Recent reviews by Loner

I'm not sure how to start this review. I can say the game is really fun and challenging. It makes more sense when you know some lore about DnF/DFO. Even though this game and DnF/DFO are in the same universe, they are from different timeline and/or alternate universe. It is still relevant since DnF/DFO have time traveling and alternate universe shenanigans ingame. I won't get into the lore too much but will just cover the gameplay and combat.

The First Berserker: Khazan is a soulslike game that borrows a lot from the Nioh (and Strangers of Paradise to a degree). But it also have a lot of similar mechanics from Sekiro and Dark Souls series (both by Fromsoft). It have the typical stuff you see from soulslike games, losing your "souls" on death, having to retrieve it, no manual jumping, stamina bar, an "estus flask" main source of healing, level up stats, checkpoint, illusion walls, shortcuts, traps, chests, challenging boss fight, multiple phases boss fight, surprise backstab attack, etc. What it borrow from Sekiro is just the parrying mechanic. But what the game borrows from Nioh are deflecting red attacks (Nioh's burst counter), Phantom Form (Youkai Shift), very aggressive playstyle, using multiple different skills, human/monster type stamina bar, (weakpoint) range attack (mostly for sneak attacks), Jarlings (Kodama) exhausting foes (depleting ki) for a grapple attack (brutal attack), gear loots, skill points, mission based maps, elite enemies that don't respawn, and specialize weapon type.

The combat is simple. Even though the game play more like Nioh, minus the stance system, it has a very simplistic combat similar to Stranger of Paradise. The game feels like the saying easy to learn, hard to master. You'll use light and heavy attack (swift and potent) 65% of the time than skills. The skills you get just unlock more access to combos like being able to do an extra swift attack string. You accumulate "Spirit" which is just basically point resources needed to use skills that you assign in on a hotkey.

You gain Lacrima (souls) based on how much damage you did to the boss when you die during the boss fight. Being able to gain Lacrima when failing a boss fight is a great addition. It cuts down having to go grind and just focus on the boss. It feels like you're actually growing upon each death and failure and not just stronger in terms of knowledge.

The game encourages you to explore, giving you lore collectibles that counts as Memory Points to be used for stats upgrade. And there is Soulstones you can seek out to destroy for more stats upgrade. On the topic of stats upgrade, picking a fight with Remnants of Adversary (similar to Invaders) give you upgrade points to make your Spirit of Advocacy (summon to help you during boss fight) stronger. One of the side missions require you to collect 3 specific items and the true ending require you to collect 15 specific items. That one side mission is needed to fight the final boss's phase 3.

The game have a enemy bestiary with some enemies having a specific challenge like no recovery item or no hit that upon completing give you a reward. Some of the rewards are meh like items single use items but some are good like crafting recipe.

The dungeons are very linear and isn't hard to get lost in and you'll get at least 70% of the Jarlings and Soulstones just by simply exploring without looking them up. They can be missable due to illusion walls. But Jarlings isn't hard to miss due to them making very audible rattling noises when you're close to them. It isn't anything to write home about.

There are a total of 16 unique bosses, all from the main mission/story. The side missions you'll be fighting the same reuse bosses you already fought already or the same common/elite enemies as boss(es). The side missions map are slightly altered of the same main story mission maps. And since this game is a mission based game, you can refight the bosses anytime you want and if you want without having to go through the whole mission, just straight up pick the checkpoint that is outside the boss fight. Dialogue when you die don't replay after at least 2 times or replay cutscene after the first time you've seen it. The bosses aren't hard or BS. Bosses are only "hard" because the fights are long

The game have a difficulty setting (OH NO /s). I played the game on Hard because I mostly like playing my games on higher difficulty. The game have Hardcore mode but can only be unlocked after clearing a playthrough on Hard. Even though the game have a difficulty mode, there are two achievements that encourage you to play it on normal or higher and don't change difficulty during their playthrough. There is also another achievement that encourage you to NOT use summon to help during boss fight. But it is nice to have easy mode for those who want to just enjoy the game without much struggle. Which is fine by me and I encourage letting players play however they want as long as they're having fun.

Even though the game have a gear loot system with rarity system, there are two NPCs that let you have mostly control over your gear. An NPC that let you craft a gear set and another NPC that let you reroll your gear attribute (basically stats). This let you build your character however you want with minimum RNG. Unless you want to minmax the attribute by rerolling for the highest attribute you want it has to offer. There are two different type of gear set, a set with set bonuses that give you extra stats and sometimes give you a unique skill or 2. Also you can transmog the moment you unlock the Blacksmith for no extra hassle. But you can only put on armor pieces you've obtained once already. I prefer a static/fixed gear without the rarity

Like most Souls games that give you a specific kind of item type that upon use give you a fixed amount of souls, First Berserker also does this but give you heal on top of it. This changes how you use this kind of item in this game, using it as a secondary limited source of healing during or outside of boss fight. I mostly use it during boss fight. But the amount of heal is small but does impact the gameplay slightly unlike other Soulslike games. You can't buy or craft these consumables.

The game give you 3 weapon type playstyle. Dual wield (a sword and ax weapon) that focus on aggression, parrying, and high stamina recovery rate. A greatsword that is slow that mostly focused on charged attacks, big hits, guarding, and mostly tanking hits. A spear that mostly focus on dodging have more range compared to the other two weapon types but mostly similar to dual wield. It is a disappointing there are only 3 weapon type playstyle when there could had been 4 or 5.

There are three types of parrying, Brink Guard (Sekiro and Lies of P style parrying), Reflection Counter, (Dark Souls parry), and Counterattack (Mikiri Counter and Burst Counter). The window on the Brink Guard is generous. It will be one of your main source of avoiding taking damage beside just dodging. It also does normal and stamina damage on Brink Guard. You can't and shouldn't Brink Guard every attack because some attacks can still do some damage to you and still afflict status ailment. I can't say anything about Reflect Counter because the game doesn't mention it in the tutorial and I never use it. Counterattack I wish I used it more often but didn't until the final boss. The window is also generous, giving you an easy window to do some stagger combo on high poise bosses.

Over all, I give the game a 9/10. It is one of my favorite type of Soulslike. The combat did the heavy lifting for the whole game. You can get 100% achievement in your first playthrough. I love how the game have a toggle sprint, separate the sprint and dodge button, and have a setting for the dodge button to be on press or on release. A lot of Quality of Life changes in First Berserker Khazan compared to Nioh and other Soulslike games. The game by no means is revolutionary in the genre.

I can't fix her! I just want to help her! But she can only help herself! I hate it!

Buy to give money to Pocketpair so they can use for the stupid lawsuit that is Nintendo. fku Nintendo. Until then, I'll write a proper review later.

First off, I'll say that the graphic is really good, music is great, combat is awesome, there are lot of content, and over all a terrific game. The combat got improved from the Remake along with addition of Sync attacks and two (technically 4) additional playable characters. The story mostly follow the same as the Classic with some changes. Like the Remake, whatever section in the Classic and however long it supposed to take in the Classic is stretched out by like 7 times in this game. It is very cinematic, but also feels a bit unnecessary and drags out the game even longer. But what kept the game back is also the massive amount of filler contents that just feels like padding and bloated, something Ubisoft would make. Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is one of those case where bigger is NOT better. I thought I could do all the game's content and 100% it like world intel, minigames, side quests, and combat challenges, but didn't know later on it'll either be a frustrating at times. Most of the minigames are easy to get all rewards even on hard mode. But there are some minigames that are REALLY badly designed like the piano minigame (especially on KBM) or just frustratingly not fun to 100% (like 3D brawler without exploit, Fort Condor, and Glide de Chocobo). But at least (to me in my play time) it won't take you many hours or retry to get the tier 3 reward. The combat challenges can get really annoying and unbalanced (The Flower Seller vs Fireballs and Send in the Clowns) to just simply soul crushing, namely Chadley's VR combat. Now, I only did a few Chadley's Brutal combat challenges and won't be touching the Legend challenges because after finding out how absurdly hard they are (the duo Divine Entity fights and Zack Bonds of Friendship). At one point I got mentally exhausted with the Gilgamesh Tempering Trials that I just turn down the difficulty to Easy just for those duo Divine Entity fights. Also unlike Remake, Chadley won't stop talking and appearing every chance he gets.

Over all, I give the game a 8/10, just don't attempt going for all achievements. If you try to 100%, you will get burned out.

I really want to like this game. But there are so many bugs and issues that outweighs it all.

The game runs terrible on Steam Deck. You have to add WINE_CPU_TOPOLOGY=2:0,1 %command% to the launch option. It is unplayable without doing so but there will still be FPS drop at times and make it more bearable.

The story is good but it isn't anything outstanding to other VNs. It tries to be emotional and isn't hitting it enough, just nearly. It has a lot of underdevelopment and some things that don't make sense. The music is really good, as expected from most of IF/CH's games. The graphics is standard, it is alright. You can't really do much with anime style graphics and it is the same style to a lot of IF/CH's games.

This is a VN first and JRPG second. 75% of the game will be dialogues and cutscenes while the other 25% is actually playing it like a JRPG. The game REALLY wants the player to go through Normal Ending and then Madness Ending (which is basically the bad ending). Mainly the recommended way is to get Normal Ending so you can get all the Dragon Cores that you can't get from Madness and True Ending. The Madness ending is just to speedrun through because all they offer is new dialogues. The way you get these endings is by two conditions, Madness and Little Sisters. You gain Madness by either party wipe, Little Sisters turn into dragon/dying, Enraged Draconic Form during battles, and picking 1 of 2 dialogue choice in each Chapter (except Ch6). Party wipe during battle barely raise the Madness gauge, Enrage is inconsistent and random, Little Sisters dying only raise a bit (honestly not sure how much). So easiest and fastest way is picking all the bad ending dialogue choices. Even though it feels like the game encourage you to go the Normal route (especially when you're not looking up guides and doing research), based on Steam Achievements only 4.1% of players got the Normal ending while 8.6% got the Minessa Ending. There is no True Ending achievements, that's because they're split into 5 different achievements via True Ending Epilogue. To get these you need to get True Ending and maxed affection from 1 of 5 girls. This implies most players will just research and look up guides to get the True Ending for their first playthrough.

I really don't like the Little Sister system and a lot of players don't as well. The game doesn't explain very well about how this mechanic works and it is very annoying and limits how you play the game. This system can be ignored but by doing so will lock you out or True Ending and maybe Normal Ending depending on your Madness percentage before Chapter 11. It limits how you play by discouraging you from grinding, farming, and exploring. Their Madness Level increase ONLY by distances traveled in dungeon. So it just result in going straight for the end dungeon boss and fighting any enemies along your path. Thankfully upon entering Chapter 11, the Little Sisters won't die regardless of their Madness Level and Dragon Growth Gauge.

The Devour system is good and bad. I like the idea of getting Dragon Cores by Successful Devour of dragons you encounter (excluding most bosses). It just turns the whole party into Blue Mage from Final Fantasy but better. It gives players incentive to get into encounters, even if hunting specific enemies. When you use a Devour skill, there is a percentage you'll Succesful Devour an enemy, instant kill them, and get their core for that character who used Devour. The problem with this is it trivialize battles outside of boss fights and making it a superior version of instakill skills. Luckily you don't have a very high success rate until Chapter 11. The most you'll get is 30%-40% without lowering the enemy's HP is at Chapter 6. There are some enemies that have REALLY high evasion and/or likely flee the fight, making them really annoying and Devour build slightly ineffective.

Physical is weak and magic is just really strong in this game. Magic never miss, have a non-elemental version, some spells can hit all on any vertical levels, and most enemies are weak to element which any characters can use. Enemies are weak to specific type of physical as well, but every characters have a specific physical damage type which can't be changed. Physical is only good for self buffs.

MP in this game is very abundant due to how cheap the cost of all the skills are. So there is really no need to increase MP.

When getting Dragon Cores and you learn them, you can assign them on characters up to 20 points. This is a really great idea, giving players the freedom to build/specialize the character how they want. What sucks about this is there is no loadout feature so every time you want to change something, you have to manually equip or unequip.

There aren't any dating sim elements in this game. But they have an gifting and affection system. As mentioned before, this effects the True Ending Epilogue. It is really easy to max since you can just buy all the gifts from the Curio shop. There isn't much to say except you'll just get more dialogue and nothing else.

Post-game is a bit of a let down. You only get 1 extra dungeon after clearing the game. It only have 2 bosses, 1 dungeon boss and 1 optional boss after beating the dungeon boss.

The vertical level is...whatever. Most of the time I just have 1 character on each level so they all don't take damage from AOE.

Flying in dungeon is basically sprinting and with stamina. But you can't fly over gaps and have to use Laponette's dungeon ability. It just feels odd to me.

Each chapter have a new dungeon you need to clear. All the dungeons feels short and very lackluster in terms of level design. Especially Chapter 7 which is just a straight line.

The Side Quests are just kill and fetch quest. Then again it is just one NPC giving them to you. Not even any dialogue but a briefing about the quest. Not much to say but very simplistic, boring, and dull.

Each characters have a signature Devour skill when they're in their Draconic Form. While it looks cool and supposed to do a lot of damage, it is very underwhelming. The problem is that they're elemental locked for each characters, making it ineffective against enemies resistant to that element, and their damage is weaker than just doing magic while being MP efficient.

Over all, I give the game a 7/10.

Use to grind and power leveling near and in post game. Even on your first playthrough.

I bought this album that came with this game.

I really wanted to recommend this game. I completed the normal and true ending in local co-op. But sadly this sequel is a step back from Demon Purge.

Let's start with the good:
-Good voice acting
-Sprites and pixel arts
-Artworks and character design
-Music

Now for the bad and there are a lot:
-Fast travel: You can only one-way fast travel from save points to the base/castle/throne room. You can only fast travel anywhere outside of base when you find different Karons. You don't unlock Karon until you get to the 3rd area (Cursed Cavern) and find her Soul to revive her. Luckily, the save point fast travel was patched where you can fast travel back to the last save point you used outside of base. Also Karon require you to pay her 50 gold each time you want to fast travel. That's fine because you have a fountain at base that cover that fee. But then cost 0 gold as a reward (woop-de-doo) for unintentionally helping her later in the game. Which feels useless and underwhelming. Also there are no auto save. So if something happens like you die or the game crash (which happened to me a couple of times from tabbing out) you have to do everything ALL over from the last save point you used.

-Sub weapons: Every time you get a new sub-weapon, it is usually just a stronger version of an existing sub-weapon that function the same thing, doing more damage and cost more DP and function the same. Half of the sub-weapons are underwhelming and just used for skill fodder. One sub-weapon that is basically an item to light up dark areas, the activation don't carry over from room to room. So you have to reactivate it every time you enter a new room. Also I feel like sub weapons should have a cool down system instead of a DP system. Or at least have DP regenerate overtime. Sub weapon spamming trivialize boss fights (after beefing up them up like the Charge Lance and two-hand swords) and during going through areas, I rarely use it because limited use due to DP and DP doesn't drop often enough. But during boss fight, there are consumables to circumvent the DP limited use (but the consumables are still a bit expensive so I usually reserve them for bosses). Upgrading (not synthesis) sub weapons with Spider Blacksmith NPC doesn't seem to do anything at all.

-Inventory: Your inventory will be filled and cluttered easily during mid game and you can't sell them for money, multiple select to discard them at the same time, or auto-transfer it back to the storage (when you unlock the storage function).

-Level design: The beginning to mid game seems alright and fine. But after that the whole game consist of Super Dash, multiple mid-air jumps, and air dashing. It is very bland and boring. The save points and fast travels placements are also feel badly placed, half of them separated a few rooms away from each other. Karon being placed far off where you usually want to go. From throne room to Karon and the NPC area, you need to go through 10+ rooms to get there. Super Dash feel like it is given way too soon somewhere in early to mid of the mid-game. The chests when you open them, they're either money, consumable, sub weapon, or Maxim's bones. When it is sub weapon, they're just a disappointment because you already gotten multiple copies of the sub weapon by the time you open it and it doesn't even have any good skills on it. Money is... whatever you can use it to buy consumables or just improve your sub weapons' damage. One time use consumables, which is also whatever and I just stockpile them for the final boss. But what I mostly expect when I open a chest is Maxim's bones.

-Enemies: It feel like all the enemies are reused from the first game. And after getting the max amount of bones in the area, there is no incentive to kill enemies unless they're in the way.

-Boss fight: The boss fights are... bland and pose no challenge. Except the final boss. All the boss fight consist of spamming sub-weapon until they die because it does the most damage mid to late game and it is the most effective/fastest way to beat the boss. Also 2 of the bosses are reused multiple time. The boss in the sand area 4 times, and the first boss 3 times.

-Level up system/Maxim's bones: To way you level up in this game is by collecting Maxim's bones and submitting it in the throne room. And it is impossible to progress through the game without collecting and submitting these bones because your progression abilities are locked behind milestone levels. Not only that but you're forced to go back to the castle just to level up. It is the ONLY way to level up.

-New abilities: Every time you hit a specific level from submitting and collecting bones, you get a new ability. But only 3 of the milestone abilities are special. Every other milestone abilities you obtain is just either an extra jump, air dash, and sub weapon quick slots. It is very disappointing so don't expect something like wall climbing, glide, or grappling hook.

-Demon Relics: Some of Demon Relics are useless like the one give you stats increase when in co-op. But it doesn't work when you're in local co-op. Another Demon Relic, Watch This, is useless in co-op and function the same as standing on top of your co-op partner from the beginning of the game. About 2 or 3 Demon Relics just give you negative status...

-NPCs: Half the NPCs in the castle are useless or don't do anything. The only one useful is the storage, weapon smith, fast travel, and chef. There is an NPC in between mid to late game that let you online co-op. Which shouldn't be an NPC. But since they are, why are they not the first NPC you revive? So when and if Inti Create add the online co-op feature...you have to play half way through the game to unlock the two headed Cyclop NPC. Also there is no online co-op (yet)

-Main Weapon: Disappointing you don't get your main weapon upgraded and there are no other main weapons. Kirika and Masha's main weapon feel worse than Shinobu and Maya. Kirika can't directional attack and can't dash while firing. Her shotgun is basically a dash attack which can occasionally cause contact damage just trying to use it. Masha can't dash back but backstep during her whip attack which feels very bad and slower than just stop attacking and dashing back. Her charge attack have limited use depending on what seed and how many seeds you have. You can hold up to 5 seeds and do up to 5 charge attacks before unable to charge attack. Which just makes me not use the charge attack at all.

-Removed co-op room clear/Devil's Bullet: They removed this cool move where you just nuke the screen after maxed Purge Gauge in the first game Demon Purge. A disappointment.

Doesn't relate to Gal Gun: This sequel doesn't feel like it relates to Gal Gun at all beside them slapping on the previous game's two main protagonists. Like if you removed Miya and Shinobu, it would be the same story and the game just feels like a new IP rather than a sequel. The two demon hunters have no relevance to the story.

I think the game spent all their budget on voice acting and is why this game is very...underwhelming and a downgrade from Demon Purge. It just feels like they just made this game with no passion just for weeb baiting. I still had fun with the game but regret pre-ordering. I can't recommend it to others with its many flaws despite my own personal enjoyment. Over all, I give the game a personal enjoyment of 6.5/10.

Let's get the obvious out of the way, there are no segs and this is (technically) a gooner game (I'm just memeing this one). This is another "Bullet Heaven" game that is short in terms of getting 100% achievements compared to other Bullet Heaven games I've played. There are three difficulties. Each potions is basically a damage type excluding broom/physical damage. You can get a max potion up to 6 times then afterward no more benefits from that potion. You can't get 2 different max potion, I tired. A disappointment and missed potential for a mixed potion ending. There are little to no build variety because all the potions don't synergize with and don't like each other. So each run you'll basically be planning out routes "what potion type am I going for?" There are a max of 6 spells for each potion/damage type (broom/physical excluded). But you don't get all of the spells off the bat each run. You have to level up a damage type via potion and get new spells of that damage potion type per level. When you start a run, you're given paths to choose from that have different clearing conditions. Surviving until timer run out, kill specific amount of enemies, staying near a moving refuel thing, and defeat a spawn timer boss. The clear conditions all feel the same to me. Each wave/fight give you at least 1 bouquet flower which is basically passive that give more damage and barely change how you play. The art is great and the music is pretty decent. Over all, the game isn't bad but it isn't great. It is just alright. I give it a 7.5/10