Останні рецензії користувача Lixire

Hello everyone! o/ Hope your day goes well!
Final Fantasy 16 has been a PS5 exclusive for quite a while and recently has gotten a PC port due to Square Enix's efforts of going multiplatform.
It is important to mention that I have already played the game on the PS5 but got it again on PC for the better experience
Without further ado, Let's take a look at the PC version of FF16 and the game by itself

It's not a secret that each Final Fantasy game is very different by its own. that also comes at the genre that it represents and FF16 is a perfect example of this. the FF community often does look at XVI as a FF game but with Devil May Cry gameplay and feel attached to it and I think it's a very accurate point of view. However, that doesn't mean that the game is flawed and instead I will be looking at the game with its own merits instead

The story of the game is all focused around Clive Rosefield from start to finish with the game also giving us all of the details about during the main story right away. Making it easy to form a connection and relation while also introducing more characters and background stories which all seem to be connected very to the main point without taking our focus away or messing around with it. in terms of emotions and stakes, We are talking a roller coaster with that as the game constantly plays around that aspect which keeps the player constantly engaged and curious. every moment of the story is well designed and only made me more hooked to the realm of Valisthea. I strongly recommend getting the DLCs too as they do add more context towards the ending of the story while introducing more on their own

So gameplay.. As I mentioned, This is a Devil May Cry but with FF theme on it which isn't a bad thing and I personally approve of but old timers might be disappointed with the lack of RPG elements as XVI did reduce that aspect to the very bare minimum compared to previous entiries.
Combat is great and if I had to use a word to describe it then that will be "satisfying". Visually and feeling wise its great but the game shares a similar problem to FFXIV that the game by at its normal difficulty is very easy that the game is few steps away from including an autoplay feature. to truly experience and enjoy the combat then you have to go through New Game+ for that or otherwise it will feel as a visual novel/interactive movie to say the least due to the insane amount of cutscenes that the game has. It's very clear that CBU3 did use XIV as their baseline for the quest design and how the game represents itself

Graphics and port? It was a PS5 exclusive at first so it did aim at high standards within that aspect and the game does look amazing across all fronts and if anything. It's say that XVI has mastered the act of presentation well
However that also brings us to performance which weren't great on the PS5 already with constant slowdowns and FPS going down to as low as 15 or less and the problem keeps on going with PC as well. the performance of the game are rather incredibly inconsistent for no real reason. frame rate goes down for no real reason while in some scenes its more than perfect with all of the visual effects.
Sometimes the game does have small micro shutters out of nowhere which can go through the entire game until you restart the computer (and no, even when VRAM, RAM or CPU aren't maxed out). Not to mention the lack of Ultrawide support or the game limiting the FPS to 30 in cutscenes. If you decide to play the game, I suggest looking at FFXVIFix which is a mod that does correct some of the shortcomings of the port

What are my overall thoughts on FF16 and should you buy it? FF16 has been an amazing experience to me during the play-through of both platforms and genuinely I enjoyed the game and maxed all of the value I could get out of it. It's a great game by its own right and I would suggest people to at least try out the demo to see if it's for their liking. However, the port is plain and simple. Bad... and I do hope that the game will get more patches to improve the experience
As far as my rating goes? FF16 by itself is a 8/10 game and I would recommend it. Just be aware that the port does have issues and a lot of them.

When someone mentions Granblue, the first thing that comes to mind is the gacha isn't? What if I told that isn't the case with this one?
Quite surprisingly but hey! Let's take a look at Granblue Fantasy: Relink and see how it went, my personal experience and would I recommend the game?

I will admit and say that this game was always on my rader and I was curious about it for quite a while but did hold myself back as the first thing that comes to mind with Granblue is the mobile game which is a gacha title which did put me off but as I did finish all of the content in FFXIV: Dawntrail and was curious about Relink again. I decided to give the game a fair try and damn I wish I did so earlier.
Relink is entirely a very different game with modern day FF like gameplay and being fully featured ARPG, single player experience.

If I could describe the story of the game then it would be like going from A Realm Reborn to Endwalker in FFXIV but instead of taking 350 hours to do so. it can be finished within 12-15 hours. Which is indeed quite short compared to a lot of other RPG titles but it's also very direct and to the point. the MSQ of Relink mainly serves as an introduction to the universe and also teach the player some basic gameplay mechanics while providing interesting background story that starts at low stakes but increases quickly during our journey with our lovely cast of party members.

Gameplay? The gameplay of Relink is nothing like of the original. Real time combat that is similar to modern day FF games compared to Turn based of the original mobile game and also no gacha or anything as Relink isn't a live service.
As far the combat goes? It's fast and fluid with very flashy animations to behold and the experience will be dependent on the character you decided to play as cause for some. it might have interesting kit to go through while for others you can mash your face all over the keyboard and still achieve perfect results but it does have some relation to the fight encounters in the normal difficulty feeling way too easy which also leads into the feeling of being bored. once you finish the main story then you get the ability to play missions at Hard, Very Hard and Extreme which are indeed more challenging but even in that case you can mitigate it through a better build suitable towards endgame content.

Multiplayer and Coop support? Relink also does feature a Coop mode that you can play with friends and tackle the higher end fights but that's pretty much about it. You cannot play the Story missions in Coop Mode at all which seems such an oversight as it could be a good experience to play through the whole story with a friend or group but instead its limited only to the post MSQ content

Graphics and PC port? Relink is very aesthetically pleasing to look at across every aspect possible. Textures and such might look simple due to the art style but in reality, it does fit perfectly with the world of the game and looks detailed too with very vibrant color palette + lighting and effects for each area within the game. About the port itself? The game doesn't support high refresh rates or ultrawide monitors by default as Relink is primarily designed around the limitations of the consoles but thankfully that can be easily fixed through mods and you can play from start to finish with using a keyboard and mice but of course. its best experienced with a controller

My personal thoughts? Safe to say that Granblue Fantasy Relink has been a blast for me to go through and it has been a while since I played a game that gave me such entertaining value. Yes, it does have missed opportunities and quite a lot of them at that but they didn't really affect my enjoyment of the game. its a solid title by its own right and I would suggest people grabbing the game when it goes on sale as while the game does have a lot of value to offer. the 60$ price tag is off putting when the single player story is quite short and most endgame content revolves around grinding. Not to mention that Relink is no longer supported by its developer and gotten it's final content update as of Sep 15th, 2024

As far as the score goes? 9/10!

Hello there! o/ Has been a while since I made a review but let's take a look at Horizon Forbidden West..
What did I like about the game or not and how my experience went during playing the game.

Horizon Zero Dawn was an amazing game by its own right. Good storytelling, great graphics and despite the relatively linear gameplay, it felt balanced enough to be a fun experience and I personally had a blast going through that one from start to finish
So how Forbidden West did fare? It's very important to mention that before you play Forbidden West, I strongly suggest that you play Zero Dawn first.
While both are different games to their own right, they are very much connected in terms of the lore. so in order to understand Forbidden West, you have to play Zero Dawn

The gameplay loop and world design has been expended from the first game by giving the open world more of a purpose to go through and learn more about it. the side story quests + the world itself being larger pretty much reflect that.
As for the gameplay? Forbidden West does introduce more weapons and armor sets to play with and giving them a larger role during the playthrough. as a result, if you are interested in maxing out the game. the grind becomes considerably longer. As far as the combat goes? Forbidden West does move away from the simple system in Zero Dawn and instead encourages the player to use their tools more effectively and pay attention to the boss fights for their respective weakspots to do the most effective amount of damage.
While I do respect the combat being more challenging, It also had the side effect of making the game feeling more clunky and in some instances.. irritating would be an understatement.

Story? As I did mention earlier, Forbidden West continues from the same point we have left off in Zero Dawn. So if you got along with the previous game in that aspect then you will be familiar with the story. Speaking of which? the story itself is interesting and does have solid merit to it but it does suffer from terrible pacing issues at the beginning of the game. the first 2 hours show it really well and most people do off around at that and you will feel like that you are forced to go through in order to enjoy the game.

Graphics? Zero Dawn looked amazing and very pleasing to look at and Forbidden West is no different from that. The game looks great from the perspective of models, textures and vibrant colors combined with the open world and other effects like weather changes to polish it up.
And since we did brought up models as well. was there any reason to change Aloy's face to have more "fat" to it? as aesthetically, I couldn't find any real reason to justify such change

But overall, 7/10 in terms of the rating. While the story does have its merits and genuine interest in it. the pacing does hurt and makes it very hard to get into the game if you aren't interested from the get go and while combat has been expended on. It also made the game more clunky within that aspect which does hurt the experience

This might be a bit of a late review but wanted to give my own 2 cents about the DLC for Cyberpunk and in general use the review to do a quick overview of the game today compared to the past. So without further ado, Let's talk about Phantom Liberty and Cyberpunk 2077 in general.

It's not a secret that the release of 2077 has been rough to say the least... the game was plagued with bugs, stability issues and general lack of features and polish. It's quite shocking that CDPR decided to keep on working on the game and fixing it with major updates to make sure that people can play and enjoy 2077 from start to finish.
Performance have been improved a lot, no weird glitches or bugs that prevent progress and force to reload the game and more content to keep the player within the game. Kudos CDPR for the insane comeback and def a great decision to regain the trust of the gaming community but we also have the DLC to talk about.

I will keep it short and not spoil too much for those are interested in playing. Phantom Liberty starts at the same spot of where the 1.0 story has ended while also building on it. V is still alive and we have been informed that we will be able to get our life back without dying at the end. Encouraging us to get interested and get on the journey and we will be visiting Dogtown.
Right when we get into, the game will mention that our perks and skill have been altered due to 2.0 which overhauled this aspect very heavily.
I personally did like the changes a lot and prefer the new system over the old one but for those aren't fans of it. mods are an option.
The story of Cyberpunk was good from the get go but also did raise more questions as we kept on playing, the new DLC pretty much addresses those by providing context and adding more story into the game that has been connected to. It's also safe to say that the quality of story telling also did increase here with an excellent ending to the storyline and our character.

Phantom Liberty has been an amazing experience for me and I truly enjoyed every moment playing it and I wish that this was the version of Cyberpunk 2077 we should have been gotten at the very beginning. Personal score from me? 10/10 in that regard and I do hope that CDPR have learnt their lesson and future games will maintain that standard of quality.

Hello everyone! Captain Lixire Kirk is here and I just finished my Dawntrail journey and just wanted to share my thoughts about it. This will be a full review of the expansion regarding the content featured within the main story as of patch 7.0 and will be discussing the good parts, the bad ones and my general feeling with Dawntrail.

So without further ado, Let's get started..
After Endwalker has been finished and fully concluded by the final post MSQ quests of that expansion. it did also mean that the original arc of Hydaelyn-Zodiark that has begun with 1.0, came to an end fully by patch 6.5 with the final fight against Zeromus.
For those are interested to know what happened to the Garleans after Endwalker, I strongly suggest doing the Master Role Quests to get more of an idea of how the way of life went out for them.

But back to the topic. as a result, Dawntrail will be starting a new story arc within the FFXIV lifetime and therefore expected to feature lower stakes and have a much longer introduction than the usual parts.
The expansion starts from where post Endwalker has ended, our Warrior of Light, the Scions and Wuk Lamat who did visit Eorzea, Old Sharlayan to try and gather our support will be sailing off to Tural and our purpose is to help Wuk Lamat to become the new Dawnservent. Despite what most people believe, the WoL does play an important role within the story as you will be supporting the said character during the journey.

So the good? First, the music being used for Dawntrail's trials and dungeons is outright hitting hard and I would argue that the music for the Vanguard dungeon makes A Long Fall to feel slow in comparison. safe to say that Soken doesn't disappoint with his art!

Second, Seems like that Yoshida has listened to community feedback regarding the normal content and has decided to spice things up by making all of the dungeons and trials far more engaging in terms of mechanics and also fight encounters with boss fights to the point that an actual effort is needed to get through them which is a really welcome change after Endwalker's mindlessly easy normal content that was criticized by the majority of the community

Third, the graphical update is simply gorgeous and finally brings FFXIV to the modern era of visual fidelity with much better lighting, higher quality textures and for the first time in history. more AA options other than FXAA which isn't really an AA but rather a simple post processing effect. the update also brought support for DLSS and FSR (for improved results for those who suffer from a blurry image or so, use FSR at the 99% 3D resolution scale). Not to mention that the graphical update helps to enhance the immersion of the new zones

Fourth and that might be a controversial opinion but the story itself is solid and does make a whole lot of sense once you attempt to understand it and get yourself into the shoes of your own character and think. We will talk about the weak points of the story during the review but it does get a whole lot better and will serve as a good starting point for future FFXIV expansions. the story does have high stakes to it but that becomes noticeable only in the second part of the Dawntrail MSQ (which is Level 96-100)

Where Dawntrail has missed the mark and why? a common saying in the community that Dawntrail has a similar vibe to the one of Stormblood where pacing was an issue and the introduction of new stuff into the story was painfully long to the point it does hurt immersion. Wuk Lamat as a great example of that.
Wuk Lamat by herself is a lovely character that feels good to attach to and understand her but the game tries it's best to make you sick of her constant presence with a very bad execution due to the questing and overload you with very long cutscenes each time (Speak with Wuk Lamat -> Speak with Wuk Lamat again -> Speak with Wuk Lamat yet again) Having context is extremely important but at the same time. having too much of it does exhaust the player and makes them bored and frustrated.

So what are my thoughts on the expansion and would I recommend it? The answer is definitely yes and its quite obvious to any active FFXIV player but overall, Despite the very big flaws in story telling. I would give Dawntrail about 8/10 as despite the rocky start of the story.. it does improve by a large margin and actually becomes more interesting. I would also really respect YoshiP's decision to give normal content some actual challenge which does increase replay value with it and might serve as a "bridge" in the long-term towards high end content

Hope you did enjoy the read and those who are starting their Dawntrail journey, I wish you the best of luck and have fun! Lixire is out!

Edit (July 5): fixing small typos

Usually I don't write bad reviews about games that I personally did like playing back in the past but the state of the game is simply horrific to the point that it is infested with bots and hackers. making TF2 effectively unplayable for the average player trying to play casually on Valve's official servers. I do realize that CS2 and Dota 2 are far more profitable and larger games in general but leaving TF2 in that state is completely unacceptable. Valve do better...

So... About time that Blizzard decided to bring their games to Steam and oh boy. I want to let my frustration out.
I played Overwatch for the first time in 2016 so since its launch and did quit the game around Season 10/April 2018 once Brigitte became available in ranked play. but I also played OW2 before in its first season

Since then I kept on revisiting Overwatch once a year to see how the game was doing in hopes that Blizzard will learn from its mistakes and bring back OW to be a relevant game once more but that didn't happen.

Overwatch 1 was doing very well from 2016 until 2018 that we kept getting real new content and constant balance changes to keep the game more fresh but also solve existing problems at the time like Mercy's Mass Rez ability that was loathed by the vast majority of the player base.
Time passed on and it was clear that Overwatch was on life support with fewer hero releases and existing content being recycled like the Summer Games event for years. and at the end of its life cycle became full of cheaters as Blizzard's Warden anti-cheat solution wasn't being updated at all and was completely pointless to the point of making VAC to look like it is being actively developed.

Game Balance was never the strongest thing for Blizzard. PvP World of Warcraft players of old were already accustomed to it but I will argue that OW during its first years wasn't too bad balance-wise and there was the sense that the developers were ready to listen and accept feedback to improve upon that aspect. Fast-forward to 2018 and we get Brigitte as a hard counter pick to the popular Dive meta by introducing a hero that is full of CC in a game that is based upon movement.
While Blizzard did manage to shake the meta and introduce something new. it wasn't well received by the community at any capacity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6zVEF3ndhs

Imagine creating a hero so broken that makes an entire role invalid due to the meta it created around the same character (GOATs) and at some point was the sole reason of why role queue was introduced into the game in the first place.

And here comes Overwatch 2, Blizzard announced that OW2 was already in development since 2019 and the original idea of the newer title was to add the story mode and expend upon the universe of the game but also gameplay by introducing different systems from RPGs like talent trees and allow the player to experiment with different options and have a system that promotes progression.

Fast forward to OW2's actual launch. the promised PvE component was completely missing and the game was far from being ready to go. worse matchmaking, less maps, removal of 2CP in general. even basic features like being "on-fire" was completely absent despite the voice lines still existing in the game and WERE LITERALLY TRIGGERED but no visual feedback at all.
Fun fact, According to the financial reports by Activision-Blizzard themselves. they are fully aware that Overwatch 2 launched in an early access state.
https://investor.activision.com/news-releases/news-release-details/activision-blizzard-announces-second-quarter-2022-financial
"Overwatch 2 is planned to launch in early access on PC and console on October 4. With a free-to-play live service model designed to provide frequent and substantial seasonal updates, this launch kicks off the next chapter for the acclaimed team-based action game."

Then we hit the final straw that made a large part of the Overwatch player base to quit for good and this was the cancellation of the PvE story mode and instead they did split the idea into "Story Missions" which are being sold for 15 euros for about 90 minutes of content at most without the talent tree or customization that has been showcased years prior.

Blizzard as a company simply cannot be trusted and doesn't deserve . if you want to get into Overwatch 2 and expecting the game to do well in the future then I'm very sorry to tell you that you will be disappointed right away.
Overwatch 2 is a downgrade with a completely disgusting monetization system that it makes people to miss loot boxes... compared to the original game that we all have fallen in love with in the past.

I would advice potential players to stay away from this game and Blizzard games in general.

I would be completely honest. I had my own doubts about buying the game earlier and giving it a go.
But the recent sale of it being 80% (May 21th 2023) made it much more appealing.

So it might be a good time and talk about "A Way Out".
I'm totally aware that the game has been shipped over 5 years ago and everyone who could possibly review it likely already did but I wanted to offer my own perspective on this one.
The game was regarded by reviewers as about "Above average" to say the least and it didn't get the same amount of hype and exposure as other big titles did at the time.

The story of the game is incredibly well done despite being really short (about 5-6 hours) and really puts you in the same environment by giving the player a good story telling to work with but also enhancing that aspect through dialogue and visual appearance. and the most important of all, being consistent.

When it comes to the graphics and looks of the game. despite coming out in 2018 which was a completely different time compared to the gaming landscape of today. it def has aged well and the game feels overall really believable to the world with models or different shadows work by. Good shadows but without Ray Tracing? that's a big W moment.

Gameplay? the game is solely based upon the element of coop and that's how its being built around. but on top of that. it enforces a split screen on both players so everyone can see each other's screen and see the game through their perspective. while some might see it as a gimmick and only a method to improve the experience of QTEs. it does have a place in reflecting the story between the two main characters.
The issues of the game are more related to the controls which does feel awkward and needs time to adjust given that you are playing in split screen but the person isn't physically with you. and that one can mess up the idea of driving in some parts of the game.

A Way Out is a really unique experience that I went through as of lately. despite coming out of a big publisher (EA) it does feel like that the game developers really did put their time and effort to ensure that everything with this game lives up to its original idea. while I wouldn't recommend buying the game at full price due to the lackluster amount of content but its a great idea if its on a discount.
Overall from me? 8.5/10 and I will def recommend the game for those who buy it on a sale!

Oh well, It might be time to review FF7:Intergrade and see how it went.
As the name of the suggests. Its a remake of the game, not a remaster of the older version.
While the general idea is similar between the original version and this one. There are a lot of differences between the two and it has to be mentioned!

When it comes to the story, Intergrade took the approach of expending upon the original story and updating it for the modern era with and put more emphasis on character development and story telling.
The idea is def keeping the player engaged and immersed with the world around them and Square has certainly did well with this regard. It is important to mention that Intergrade is just the first part of the FF7 Remake saga and the second part will ship later on to the PS5 and PC (As of the May 18th 2023).

Gameplay and Mechanics? Intergrade moves on from the simple idea of turn-based gameplay and fully embracing the modern real-time gameplay due to the existence of joysticks on modern consoles and the PC being far more mainstream as a platform compared to the era of 1997. While I realize that some of the fans might prefer the older turn based approach. the remake tries to bring new people into the franchise.
Although some older ideas of the past still remain in the game. For example, the inability of the player to jump or lacking the complex movement of modern titles.

Graphics and performance? When the game was released for the first time. Performance issues were really common and the game was effectively unplayable even on high end hardware but however, it has got an update since then which did fix a large part of the issues and made the game much more of a smooth sailing.
The hardware I used to play this game on was an i9 9900K + RTX 3080 10GB + 32GB RAM and maxing out the game at 1440p was proven to be no challenge at stable 120FPS at all times. But there is something that has to be mentioned and it is the constant micro-stutters.

FF7:Intergrade uses Unreal Engine 4 as its engine and unfortunately the engine has an issue with newer Windows 10/11 builds as the OS automatically enforces CFG (Control Flow Guard) across all programs and that causes various performance issues with UE4 games specifically.
I would recommend turning off CFG for this game specifically through the "exploit protection" settings (don't disable it system wide, use Program settings) on Windows 10 1803+ in order to completely get rid of the performance issues and making the gaming experience more sane for the eyes.

Overall, FF7:Intergrade is a solid title and I definitely had my joy playing so and experiencing the past but in the form of new. it has been done well and I'm surely waiting for the next chapter of the saga. 8.5/10 from me personally.
and please Square Enix. Learn the different limitations of your engine and optimize around it. UE4 is industry leading tool...

Ahh Ultrakill... what a thrilling experience it is. truly brings me back to the era that FPS games were actually more creative, interesting but also simple to get into.
But the most importantly, Made by developers who are actually passionate about their project.

Ultrakill is basically what would happen if we combined the gameplay, look and feel of old Doom and Quake games and added the rating system from Devil May Cry.
Safe to say that the game is a masterpiece despite being currently in an early access state.

The level design is nothing of what you would expect in new games but again. it goes back to the past that the player had more freedom to move around and look for secrets + adding an element of challenge by not being linear. People who have played through the classic Doom games will be able to tell quickly what is going on.

The gameplay is really simple on that one and takes the idea of Doom and brings it to the next level. Now you ain't a god who just kills demons but rather you kill everything in your path while being fast and fluid as the movement in Ultrakill expends upon it with dashes that refill quickly, high movement speed by default.
It is important to mention that despite feeling like Doom. Playing it like Doom will be a mistake as the flow between both games is very different.

Soundtrack is probably one of the most important aspects of the game and oh boy. the OST isn't disappointing at all and really suits the game perfectly. Here is a follow example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9EqU9y69vU

Ultrakill is basically a banger that I think that everyone should give it a go.
Solid 10/10 from me, Literally feels like that the god himself was involved in the creation of this game.