Nylige anmeldelser av Street

Never have I ever thought this day would come. The day, when I'm gonna post Negative Review for Like a Dragon/Yakuza title.

I'm not a newcomer to the series by any means. Just checked my game time and it's at least 950+ hours in RGG studio games.

A very humble message to Sega before we begin. ♥♥♥ you, greedy ♥♥♥♥♥. Why ?

A) Intentionally locked Pre Orders for several developing/"poor" countries and THEN proceeded to sell the game at release day, thus depriving fans those silly P/O bonuses
B) The most disgusting price tag across the series in terms Price:Content (Quality + Amount; we'll talk about it later) and the absence of adequate regional pricing. Ukraine, LATAM, MENA, India; you can check and compare prices here if curious:
https://steamdb.info/app/2375550/
I've bought Y:0-6 for full price. Every game. 7 and J games with a small discount. Can't anymore, because Sega decided to raise the price 2-3 times.
C) Sega's support didnt bother to answer a single ticket regarding locked Pre Orders, just marked them as "Solved" and closed.

If RGG had a say regarding pricing and pre orders, I, honestly, wish them the same.

If you wanna know a bit about my "taste" in these games, here's my Top 3 without specific order:

- Narrative-wise: Yakuza 0, LaD (7), Judgment
- Gameplay-wise Yakuza 0, LaD (7), Lost Judgment

Frankly, whole game felt just like an advertising campaign for IW. With a price tag 50$.

What I disliked the most ?

LaD Gaiden is a big DLC rather than a separate game. A huge fan service sinkhole which appeals to nostalgy of the fans.
Game surely looks and plays like a LaD title. It has the "shell" of the series, but I didn't feel the "soul" inside that shell. I wasn't hooked on the story. Guys, I loved babysitting at Y:3, Haruka's part at Y:5, but again, this game just didnt click with me.
I also have my doubts regarding writing. It didn't feel like Yokoyama wrote this story. Made some edits - maybe. I'm aware they develop multiple games at the same time and Gaiden was meant to be a small game. It seems like this project was given to junior team/employees.

Characters were okay. Voice acting is top notch as always.

They recorded 30-ish compositions for this one, but the other half of the music - the same tracks from previous games. I wanna stop here for a moment. Music has always been a very important part of narrative in LaD games for me. It dictates the mood and sets the atmosphere for the events we participate in. And RGG always wrote a new tracks for each game with small exceptions. These are Yakuza Kiwami re-made tracks from Y:1, alterations of Kiryu's and Majima's theme Receive You and maybe several more less repetitive examples. Never bothered RGG reused assets from time to time but this title is the one big half assed repeat.

Chapter 2 (was it ?), when Kiryu arrived to the Castle was a cringe fest as well as amount of Ryuji Goda (at this point I dont even know what to call it) references. From my point of view, RGG didn't wanna put more original content in this game or I dunno. What I want to say is that for the first time I'm genuinely scared for LaD series future. This title is theirs first "new" project (Ishin is a remake) after Nagoshi left the studio.
I'm freaking out not because it's something huge. On the opposite. It's a sum of many red flags.

One guy said that nowadays big companies mostly ride on the success on some old titles and almost never develop something new. This is my exact thoughts regarding Gaiden. Too many Y:2 stuff.

Last nail in coffin was the last unlockable Coliseum fight - Minamida Grand
Prix. I guess many reckon it was cool, but combining everything said previously - I think not. You will face robots that mimic movesets of all final bosses from Yakuza 6 to 1 in reverse with their music themes. I already had a bad taste in my mouth and now just remember the emotions every previous title and corresponding battle and the character brought me, only to see a metal piece of crap in front of me - a reminder that the devs are slacking off. This one really controversial for me. On the one hand it would've been fun idea if not all previous fan service in one small game, but on the other, yeah, that and text above.
They also tried to ride on success of previous banger tracks like Pledge of Demon (0) and Theory of Beauty (6). Check tracks Hellish Octagon and Psycho's Anthem and tell me you dont hear the "resemblance".

Whats new ?

Well, 1 new Combat Style; 0.5 new mini game (It's called Hell Team rumble and since it's still in Coliseum...see for yourself) + "biggest" but idk if best addition - Akame Network. Shortly, Substories were mostly converted into requests in here plus you have a lot of mini requests and brawls across Sotenbori. Complete them, earn Cash and Akame points to upgrade your skills, buy new gear. Substories mostly bland and boring in Gaiden. Ai app was okay, Judgment crossover too. At least half of them - eliminating three gangs.
First Summer Uika's play as Akame was good. Fun fact, her surname is Dojima :D
The rest is familiar to the fans. Same mini games, same bullies on the streets, eateries, shops, lockers.
There are very few Dynamic Intros we all love, and maybe one was good.

No NG+, no Legendary difficulty. Fifty Bucks. FmL....


LaD 5, 6, Gaiden SPOILERS AHEAD !


I wanted to talk regarding specific topic, which caused a lot of confusion for me. Idk why I include this to be honest.

One of the most complex moments in LaD games is "Why Kiryu had to fake his own death ?". The answer for this question is behind the stories of LaD 3, 5, 6 and maybe even more. I must admit I've spent a good hour, trying to remember the events that led to this, plus too look at several discussions. These couple days I played Gaiden and fake death plot twist from 6 felt like unnecesarry stretch. But the orphanage, kids, Haruka's statement in 5, her kidnapping in 6 and many other events just show that sooner or later Kiryu's enemies realize they cant defeat him head on and they pressure his family and friends to get to him. And while he's dead, there's no reason for criminal scum to involve those.
But on the other hand, Daidoji's demands regarding this secret are pure evil, forcing Kiryu to accept the cards that will lead to discovery of his secret sooner or later, just to shorten the leash around his neck.
Me and I'm sure a lot of you hate Daidoji and would prefer Yakuza underworld any other day, but it's a Criminal Drama after all. We have, what we have.



Since we talked about the story, my favorite part, hands down - Kiryu watching recording on tablet in Finale. That was strong, that was good, that's what we love in LaD games. Strong emotions. But again, almost everything else - meh.


Had no issues with Performance. Rtx 2060, Ryzen 3700x, 32GB Ram. 1080p high settings, DLAA, no DLSS - 80-90 FPS.

It was the first time, when I considered viewing cutscenes on YouTube and maybe reading a bit after, instead of buying the game. And my guts told me to do so. But constant possibility of a rocket coming into my window (greetings from Ukraine) told me "You only live once and life is too short" so I bought it. Which I, honestly, regret.

If you're on the fence regarding this game - don't buy it until -75%. Not worth it. Not buying similar project in future.

Platinum is very easy.

And regarding future of LaD series and my concerns, I, honestly, hope I'm wrong and everything will be super great, in terms oа quality. Less than 3 weeks until Infinite Wealth release. Oh, and one more f u for Sega - New Game Plus in IW locked behind a paywall in a Master Vacation Bundle, available as a part of Deluxe edition. Pre Orders locked again for several countries.

Couple interesting tracks from OST:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6M1Fa1Hgsc

Wait till 0:40, trust me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beR4JKUSykw

It's a very chaotic review, but I've tried. If you've read it all - thank you.

Beautiful and fun game. IIRC first title was a bit more challenging.

It's just good. 96% positive reviews from 112k players speaks for themselves.

Cute little game. Great to kill several hours.
Pleasant audio and visuals.
Don't expect Death Stranding kind of plot. Why did I add this line ? So you can smile. Like this :)

Hi.

I'll add a bit about the game at the end, but for now let's take a closer look at the negative reviews for past month. Shall we ?

#1
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/id/CardboardArtillery/recommended/378540/
Dude has some technical issues with the game 2 years after previous launch. I'm in the same boat with previous session. My save was from 2021. Finished 100% today.
He complained about the game how he doesnt like almost everything it has to offer, but gave it another go. Tried to. Very deep thought. Fair.
I mean, I agree games shouldnt have such issues, but god knows what sht his PC went through in these 2 years. Mine works fine, again.

#2
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/id/Germanhelmetguy/recommended/378540/
He's complaining about single-rig weapon half time in his review, but proceeds to use it ! At first area of the game I'm sure there are at least several weapons you can choose from, but hey, lets hit our head against the wall. Works like a charm. I agree that first boss isn't the best and not the most intuitive understandable enemy in the game.
Regarding "one shot in upgraded heavy armor with health upgrades" - sounds like a stretch. Can't imagine amount of time he grinded (and he grinded indeed) first area to wear full heavy set.
And you absolutely can cancel animations. For sure with dodge. I didn't use block and didn't try other options, 'cause didnt need to. It just requires timing. Not spamming R1 all the time instead, you know ?

#3
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/profiles/76561198094506956/recommended/378540/
I felt like the guy was constantly using search with "Cheese" keyword, when he played Souls series. Have nothing to add. Very weird review and yet he spent 30 hours in game, just so complain how bad it is.

#4, 5
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/profiles/76561198019787842/recommended/378540/
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/profiles/76561198194723454/recommended/378540/
No comments.

#6
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/profiles/76561199495930608/recommended/378540/
Lie.

#7
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/profiles/76561198029100963/recommended/378540/
Didn't see another Bar under the health, which indicates boss register the dmg received, just not in the way he expected. Again, fight isn't your standard Souls fight, but prolly not the best choice for first boss.

Okay, let's wrap it here. Almost.
A lot of other reviewers used one word very often - Clunky. Our protagonist and most of the enemies are wearing Exoskeletons. Wtf did you expect ? Souls combat without gear with rapier in hand ? Google Exoskeleton and what you see in game are much faster than what we have irl. Movement and action speed in game is already a sci-fi worthy stretch.

What y'all call clunkiness fits the game. It looks natural. It feels immersive. It ain't no ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Dark Souls. Similar mechanics - yes, but they didnt blindly copied everything and that's for good.
Complaints are, honestly, so freakin weird. Copy combat from A to Z - bad review. Don't copy - bad review.

Icredible amount of reviews are covertly ("Hey, I've beat all Souls games, imma eat this one on breakfast". Not today, Satan. While trying to save the face and not sound like a complete newbie or a loser) complaining about difficulty. No comments. Can't, don't like it ? Get good or Quit, you know the rules of Genre. Btw there are very interesting possible grinding system with the timer, when you died. Check the guides.

Game has a great setting, very good atmosphere and good immersion. Sally and Don are favorite NPC's. I also didnt get tired of Announcer after 60 hours in. Weird btw.
Navigation is probably is weakest part of the game, because of how tricky it is. Central Production B is a nightmare. You will also have to return to some areas sometimes. But hey, I struggled with DS 1 a lot as well.
Product doesnt have a lot of Boss enemies, which is unfortunate. There's also upgraded versions of almost every Boss' weapons and to get them, you need to meet a certain requirements. More info in Guides.

I like the combat and gameplay features. Not enough space and your patience to dive into that here.

Try to pay attention to the surroundings as well as audio logs to figure out what's happening, because this is pretty interesting story.

I feel really bad for devs because this game and their team deserve so much more, than what they get from negative reviews section.

Cheers.

The concept is pretty fun, BUT AI is dumb as rock. I wish there was no manual control option and much better ai to just chill. Instead you have to do sht tonn of micro management. Rng with monster parts doesnt help as well.

Unfortunately thumb down here.

Didn't like it.

Among all similar titles this one is way too sadistic and punishing to the player.

- Died ? Lose "souls" and ~10% of your gold; may return souls, BUT not the gold
- You decided to try char with Shield right in this game ? Well...good news ! Regular enemies will grab you when raised shield and poison you with shield up (both melee and ranged attacks - arrows)
- No proper respec
- Heavy armor ? Havent heard, any trash will stun lock you in a combo
- Every time you take damage, until you rest at sanctuary, - your max HP decreasing. With a Tree man I had a try, where I had 50% hp.
- No map for such a huge world

I see that devs love Souls series with passion and decided to build most dangerous environment they could. Same goes for enemies and bosses.
As always, they decided to copy cat From Soft and explain dog sht to the players. Okay. I was patiently waiting for a better weapon. I found or bought Battle Axe at the beginning and only upgraded it to +2 after reached Red Hall of Cages. What a ♥♥♥♥ up boss this location had..I was really impressed how sadistically creative you are, devs. Also that wonderful pit through whole location.
I've beat the boss, proceeded to next location, discovered (googled, because I was already tired of waiting and enemies in caves are pretty fat hp-wise) I should've farm some mobs for Transmutation mats to craft a better weapon.

I've also beat prologue boss after ~10 attempts. Nothing to brag about tho.

Didn't like aesthetic of the game at all. Idk what I liked, prolly nothing. Was just waiting for the game to become better. And it did. In tearing my bumhole.

Am not saying game is bad. Just not for me. Didnt like it at all. Tried, but couldn't.

Better play Hollow Knight, Blasphemous, Ender Lilies or, hell, even Death Gambit if you new into genre.

So another AAA title from once a legendary company.

11 year since Diablo 3. And you know what ? Nothing breathtaking that gonna make you HOLY COW !! WTF ?! So much time and I saw exactly nothing new that they brought to the genre or gaming in general. It's same old, same old. If you care only for clicky clicky, loot loot, sure. Knock yourself out.

Intro cutscene was the best thing I've seen in this game after 5 hours demo. After reaching lvl 20, game just throws you out from the server like this:
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3091986005

Lilith looks quite interesting. Especially eyes.

It's like the same game it was previously but with updated visuals, that's all. Pay up 70 bucks.
Oh yeah, about that:

- pretty much full absence of regional pricing
- outrageous price
- always online
- nothing new that catch the eye
- boring skills, most of them are just same sht from previous games
- boring enemies and bosses (Only completed Act 1)
- very similar and uninteresting settlements
- MTX

Okay-ish story and narrative.
And you cant complete side quest where you just need to use the Emote option, because somehow Trial forbid you of using chat. What are you talking about would you ask ? I guess emotes requires access to the chat because, you see error that tells you cant use chat, every time you try to use the emotion.

I didn't have any hopes about this product, but I still disappointed. Someone said that nowadays big companies only ride on the success of their old, huge (success-wise) titles. And I guess its true. It would be a great surprise if Blizzard can come up with another great title, but I don't think that's gonna happen. Not with how things are being done right now at the company and their studios.

Adios, suckers. Thanks for the Free Trial.

Alan Wake 2 Review

I wanna thank Remedy and epig for not publishing Alan Wake 2 on Steam. You saved me a lot of money and I've played the game for free.

It's wonderful, but somewhat hardware demanding. My RTX 2060 + 3700X + 32 GB RAM didnt take it very well. Low-Medium settings and DLSS Balanced mode.

Atmosphere in game is great. Mostly tense, with some loud and unpleasant screamers. Usually those are the least scary part of such games, but because of the loudness they caught me by surprise several times.

Decent amount of live action scenes. Some will even make you smile.
I think game's ~20 hours long. It was enough and I didn't collect everything, but exlored a little.

New character Saga Anderson was a very good addition. Also, the actress looks so much better irl than her in game model. In last scenes you can see that. A lot of mysteries around this clever and badass lady for you to discover.

Mr. Scratch was expressed much better in American Nightmare IIRC. He almost doesnt talk here and you can't feel psycho- and sociopath vibes anymore =/

Several seconds cameo with Jesse Faden from Control.

I've played one of most earliest versions, 1.0.5. And it someties had ♥♥♥♥♥♥ bug, when you charge through the doors, you just fall through the floor into endless, allegedly, fall. Just walk through the doors slowly by opening them via doorknob.

One thing I didnt like - combat with Shadows in Dark Place. Game tries to explain rules briefly in tooltips, but it didn't help much. Shortly, you see a lot of literally walking shadows and some will attack you, while some won't. I found no other method, except holding RMB, pointing flashlight towards them. Non agressive will melt and disappear, but the thing is, there are too many of them sometimes, plus it takes some time to check it this way. Agressive Shadows also start moving faster and music start playing. On Hard you'll die in ~2-3 melee hits, but there's no lack of med items.
Another silly thing - Alan lost all his ammo and meds after Subway chapter. But if you know this beforehand, you can save that in Shoebox (Chest).

A lot of unanswered questions remain after the ending, but I sorta glad it was so cryptic. I really had WTF moment O_o.

Don't hesitate and play it, folks. Timmy has already paid for your copy.

Initial impressions are ok. -ish.

On 3rd run after 15 min mark none of my weapons were able to kill anything. At 18 minutes mark I've picked up XP magnet and got nothing. It's the lowest difficulty...

Not all weapons have evolutions.

Will add more later.

UPD: okay, so the first level is very weird. I've beat 2nd and 3rd, but not 1st.

The worst in this game:
- Dmg resist types on enemies. Imagine you have fully upgraded gun and in 3-4 clips smg doesnt kill a single enemy on a "NoOb" difficulty. Or evolved spear also cant kill some enemies after 10 pokes. Even with 2-3 lvl gear enemies are just bullet sponges.
- Rerolls are tied to mutations which are RNG. This is beyond dumb.
- I think at least 50% of Weapons and their Evolutions are exactly the same things we had in Vampire Survivors. There's Bible, Daggers, Sacred Water and other clones. 6 weapon slots, 6 support perk slots. Exactly the same Chest system, except timer. 1-3-5 perks inside and resources after last perk received.
So the devs took the best, but added some, sorry not sorry, ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ like mentioned above. Folks, there are 5 or 6 difficulties and even the initial is a mess.
100k kills for a Pyro class ? Ok..we'll manage. 300k for a single Perk ? Hard pass.

FPS issues in second half of the Raid. Especially with certain weapons, like Cluster Nades or whatever it called.

So at the end I have mixed feeling about this one and they're rather Negative. It's too sweaty and unbalanced right now. If the devs will adress the issues, I'll visit this project later.

UPD 20.05: recently dev asked to recheck the game. Installed, played 1 match, uninstalled.
Good changes:
- optimization; even with before mentioned Cluster nades FPS was above 120 all the time. Sure, every now and then from 20 to 30 min fps drops, but gently, without stuttering or slowdowns.
- devs added random but time limited events with materials and "mini bosses" (there's no real bosses afaik, unfortunately), so mats grind became much easier. I figured chips were and are the most rare resource, but again, gaining it is much more bearable now.

All that was added for half year, at first glance (I didnt read every patch note so I'm sure there's more) - 1 new map, 1 new merc, several new weapons. New facility at base. Content-wise. I've picked all 3 weapons I didnt see before, none had evolutions.

The rest is the same. It feels like you're using plastic bullets until 15 or 20 min mark, that is if you're still alive. Enemies just bullet sponges. I had lvl 4 merc with T5 or T6 gear with several mutations. Played on LOWEST difficulty. What will new players experience without upgrades ? Feels awful. There are 4 or 5 difficulties, cant imagine what's on most hard :D

Dear devs, I'm sorry, but there are several other projects that do such games so much better.
To name a few:
Nordic Ashes
Halls of Torment
Vampire Survivors ofc
and..hell..even Death Must Die dev surprised me
I think I even had more fun with Scarlet Tower.

Not all great things can be invented and must not. Some older ideas from another games may give you another perspective on development.
Devs, play those games, read the reviews and figure out what target audience of the genre wants. Because it isn't exactly what you're doing.

Best regards.

Many times I've seen folks, who wanted to have an option to give a game "meh" score instead of positive or negative. I'm in the club with this one.

I can see the effort from the dev team here. But it just doesnt click with me.
If you like Roguelites with cool synergies, different builds etc, you will be disappointed. Pretty boring active and passive items and there's not much of a variety of those.
Combat is the biggest meh. You must constantly kite the enemies, because Melee chars play around stagger and almost always you cant affect all monsters and Range have less stagger, but can attack from distance. There are 7 chars. 4 melee, 2 ranged, 1 mixed - mid range combatant
Sounds and music are quite nice.
Huge accent on narration, but the story isn't really interesting and was probably made for teenagers or even younger audience. Not saying this is bad.

I've beat it on Hard in 12-15 hours. I couldn't reach lvl 20 even with one character, but I played with all of the a little. Killed last boss with Lucy on 1st attempt, she was lvl 19.

For me it was like 5-6/10 game, but I can't say it's bad.