Recent reviews by Finraziel

This game is soooo weird... It has awesome cinematics, but it does drown you in them. Be ready to basically be watching an episode of a show at the beginning of the game. Then after that however there is a long dry spell where it takes way too long for the story to continue again.
Graphics are really good, but combat is really bad. I enjoyed the game more when I put it on easy and could just ignore the combat mostly.
I still hadn't really made up my mind if I could recommend this game or not but hadn't played for a while and coming back to it, now it's bugging out all the time again (animations in menus are moving way too fast, inputs from controller or keyboard are erratic, sometimes not working at all, other times activating multiple times with one press). Tried rebooting, unplugging controller, making sure no other controllers are connected, verifying game files, nothing works. I'm done, this game is too weird and very unrespectful of your time to be worth also having to deal with terrible tech like this.

Started this up kind of as a joke, but it actually plays so much better than I imagined. I'm usually of the opinion that ancient games that were so awesome in your memory are best left there, but this one is actually better than I remember. This is probably because back in the 90s, I played Doom with just the keyboard. I naturally sucked and although it was cool I didn't get that far. Now with a mouse, even though you can only aim horizontally, it feels natural very quickly and the combat is so smooth and rewarding. And in case you're new to Doom, this might be confusing... you can actually shoot monsters that are below or above your crosshairs, just make sure they're lined up horizontally and the game will adjust the height automatically for you (actually technically the game is 2-dimensional I believe, it only adds height visually and to determine where you can or can't walk, ID didn't switch to true 3D maps until Quake).

I'm only in the 3rd act out of 4 of Doom 1 (7 hours in), but then there is Doom 2 and I think 4 other packs of maps. If you do enjoy the combat, there is more than enough content to keep you occupied for a long time.

edit: Okay, I do have to nuance my earlier gushing a little bit... Doom 1 is AWESOME. Doom 2 is... okay. Some really good things, but also some really bad. Definitely not the consistent awesomeness that was Doom 1. The master levels is a collection of fan made maps from the 90s that by today's standards are just plain terrible. Evilution I'm only a few maps in but it's just, meh?
Maybe some of the newer map packs are better, but I'm getting a bit tired of slogging through mediocrity to find it. I'd still recommend it to at least play D1 again, but I don't know if I'm actually going to finish all the packs.

Pretty cool game with very accessible simcade style driving.

The main campaign is pretty fun, having you drive events in between 'drive to survive' style docu-drama videos, telling a story of a new underdog team rising through the ranks and challenging the cocky champions. It's cool, but unfortunately your actions have very little impact on the story. The only thing is do you meet the requirements for each event, yes then continue, no then you have to do it over. If the requirement is finish at least 11th, but you place 1st? Absolutely no difference, you don't even get a radio message cheering for when you do win, it's just a mild 'well done', same as if you had placed 11th (which was the goal). Still, it's fun for the 5 hours that it lasts.

After that you can start your own team in the rookie class and you can work your way up through the ranks in different disciplines. The racing is still a lot of fun, but unfortunately the AI is not very good. I usually drive at 'expert', which only has 'legend' above it. It's way too easy, in most events I'm in first place after a few laps and far ahead by the time we finish. However on legend difficulty, the AI cheats, while they're still bad drivers. They are very slow in the corners, but somehow are still very hard to overtake depending on the track. I've seen people online say they just get really fast on the straights, having higher topspeeds than is possible for you, and this seems true to me. So in corners it's easy to be surprised by how much they brake, making it easy to accidentally slam into them, but even if you can use this to overtake them, they will then roar past you on the straight. And by the time you make it to 3rd or 2nd place, you'll find the number one car has been using that time to get 20 seconds ahead.
One other strange aspect of the AI is they will just randomly crash. And I do mean random, they'll be going along a straight and just out of nowhere dive into the barrier... Very odd.
The AI is relatively clean driving though. Only if you smash into them a lot they become your nemesis (like when they brake way too much for corners, be ready for that), then they'll be more aggressive, but mostly it's possible to do clean racing with them. Definitely better than Forza Horizon in this regard.

One thing I do really like is there is a setting in the difficulty to make races longer. You can set this to 2x to 4x I believe. Unfortunately because of the AI this is less useful than it could be. It was fun at expert when I was still learning the game, but legend level is too annoying to play against so now on expert if I increase the number of laps it just increases the number of laps I am out in front and only ever see backmarkers.

The game is a lot of fun to drive though and especially on sale I would recommend it (I got it for €5,99), even if I probably wont stick with it for very much longer.

So, this is another game that really needs a 'meh' rating, rather than straight up yes or no...
It's not a bad game per se and I did play it enough to get my money out of it. If you're really just looking for another ARPG that you could sink a lot of time into, then it's not a bad pickup (and it's very reasonably priced). But when I started listing the pros and cons of the game, I just couldn't give it a thumbs up. Here's my points:

Story: It's an unfinished disjointed mess. It jumps all over the place, introducing new enemies all the time and nothing gets resolved, sending you on a mission and then never returning to why you were going to do that in the first place... And then it leaves you on a cliffhanger because even though they say it's no longer in early access, it's not like the game is done. It's terrible.

The skill system is pretty awesome. There are 5 classes, each of which get 3 specializations. Classes have some shared skills but each specialization adds a bunch of their own. And then every skill has a skill tree that let's you change the skill in several ways, sometimes completely changing how it works. And on top of that then there's unique items that could modify skills once more. It makes for a LOT of build potential. Unfortunately it's not exactly well balanced and it can be quite confusing to figure out how things actually work. This feeds into the next thing...

The respec system... You have passive skillpoints that you can easily respec by going to an npc in town hubs and pay a bit of gold. This part is fine, although I think the interface could be a lot better. The points in your active skilltrees however are a different beast. You get up to 5 slots to put one of your active skills in and once you do that you get to use the skill's skilltree. From that point the skill has to level up, using the same XP used for your overall level. You have a minimum number of skillpoints in your skills that slowly goes up as your main level increases, meaning that if you put in a new skill, it has that minimum number of points for its tree. If you want to remove a spent skillpoint though, that point is just gone, unless it would bring you under the minimum. To get it back, you have to level it up again. Apparently once you are deep into the endgame this is not a problem at all, I've seen a video of someone bringing a skill back up from minimum to max in a couple minutes. But for a new leveling player it's completely different and concluding that what you were trying to do in a skill tree isn't working or you just don't like it, it's devastating. You lose a lot of power by respeccing and it takes a long time to get it back. This results in heavily discouraging new players from experimenting with their own build... I tried at first, but it just sucks and I ended up just following a couple build guides. Unfortunately that takes away a lot of fun from the game. I don't understand why they have this system at all. I do understand why there should be a small speed bump to prevent people just quickly respeccing before a boss or something, but why stop new players from trying things out.

Combat feels very lackluster. There is no sense of impact to your skills. Usually you hold down the button, maybe wave the mouse cursor around a bit, until everything is dead. It's very monotonous and not fun. I've tried several classes and builds and I'm usually facerolling everything, and then at some rare moments I suddenly see my health plummet but it all feels very disconnected.

Itemization is a bit of a mixed bag. There is a very wide array of loot that can drop and going through it manually you'd go crazy (especially once you move into endgame). You're supposed to use the loot filter system. And it's a very good system, you can be very granular in what you want to show up or hide and what colour to make it or even capitalize things... but it's also very daunting for a new player. Not so much because of the system itself, it's quite easy to use, but to know what you need because there is just so much. You can download loot filters which helps, but it's not ideal. If the rest of the game was better, I think I could get to a point to learn enough about the itemization that I could really work with it, but considering the other points, why bother.

Controller support is pretty terrible. Apparently it's much improved with the 1.0 release so I'm not sure how bad it was before, but I find it borderline unplayable (and I prefer controller in D4 usually). One issue is that for most skills if you hold down the button and press the stick in a direction, you do this weird stutterstep movement of casting a skill, taking a small step, casting the next skill, taking a step... You can't stand still and aim your skill unless it's a channeled skill. Also not all menus are accessible through controller, even if you use a controller you want to make sure you still have a mouse around.

Bugs... It's not like it's unplayable, but there are still a LOT of bugs. I'm not usually very good at finding bugs at all, usually when people complain about buggy games I don't even notice them unless the game just flatout crashes. For instance I played a lot of Fallout 4 at launch and it was fine for me. But in my time playing LE I've submitted a LOT of bug reports already. And looking online, many of these had been reported a long time ago already. It's supposed to have been out of early access for a while now, but it still feels like it.

Leveling and endgame. The story (what's there) got me to level 58 or so (out of 100), that's also the level that the Monolith of Fate starts at. The Monolith of Fate basically has you run maps over and over again to gather enough 'stability' to finish the timeline that you're on and fight a boss. You can choose different maps that offer different rewards, but the problem is, you're basically doing the same thing over and over again. There are minor differences, sometimes you have to kill specific monsters, sometimes just a certain number of monsters to bring out an elite, or waves of monsters spawn in. But essentially you're doing the exact same thing every time. And it's SO BORING. I didn't get too far into it because there's just nothing to look forward to. Later on there is an empowered monolith, but it's the exact same thing, just higher level. There are a few other endgame activities to do (dungeons that you have to find keys for, arena that is not very rewarding and only meant for if you want to try to place on the ladder), but they're not for grinding, basically monolith is all you do. Other systems to play with all just hook into that. And combined with the fact that combat just isn't very engaging, it becomes stale very very fast.

All in all, I would only recommend this to die-hard arpg players who are bored of D4, PoE and all other options and just want another game to click more monsters. For everyone else, I'd suggest giving it a pass.

Campaign is fun to play through once, I'm mainly playing seasonal now (don't look at my hours, I've played for hundreds through battle.net before moving to Steam).
Ignore the hate you may see online for the game, with Season 4 Blizzard has patched the game to a very good state and it's loads of fun. Right now Season 4 has been going for over a month, previous seasons I got sick of the game after a week maybe but now I can't get enough of it. I leveled every class to 100 this season and now started on hardcore, I don't think I even need any other games anymore :P

This was way more fun than I expected! Quill is cute and interacts with you in a fun way. Controlling her can take a little bit of practice but then I had little trouble navigating the platforms and fighting the enemies. Also don't forget you can help, you're not just playing a 3rd person platformer, you also have hands and can take control of enemies (or just interrupt them)!
The game says it's a seated experience, but honestly I preferred playing it standing up with some room to walk around. It helps a lot if you can just walk through the environment a bit and stick your head into nooks and crannies to see where tunnels might go and if there's any collectible there.
Unfortunately it is pretty short, I took 6 hours and that's including finding most collectibles (but not all yet, might come back later to try in chapter select to find the last couple). The story also ends rather abruptly, and then it turns out that it's actually not over... but you'll have to buy Moss Book 2 to continue.
But it's definitely one of the better VR experiences I've had. I got it in a bundle myself which was a steal, but it also regularly goes to around €10 which imho is a good deal for what you get.

What it does it does pretty well... unfortunately there is very little of it. There are a couple different modes but they're basically the same thing (it's just do you want to die after 3 hits, 1 hit, or slowly regenerate health). You stand in the same spot and shoot drones that appear while dodging their fire. That's it. There are some upgrades and you do get some different enemies, but the basic gameplay stays the same and after 15 minutes I already felt like the game was just repetitive and pointless. No real progression, just play to improve your hiscore.
Maybe if you really like arcade games and getting better at shooting and dodging you might enjoy it, but I'd give it a pass. I'm sure in 2017 this was cool, but nowadays I wouldn't bother.

This is one of the worst VR experiences I've had in years... using quest pro and virtual desktop.
Tried following a guide but didn't work... but if I understand correctly all it does is give you stick turning which I don't need anyway (I just turn irl). Controls are still terrible, relying on clicking in the left stick to teleport which you need to even if you can stand full locomotion because telefragging has replaced glory kills. When trying this half the time I just ended up in front of my target instead of telefragging (yes they were glowing). Switching weapons is also done by clicking in the other stick and it feels terrible.
Maybe this could be fixed with steam input but since I already saw in other reviews the campaign lasts onlya couple hours, I'm not going to spend more time trying to get this game to work than it would last playing it. Also aiming seems almost impossible. I'm quite experienced shooting things in VR but with the basic gun I feel like a stormtrooper.
Typed this review on the virtual keyboard in VD and that was more fun than this game.

I did not play this game until now, so I'm coming at this from the perspective of someone without any nostalgia... I bought it because so many people list it as one of the games you must have played in your life or one of the best jrpgs ever. I've only played 4 hours, and for some jrpgs that would count as barely but this one is not supposed to be that long so I think I have a pretty good grasp on it. Also having googled a bit more I see other people echoing my feelings on it.

The main problem is... It's boring! The game is quite linear and the combat is easy, while at least so far the special attacks you can do don't seem to have that much impact (or be needed in the vast majority of fights). So I end up just enabling auto battle because it's the fastest way to get through and just use some potions (that you can easily stockpile) afterwards. The story also doesn't seem to be anything special so far... There barely seems to be any actually. Maybe it takes a while to get going but in a game that supposedly takes about 20 hours to complete, if it's not going yet after 4... When does it get good?

I'm sure if you played this back in the 90s it was cool, but nowadays there are much better options to choose from.

So... Downvoting this game is obviously the unpopular opinion... So let me explain myself.

I'm not a big card collector game player. I have played Slay the Spire, have about 70 hours in it across different platforms (which I know is not a lot for StS players). I have beat it a couple times... but I'm not particularly good at it. I never really grasped the strategy, it all feels very random to me (but I know that better players can beat it every time, I just don't see the strategy, my only semi-reliable tactic is going all in on poison with the Silent). I briefly tried Monster Train, but it didn't really grab me, and I've mostly avoided CCG's since.

But this game was hyped so much, it supposedly is so amazing... I couldn't help myself and had to pick it up when I found a good deal on it. But... it just doesn't do it for me at all. It's like it takes the strategy portion of StS (that I never really got and doesn't really appeal to me) and strips away everything else (that I liked). It's left with just ordinary playing cards that I don't find very inspiring, powers that mostly just seem to increase numbers, and graphics that remind me of my old Commodore 64. I played a couple runs to give it a try, but it just does absolutely nothing for me.

Now, I am definitely not saying that it's a bad game! So many people love it that I'm sure it's a really good game. But, if you're like me and CCG's just aren't your thing... maybe don't get swayed by all the hype that's surrounding this game right now (or buy it from steam itself so you can refund, I got it from a 3rd party store).