Recent reviews by Cyphre

Not a... great start to a "Season Pass DLC"
Like, it's not even a proper set of furniture.

An observant gamer might ask "Why is this game free?" It would be a legitimate query, considering the longtime success of this particular game in the series; largely regarded as the best of all Borderlands games to date.

Unfortunately, the answer is data scraping. Likely also [artificially] inflating Monthly Active Users

The new owners of Gearbox, Take Two Interactive, are doing their best to not only ruin upcoming titles from storied franchises and studios, but even ruin their past entries somehow. Unfortunately, if you somehow never played this game during any of the previous sales in the past 13 years, it's too late now.

Might seem like a classic, but it just keeps getting better.

Do note: NO ONE is obligated to update their review to a positive one just because Sony finally buckled under the pressure. They still need to follow through with their promise, and NOT do something this stupid again.

You can believe they WILL do this again on future game releases somewhere down the line. At that point it will be too late. We got lucky this time that this was a successful multiplayer game, with enough people to fight back against Sony's tyranny. They wanted more control (i.e. banning players), while providing NOTHING of value.

All the love for Arrowhead
Still derision and disgust for Sony.

What is there to be said that hasn't already. An expansion that was created solely to fill the long gap until the next real expansion, and introduce the Strand element and classes that were likely supposed to ship with Witch Queen.

A meaningless story that goes nowhere and introduces nothing of consequence. Old characters come back once again, which also add nothing, nor have any sort of real development. New characters are added, but they do a thing and leave and also aren't developed. Dialogue is as cringy as it gets, which is noteworthy considering how bad the dialogue is throughout Destiny history.

The story summed up: The big sphere in the background at the Tower is gone. Some bald guy takes forever to go through a triangle-shaped portal. A new city is found, but there is nothing really in it. The old guy with the dead ghost gets even more senile somehow and doesn't stop talking.

To me, the worst part was the advertising bits they did. Having the devs sit and talk about 'good things' in the expansion, instead of actually showing anything of consequence. It was clearly created to try and 'humanize' the developers in some way, as ammo to deflect bad practices and terrible ideas. Can't even remember if there was any backlash, because anything that came from the Bungie side of things was completely ignored with how poor this expansion was.

The most fun fantasy bullet hell. The best kind of retro styling, if you loved the original Diablo. Clearly there are a lot of newcomers to this upcoming genre, but this one is definitely one of my favorites.

Always love to see new PvE shooter games on the market, because it is almost always under served. Not a lot of competitors on the market, because it's just that difficult of a genre to create for. As a veteran of titles like Warframe, Destiny, The Division, and others, there is usually something missing, but often enough gameplay to keep you entertained for an extended period of time.

Unfortunately, this game falls a bit short. Wouldn't compare this to most of what people are referencing. I didn't even really look at the cash shop, nor did I bother looking into whatever rootkit people are referencing ahead of time (which is also bad). This review is purely based on the game feeling incomplete or lacking.

Regarding gameplay, it is definitely a third person shooter with a standard assortment of rifles, a sidearm, and a melee weapon. You could say it is functionally similar to other shooters of this variety, but the actual shooting is pretty bad. You can aim just fine, but the assault rifle has video game shotgun levels of cone of fire. A little silly, but a bad start. Indicative of how short the engagement ranges are for the most part. The fancy looking movement abilities you see in the trailer is a jump boost reskinned based on the SYNC creature you have equipped. Far as i can tell, they all provide the same boost distance, and it's mostly just to speed up your movement across the larger map you see in the trailer. Can also be useful to get some distance from bosses, but it is otherwise not a general movement ability. Just a thing that shoots you forward a set distance every time (not a jetpack, not a surfboard, nor anything to provide controlled movement).

The thing you 'SYNC' to is a summon that does something. While not summoned it provides some other boost, like reload speed or whatever. It's introduced in the brief tutorial segment, but they really don't do anything regarding the how or why we even do this in the first place. No emphasis on wielding an unknown power or the importance of us having this ability. And before you tell me that it's all explained in the log files, you've already lost the plot if it isn't introduced in a meaningful way. Other games ALSO do this poorly, but this game really speeds through the whole introduction entirely. These summons amount to a deployable that can provide a shield, shoot from ranges, act as an additional radar, or a melee brawler that hopefully draws aggro. Thankfully you can cycle freely between the types at the hub, as I believe their intention is for buildcrafting to defeat specific bosses or whatever.
The real odd part is that you have to acquire these in mission, so you don't start out with them. Seemed most instances, there are usually two of these that spawn early in a mission that you sync with... in a game with three players. Thanks, I guess.

There is limited ammo, at least in theory. Ammo boxes for topping off are also in all the spots you will usually go anyway (or will hit them up after an encounter), so I'm not sure what the point is. There is no equivalent 'special' or 'heavy' weapons that would be very limited in the first place. There are fancier versions of every rifle type which have additional abilities, like bullets that bounce between enemies, or a sniper rifle that shoots grenades, but once again, the ammo crates aren't in short supply. Maybe in very specific missions you would have to resort to your sidearm or melee in a sticky situation? Maybe later boss rooms have fewer and fewer ammo crates? I couldn't be bothered making it to end game, because you can already see what weapons exist and bosses are 'shoot the glowing spot'.

Characters really should have been the focus for developers. They are your standard 'named hero character' in gaming, so customization is super limited, and if you want to use an ability, you have to choose that specific hero character that has it. Their abilities aren't that varied anyway, and the skins are your stardard array of recolors, or the rare, fancier versions that change more of the appearance. Your build amounts to 4 'mods' that you slot in, each their own category, so you can't stack anything. These are your standard percentage based buffs to things like reload speed. I'm sure there is something more in the higher tiers, but even at the start, you're presented with a mod 'power level' of sorts that plays no role in what the mod actually does. The introductory 150 point 5% damage mod is exactly the same as the one you picked up at 393 points. Thankfully these are just random drops in missions.

And while I didn't take a hard look at the cash shop, it looked like skins only. The bad part is that there is once again a mess of different currencies for whatever reason. I'm sure they are useful somewhere in game, but it's very annoying to even consider the implied timegating the special currencies will incur. I suppose it's not really bucking the trend on online F2P titles, but doesn't excuse that most games need to improve this aspect of their designs.

As always, it's free to play, so easy to try for yourself and come to your own conclusions, but I wouldn't recommend it.

Pretty great game so far. At least when its connected.
Shame it's 'Always Online' and now failing worse than Diablo 3 and Assassin's Creed 2 put together.

This game will be playable once they remove the always online functionality, which isn't required for a single player campaign. Even with co-op, borderlands and similar doesn't require the game to be always online.
Come back in a week and we'll see if there are any improvements. For now, this is a 'wait for a sale' which will presumably be when they have also fixed server issues.

Having followed the development of this game for quite a while, it's just so disappointing.

I suppose I was already skeptical it would all come out as the original concepts intended. Even so long ago, the way to get access to the closed alpha was basically impossible; patreon or other forms of support? Nothing would provide alpha access, which made it confusing as to why anyone would bother putting up dollars for a product with an undetermined ship date and literally no benefit (not even 'early access' to the game).

What brought myself and I imagine others here? Online action RPG with swords, guns, and emphasis on all the 'things' we mod into games like Skyrim. Seems like a solid formula, especially if it looks and feels good to play. The original videos certainly showed some flashy action, gunplay, and all while wearing lovely outfits. My expectations were still tempered by the fact that this was definitely going to follow a standard F2P model, restricting access to obvious things like nudity and most customization options. All par for the course on such a game, and not surprising when I ultimately saw the options in game.

So where did it all go wrong? Starting out, the first main splash screen you come to looks like every other terrible F2P gacha title on mobile. Everything about the interface screams mobile gaming.

The graphics? Also basically mobile game level of detail. Not that I was expecting Crysis or Red Dead here, but it's missing some really obvious animations with regard to NPCs. They just sort of rotate in place and mouths don't move at all when they are talking. All fully voiced, even! Lighting also suffers greatly. Your character has a 'face light' which moves with your head, blatantly obvious by how the lighting changes around you or your body. There is no effort placed on lighting in the environment.... like a mobile game.

The sound? A bit obnoxious most of the time. Lots of overlap can occur with dialogue and other events in game. Music gets annoying real quick, and it feels like they are trying to imitate Nier: Automata, and doing a pretty bad job at it.

The combat? Seems good when just tooling around with the character. That is, until you get to Freedom City (the combat area that isn't the main base) and your flashy skills prevent you from even knowing when an enemy hits you. There is no real feedback from being hit, and the things you can do to not get hit are limited: either shoot from a distance, nonstop kiting enemies, block (which can't be weaved between attack combos), use of a dodge ability (that costs MP, limited and needed for special attacks), or use of some sort of ability to negate damage. None of which are particularly good options if you can't really tell when you are being hit, or going to be hit. The combat in this game only works in other action games because trash mobs are either killed or stunned when using flashy sword attacks. Unfortunately everything in this game is tankier than you.

The progression? Almost the most convoluted part. Amidst the crowded escape screen (the standard mobile game layout of garbage trying to get you to buy things), there are so many various level indicators without much of an indication of their importance, how to raise them, or how they effect your character. Top left shows a 'Level' which is the slowest of all, apparently Guardian level? Bottom left there is the thumbnail pic of your character with an Awakening Level? In-game, there is a level indicator to the left of your health and MP bars which is also different. I can only assume that is 'Interim Levels' which you gain temporarily while playing out in the world. Providing levels to your weapons/abilities in the process.

Leveling overall is a problem, not only because there are no clear indicators as to what purpose they serve, but levelling items (which is the thing that actually gives you more power) is ridiculously costly. There is an Upgrade button that costs in the tens of thousands of shards (earned from certain activities), or hundreds of thousands of gold (the standard in-game currency), or there is a 'Craft' button which costs special resources that drop from certain enemies, but ALSO costs shards or gold (basically just a slightly discounted Upgrade). Why is any of this important? Because you do garbage damage against every enemy without upgrading significantly. Early quests even have you clear out a special Stronghold, where you will definitely be lacking in power to easily complete. The nice wide open areas in the previews of the game differ greatly from the tiny, confined underground space these Stongholds seem to take place in. Essentially forcing you to revive a few times in order to finish off the boss.

The systems, unfortunately, are the MOST convoluted thing I've seen yet. It acts like a game that has been around for 5 years already with systems on top of systems, and loads of various resources that you never know if you need or not. The limited inventory space means you really can't hold much even in regular gameplay due to all the different items that drop from enemies. Even beyond the components that drop, there are 'treasures' that drop which are just items that exist to be sold, and coins that drop as an item that you must go into your inventory and click on to convert into the standard gold currency (instead of just giving you gold on a pickup).
Just the interface alone is crowded with all these systems:
--Spin for reward (road of squares, spin every 15 minutes)
--Loot crates (different types, mostly daily rewards, uses special keys to open)
--Daily and Weekly challenges (weekly challenges are just completing all daily challenges)
--Battlepass (no real explanation for what it is)
--Maiden+ (subscription that provides various mediocre benefits; is on the main screen TWICE)
--Convert Fragments to AP or BP (still no idea what the purpose is)
--Cash shop store for purchasing Maiden+ or buying Diamonds, the cash shop currency (three differnt ways to get to this storefront)
--The entire bottom row of buttons is duplicated: Home, Char Customization, Beauty Album, etc
--Add a Friend slots next to your main character in the bottom left.
--Stats next to your Warmaiden in the bottom left include 'Wins', 'BP' and a Rank, but none of that seems related to anything I would need to know, or how those numbers change.
--And just for fun, your inventory has 4 tabs in it: Items you have on you (and the handful of items you can wear), your weapon modifications (each has 4 potential slots), and two tabs for things that require having a 'portable' version of, otherwise you need to visit opposite camps in Freedom City to accomplish (Gear Forge and Grinder). Of course, if you want to actually change anything about your weapon upgrades (not modiications), that is in your loadout screen, which is completely different and accessible by pressing Y.


Even if you ignore how dumb this interface is, all the systems in place don't make sense from the perspective of advancing in the game. There are really only two prominent systems within a game of this type: Combat and Style. I completely understand there being additional elements in a F2P game that actually constitute character customization, but all the rest of the garbage we're presented it has nothing to do with actually playing the game.

Maybe someday when Nexon or some other F2P publisher picks up the remnants of this game in the future we'll get some meaningful changes to the overall experience. For now, this is definitely a pass, unless you REALLY want something that isn't Honey Select.

This will probably stand as one of the greatest VR games of all time, never to be followed up by a sequel, no matter how much we ask Valve.
Sorry Boneworks, you got a lot to live up to in terms of usability and style.