hero. For shame... no, I haven't played the game all the way through, and judging by how many f***ing QTE's I got forced on me during the first hour or so, I won't.

We have a bit of an abusive relationship, this game and I. The game keeps kicking my ass, making me rage-quit time and time again, yet I keep coming back for more. It's gut-wrenching to see that one hero that you've raised just as lovingly as your own offspring die to a nonsense stroke of bad luck, but in the end that is just a testament to how this game pulls you in, making you invest yourself heavily before kicking your ass, burning your house down and driving home the fact that love hurts. GG.

UPDATE: As of 21/12/2014, the game is playable, even enjoyable. Most major problems and concerns have been ironed out and the addition of mouse controls in most menus (but oddly enough not all) has made this an actual PC port worth considering. With this in mind, I'm changing my review to a recommended. I will not remove the original criticism, though, as I feel the "release broken port, then fix all the faults afterwards" trend has got to stop, and we as the consumers have to tell the developers and publishers that this practice is not okay.

TL;DR: The current state of the game is acceptable. What we got at launch, was not.


ORIGINAL CRITICISM:

If you thought the original port was bad, boy are you in for a treat. This game features endlessly loading textures, with the graphical fidelity of a game from 2006. The menus seem like they've been made by aliens with no idea of how humans use their hands, and the most annoying controls are not rebindable.

I think this is a crying shame, as I loved the original as a teenager, but as an adult PC gamer, I'm insulted by the lack of effort made on lionhead's part, to make this remake playable on PC. The least they could bloody do is make the mouse cursor available in the game. I'M PLAYING ON A PC, WHY CAN'T I USE MY MAIN INPUT TOOL FOR NAVIGATING YOUR MENUS?

That rant aside, just buy the lost chapters instead. It is at least playable, something that this remake is not.

Great game, Abysmal ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ port. if you're planning on buying this, don't try playing it without an xbox controller /w a connector.

Great game, horrible port. Should have LAN support, and is horribly buggy when played online multiplayer, possibly due to steam server problems.

A platforming gem with awesome soundtrack.