Recent reviews by Haze

Naughty dog added a really cool Crash Bandicoot Easter Egg.

Every time you try to play the game, you experience a new Crash.

It was the best game of 2004, and It's the best game of 2023. It's also optimised incredibly well, and has enough changes to keep people who have played the original game surprised. The best RE game, hands down.Buy it.

Man, I really, REALLY wanted to give this game a good review, but I just can't.

Let me summarise my first hour of gameplay:

First enemy stabbed me, and his sword was permanently stuck to my back (not in my back, just floating behind my back)

Got stuck inside the first boss on four or five different occasions, forcing me to restart the game

My health flasks randomly decided to disappear from my inventory, so that made the game significantly more annoying.

First boss has a ground-slam attack that seems to be impossible to avoid. You can't block or parry it, it damages you no matter how far away you run, and dodging doesn't provide iframes. Combine that with the fact that the game randomly decided that I didn't deserve health flasks, and that made the first boss a nightmare. (Edit: turns out you can avoid this with a well-timed jump, but the other issues addressed here are very real)

I decided to skip past the first boss and just parkour down to the following area. (and got stuck on terrain multiple times along the way). For some reason, this still triggered the bosses music and health bar, and he was still yelling at me while I was miles away from him.

Found a ladder I decided to climb down, and I kid you not, it took me about two whole minutes to climb down it. Literally the longest ladder I have ever seen. Shift seemed to make me climb slightly faster, but there doesn't seem to be a slide mechanic like there is in Dark Souls. I'd wager at least 20% of my playtime was spent climbing up or down ladders.

Also, the controller support isn't very good.

I appreciate the fact that this was a passion project by 3 developers, and I'll admit, some of the gameplay is satisfying. Parry feels very good. And the world that they created feels very eerie and makes you want to explore it. Unfortunately, in this case, the negatives far outweigh the positives.

EDIT: Isn't this about as close to copyright infringement you can get?

https://imgur.com/a/OdsmR4Z

A good game without a doubt. However, I would not recommend buying it full price as they haven't really done a bunch to improve it from the original 2014 release, so it still feels a bit dated.

Story is amazing as with most Yakuza games, and the combat is interesting and flexible.

Substories are (mostly) boring and repetitive. I only found myself laughing a couple of times and I did about 25-30 of them. Same can be said for the dungeons - A cool idea, but they get real boring real fast.

This stupid new bond system they've introduced is utterly pointless, there is absolutely no use in forming a bond with a shopkeeper, to get one useless bit of dialogue at the end and then forget about them. If you're going to start bringing in a bond/friendship system, at least make it worthwhile and include events that develop the characters more. Make us actually care about the people we're supposed to be forming a 'bond' with.

7/10. Worth playing, but certainly not worth it full price.

This DLC is free and yet I'm still insulted by it

I'd rather you install malware on my PC than Epic Games.

But the port is good.

Yeah, It's good now

I would give this game a 'Mixed' review if it were an option, but since it Isn't, I'll give it a Positive one, as Negative seems too harsh.

Pros
- Stunning Graphics.
- Compelling, Emotional Story-telling.
- Interesting Characters.
- A LOT more action-packed than the first game.
- Unlock new skills based on your style of play (Aggressive, Stealthy, Intelligent).

Cons
- Annoyingly designed stealth/combat segments that you'll likely fail more times than a souls final boss.
- Performance issues. It was mostly okay for me, but sometimes the game can go from playable to unplayable in an instant.
- Game-breaking bugs. Lost count of the amount of times I had to reload. Even got stuck at the penultimate chapter.
- Causes depression upon completion of the final chapter.

Currently the highest-rated PC game of all time.

Need I say more?

This game took a while to get going, but once It did, it was one hell of a ride. A really well-told story. Definitely recommended for any JRPG fans, or anyone who just likes a game with a good story.