Recent reviews by ArmorHawk

This is easily one of my favorite games. The combat is really fun, the whole stance system for weapons is really really enjoyable to experiment with. The story is engaging, the characters are varied and interesting and the world, whilst suffering from a bit of the old checklist syndrome is still beautiful and fun to be in.

BUT, this port is so unbearably poor I cannot in good faith recommend anyone to purchase it. I played it originally when it came out on the PS5 and it was great. I played right as it released on PC and it was okay, but ever since the latest patch dropped the game has become borderline unplayable, with multiple areas just in the first chapter being so stuttery and choppy that it is, quite literally, not possible to play. I doubt this game will ever see another update as I'm pretty sure Koei Tecmo has moved on and written this off, so unless the game is no longer on version 1.09.0.4 when you're reading this I urge you to not buy this game even on sale.

It's a shame, like I said the game itself is superb, but the port is so abyssmally ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ it's not defendable.

Game is good.

Overall I give it a 8/10 on the arbitrary number scale, it's absolutely phenomenal.

The map is massive with lots to explore and discover, the characters are fun and engaging and the new weapons and armor are sweet. Where it falls a little bit behind IMO is the often extremely lackluster rewards for finding out of the way secrets, reuse of the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ulcerated tree spirit boss multiple times and some questionable boss design. There are really only 2 bosses I'd say are kinda ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, unfortunately the final boss is one of them. Stop reading here if you want no spoilers, albeit minor spoilers exclusively about the fight itself, no names or story spoilers.

The final boss has two stages. The first stage is fantastic I genuinely loved it, even though one of the attacks seems undodgable but it's very likely I simply didn't find the right timing or trick to it. The second phase however is just kinda poorly designed, and it pains me to admit it. As much as I loved the fight the second phase brings it really hard down. I'm sure in a few weeks time the speedrunners and serious devoted players will figure the fight out and put out info and tricks on how to consistenly dodge and punish but ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, I scraped by on pure luck I think.

Overall, I recommend the DLC, it's fantastic and lived up to the hype for me in almost every way. If you're not 100% expecting to be treated like dirt in a From Software DLC I don't know what to tell you. Tough, I guess? Upgrade your damn Scadutree Blessing and keep trying, you'll get it.

Actually really good for what it is. It's extremely shameless in ripping off not only UI elements (There are things here that literally look like they've been ripped directly from MW2019/MW2, the Armory icon for example and tons more) but entire maps are very obviously "inspired" by CoD or CS maps.

Game claims I'm running at 120 FPS, but I can tell you for a fact it's running at 60. Nowhere to unlock or change it. So if you can't deal with 60 FPS just ignore this as to my knowledge you can't change it.

Gonna keep playing from time to time, gunplay feels decent enough.

It's the best game ever made, but with significantly better graphics gameplay! If you liked the original you'll love this.

I mean, it's quite literally one of the best games ever made.

This game is worth playing, if you have the patience to deal with a combat system that aged poorly, occasionally atrocious quest design and some truly staggering amounts of running from point A through L, back to A, then through Z and loop back to A.

The writing is decent, like most stories it has it's highs and lows but it's for the most part kinda flat. The lowest low isn't horrible but conversely nor is the highest high amazing. But it's good enough to keep you hooked. Except for chapter 2. ♥♥♥♥ chapter 2.

Combat is a blend of oddly enjoyable and the most infuriating garbage you'll ever have to interact with. It has aged really poorly and while I respect what they were trying to do with it, and am willing to concede that at the time it might have been good, by today's standards it's pretty out there. Think The Witcher: Rythm Edition.

Graphics are, as you might expect, dated. But the game doesn't look horrible, not much to say tbh it's alright for how old it is.

Quest design, much like the combat, fluctuates wildly in terms of enjoyment. Some quests keep you hooked and task you with interesting things (albeit 90% of it will be "go here, kill X, fetch Z and bring to Y", but with interesting flavor) and then the next quest will stretch your patience like nothing else, mundane and trite tasks and quests that drag on for much longer than they have any right to.

Overall I think the first entry in the franchise is solid, and if you're a fan of the third game (who tf isn't these days seems like nobody ever stopped creaming themselves over TW3) this is 100% worth playing.

I became a panda and almost succeeded at 13 Orphans 3 times all within the first 5 hours.

I ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ love this game. It's incredibly fun, Colt is a genuinely fun character and his back and forth with Julianna is great. Gameplay wise it's akin to Dishonored but more focus on going sneaky sneaky or bang bang, you're not "locked" into being a sneaky sneaky. Gunplay feels decent, not incredible but alright and the gun sounds are great. Story is interesting enough to keep me invested and the visual presentation is really good.

So why the negative review? The game is optimized like absolute ♥♥♥♥. It's so poorly optimized it's a disgrace. Stuttering, inconsistent framerates in seemingly random locations. The game crashes whenever it wants to for absolutely zero clear reason, it just happens. Is it DENUVO? I'm willing to bet it has a lot (A metric ton of lot) to do with DENUVO but I wont be unreasonable and claim it cant simply be due to a poorly optimized game.

Don't get this game until they've A) Removed DENUVO and we know that's what was causing issues (Fat zero chance that's ever going to happen) or B) They actually patch the game to a point where it's playable without constant stuttering, freezing, framedrops and crashing. IF they manage to do that, then for the love of god get it it's such a fun game! Until then, stay away from this like the plague and find something else to do with your time.

I played both beta phases before the game released, so I've played the game for a good bit more than the 2 hours I've played as of writing this.

I'll start off by saying I like this game. It's pretty damn solid. The combat is fun and feels smooth, the world design and feel is fantastic and the graphics are great and bound to become even better as it's planned to move from the Havok engine (♥♥♥♥) to the Unreal Engine (Not ♥♥♥♥)!

To go a bit more in depth on the points mentioned above and a few others before we delve into the big ol' negatives let's start with the combat.

It's satisfying, simple as that. This is probably a somewhat subjective point but at least to me the combat has enough oomph and impact to feel strong and weighty. I've played the Berserker, Spearmaster, Sword Dancer? (Can't remember the exact name) and Reaper (My current main) and one thing all 4 share in common is a solid fun factor. There isn't an unreasonable amount of abilities to keep track of, from what I can gather most classes have around 6 ish damaging abilities and a couple utilities like CC breaks, stuns etc. Yet there's still varying difficulty to the classes, those looking for a challenge can pick up Reaper or Berserker whilst those looking to worry less about learning a complicated rotation and playstyle can pick up Spearmaster. I've yet to reach endgame, but I can feel that I'm already excited to see how far I can take Reaper in terms of optimization and learning.

Graphics/World design, I'm gonna smash these two together and keep it short. The game looks fantastic, albeit some textures and models don't look quite as crisp as everything else usually in the terrain. Character models are incredibly well made and gear and weapons look nice and vibrant. This helps the world look even more beautiful than it already is and AGAIN this is a somewhat subjective point so mileage may vary.

The cash shop is basically just a clothes shop, that also sells weapons and flying fire horse dragons? It's all cosmetics, not a single gameplay enhancing item in sight and it is SO refreshing. Currently there's a lot of things you can see in the "master list" of appearances for each slot in the transmog menu (Fully functioning transmog, oh yes, very much like WoW's transmog system) that to my understanding is from the cash shop but isn't available yet, and the cash shop is overall kinda barebones in the outfit department, and even more so in the weapons department with currently 2 weapon skins available, good thing is if you purchase one of those 2 skins on say a Reaper you also gain the skin for every other class! Same with outfits! WELL DONE ON THE CASH SHOP LADS KEEP IT UP!

Let's talk some negatives, because good lord. I'll start with the translation, because it's bad. Rather, it's extremely inconsistent. It goes from being good, to passable, to awful in a single cutscene. It is so incredibly back and forth it's mind blowing and a lot of vital text is translated so poorly it can be difficult to understand what it's even supposed to mean. Skill explanations are the biggest culprit I've come across, I've had to ask people what skills do because the tooltip is downright useless.

Voice acting. I'll give you one solid piece of advice here, don't play with English voice acting. Stick to Chinese, it's much much better. The English VA in this game is some of the worst I've come across in a good long while. It's awkward, cringy at times and uninspired. And a bigger problem and primary reason to play it in Chinese is that during cutscenes, due to lines being shorter in Chinese than in English, the dialogue will simply cut out abruptly and the next line will play, so you either have to read ahead faster than the dialogue is being spoken at all times or idk guess what they said after getting cut off? It's awful, incredibly, embarassingly awful and they have no excuse for not taking this into account.

Possible system bloat. This game has a lot of things in it. Looking at how many menus you can open is quite daunting, and a lot of them are completely unique systems, some of which you need to understand and some that are optional. I'm not far enough into the game to know for sure but I fear the game might suffer from a case of "Cram as many systems, mechanics and doodads into the game as possible!" syndrome.

All in all, I think this game is worth it, as long as you play with Chinese voice acting and take your time reading certain things over a few times to understand it. Combat is slick, world is gorgeous, story is alright I guess I haven't paid too much attention to it but from what I gather it's pretty middle of the road.

I don't do number ratings personally but I guess a 7.6/10? Sure, that.