Recent reviews by UPRC

I haven't played an RPG this good in a long time.

My review? It's a good game. Buy it. Play it.

It's Overwatch, but better.

Part of me wants to give the game a thumbs up for the graphics and the fact that it's free to play which means you can get some decent mileage out of it without ever paying, but the other part of me that wanted to give the game a thumbs down for everything else ultimately won out in the end.

Amazing visuals, and the gameplay initially feels really good, but after a few dozen hours, you start to realize how repetitive the gameplay loop is. The game pretends to be much deeper than it really is, but it's actually extremely barebones and skimpy across the board. The game world is smaller than you initially think, gear/weapon variety is terrible (a major issue for a guy like me who likes cosmetic customization), dungeons are all very samey and there's only a few of them, and gameplay pretty much boils down to "do cookie cutter quests in <insert zone here> and hope that PvP isn't currently enabled in the region and hindering your ability to do anything".

The PvP in this game is trash tier. When PvP is on, it's ON. There's no toggle on/off, there's no dedicated area for it, nothing. Random locations just become open world PvP when world events start (every 2-3 hours). People of all levels do these events, including people at max level who go back and do the events in the low level areas. This leads to people just trying to level and ignore the events getting one-shotted REPEATEDLY by max level players who are just there to grief. I've experienced it firsthand, and it's just awful game design. Forced PvP is fine when the players in the area are all on an equal footing (same gear score, level range, whatever). It's NOT fair when it's a geared level 50 hardcore PvPer ganking a level 10 guy repeatedly who is just trying to experience the game in the actual area the game tells him to play in. This. Is. Not. Good. Game. Design. Hardcore PvP nuts who love ganking/griefing may be salivating, but it's not healthy design. There's a reason why most western MMOs abandoned this style of play YEARS ago (it's bad), but Asian developers still haven't taken the hint yet.

There's also a battlepass. Like, a straight up regular battlepass in an MMO. This immediately injects a little bit of P2W in the game, even if it's not substantial. After examining what paid players get, I've determined that they get some degree of an advantage over players who don't pay. Again, something that should not be a thing in this type of game. A cash shop with various in-game items that can be purchased, fine, but battlepasses shouldn't be in games like this, and when they are, they should offer cosmetic/QoL rewards only.

The UI is also pretty bad. Too many pop-ups saying other players in the game world acquired items, too much annoying chatter boxes from your amitoi (a cute minion that follows you around). On top of this, UI customization is below average, there's no easy way to see all in-game currencies at once with the press of a button, the quest tracker is garbage (I've had quests direct me to areas where the quest objectives were not even at), and more. This game takes the award for second worst UI I've ever had to deal with in an MMO. Fortunately for Throne and Liberty, Black Desert's UI was just far too god awful to ever be challenged by any other game ever, so this game can happily know that it will never be the worst in this area.

The game has a lot of issues that slowly creep more and more towards the forefront as you spend a few dozen hours with it. Throne and Liberty looks VERY pretty thanks to being backed by Amazon's bottomless bank accounts, but the actual game itself is still extremely shallow after you come to grips with things and see the game for what it is after passing the 30-35 or so level range.

WHAT'S DONE RIGHT:
- Animal forms, while nothing revolutionary, shake up gameplay just enough to be a positive.
- Fishing is actually pretty fun and better than what most MMOs manage.
- Graphics are well above average for an MMO. Reminds me of how good Black Desert looked on launch, which is a very good thing. Even still, the fact that the only time I mentioned the graphics in my main review was at the start in just a few words does highlight how the graphics cannot save this game and can only do so much of the heavy lifting.
- It's free to play. While the game makes up for this in other areas in some pretty gross ways, being able to still play the game for a bit without spending any money on it is a plus. Just don't expect that to last if you plan to make this your main MMO that you spend hundreds of hours in.
- Lots of repeatable quests for people who like to chase dailies.
- Skill customization is actually pretty okay and you can augment some skills in interesting ways.
- Sound direction isn't too bad. The music is serviceable and does what it needs to without being memorable while the sound effects are definitely pretty good. Voice acting can be hit or miss.

WHAT'S DONE WRONG:
- Dungeons are overall pretty bland and samey when it comes to location and mob variety. Final bosses of each dungeon are pretty unique and interesting, but aren't enough to save the dungeons from being pretty ho-hum overall.
- Equipment variety is really poor. There's only a small handful of pieces that you can buy. The rest all need to be crafted, and chasing the requirements for them can be a hassle (especially for superior quality pieces). Because of this, you'll only upgrading to new armor/weapons maybe 5-6 times before max level. MAYBE.
- Gameplay loop does not change significantly in the grand scheme of things after you pick your favourite weapons to play with.
- Grappling hooks. Why are they even in this game? They feel like just a gimmick tacked on to make "exploration" feel more rewarding. It didn't work.
- P2W mechanics via the battlepass and the previously unmentioned auction house, which uses a currency that can only be obtained if you purchase it with real money. Free to play users will NOT be able to use the auction house in any meaningful way whatsoever.
- Pretty clunky UI that is barely customizable, has poorly designed elements, and really finnicky tab-targeting.
- PvP is implemented in a horrible way. I've already explained why, so I won't beat that dead horse again.
- World is deceptively small, and there's virtually nothing to do in it outside of do repeatable quests and PvP. The developers try to mask this and make the world feel grand and alive, but it falls pretty short of the mark once you invest some time in the game and see enough of it.

I'm not extremely picky when it comes to MMOs, but I'd probably rather play almost any other MMO in my library over this, and I've already started doing so as I fall back on a WoW private server which I enjoy playing on more than I do this game. Even with my complaints and the thumbs down (I hate the thumbs up/down system, Steam should give us a five star system instead), this isn't really a bad game. It's just not a great game. Proceed with caution.

I love Tekken, I really do. The gameplay in Tekken 8 is pretty good, but not stronger than Tekken 7 mostly because of the new heat mechanic which kinda sucks. I'm not giving this game a thumbs down because of the gameplay though. Even though this is a good game, it deserves a thumbs down because Bandai Namco decided to give the game a premium/ultimate edition, expensive season passes, an in-game shop where all of the decent customization options require real money to purchase once they fill it up, and now the game has a battle pass.

A battle pass.

In Tekken.

The battle pass and in-game shop were not mentioned before launch and were added weeks AFTER the game launched. Bandai-Namco was super scummy and misleading by doing this. On top of all of this, the game costs over $90 CAD. Seriously. I'm expected to shell out almost $100 for a half-baked and incomplete product since the battle pass, in-game shop cosmetics, and season passes will all surely total over 4-5 times the base price by the end of the game's life cycle. No thanks, I'm not made of money and I don't play video games to be nickel and dimed viciously and repeatedly by individual video games. Playing fighting games is a pastime, I shouldn't have to drop more money into a single video game than the sum of several of my annual subscription service costs combined.

I'm out, Harada. You guys deserve all the flak you're currently getting from what was arguably the best game in the series (Tekken 7) to filling the next game with disgusting and predatory over-monetization. If this is the future of Tekken, a series I have loved since 1997, then I'm gone.

This game is goofy and a lot of fun! Only takes about an hour to beat, but it's a fun little ride while it lasts. It's also super cute.

Convinced the police chief that I was the one committing all of the murders in town and made the AI go loopy. S tier game.

Really enjoying this game so far! While it's a crafting/survival game at its core, I spend so much time AWAY from my base exploring the world with my favourite pals by my side and hunting down new pals/searching for secrets and treasures that sometimes I forget my base even exists at all. There is definitely a drive to "gotta catch 'em all" in Palworld, and just roaming around doing whatever in this expansive world has been a lot of fun. I've enjoyed Palworld infinitely more than a recent certain colour-themed release of its obvious competitor, it's honestly not even close. This game can appeal to so many different crowds including crafting/survival nuts, monster collection fans, open world exploration gamers, and more. As long as nothing negative comes Palworld's way and the devs stick the landing, the future is pretty bright for the game.

This is a pretty nice modern take on Panel de Pon/Tetris Attack, but it does have a few features that I would've liked to see such as online versus, any kind of block colour editing, and modding capabilities. Still really enjoy the game so far though! It's the closest thing we've ever gotten to a Panel de Pon/Tetris Attack sequel.

Vampire Survivors is the ultimate "just one more run" game. The gameplay starts off so simple, but evolves so much as you play. Better yet, it feels like you're constantly unlocking new characters and features almost every run even after 30+ hours of play time. There's just so much to do and see in this game, and so many ways to build your characters. It's the king of the horde survival subgenre of roguelikes for a reason.

While Vampire Survivors was clearly inspired by Castlevania, this game openly (and lovingly) lifts from Diablo. I've only played it for a little over an hour, but I'm definitely appreciating the look and feel of the game, and the gameplay keeps me on the edge of my seat a lot more than Vampire Survivors so far. Definitely recommend this to anyone who is a fan of enemy horde survival games.