I enjoyed DS3 for what it was. The lore went surprisingly deep and the story was fun, although the love triangle was too distracting and the co-op partner was pretty much absent from the story if you weren’t playing with another player.
It was yet another game that tried to stray from its roots to chase the CoD golden goose. That generation was full of them (I remember being extremely disappointed by Resident Evil 6 and Ace Combat Assault Horizon). Dead Space 3 was, IMO, the game that managed to strike some semblance of balance between its two souls, at least compared to all those other COD copycats. Of course, that doesn’t mean that it was a great game, or even a good game, but I appreciated it for what it was.
At first I thought he was the comic relief guy, and I’d spend the following 20-40 hours listening to cringe-inducing Marvel-like humor. Instead they crafted a character that was funny but never over-the-top, and actually proved useful a few times (especially on a chapter that I won’t discuss because I’m not sure how spoilers work on Lemmy and its various applications yet).
I have not finished the game yet, and although the story is a bit cliché, it also has a few good moments, and I’m loving the cast so far.
Story is a bit too cliché at the moment, but graphics, soundtrack, gameplay and exploration are top notch. It really captures the feeling of being a kid, coming back home from school and playing those old school JRPG, but the QoL features make it much more enjoyable, and it doesn’t waste your time like those games.
I’m really satisfied for now. I also like the cast, it’s a nice change of pace from the edgy/moody characters that lots of JRPG seem to have. Sitting down at the firepit and listening to the two protagonists joking and having fun among themselves really makes me like them.
My only gripe is the story. As I said, it’s a bit too much on the “generic” side. Like, it’s not bad, I’m having fun, but it feels like, you know, been there, done that. Hopefully it gets better later on.
I finished Spiritfarer, and I gotta say, I was underwhelmed. The game told me I was the new Charon and promised me an emotional experience of helping spirits come to terms with whatever was holding them back before disappearing forever.
What actually happened, is that I found myself in the company of very demanding (and, often enough, even quite rude) spirits who never actually bothered with interacting with me on anything more than a very superficial level, mostly just to ask for arbitrary and very specific things. “Stella, I want Fried Chicken” (which requires ingredients that you can only craft hours later). “Stella, I want expensive furniture for my house”. “Stella, go buy a rose bouquet and expensive-looking jewelry for my wife”.
There were too few interactions with them to form meaningful connections, and by the time they were gone, I felt like I didn’t really know most of them. They never interact with one another, either, and they are completely dependent on you to do even the most basic of things. One of them wanted to throw a party, and wanted me to ask other spirits what they wanted to eat, as if he couldn’t do it himself. One was gifting me food every day, and at the same time was asking me to feed him. By the time they were gone, I was relieved that they weren’t there anymore to bother me with their silly requests.
The first few spirits are probably the best (Deer, Frog, Porcupine), but most of the later ones are not as well written. Bull is just “generic cartoonish mob guy”, Parrot is “dnd guy”. Falcon wanted to build a museum and… That was it, that was his entire personality. I don’t even know what the deal was with Dog, she just acted like a self-righteous and abusive teacher for a while, and then asked me to set sails to the place where souls go. They don’t show any personality beyond their distinctive trait, feeling one dimensional, boring and, ultimately, fake. The fact that huge swathes of backstory for all spirits are hidden away in the artbook doesn’t really help.
And despite you trying to help, none of them really comes to terms with what was holding them back. Most just… Give up and accept to disappear. Which kind of makes sense, considering the actual story of the game (which you can piece together as you play), but it is underwhelming and the exact opposite of what I was promised when I first booted it up, and kind of a bleak statement by the developers.
And that’s the story. The gameplay is just a repetitive grindfest that stretches on twice as long as it should. At first it looks like a cozy, relaxing experience, but soon enough you find yourself working around the clock to grow crops, melt ore, feed herds, check on the spirits daily to give them food and keep them happy, and the situation grows worse and worse as the ship gets bigger, more tasks are added on top of the previous ones, and more spirits join you on your travels. It gets overwhelming.
I’m kind of used to devs releasing apologies for their games after a bad release and the following review bombing. It’s almost guaranteed to happen for any modern AAA game, it’s the sorry state of the industry. But now, we’ve reached a point where devs apologize for their games before they’re even released. This shit is hilarious.
What’s next? “We’re going to release a game four years from now. You should temper your expectations, it’s probably going to suck.”
I mean, kudos to them for warning the potential customers, instead of lying to them or luring them in with nice trailers and trying to silence journalists by prohibiting them from showing game footage (I think I remember someone doing that…). Although I’m not sure how I should thank them. Should I buy the game because they were honest? Or should I not buy it, because, well, they were honest? I’m confused.
A few years back, dusting off the GameStop bargain bin with old gen games, I found a sealed copy of Zone of the Enders and a used copy of Metal Gear Rising.
I had never heard of the first, and I was only mildly aware of the second one (it was before people started memeing it into mainstream status).
The game’s currently sitting on “mixed” reviews on Steam, and the rating is steadily going down (67% at the time of writing, which is an all time low), and that’s on a platform where you can use mods.
I also literally forgot about it. I guess that’s what happens when you release a game that looks and plays like you gave a prompt to Chat GTP and waited for it to build the entire code and voice all the dialogue for it.
Why do people hope that Microsoft will miraculously revive dormant/mismanaged IPs from their new acquisitions, when they’ve done nothing in the past 10 years but lay to rest and mismanage their own IPs?
They released the Series X three years ago now and are yet to release a single game on the platform that people care about.