Recent reviews by Frostbyte

Another buggy DLC release with a killer whose power, most of the time, won't even work.

Not experiencing nearly as many performance issues as people are reporting.

Difficulty-wise, it is fine. I’d be rioting if I were having an easy time in a Soulslike game.

Definitely not a bad game, but I've postponed playing it for so long, I fear it ended up aging too much before I got to it. And I'm not nostalgic at all about playing it in 2024.

The game starts off fine, I'd say. There's the variety of vocations and skills I appreciate from RPGs. There's some greatness to the enemies you meet: the chimera, the hydra, and the cyclops take a while to be killed, but they're bosses, so that's expected. However, even while wearing the most expensive equipment I could find from nearby vendors, every other battle went the same way: a solid minute chipping off the goblins' and bandits' health bars. For some reason, a high-level pawn from online play was available to be summoned, and while he made the battles a tad quicker, my character was still on the useless side.

Then some other issues arose that led me to stop playing it, unfortunately. I was supposed to combo with my pawns, but the cinematic battles would get on my nerves more often than not, given how lengthy the combat already was. The game went from fighting epic-looking bosses to scouting a severed hydra head for what felt like an eternity. I could access the endgame area right away, and it took a while until the game let me know it was meant for seasoned adventurers, so I was back to several fetch quests that were not interesting in the slightest. The lack of fast travel or even a mount to keep my character from being fatigued while running around in a very big map also disappointed me a bit too.

Sadly, I won't be pushing myself to see how this story unfolds.

I truly do not believe this game deserves the poor criticism it has received. Final Fantasy XIII is a gorgeous game and everyone seems to agree on that. One can call it a corridor simulator, but what a beautiful corridor it is. The PC port isn't phenomenal, but there are some fixes available to make it run better and add some console features to it, such as the FF13Fix and the 4GB RAM Patch.

It is a linear game, yes, but by no means that is an issue. You're able to tell exactly what's happening and why the characters are doing what they are doing. If anything, the moment the game opens up a bit for some sidequests is the part where you'll find yourself the most confused, and there comes a point where you can't gauge properly if you're just doing something wrong or if you're not strong enough to be roaming that area.

It also has a ton of content. While recent titles have been sold with day 1 content DLCs, this game comes with a complete campaign and dozens of hours of postgame content, at no extra charge. In fact, most of the achievements can't even be obtained until you beat the game once, as the final boss locks you out of some progression. Said content can be a bit grindy, but there are some ways of circumvent that and get straight to the action.

The combat might be my favorite from the Final Fantasy franchise. No, seriously. It starts out quite simple, as the game picks the characters you have available and you can't innovate much, but the difficulty ramps up quite a lot. You can have the best items and max out your crystarium, some enemies will still kill you instantly if you don't play your cards right. The paradigm shift system is fun to use and rewarding to master, as you can unleash more abilities if you have a general idea of how to time your actions. The AI is smart, if you don't have a lot of info on an enemy it will, through trial and error, discover their strengths and weaknesses and react accordingly. There is a variety of roles and each character can specialize in something, so even past the point where you can master every role as one character, choosing your party wisely can still dictate whether you're winning or losing.

Needless to say, the soundtrack is fantastic, but that's usual for FF titles. And the cinematics are really ahead of their time. Big fan of this one.

Being my first souls game, I was convinced I would be wasting my money, and that the first boss I encountered would kick my ass. And I was proven right in no time, by the Grafted Scion. “But you were expected to be defeated by that one!”, you say. Worry not, the Tree Sentinel was also quick to put me back in my place once I had built the tiniest bit of confidence after beating the tutorial boss.

The game is fantastic. It got more and more rewarding as I progressed, and I was happy to beat the game a second and a third time, finding out new secrets during each playthrough. There’s no compliment I can come up with that hasn’t already been used to describe this game.

There are so many weapons with so many different builds to try. Bosses can be frustrating but there’s so much fun to be had. Even what is considered to be one of the toughest fights (looking at you, Malenia) is incredibly fair and fun. And the spectral horse you get is most likely the best horse I’ve ever ridden in any game, ever.

If I had anything to complain about, are the platforming sections. But after looking it up a bit, apparently FromSoftware never really knew how to do those, and they are so few and far between, that's hardly a reason not to buy the game.

I could also complain that I was unable to romance Boggart or Blaidd. They’re so cool.

10/10, the DLC cannot come a day too soon.

The killer has been broken for over three months and you literally end up being held hostage in most matches. Unplayable.

Edit: as of February 8, 2023, the gamebreaking bugs are apparently fixed. The "not recommended" review stays, though, as bhvr has clearly proven they're not ashamed of allowing them to go broken for so long.

I think, at some point, we all go through that phase of being fascinated about greek mythology. The beautifully woven stories of heroes and gods, love and punishment, rage and war, that built their entire view of the world. For me, that happened in my teen years, and this game was quick to ignite that old obsession in me.

I did not expect this much variety when it came to how this game could be played. Lots of weapons, lots of ways to use said weapons, endless combinations of buffs and boons, huge enemy variety and some extra diversity each time you encounter them. Steam was kind enough to let me know I have like forty hours at this game and I’m still far from tired of it.

And, for a roguelike, I hadn't expected for it to have this much lore. Forty hours in, and I’m still getting new dialogue with every npc, and I’m under the impression I’m still ways away from its epilogue, despite having seen the ending and the true ending many hours of gameplay ago. Said lore was faithful to my old knowledge and memories of greek mythology, and some new bits were added here and there and all of it is pure perfection.

Finally: yes, you can pet the three-headed dog. You also can romance the goth girl and the goth boy — and both of them are dreamy. And there is fishing in this game (although, not as often as I’d like; uncle Poseidon, would you make the underworld seas a bit more bountiful, please?). Checks all boxes, wouldn’t you say?

I seriously want to be crushed by the Trapper's biceps. Or thighs. Or be split in half by his cleaver, idk, that sounds hot too.

It has always been fun but it improved massively in these past few months: a lot more beginner friendly and you don't have to play all day to get your stuff. It's truly the best one of this genre.

Beautifully crafted DLC for an awesome game -- and with that price tag, they're pretty much giving 3 years of work for free. It not only adds more than a handful of new stages and plenty of new challenges, but also brings a new character with a different moveset and new guns, allowing the entire game to feel fresh again while being replayed.

My only complaint is that you can't 100% it without beating every boss in Expert mode, it wasn't needed for the main game and I'm not greatly interested in it because it's pretty much replaying as soon as you beat it, but that's nowhere enough to make my experience negative.