Recent reviews by Raksha

this game is absolutely fantastic, and if you were a fan of the first game, getting Remnant 2 should be a no-brainer. They've pretty much taken the core of remnant 1 (do main story, explore and complete side areas, get loot, rinse and repeat in adventure mode or play through the story again.) and given it a massive upgrade in quality and polish.

for starters, the trait system requires half the trait points to max out a trait, only needing 10 trait points and cutting down the grind to reach the trait point cap. Then they fully fleshed out the class system they tried to do in the previous game (in remnant 1, all the classes really did was give you some starter gear and a weapon mod, but in remnant 2 they're fully fledged classes with abilities, passives, and a class-specific traits which you unlock for use in any build once you max out that class!). IMO the class system is easily the best part of remnant 2, being able to mix and match 2 classes to create a build to suit your needs. And speaking of builds, they went crazy with the amount of rings and amulets you can obtain. the base game on its own has 144 rings to obtain and 62 amulets, with a whole bunch more being added in the DLC for the game.

Though one of (probably the only) the major downsides is the performance is pretty rough. i have a Nvidia RTX 4060 graphics card and a Ryzen 7 5700x CPU and on medium settings with DLSS set to Balanced i get roughly 70-80 FPS when i'm exploring, but in combat it generally drops down to 60 and sometimes dips below that, and the DLC is even worse when it comes to performance.

But performance issues aside, the game itself is a ton of fun with tons of options for buildcrafting, beautiful locations, unique and interesting boss designs (the final boss being my favorite), INCREDIBLE soundtrack (Rob Westwood absolutely knocked it out of the park with this games soundtrack.), and on top of that has been a very bug-free experience, out of my almost 150 hours of playtime i can't recall encountering a single bug, minor or major

ROCK AND STONE BROTHA I LOVE SHOOTING BUGS AND MINING MINERALS AND (most importantly) HATING ELVES

good game, but holy ♥♥♥♥ does it have its issues

with every update they put out this game gets at least three new ways to make you have to relaunch the game after every other match (currently writing this review while i sit at an infinite loading screen. if the game wants me to restart it needs to be a man and crash me to desktop, i am not restarting this game for the 10,000th time.)

also the devs for some reason keep nerfing all the good stuff in this game, to the point where they made flame weapons absolute trash tier a couple days before releasing their fire-themed warbond, but i'm sure they'll fix it before inevitably making the exact same mistake further down the line.

this game is fantastic, but i am having a VERY difficult time staying motivated to play when Arrowhead and the game itself do not want me to keep playing.

To start off this review, i'll say that the Final Shape is INCREDIBLE, easily one of if not the best expansion Bungie has put out. The story was fun and the characters were interesting, the new patrol space, the Pale Heart, looks absolutely stunning and is the most beautiful location Bungie has crafted for us to shoot things in. Prismatic is absolutely insane, mixing Light and Dark abilities is so simple yet actually playing with it is so much fun.

But then, i hear you ask, why would i leave a negative review if i enjoyed Final Shape so much? Well, while the quality of the content provided is very good, it's the actual density of the content we got that is the reason.

The Final Shape has roughly the same amount of content as Lightfall, yet for some reason is $10 more (I'm not counting the seasonal content, i'm judging Final Shape purely on the content the expansion itself is providing. And besides, a yearly expansion should not need seasonal content included to be considered good IMO). And so, for $50, the Final Shape gives you:
The main story
1 new subclass with 3 new supers, 1 super per class
New patrol space with 3 main areas (the layout makes it look MUCH bigger than it really is, also you're completely solo in the new patrol space??? you never see other players running around, it's literally just you.)
1 new strike
0 new Crucible maps (im willing to cut Bungie a bit of slack here though, since a month ago they dropped 3 new maps)
0 new Gambit maps (let's be honest, people play Gambit still?)
0 new dungeons (opting to sell yet another dungeon key)
1 new armor set (i'm not counting the new Vanguard, Crucible, and Gambit armors. They're pretty much just re-skins of the last armor sets, and i'm willing to bet Iron Banner will be something similar.)
For weapons there are a ridiculous amount, some of them with entirely new variants, but most if not all of them are either re-skins, reprisals, or a mix of old and new designs
Roughly 12 new exotics to obtain, some of them being tied to some pretty neat quests

With this being the grand finale of the Light and Dark saga, i was hoping that Bungie would go above and beyond and give us more than the bare minimum of content that they seem so fond of giving us, that they would FINALLY give the core modes the love they so desperately needed, set their greed aside for 1 damn expansion and just go all out and cram this expansion full of content, but sadly no. We got Lightfall 2.0 but with higher quality content, and i really could not be more frustrated.

I would honestly suggest buying Final Shape off of CDKeys if you can, it's $40 on there and is a much more agreeable price than the $50 Bungie is asking for here.

Very fun game, was my first experience with the Monster Hunter game series. I've seen that this apparently isn't the best MH game but unfortunately it seems that multiplayer in Worlds is broken and i wanted to play with my friends, but from the first hunt i was hooked and am eagerly awaiting the release of Wilds so i can hunt even more monsters and make even more cool memories with my friends.

My only real issues with Rise are the spiribirds that are scattered around the world. At first i thought they were neat and treated them as kind of like icing on the cake, but they seem to become basically an essential to collect because of the damage that monsters deal in the late game, which is kind of my other problem. Yes i know, big monster so it should do the big hurty, but almost half my maxed hp bar in one hit feels a little excessive with seemingly no real ways to deal with it outside of consumables, or sacrificing your perks to change armors with better resistances.

I'm sure there are better, more cohesive reviews here but I've been a fan of this game since the first game launched on the Xbox 360, and i wanted to air out my grievances with the direction Destiny has been going, particularly the monetization. While the gameplay of Destiny is SOLID (it is still one of, if not the best feeling shooters i have ever played), Bungie's greed and over-monetization have ultimately pushed me away as, no matter how fun and addicting the gunplay is, it still doesn't justify the absurd lengths Bungie have gone to just to take a few more bucks out of your wallet. Keep in mind i haven't played Destiny 2 since the launch of Season of The Deep, so i haven't really kept up with news regarding Bungie and Destiny 2 outside of the announcement of Marathon.

Firstly, the upfront cost for just getting access to the existing Expansion content is already ridiculous. Currently setting new players back a whole $190 for Shadowkeep, Beyond Light, Witch Queen, Lightfall, Final Shape, 30th Anniversary Pack, and the Forsaken Pack (which at one point in time was the greatest Expansion in D2 history, now cannibalized and resold to players as a shell of its former self.). Keep in mind this price DOESN'T include the Annual Pass bundles... But this still isn't where it ends, as when you get into the game you'll have to then buy two Dungeon Keys which are $20 a pop, with a third one likely on the way once Final Shape drops. But even after all that you still aren't done... Provided you haven't purchased the Annual Pass for the latest Expansion, you will then have to spend $15 every few months just to have access to the newest Seasonal content (the Season Pass is priced at $12 when you go to buy it but there is no $12 Silver bundle, forcing you to overspend and buy $15 worth of silver.). So all in all, not accounting for Annual Pass bundles, right out the gate new players have to spend $245 to have access to all the current content in Destiny 2, as well as the upcoming expansion. That is just over the price of 4 AAA titles, even more if there's a sale going on or you're buying indie titles.

Now I just want to point out the decline in both the quality and the quantity of content in each expansion, and we'll start with Forsaken. Forsaken launched with 2 new patrol zones, 4 new strikes, 4 crucible maps, 1 Dungeon, 1 Raid, the Gambit game-mode (RIP), NINE new supers that included some new melee abilities as well, and 22 exotic weapons and armor. Pretty good deal for $40 right? now let's compare that to Lightfall, which is $10 more than Forsaken. For $50 you get: 1 new patrol zone, 1 new strike, ZERO crucible maps at launch, no new Dungeon, 1 Raid, one Subclass/Element for the three classes, and 9 exotic weapons and armor along with whatever content is included in the current season. needless to say there is a drastic difference between what you got before and what you get now, LITERALLY paying more for less.

And now the Eververse Store... Oh boy the Eververse store... It's very clear that this is where the majority of Bungie's effort goes towards in terms of cosmetic gear. With each season that comes out the Eververse store is consistently loaded to the gills with armor sets, ships, sparrows, ghost shells, ornaments, and emotes to buy for ridiculous prices. The New Player Tax of $245 is already absurd, but tack on $20 armor sets, $7 Exotic Ornaments, $10-$5 Emotes, $6 Ghost Shells, $8 Sparrows & Ships and the price can quickly go up if you aren't careful. It is downright unforgivable that Bungie is charging this much for Eververse content while providing us little in return, Forsaking the yearly free armor given to the big four vendors (Vanguard, Crucible, Gambit, Trials of Osiris) under the guise that they simply "don't have the resources" to make these armors every year. While yes, Destiny 2 does have it's own currency called "Bright Dust" that can be used to purchase these items for free, the prices for certain things are... questionable at most with Exotic Emotes setting you back a whole 3,250 Bright dust and Ghost Shells following close behind at 2,850 it is impossible to get more than a handful of items from the Eververse Store for free. Hell, you can't even get the new Eververse armor sets for Bright Dust anymore, they straight up removed that option from the Store.

Destiny 2's events I would argue are even worse in this regard, having next to nothing worth chasing for Guardians that aren't looking to spend money, at most having an armor set to obtain during Solstice, and at the least having 1 new weapon to farm for. Meanwhile the Eververse Store is stocked with new and past event cosmetics (while yes, all of the armor sets are purchasable for Bright Dust, but at 6k per armor set, good luck getting all the Bright Dust you need to get everything you want after buying an armor set.). There's also their "Event Cards" which are basically mini Season Passes that run over the course of the event, they provide you a handful of bonus cosmetics for the price of $10 (the previous price of an entire Season Pass...). these Event Cards for what they are and what they provide should at most be $5 IMO, or just removed from the game. Bungie does not need to be monetizing these events even more than they already do...

In short, do not get invested in this game. It will pull you in with it's incredible and addicting gameplay, monopolize your time, drain your wallet dry, and then throw you to the curb when there's no more money to be siphoned from you. And the worst part is, i still might return to play Final Shape. The trailer looked good and the art direction is beautiful but be wary, because hype is one of Bungie's strongest weapons. They know how to put together a good trailer, look no further than Lightfall. I would urge you to hold off on pre-ordering and wait a while for reviews to come out before making your purchase, because there is nothing Bungie would love more than to pull you right back in and siphon even more money from you.