A lot of people that played the previews were quite optimistic about the game, save for a few gripes that seem to reflect in most reviews now. But the online community has been rather toxic about a variety of things, ranging from valid concerns to pointless hate. There was one IGN preview that looked pretty bland and bad, but everything else looked alright.
It’s not an innovating game, but frankly I never expected it to be. It looks like a fun immersive experience for SW fans (the actual fans, not the ones that hate literally everything about SW lol).
Have you seen the actual “criticism” lately? Like 99% of the stuff I’ve read from SW “fans” are anything but legit criticism, just trolls incessantly bitching for the sake of bitching in an attempt to raise their social media scores by lifting on the circlejerks just hating without any constructive feedback.
I wasn’t even talking about SW here, just how fan is used these days. I’m not and never was part of the SW fanbase, but from what I’ve seen from the outside that’s because all the legitimate criticisms were ignored years ago and everyone that cared moved on from the new corporately-stoked toxic fanbase.
My comment applies to industries beyond SW as well, it has become part of the cancel culture these days. SW is just an infamous example since the new Disney movies released. Thing is that these huge corporations try to appeal to a much larger crowd than previously (this goes for other companies too) and that doesn’t always fit within people’s personal narrative.
I get that some don’t agree with choices being made, but these aren’t being made just for them. Yet a lot of people abuse this excuse to make it like a religious crusade against these corporations, a ride that a lot of people hop on to, who had nothing to do with the whole thing in the first place and just tag along for their entertainment instead of just moving along.
This game is a good example too, a lot of people just tag along with the collective hate for Ubisoft. But when you ask them the general response will be “bEcAUse iT’s uBiSOft” and have no constructive argument. Some will say it’s because the game is using the usual Ubisoft formula (it doesn’t, but that aside), so what? A lot of people do enjoy that formula, and all the people that don’t like it can move along, big enough of a world out there to find something they do enjoy, including other SW games in a variety of genres.
The funniest part of Ubisoft hate is when every other open world game uses “towers” (a logical high-altitude system to increase map coverage), for instance in Zelda, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, etc, while every Ubisoft game is banned from using them now.
They honestly weren’t even a bad system in Far Cry. They designed the climb to use different mechanics each time.
Didn’t Ubisoft or Disney send people to Disneyland and pay for vacations or whatever in connection with them being invited to play the game? In a legal context, that could easily be seen as veiled bribery. It psychologically makes people more inclined to speak positively because it abuses their desire to be grateful and show gratitude. Basically, a company that wants honest feedback would not do that. Especially not the company with a direct financial incentive to gain from the most expensive marketing campaign they have ever done.
All the gameplay I have seen looks mid at best, and bad at worst. Especially when comparing it to previous Ubisoft games such as AC Black Flag. Comparing AC Black Flag to Star Wars Outlaws demonstrates modern Ubisofts profound lack of attention to detail. Facial animations, water interactions, stealth, all of the major mechanics of the game demonstrate significant degradation in Outlaws’ gameplay footage.
These are criticisms purely based on the technical aspects of visible gameplay footage. This isn’t even touching stuff like story or writing.
This right here is why critic scores are almost always higher than audience scores. Becauee the audience doesn’t care about being blacklisted because they honestly scored a product.
Companies have a financial incentive to get high scores. Review outlets have a fincancial incentive to get review copies for free. Put two and two together and it really isn’t hard to see why the critics give whack scores.
Starfield was the same. Looked pretty meh, but almost all (initial) reviewers gave it high marks. It wasn’t until people started playing that the truthful reviews surfaced. Guessing either paid reviews, or reviewers having a skewed view of what makes a game great.
Seems like the largest criticisms are that the Bloodborne inspiration is a little too obvious/heavy-handed and the usual discourse around soulsbonre difficulty, both of which can very much be positives depending on personal preference. Personally I’m very down for some spiritual successors since Sony hasn’t been doing anything with Bloodborne, and the difficulty was perfect for me in the demo (and I have to give them credit for putting out a comprehensive 2+ hour demo, that was a real breath of fresh air). Glad it seems like they pretty much hit the mark on what they were going for.
holy shit i know how you feel mate. Fucking went from having nothing to be excited about personally to all of a sudden getting like 5 games dropped on me in less than 2 months. My wallet and free time aint ready for this.
Graphics are amazing, has Ultrawide support, and the game play is everything you’d expect from a HW title. The single player story though is fucking god awful and pathetically short. I’m holding out hope for the DLCs since they ‘killed the Big Bad’ in the main Campaign. War Games seems like it’s fun and promising as well. I haven’t played WG a lot as I was focused on the SPC, but the couple rounds I played it seems a fun twist to add something fresh to RTS.
I cannot be the only one intrigued by the story concept of this game. Playing as the villains going after your favourite heroes, seeing everything from their perspective, potentially going through some character development. If it was that, I would’ve bought it Day 1. It had such potential, but the assholes at Warner Bros wanted to make it into a cash cow.
Yeah, the more I saw this game and the more I learned about the story as it went on, the less interested I became. That was pretty much the only thing that was still keeping me interested, but it really looks like the story also falls flat.
I cannot be the only one intrigued by the story concept of this game.
I mean this is basically a slightly rehashed version of Injustice. The Injustice game was mostly heroes vs heroes but the comics had a lot of villains being the “good guys” including Harley. Would recommend if you’re looking for a similar story.
I’ve played through the entire main story, but only a few of the optional side missions (I am planning on playing through them, just haven’t had the time yet). I picked it up because I love their earlier game, Gunpoint.
It took me around 15 hours, and there’s at least probably 5 more hours for me to get all the optional objectives in the main story missions, plus the optional side missions.
I would highly recommend the game - the story and gameplay are both pretty entertaining. The little bits of character conversations you get at the start of each mission are pretty funny and well-written. It’s not very difficult (as there’s no % chance to hit like in x-com, actions are guaranteed when you execute them, and there’s unlimited rewinds within a “turn”) - more puzzle-like than tactical combat, but the added “Confidence” objectives are fun to try to get.
more puzzle-like than tactical combat, but the added “Confidence” objectives are fun to try to get.
Yeah it’s giving me Into the Breach vibes, and that was a game that also felt very “puzzle tactics”.
EDIT: actually I have a question for the group. How do y’all feel about “puzzle” tactics games like this versus more open-ended tactics games like XCOM? Personally I can sometimes get turned off from games that feel like all the levels are predesigned with a “best” solution that i have to work out. XCOM can feel freeing because when you come up with an incredibly efficient turn that synergizes everyone’s abilities, it can feel like you “got one over” on the game.
Considering you can go back and play the levels again with a completely different team and more powerful perks (you unlock some new characters as the game progress), while the devs certainly have some solutions in mind (and may hint at those through the confidence “challenges”), there are definitely plenty of different solutions to each level. So while sure, there might be an optimal solution, there’s also a solution where you defenestrate every enemy.
Which is kinda fun, because it’s also fun to go back and replay some earlier missions that had a “survive 5 rounds” with a challenge of “survive 7 rounds” and deciding “I bet I can survive 9 rounds” (though I was a bit disappointed the enemies stopped coming after 9 rounds. But I think there is a bonus side-mission with infinite rounds, so that one might be fun to go try.)
Or a mission that had the confidence perk of “defeat all enemies in 2 rounds” and being able to do it in 1, when the first time took 3.
So while this one is maybe more “puzzle-tactics”, the puzzles are very open-ended.
It is one the best games in its respective genre. I only play RPGs and this game has easily toppled Witcher, Elder Scrolls, and other games like Pillars of Eternity and so on.
It’s not your type of game, it seems. Not that it isn’t one of the best RPGs in it’s class.
It is definitely my type of game. Crpgs are my jam, this doesnt mean ill blindly praise it as the best rpg ever and it doesnt mean i wont criticize it. The interface really sucks. The tooltips and info on skills and classes are lacking. The decision to move away from real time with pause and small party size changes the identity of a bg game. It is better than many games and i agree it is better than pillars but it is far from the best rpg ever made is all i am saying.
I agree with you on some of your points. The interface (with a controller) is only ever annoying as all hell when I’m trying to look for an item that a puzzle needs. I have a strong character with buffs to carry more weight and after awhile the plethora of items in my inventory are just overwhelming. That’s my fault for being a hoarder, not the game per se. lol The same happened in the Witcher, and can happen in games like Oblivion/Skyrim. I guess what constitutes an amazing RPG game to me is that it respects my choices whether good or bad, makes me face the consequences good or bad, let’s me play the way I want to unless absolutely necessary to keep me in line with what needs to be done to progress, and to let my imagination run wild while letting me experiment with different ideas or plans. I guess with all that said, I take RPG games pretty seriously as in I will legitimately place myself into the game both visually (if I can with the tools provided) and especially morally. “What would I really do in this situation?” Type of player.
I can’t really comment on your other points because I haven’t played any of those other games you mentioned, but this point stuck out to me:
The tooltips and info on skills and classes are lacking.
I’m honestly baffled by this. All of the tooltips and in-game documentation have been immensely helpful to me, as someone who’s pretty new to DnD and has never really played this type of game before. Being able to drill down into the tooltips is incredible, since everything is always a few hovers away, even the most basic beginner concepts. I don’t have to go digging through some in game manual to find stuff that was introduced at the beginning of the game, I just have to hover over a couple things and it’s right there.
I replied to soemone above with some criticisms of the tooltips. I am jist copying and pasting caise i am lazy and typing on a phone sucks. I think a lot of the information is vague. Take fear for instance, fear says it makes people fearful and that they will be easier to hit. How much easier to hit? Advantage? +1? If you check the linked description of fearful, it doesnt mention anything about being easier to hit. Other issues, spell descriptions dont provide aoe info, some dont even say whether or not they are aoe like acid splash. Other examples, chromatic orb doesnt tell you how much damage other types will deal, and If spells have surface effects, the effects are not linked or explained. Haste doesnt tell you how long the lethargic debuff will last. Cc spells dont say if enemies get a save each turn or not. Like this isnt just a few spells this is numerous spells and skills from many different classes. I jist think in a tactical turn based rpg, the info should always be clear.
I just think it is ridiculous that i cant make valid criticisms of a game i really like without getting downvoted. Like am i nitpicking? In some areas yes, but thats how you separate great games from masterpieces.
The decision to move away from real time with pause and small party size changes the identity of a bg game
You could’ve just led with that so we know which vocal minority you’re coming from. I’m sure if it was RTWP with the exact same interface and tooltips, you’d be praising the game.
The interface needs a lot of quality of life improvements. Some issues include no toggle to disable the annoying dice roll mechanic, the autotalk on click when clicking on companions, and the game just seems to eat inputs all the time. The lack of options to change the ui size sucks too. One of my biggest issues is the limited inventory management, like inaccessible inventory of all companions at once (including non party companions), no quick stack, and when you sort inventory it wont stack the items of the same type either. I just feel with the amount of testing done, these are things that should have been apparent. Imean there are some things the interface does well, like how easy it is to customize and access skills and spells. Again i like this game. I still give it an A, but its not the best rpg ever.
Also, i think dismissing me completely because i like rtwp and larger parties is pretty lame. Baldurs gate invented the real time with pause system afaik and it was core to its identity and the way the game played out tactically. It really brought something to the tabletop genre by allowing all turns to play out at the same time which made it more immersive imo. Also, i feel like they spent so much time writing and voicing these characters that it is an error how they limit your interaction with them with small parties, and honestly few companion choices overall. This game just feels like dragonage/divinity which is fine, i liked both of those games, but it doesnt feel as much like bg as i would like.
Edit: forgot a line aboutui size and to add a bit about tooltips and info. I think a lot of the information is vague. Take fear for instance, fear says it makes people fearful and that they will be easier to hit. How much easier to hit? Advantage? +1? The description of fearful doesnt mention anything about being easier to hit. Other issues, spell descriptions dont provide aoe info, some dont even say whether or not they are aoe like acid splash. Other examples, chromatic orb doesnt tell you how much damage other types will deal, and If spells have surface effects, the effects are not linked or explained. Haste doesnt tell you how long the lethargic debuff will last. Cc spells dont say if enemies get a save each turn or not. Like this isnt just a few spells this is numerous spells and skills from many different classes. I jist think in a tactical turn based rpg, the info should always be clear.
Thank you. Good to know I’m not alone in this, I literally don’t understand why this game is praised so much, it seems like it barely works, seems weird as hell, I don’t understand the replayability and the gameplay is just… Clicking menus?
Tbf PD2 was the same way yet I had tons of fun with it. At some point the horde shooting is just about overall performance and resource management, not combat itself, while the main gameplay is doing the objective alongside it. I preferred going with stealth most of the times anyway.
That being said, if the objectives sucks and combat is unchanged then there's nothing to make it actually fun and yeah, that's an issue.
Never understood the appeal of a game purportedly about bank robberies being mostly about killing literally hundreds of cops, it’s not so much unrealistic as it is completely farcical. It would be like Al Qaeda flying a plane into the WTC and everybody in New York going about their business like normal the next day.
Baldur’s Gate 3 is the living proof that - at least as far as RPGs are concerned - absolutely nothing happened in the last fifteen to twenty years of gaming. Make one good AAA RPG and people lose their minds over it. I mean it certainly is better than the slob Bethesda served up in the last two decades.
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