Recent reviews by Johnknight1

As someone who only first played this game about 3 weeks ago, let me say... the people hyping this game up for you are doing a great job, but trust me, this game is better than you think. The hype is real.

This game is a legal drug. It is addicting in the best way. It is fun, engaging, makes you think, and takes the poker and rogue-like and deck building genres and masterfully and lovingly merges them together to where the final product is better than the sum of its' parts. The fact this game has so much depth and fun despite being so simple and so cheap (15 US dollars on Steam, 10 US dollars on mobile storefronts) is stupendous.

Buy Balatro. Give it a go. It does not matter if it is on any form factor of desktops, laptops, mobile PC's, home consoles, portable consoles, phones or tablets, buy it. Play it. Love it.

Game has two minor technical issues:
There is no true full screen mode. Borderless windows mode works fine at least.
-Controls for the World Tour mode are not Arcade Stick friendly in the overworld due to an awful follow camera without tinkering.

Capcom should fix these issues, but they are not deal breakers.

The only other issue is the DLC pricing, which is par for the course in fighting games these days. It is a difficult subject that I won' tackle further in this review.

The game otherwise feels great to play. The buttons feel as responsive as any Capcom fighting game ever has. The depth and variety of moves and options every character has is readily apparent. It is dramatically more than what we had in previous mainline Street Fighter games. The character variety is also very impressive.

On top of that, Street Fighter 6 has lots of game modes, training options, a full beat 'em up-like story mode, and quality online. Really enjoying it so far, and it is a lot better than when I first played the original versions of past numbered Street Fighter games.

I definitely recommended Street Fighter 6. If you can get the 1st 2 seasons of DLC characters + the main game for about $70, that would be worth it in my opinion.

This game has Ubisoft Connect DRM and always online, even for the single-player. You must log in to your Ubisoft Connect account and enter your password every time before you can boot the game. That's right, you need a password for the DRM of your DRM! Due to this invasive DRM I bet pirates have a better experience with this game than I do for buying it ironically. A quest called "Kenway's Fleet" won't work because the present online servers don't connect to you. In order to advance in the story, you either need to restart mid quest, mod your game or fix codes. That is how awful the DRM is!

I also want to add this game is poorly optimized. It runs terribly for a game over a decade old with stuttering problems that is even present on Xbox Series X and PS5. Ubisoft has not updated or optimized Black Flag since launch.

If these issues did not exist, Black Flag would be considered an all-time classic. Amazing pirate stuff, the assassins stuff is about even with the best of Assassins Creed of the era. This is the pirate game you always wanted. But alas matey, Ubisoft ruined her.

Valve really needs to ban external DRM from other publishers. This just makes the experience worse for the players. Now do yourself a favor and *NEVER* buy a Ubisoft game on any system. And for people on console... Ubisoft Connect invades consoles too, and is required for nearly every Ubisoft game. You read that right! No one is safe from the horrors of Ubisoft Connect unless you avoid Ubisoft games!

Going to give this review a thumbs up after previously being thumbs down due to technical issues now addressed (crashing issues).

The game was always great and now all the major issues have been ironed out. This should not have been the case at launch and over a year after launch, but at least it is fixed now.

Played the game on and off on multiple platforms for years and I now have to do a forced multiple hour long tutorial. Terrible decision by the devs, just like going free-to-play.

Devil May Cry 3 is in my humble opinion the greatest 3D hack 'n' slash game ever made. It was so damn good. The combos, the different styles, the added bonus of playing Vergil, how deep you could get with combining and mixing all of it... just absolutely everything in the combat was awesome. Then you add some sick levels, cool enemies, sick bosses, God tier Vergil fights... and it was just a hack 'n' slash game that made all the others look like crap.

I was in love with Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2 before Devil May Cry 3. Then after I got reallllly into it... I've been unable to get into that series ever again. I just think "man I wish I was playing Devil May Cry 3 instead." I can't even think of playing a Muso/Dynasty Warriors styled game. Even God of War 1 and 2 were hard to get back into with Devil May Cry 3 sitting there. It's just such a damn fun and great game. It is one of the greatest cult classic games ever made.

But why am I talking about Devil May Cry 3 in a Devil May Cry 5 review you ask? Because Devil May Cry 3 is the gold standard of the series and 3D hack 'n' slash games (along with SEGA/Platinum Games' Bayonetta 1 and 2), and Devil May Cry 5 has to live up to Devil May Cry 3's legacy.

And Devil May Cry 5 failed to live up to Devil May Cry 3

Because it utterly surpassed it.

The combos, gameplay, levels, combat, enemies, bosses... are all vastly improved in this game.

And you got 3 totally different characters on top of it to boot. Nero is a far superior version of his Devil May Cry 4 self with so many more cool combos. V is the most unique hack 'n' slash character I ever played and I love him to death. And Dante... has so many unique mechanics, moves, combos and ways to play him that it hurts my head to think about it.

Devil May Cry 5 isn't a dream game, it's beyond a dream game. The long-term planning and over-the-time love this game got is extraordinary. As cool as it is to see cutscenes of characters doing sick combos, the actual gameplay itself allows you to be cooler than cutscenes, which is insane to me. That's something anime video games have tried and failed to do, yet Devi May Cry 5 does it with such awesomeness that is so damn fun to play.

And the graphics. My God the graphics in this game are insane. It is realistic and stylish and so uniquely framed.

Almost everything from Devil May 3 (and 4) was improved; the only thing missing is a playable Vergil (which if DLC/re-release practices tell us anything for DMC3+4+DmC are anything to go by is coming).

Simply put this is one of the greatest achievements in video game history, one of the best single-player games ever made and the best 3D video game release of 2019. The CapGODS have raised the bar again.

Game is simple and sick. Combos feel real good, buttons feel crisp, movement feels crisp, and the crossover element is so awesome.

Gameplay is amazing, truly continuing a great run of modern major fighting game releases such as Dragon Ball FighterZ, Tekken 7 and Smash Ultimate. And overall that's what Mortal Kombat 11 is: another great fighting game. The character movement and animations are so crisp. This is the best "realistic" graphics/animations combo I've seen in a fighting game, and combined with all the classic engaging Mortal Kombat gameplay, it's just fantastic.

All the characters are very diverse. Even characters from past games like Frost and Jacqui who were lackluster got re-imagined in super cool ways, and they don't feel like slackers. The new characters are really nuts. Cetrion is like Injustice Poison Ivy but on a cosmic level. The Collector is crazy with how he uses his 6 hands. Geras' timestop shenanigans are so crazy, kind of like Hit in Dragon Ball FighterZ but with a bruisery archetype. The only character archetypes sadly missing are monsters (Goro?), crazy mages, the cyborgs, the big huge gigantic fighters, and sadly Kenshi. But even then, this is the most fun base roster this series has maybe ever had.

The presentation of this game is 1st class. All the health bar information, character information, UI and menus are really well laid out. Fatalities, ultimate attacks, brutalities, etc are presented so much better than past games, it is insane.

The graphics and art style... best the series has ever seen. The best a realistic fighting game has ever seen. The coloring in this game are gorgeous. No more brown tint syndrome from Mortal Kombat X (one of that game's few largely negative mark), everything looks brilliant. The graphical fidelity is insane. The cutscenes in games for fatalities and ultimate attacks look absolutely gorgeous. The game looks like a cutscene.

I immensely enjoyed the story mode. It was fun to play, funny, although not quite an incredible challenge. The other game modes are very good. Arcade mode is fun so far, but I haven't touched much of it. The Tower modes is very grindy and kind of a mess now, but it's still enjoyable (if you love a challenge). The tutorial is very good and informative. And best of all for me, the Training Mode gives a ton of options, lots of frame data, and so much useful information. I've dropped hours into it and had a lot of fun learning the game.

The Krypt... 30 frames per second is a bit of a knock as a limit, but hopefully that change is coming. It's not too annoying (I say that as someone who suffers from motion sickness from first person/camera movement heavy games that give me headaches, migraines and even vertigo). It's too grindy (honestly when isn't the Krypt too grindy?), but it's seemingly being worked on. Only non-gameplay elements are behind it, so it isn't a big deal. But hopefully NRS continues to improve it.

Kustomization is great. Lots of options, although it's too hard to earn gear, skins, fatalities/brutalities and other content. You should really start out with 5 skins and 5 variations of each 4 or 5 weapon/item per character instead of 2. But again, it's tied to the game being too grindy. Is it the end of the world? No. Should it continue to be improved? Yes. NRS is good about listening and fixing issues. I mean, just look at the disaster that was Mortal Kombat X's PC launch (now that game is great on PC; honestly buy that game, it's God tier). Fortunately, unlike Injustice 2, gear is purely cosmetic.

In the end, this is a fantastic game with a lot of great modes but sadly too much grindy that is somewhat being worked on. Hopefully it keeps getting worked on, because this is a fantastic base game. Not just do the players deserve better, but so does this fantastic game.

My biggest con from playing the beta is I forgot I could use my GameCube controller LOL (playing on a PS4 controller was better than expected though).

Overall I fairly enjoyed the game. The 3 starting characters were all quite different, and the other 4 characters (whom I don't totally understand all of them being locked behind a paywall in a beta, but eh) seemed pretty interesting as well. I thought the combo strings were fun, the character designs were neat takes on the Smash series, and overall I really enjoyed the pacing of the game.

It was fun to play, which is... something a lot of recent fighting games have lacked for me (namely Street Fighter V Season 2 onward and well... yeah pretty much every recent fighting game Capcom makes and only Capcom lol).

There were a number of not that big issues with the game I had though:
1. The aerial movement and flow felt a little stiff. I do think the game would benefit from greater in air movement ("direction influence" aka DI; for non-Smash fans, think 2D Mario games and how you can change how your character moves in the air). I think opening that up a bit more (than Super Smash Bros. Melee and Project M) is possibly the way to go.
2. I like how the backgrounds were distant and the action was distinctly in front of you, but the backgrounds felt too far back. I think there needs to be more going on closer to the screen.
3. I know it's a demo, but I felt there were too few characters. I think at least 1 more needed to be free for all (exclusive to the demo maybe?), and maybe 10 characters total. But hey, Street Fighter V did it with less.
4. A lack of tutorial systems kind of hurt. It required you to look out of game for info.
5. Overall it felt similar to the first showing of the game... they did the beat too early. Like the first reveal, it felt like they should have waited another 4 months. But hey, at least the developers at Wavedash Gaming are listening to fan feedback.
6. I had roughly ~50 ms ping every online game I played (well more meme'd). That's a bit higher than I would like given my internet connection.

Despite those shortcomings, I enjoyed the game. I'm far from the toughest cookie the please, but I did really enjoy this game. While the polish wasn't all there (it's still a demo), I did very much enjoy what I played and I saw a ton of potential in this game, much like fellow fan-made Smash inspired game Rivals of Aether did early on (by the way, buy that game).

While I know there are concerns about the Overwatch-like system, if the game continues to improve in the gameplay department and has a healthy launch lineup, I think it will be fairly priced. ~$25 for all present and future characters sounds reasonable to me, especially since it sounds like this game will have a decently long post-release development cycle.

Icons: Combat Arena is definitely a game I will look forward to more of in the future. It is a game to look out for if you enjoy platform fighting games.

I killed Nazis.

That is always good.