Recent reviews by Spring Breeze Dancin'

Some elements of this game have aged pretty well, and others have not, but overall this was a very fun game. I was surprised at how ahead of its time this game felt to play for a PS1 game, once I got accustomed to the control scheme of course because it does not play like most games do. But the subtitle does hold up, "tactical espionage action", and once it clicked I couldn't stop playing until I finished it.

Grinding Gear Games dares to ask, "What if Diablo, but good?"

Stupidly addictive game. Gosh darn it, why didn't I think of this

My current build, for transparency's sake:

* RTX 3060ti
* 12th gen i5-12600k
* 16GB RAM
* 1080p @ 144hz
* SSD

I am posting this mostly to report on the performance and to put my two cents in about that, but I will comment on the game's other aspects briefly.

PERFORMANCE:

The elephant in the room. For me, the performance in the game has been more than acceptable, given that I am a 1080p PC gamer of course. The frame rate is 60+ a good 90% of the time, hovering between 50 and 60 sometimes, but were it not for me having an eagle eye on the Steam FPS counter for the sake of this review? Honestly I might not even notice it fluctuating. In the large cities, there is a noticeable performance decrease, with the frame rate dropping precipitously and hovering between 30-45 FPS; it is still stable enough for me though and it's not stuttering at a rate that would bother me.

So all that to say: yes, the performance is not exactly perfect, but for the life of me I can't be bothered to care. I have my settings set to High all-around and it's working just fine for my standards.

MICROTRANSACTIONS:

The other elephant in the room. These are available simply because CAPCOM wants to make an easy buck on lazy people and those who have more money than sense. I don't blame the developers, I blame the publisher(s). It's weird and unnecessary but it has nothing to do with the game itself whatsoever and I think people are silly for treating it with such gravity. Ignore these, you'll never need them.

GAMEPLAY:

If you played the previous game, you will feel right at home in this one. It's Dragon's Dogma! But now it's bigger and better in pretty much every way. For the uninitiated, this game is an open-world action RPG with a handful of pretty unique ideas that make it stand out in a big way. For me I find it a pretty challenging game, and I got my butt handed to me before I even made it to the first big city, but this is all a part of the fun. If you like the idea of a physics-based combat system and having a party of player-made characters, this game is for you.

It's a huge improvement from the first game and I've barely scratched the surface of what's possible. Climbing on giant monsters has never been so fun. It has some survival aspects that might not be to everyone's liking, this really is a thinking man's game at its core and it demands that you pay attention to all the granular aspects of its design, so keep that in mind if you're completely new to it. It's a little more "video gamey" compared to some other games you might have in mind, but that's part of its charm.

GRAPHICS:

It's fine. The game looks great for what it is, and I can't even complain about the facial animations because it's such a small thing. I've played every Souls game in existence, so this kind of thing doesn't bother me anymore. The environments look beautiful in a modest sort of way and it's clear that a lot of love and care went into the world design, down to the smallest details.

AUDIO:

With my surround headphones on, it's amazing. The voice acting is well done and you can hear all manner of details in your surroundings. I really don't have much to say about this aspect of the game but I strongly recommend a good headset regardless.

OVERALL:

Even with my short time as of right now I am in love with this game and I think it's an easy GOTY contender. I wouldn't hold it against anyone for waiting for performance patches but if you're the kind of person who's like, "Hurr durr thanks beta testers, your FOMO got to you", I frankly think you need to touch grass pretty badly. This game rocks and the developers really cooked.

This one's tough for me to review. I don't think I've played a game before that's given me such intense contradictory feelings of love and annoyance at the same time, especially when it comes to Souls-likes. Regardless, I finished it, and I think my feelings are overall positive.

First, the things I liked about it:

* The art direction is outstanding, and very distinctive. The game oozes "cool" in so many ways, I really enjoyed this developer's idea of dark fantasy and it feels like they truly embraced the concept.

* The developers have some great ideas that I think are praiseworthy. They very easily could've made this a much more straightforward game, and instead they tried some unique things that I think mostly pay off. For example, the Umbral Lamp mechanic adds just enough layers to the exploration without feeling overwhelming, you never know what you're going to see when you switch over. I especially like the armor tincts, that's a rad idea that I wish other Souls-likes would copy.

* Just about everything a Souls-like fan could want is here in some form. They even tossed in an obvious Bloodborne inspired outfit and class. They made this game for fans, as fans of the genre. This includes their story design and their questlines, which do all the things you expect.

* The bosses are challenging while also being manageable. I did not summon one real player this entire game, which is a first for me. And even though a couple of the bosses had me grating my teeth a little I still beat them all in just a few tries. This is a good balance for me, the most middling of Souls players.

Now, for the things I either disliked about it or had mixed feelings on:

* Their level design and enemy placement are both absolutely brutal. I lost count of how many times I actually got lost in a part of this game. The new addition to the lamp that points to your next vestige is helpful but it doesn't account for how maze-like their levels can be sometimes. There are numerous points where you may even feel that you have softlocked yourself out of progressing or beating the game. But no, dear reader, you have not. It's something you missed that you will feel stupid for missing, but it's not your fault, I promise you. This is on top of their philosophy of constantly throwing gank squads at you; for the uninitiated, what this means is you're constantly walking into encounters where you're ambushed by enemies. Once in a while is okay, but it's this game's favorite thing to do to you.

* Every other enemy you run into is an uber-mob who knows every dirty trick in the book, and they become more numerous as the game comes to a close. Whether it's a winding multi-hit melee attack, a ranged attack with long distance and homing capabilities, or just a good ol' tracking attack that can follow you as you try to dodge roll around them, all the classic "f*ck you" tropes are here in spades. This is in contrast to other, older, Soulslikes, where most mobs have maybe one or two gimmicks at the most and occasionally you'll battle it out with those mini-bosses. Lords of the Fallen can at times feel not unlike an abusive parent -- you love them and you're pretty sure they love you back, but man they really seem to enjoy hurting you.


Overall:

If you enjoy Souls-likes, or you're like me and you've been a fan of this from the beginning, the short version is this: it's a good but messy game. If you can stomach a little frustration with their execution, you'll find a lot in this game to love without a doubt.

This game has a bit of a slow start that actually turned me off of it at first. But if you like South Park and you push through that, this game is some of the most fun you'll ever have in a tactical RPG. The difficulty is perfectly tuned, it's funny throughout, and you have tons of options for customizing your character. It also makes fantastic use of some side characters from the show and gives them characterization that works really well in the context of the game. Plus, the DLCs are honestly some of the best I've ever played.

My complaints about the game are very minor. Walking back and forth around South Park can be tedious at times, and while my playthrough was mostly bug free there were a few fights in a section near the end of the game where I was weirdly forced to alt-tab away to progress through turns. I also think its "skin color difficulty level" bit is more sad than funny and a bit of a misfire, it doesn't make a good first impression in character creation and maybe could've been implemented differently. On that note I would like to say that this game goes out of its way to make a point on multiple politically-charged topics...while I do not necessarily disagree with the points it makes, I feel it's worth noting as it's not exactly subtle. But hey, it's South Park, what did you expect? Some people see the Ubisoft launcher as a downside as well but it gave me no issues, and frankly I like the free rewards from the Ubisoft club.

I strongly recommend this game if you like RPGs and/or South Park, it's basically the definitive South Park game if you ask me. I am contemplating a second playthrough of it as I type this because of how many options it gives you to customize your character, and to play on a higher difficulty.

Has the foundation to be a great game and the developers' hearts are in the right place as far as the kind of game they'd like it to be. Unfortunately at this time the AI really does stink and it becomes apparent mere moments into the game. Sadly this is a dealbreaker since the NPCs are such a key feature in this game as opposed to its spiritual predecessors where they simply stand around not doing much.

100% worth revisiting when they fix this issue however

An instant classic.

Nightdive sure took their sweet, sweet time developing this game but apparently it was worth the wait. As a fan of the original, so far I am more than satisfied with this remake. The gameplay is fun, the art style is unique (it's a combination of modern and retro, super cool), the sound design is great, and I've yet to encounter a bug. The performance also has been rock solid for me playing on all max settings, although to be fair I am playing on a reasonably powerful machine. Easily one of the smoothest launches in recent memory for me. I'm honestly a little bit puzzled by some of the reviews here because as far as I can tell Nightdive has addressed every criticism I had of the beta (I was a Kickstarter backer since pretty early on), including but not limited to the melee hit detection which has been completely fixed to my personal satisfaction.

System Shock is a game that rewards players who are thorough and who use their brains, it was true in the original one and it's still true in this remake. There are no glowing objective arrows directing you where to go, you will probably get lost more than once as you wander around each level, retracing your steps and searching high and low for something you missed. You will need to pay attention to the logs you find and remember what they say. You will need to pay careful attention to your environment. But this is all a part of the fun, and inquisitive gamers will find a lot to love about this game because of it. Doubly so if you're like me and you love science-fiction, System Shock is a no-brainer. And this remake is full of lots of little touches that you will hopefully notice and love as much as I do.

I highly recommend this game to anyone who thinks they'd enjoy a first-person sci-fi horror adventure, it's a very fun and immersive game and worth every penny. Nightdive is officially one of my favorite developers.

Fun but very difficult game. If you can look past the outdated graphics and a few other quirks, I think it holds up fairly well. When I say "quirks", I mean things like how dumb the pathfinding AI is, you'll often find your characters bumping into each other and getting stuck in tight spaces or going the looong way around to a destination. The early hours are brutal but once the ball gets rolling it becomes addictive, with the exception that this game has absolutely zero hand-holding after the tutorial. So if you're not keen on wandering through the map looking for trouble in order to level up and probably doing lots of reloads in the process, this game isn't for you, but if you want some pure DnD action and you know your way around an RPG: this game is still pretty good. Just be aware that it's definitely a game from a different era and it is in no way balanced the way modern RPGs are.

Valheim is a very fun game with a lot of potential, it's hard to believe it's still in early access and is as good as it is. It's one of the few games that scratches the same itch for me that games like Terraria and Starbound used to. It's also one of the better multiplayer experiences I've had in recent memory, I wouldn't want to play it alone.

The graphics are wonderful, the gameplay is addictive, and the game world is so big it's almost comical. It feels like you never know what you're going to find. If you like survival crafting, Valheim is the game for you.

My only beef with the game is, in its current state, a lot of the enemies are greatly overtuned. For example, there are wolves in the mountains and they are no ordinary wolves, they're more like super wolves who are fast and can kill you in one or two hits seemingly no matter what version of armor you're wearing. And the enemy spawns are so aggressive everywhere you go that it becomes very oppressive to play sometimes. The early hours of the game go easy on you but once you get into the meat of it there's a huge difficulty spike due to the sheer volume of mobs and how tough they are. Currently, we are struggling to progress to the next milestone of the game because the biomes we need to be in are hilariously brutal, and it really cuts the fun of the game by a significant percentage. It's enough that the idea of giving the game a "Not recommended" seriously crossed my mind.

Apart from that though, Valheim is a great game. Hard to say much more until I've seen more of it.