Recent reviews by Linearskillz

10 hours in and so far this game is awesome! It really scratches the RPG open world exploration itch that is missing from most games released recently. It's obviously very Elder Scrolls-like but the world is weirder and more macabre fantasy.

This might seem like an overdone oddball comparison but it feels a bit Soulslike in its world building - just lots of weird stuff with NPCs speaking in riddles and whatnot. It's been fun exploring a setting that I have no previous familiarity with. There's more traditional RPG dialog when you get to the settlements so don't worry, it's not all cryptic riddles.

Also I have to say that the visual design toward the end of the prologue is incredible. Like HR Giger crossed with grimdark.

Combat is a bit of a mixed bag. Sometimes it feels great but other times there's a lot of jank. There's one particular early optional miniboss that was very annoying due to just weird animations and hitboxes. Not a deal breaker, but I would like to see better telegraphs and more accurate hit VFX. If you're going to have enemies do AOEs then make it clear where the damage zone is.

Loved this game on PS3, and so far the port is excellent. Getting 4K/120fps with no issues, and it's only using like 20% of my system resources so it should hopefully run well on most systems. Fairly barebones options since this is more of a straightforward port but I am satisfied. I definitely recommend Graces f itself as I think it has one of the best combat systems in the series' history.

Great game, even better than the first. Going to miss Tango.

Great game. Going to miss Tango.

---- updated review ----

Finished the game after 60 hours, doing the true ending as well as many associated achievements. Overall, I enjoyed this game, but I must admit to feeling somewhat disappointed in its overall lack of variety of content, and many things just seem less good than both Dark Arisen and even the original Dragon's Dogma pre-DA.

I consider two of the vocations to be rather bad (Trickster and Warfarer), I did not enjoy playing them. I miss Assassin. I was annoyed that some vocations only appear near the end unless you rush to get them, so I felt compelled to use a guide for those.

I will avoid going into details due to spoilers, but the endgame in DD2 was a big step down from DD1 and especially DDDA. There's a weird "time limit" that isn't explained well, but isn't a big deal once you know about it. But more than that, there's not much to grind and have fun with. Nothing like the Everfall or Ur-Dragon. Definitely no BBI. So yeah, that sucks.

Enemy and quest variety is pretty bad. By the end I was getting very tired of every quest being some sort of messenger fetch quest. Just way too much running around. Not enough quests that involved both exploration and combat, you're just assumed to do that on your trips between talking to NPCs, but by the back half of the game you've seen everything it has to offer and it gets very repetitive. I hate escort missions oh so much and this game is full of them. With extra dumb NPCs that will stand in dragon fire.

The story is badly told. There are unresolved plot points. Many things that go nowhere. Lots of areas are only explored via side quests. Most of the plot is thrown out by the end. Character motivations, especially for the Arisen, make no sense. You just do what a magical ghost tells you. Your "enemies" are never really confronted. The Queen's plot doesn't go anywhere. And the overall meta story for the world is just way less cool than the first game.

Anyway, I could rant about it more, but that's enough. I did enjoy the game, just not as much as I'd hoped. It's like a 7/10 at best while I think DDDA is 9/10.

---- initial review ----
I'm 20 hours in and can confidently say that I love this game in spite of its performance flaws. It's a worthy successor to the first game, with great combat and compelling exploration.

The biggest problem by far is the game's CPU utilization. It is dreadful, embarrassing even. It's bad enough that on a different day I might give this a thumbs down but seeing the reviews as they are now I'm more annoyed at the straight-up lies being told by others reviewers than anything else. So a positive review it gets.

Anyway, that good news is that there's a DLSS Frame Gen mod available and it helps a ton. If you have a 4000 series GPU then I highly recommend it. I assume it will be patched in anyway since the mod just enables a feature that's already in code. Use frame gen and limit your FPS to 70 or so with RTSS or similar and you'll probably have a good time.

The microtransactions are the same as they've always been in Capcom since at least 12 years ago (the original Dragon's Dogma release), maybe even 16 years but I can't remember if DMC IV had them or not. Anyway, I'm not sure what it is about this particular game that set everyone off all of a sudden, but I would like to make it clear that no, you don't have to pay any extra money to unlock features. Everything is available in-game. Everything is balanced to be used without spending more money. Like buying ferrystones in DD1 or red orbs in DMC5, they are an idiot tax. Don't buy them.

As for the performance issues, well the good/bad news is that it's not a PC port issue. It runs poorly on consoles as well. So fingers crossed that Capcom actually tries to improve it this time. Maybe they were going for that authentic PS3 experience of the original. Those that know, know.

Amazing entry to the Yakuza franchise, playing Kiryu again Joryu for the first time feels so good. The port is incredible; silky smooth and feature rich. It even has proper HDR and surround sound support, so you really are getting the best version of this game on PC. I very highly recommend this game, but if you made it this far in the series then you probably already know that you want it.

Playing as Vergil is the ultimate power fantasy. Very VERY fun gameplay.

The TL;DR is that this is a 5/10 DLC and should be half its asking price.

This is a tough one for me to put in the "Not Recommended" category, and once again I am annoyed by Steam forcing me to choose just to write a review. I don't like giving negative reviews without a lengthy opinion so here I go.

The most positive thing that I can say is that it's an excuse to play a Tales game again. The gameplay is still fun and the graphics are still nice (but the draw distance sucks). You get to interact with the cast again. You get to see the world state after the events of the story. There are plenty of voice acted cutscenes and skits.

Now to the negatives and my ranting. To start with, one major complaint I have seen actually doesn't bother me, and that's that you start in a new file with essentially no carry over. You're given a pre-leveled party to go through the new DLC content with. This isn't that uncommon but usually makes way more sense like with the Xenoblade 2 & 3 DLCs.

My biggest problem is simply that the content of the DLC is boring and has very little plot or story. It is essentially "The Everyday Life of Alphen and Friends" since the ending of the base game leaves the world in a state without any clear antagonists nor an existential world-ending threat. So instead, you spend a lot of time with the heroes trying to find their place in a world that no longer needs them. This might sound appealing, but the writing quality is simply not up to par, and for the most part boils down to "racism bad." Alphen and friends continue to be idealists to the point where it's cringe inducing. The writing attempts to portray the world as more nuanced and that you can't please everyone, but it's clumsy and generic, and at the end of the day doesn't really say anything meaningful at all.

I was particularly annoyed by the utopian portrayal of Viscint, where everyone lives together in harmony after the merge. But if you even think about it for a minute you would realize that such a society would quickly descend into a witch-hunt tyranny since anyone that goes against their ideals is exiled. We even see this happen in the game where they kick out a Renan family for being too racist but everyone, including the team, is just like "yup, that's what you get." Clearly nobody reads Brave New World anymore. Maybe I'm overthinking things, but this is the worldview they are putting forward, so of course I'll analyze it. This is what happens when there's no Big Bad to distract me. The worldbuilding is just too weak to address such difficult problems (this is true of the base game as well but it's carried by the plot instead of the world).

The new character has not interested me at all. She's a tropey meek half-breed that nobody likes because everyone is racist, except for our heroes who are of course the only nice people in this cruel world. Anyway she has the ability to go invisible as well a "mysterious power" from being half breed that is used to fulfill the plot but there's not any surprises here. She's cute and quiet and that's expected to be enough I guess. She will annoyingly ghost the party numerous times with her invisbility and the plot is basically tracking her down and getting her to chill out. For as meandering as the DLC feels there is very little time spent on proper character development for her.

As for gameplay, well it's the almost the exact same as the base game. There's not much to say here and that's the problem. The only added feature that I encountered thus far is a Boost Attack increase for doing character subquests. There's very little in the way of innovation. There are many new quests and subquests, but they nearly all boil down to "kill 2 or 3 packs of enemies" and "collect materials." Again, the writing in these subquests in complete throwaway that you'll forget as soon as you finish reading it. You are doing the quests in the same fields with maybe a few new props placed here and there. I do them for no reason other than to satisfy my OCD.

I am not aware of any new Artes. Not sure about equipment, honestly I don't remember what was in the original.

Enemies are reskinned. Bosses are reused. Enemy health pools are often too high. All of this leads to further feelings of boredom.

Don't pay more than half price for this DLC.

This is an absurdly good remake of a game that I've never played before. I'm really enjoying myself and recommend this to any JRPG fan. It feels modern and responsive and has a gorgeous artstyle that works very well for this kind of game.

The action combat it snappy and satisfying, although rather simple compared to more modern action JRPGs like the "Tales of..." series.

There is a surprising amount of depth to both your choices and the game systems, even if the balance is quite strongly in the player's favour if you put in a little bit of time understanding how IC stuff works. It's very easy to break the game systems and get essentially infinite money and very easy XP farming. I haven't played a purposefully designed game this mechanically broken since Morrowind (that's a compliment btw haha it's fun).

I'm really enjoying how much variance there is from your choices of main character and party members. This game begs multiple playthroughs to see more of what it has to offer.

PC performance is flawless and loading is basically instant with effortless fast travel. No technical issues encountered so far.

I recommend the Japanese SO2SE voice option. English dub was a little... ehhhh... not the best. The Japanese dub is solid. The SO2R JP voices sound really compressed, like the audio quality is much lower. Not sure why that is, since I thought that was the newer option.

This is CDPR firing on all cylinders. Cyberpunk 2077 at its absolute peak. Action-packed main quest and improved open world activities. The only downside is that it will eventually end :) Makes you wish the main game was so good lol