Останні рецензії користувача The Pants

This was my first playthrough of a Yakuza game, and man they're something special. There's a wonderful balance of an emotionally engaging story and characters, atmosphere, mechanics, and comedy. I found myself laughing out loud at character moments and story developments because the timing of them was so fantastic just as much as I found myself just sitting back and letting cutscenes play because I was enthralled by the performances.

Which are fantastic. There's an astounding amount of detail and humanity in them. Facial animations, body language, and vocal performances all come together in a seriously compelling way. I was very impressed by the micro-expressions and minor movements I'd see. Characters' eyes not just looking in one place, small movements of the mouth and brow during dialogue, and wonderful characterization in the body language during any sort of delivery. It's easy to get sucked in, especially because of how the story is paced.

It's constantly giving you off-ramps and introductions to new mechanics, which encourage you to explore the cities, engage with the side stuff, and just sort of vibe, man. Eating restores health, and can give bonuses. The first time I ducked into a hole-in-the-wall chinese joint with cardboard boxes in the corners and fans plugged in because it was the closest place to me after I got in a fight, I fell absolutely in love with the loop.

Combat, too, is an absolute blast. The three styles you choose from(4, technically, since we get the boxing dlc, but I never used it) all feel different and useful. Speed, power, and technique. In fights I would routinely switch between them to respond to different situations as they came up, just because it made sense to. I didn't HAVE to, but I felt like I should.

Not all gameplay feels super fleshed out, though. Not just the side stuff; often times that was surprisingly well thought out and fun. Taking the dance team to the nationals and building robots with a bunch of nerds were honest-to-goodness good times. But no, stealth and parkour are weak. I think I can understand why, as they don't feel like things the engine is good at. You can tell that its trying its best, but it never really comes together, and you always feel like its a gimmick instead of part of gameplay. Part of this is probably due to how little you do it, as well as your inability to just start doing it whenever you want, unlike observation, drone piloting, skateboarding, and all the other weird things you get up to in the game.

I will say, however, that mods very much saved this game for me. I really, REALLY don't like the main character's outfit. It honestly makes no sense to me, from a character perspective, and I just straight wasn't having fun watching him in it. But thanks to the power of mods, I didn't have to, and I played the game looking like a got dang DETECTIVE instead of someone who doesn't have anyone to stop him from an embarrassing mid-life crisis. It also let me adjust the difficulty of combat, which I felt got too easy as time went on. I ended up using a mod that scaled damage and health, but then cut the health part out of it. It just doesn't feel right if I can't be utterly demolished by some random dude if I'm not paying attention, you know? Especially if he's got a gun.

If you've been looking at cutscenes of Yakuza games and thinking "okay that kinda looks amazing" for a while, I really recommend this. It's fun, funny, moving, and you can just feel the care and attention that went into it. The Yakuza guys have been building these two cities for decades, and you can tell how much they've come to love them and the characters they've made within them. I had a serious blast, and even though I feel like I sunk a ton of time into it, the end told me I had 21% completion. Apparently you can get girlfriends and there's a casino somewhere? Who knew! Maybe Yagami can actually get together with the prosecutor lady who is like obviously super into him, but I feel like that wouldn't be a side thing. There's a whole "just go have fun" option that's opened up, so I guess I'll do that.

As a social experiment, it's amazing. As a game? Eeh. Eeeeeh.

For those unaware, Foxhole is a giant war where everything, from the guns you use to the tanks the other guys have, came from raw materials that were gathered, refined, and then built in factories and put on a got dang truck and driven to the front line. It's astounding that it works at all! It's a testament to humanity's natural inclination towards cooperation and construction, with people building massive and complicated factories so anyone can get raw materials and refine them into usable stuff.

But it's... too much. Back when I played a lot, you could usually find places where there was somewhere to refine material, somewhere to build things, and somewhere to store them all located close to each other. The ability to really pump out stuff was further back, in specialized buildings that would make lots of stuff at once, but you could usually find a hub in every one of the big hex map areas that had the ability to put together supplies. It was honestly really fun being a small time logistical driver, going around and gathering raw materials from fields, making a bunch of useful stuff with available materials, storing it up, and then responding to front lines who needed supplies. It was a genuinely unique experience, and one that I really enjoyed.

But no longer. Now not only are the buildings to do everything scattered to the winds except in the very first hex, there's now even more complicated steps to produce things that require player built structures. Driving around and collecting things to make sure you've got a stockpile of bandages in case a front needs them went from "easy" to "requires multiple hex journeys," and that's like a 15 minute drive each way. Doing nice things like "leaving the materials to build trucks in the garage" went from being something that required a couple extra minutes to your entire play session. It's just too much, man. It's not fun.

Well, what about the shooting? I'll be honest, I never liked it. It's top down, and you can't see far. You die easy, guns are strange, and since it's core thing is that supplies have to be moved around, it's not like you're always gonna have what you want. The enemy has artillery that's pounding you? Building artillery isn't pressing a button, it's getting a bunch of different materials from different factories, putting them together in a different factory, putting the piece on a truck(with a crane), and driving it to the front and unloading it(with a crane). Then you need ammo, which is a similarly complicated process. Their guys using automatic weapons? It's not a matter of changing class, you have to have those weapons in your base and have ammo for them. It's entirely possible that your side hasn't actually got the technology to even build something similar yet, because there's a research system. The enemy have a tank? Oh buddy, don't even pretend you can just go pull your own. Making one takes literally hours with all the ♥♥♥♥ that goes into its production.

If you're part of a gigantic clan who plays all the time, the game probably can be fun still. War is a massive logistical and industrial affair, so small groups can't realistically contribute much to it. There's a reason armies are big. But people usually play games to enjoy themselves, and much of the experience in foxhole is frustration because of just how difficult it is to DO anything.

Not good. They made everything boring, and they took out the ability to create and play your own adventures. It's like a depressed person tearing their house apart.

Fighting rats is fun. Development was slow for a long time, but they were porting for consoles. Maybe it'll speed up now?

I hope so. It's super fun to kill those ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ rats.

The first thing I did after trying to play Magicka 2 was go back and play Magicka.

You can use your cyberbrain to hack other cyberbrains. Sometimes doors will hack your cyberbrain if you mess up.
Buy it.