Recent reviews by mohdd

Elden Ring is the best selling FromSoftware game, the 2022 GOTY and one of my favorite games of all time. Many think that Elden Ring is merely Dark Souls with an open-world twist, but trust me, it transcends that simplistic comparison.

Note: This review is entirely spoiler-free. Any potential spoilers will be concealed in black boxes, so feel free to read without concerns about plot reveals.

Elden Ring's character creation stands out as the best among all the previous Souls games developed by FromSoftware. The face visuals are more detailed, and there are additional customization features. The effort put into character creation really paid off, providing players with more opportunities to craft unique and distinct characters.

The opening cinematic in Elden Ring, a tradition in Souls games, left a strong impression on me. The art style, quality, and voice acting exceeded my expectations, making it one of the best introductions in video games.

For those new to this gaming style, Elden Ring may be challenging initially. While I, having played many Souls games, didn't encounter such issues, my advice is to be patient. The game's difficulty is fair. If a boss feels unbeatable early on, it means you're not prepared. Explore more, level up, get better gear—soon, the game becomes more manageable. Surprisingly, Elden Ring felt the easiest among the Souls games I've played from FromSoftware, at least until Malenia kicked my ass for 7 hours straight before I beat her....

Some folks argue that mixing an open-world style with the Souls formula messed up Elden Ring. Here's my take: it's a bit of both. Having a huge map is cool, but it's tough for devs because they can't just copy-paste empty areas. So, they filled it with stuff like ruins and caves. The downside? Some bosses start feeling a bit repetitive. I get it's hard to make a big map and balance it with creativity at the same time, but meeting the same mini-boss a bunch of times got a tad boring, even though I got used to it.

On the positive side, the open world showcases stunning landscapes with distinct vibes in each region. The immersive atmosphere, especially at night, is captivating. Elden Ring's design, featuring captivating night skies and distant, beautifully crafted structures, prompted me to capture numerous screenshots—an aspect I genuinely adore.

However, the open-world setup also poses challenges with quests. Side quests are easy to miss, especially for those playing blind. Elden Ring's vastness means NPCs can be overlooked without exploring thoroughly. While some give hints, it's not foolproof. Not everyone may value these side stories, but they play a significant role in the game, as I'll elaborate on in the next section.

The caves and catacombs scattered throughout the vast lands offer an enjoyable exploration experience, enriched with puzzles and mazes. I relished navigating through each one, and the inclusion of a cooperative element by summoning a friend to explore together adds another layer of fun to the exploration process.

Side quests in Elden Ring are essential for me, adding significant depth to the overall experience. Without them, the game would be less enjoyable. While some may not prioritize side quests, I encourage giving them a chance. Personally, when I invest in a game, I want to explore all aspects. Delving into NPC stories enhances the game's coherence, as these side quests are intertwined with the main lore. Skipping them means missing a deeper understanding of the story. While you can watch them on YouTube, experiencing them firsthand is incomparable.

The uniqueness of each NPC's story in the side quests was something special in Elden Ring. Going through them step by step and keeping track of each character's journey proved to be incredibly rewarding. Emotionally, these side quests had a significant impact on me, and I strongly advise against ignoring them if you decide to play the game. I know it's tough to keep track of all of them, but I managed by using Word and doing some Google research. I did get spoiled at times, but for me, it was better than missing out on these rich and engaging stories altogether.

Elden Ring's lore is truly beautiful and well worth delving into. The game is undeniably complex, especially for newcomers like myself. However, once you start paying attention to item descriptions and NPCs' dialogues, connecting the dots, the story unfolds into a masterpiece that's unique in every way. Initially, I chose to remain ignorant, avoiding YouTube videos and online articles to steer clear of spoilers. Still, I eventually had to seek out essential lore to grasp the basics without ruining the experience.

I stumbled upon a spoiler-free Reddit post explaining the fundamental lore, aiding my understanding of the game. Despite this help, my first playthrough left me perpetually confused—a familiar feeling I've grown to love from previous souls games. After completing the game, I turned to VaatiVidya's YouTube videos (the Souls lore guy) for a deeper perspective. This transformed my view, prompting a second playthrough on the same save file. Now, I appreciate the interconnected details; As an example, even the design and symbols on the enemies' armor carry meaning.

Bosses are undeniably crucial in Souls games, determining the overall quality of the experience. While I acknowledged earlier that the game has repetitive mini-bosses scattered throughout the vast lands, the main bosses are a different story. Each is uniquely crafted, presenting a special and distinct challenge. Not all of them posed significant difficulty for me, except for two late-game bosses, but I genuinely enjoyed every fight, regardless of the level of challenge.

However, my disappointment lies in the lack of memorable soundtracks during boss fights—a departure from the impactful music in previous Souls games. Despite logging 178 hours (for now), I struggle to recall a single boss theme, even for the main encounters (the final boss fight is an exception). Elden Ring fell short of my expectations regarding the musical accompaniment to these pivotal moments.

Elden Ring introduces fresh mechanics, such as Ashes of War and summoning spirit ashes, along with a wide array of weapons—an excellent addition to its expansive world. While the gameplay remains familiar to previous Dark Souls titles, the added features enhance the overall experience, making it feel even more engaging.

The game is so vast that there's a lot more I wish I could discuss in this review, like its online features and the different endings. However, I'll keep it short, especially about the endings due to steam limitations.

Elden Ring features multiple endings, and some players choose to end their journey with the default one, which I personally find less interesting. Therefore, I strongly recommend pursuing the other main endings, as they offer a much more captivating experience than the default one.

As I conclude this exploration of Elden Ring, I encourage fellow Tarnished to venture beyond the conventional and embrace the myriad tales this intricate world has to offer. May thou journey be filled with discovery and triumph in the Lands Between.

NOTE: You can only play this game in Offline Mode for the moment and this review is based on my experience before and after closing DARK SOULS servers, no one knows when they will be back online but I'll talk about the Online feature too because it is a big part of this game and I tried it before the shutdown. I'll edit the review whenever the servers are back.
- Difficulty & Boss Fights score is based on how balanced and challenging are the enemies, bosses and how good and satisfying are the boss fights.
- DLCs score is based on Bosses, Enemies, NPCs and their quests, Areas design and the New Items (Armors, Weapons, Spells..etc).

DARK SOULS III is the second game of the DS series (sorry DS2 no one cares about you), it is a sequel to the first masterpiece "DARK SOULS" which I highly recommend playing first before this one since they are connected and there are a lot of references that feels nostalgic when you encounter them. The game improved many things from the previous games and it's the best in the series when it comes to Graphics & Gameplay.

NOTE: You don't really have to play DS1 to understand DS3, a quick peek on Youtube to see a recap of DS1 story is enough to start your journey here.

If you are new to the series I want you to know that unlike other games it's quite difficult to understand whats going on here, the game only gives you a bit of the story and you will have to figure the rest by yourself and that by reading items description and paying attention to the dialogues.

I'll not mention the story since you will figure it out by yourself because I want to focus on more important stuff I liked about the game. Dialogues in this game feel so good, they are well written and so unique that during your gameplay you will repeat some of the NPCs quotes when you are alone out of the game, you will get attached to most of the characters and feel real love to them (unless you are playing it just to prove that you can beat Dark Souls blah blah).

Side Quests in this game are easy to miss and hard to keep track of and they are a big part of the game, If you wanna have the full experience I highly recommend doing every NPC quest by following a guide that tell you how to do them in order because there is a possibility to fail a Side Quest once you reach a specific area or defeat a specific boss and then the only way to restart it is to start a new game.

For new players it's not that hard at all to understand how the souls system work and what does the stats in the leveling menu mean, getting used to them is just a matter of time. Also, knowing what the stats mean is important at first because you have to decide which build you are going to play with during your playthrough so don't fall in my mistake and level up stats your build doesn't even need.

As I said before in the introduction, DS3 improved many things like the mechanics and even added new ones to the game like the FP bar (which is like a mana bar) which is a wise change since the spells used to consume your stamina bar instead, weapon arts too are a huge change to the Dark Souls series because It added more movesets to the weapons and cool unique animations that feel badass. The game improved too the equipment load stat, since in DS1 you had to get fully naked to have quick rolls and fast movements, but now you can have that fast rolls even with light armors.

DS3 focused a lot in weapons which gave multiple choices of playstyles for the players, it even brought old weapons from the previous games which felt so nostalgic to use, there are a lot of unique weapons which make it hard for you to choose which one you will play with since every one of them feel good to use.

They say: "your first souls game is your hardest one" well thats not wrong at all, once you get used to the game you will find most of the bosses are easy to kill after 2 or 3 tries if not one and since I finished DS1 first I didn't struggle that much here.

Some of the boss fights are so good and felt satisfying that I'll keep remembering them for ages, I'll not talk anything about them since it's a spoiler and its best to play the game without knowing anything. One thing I want to mention tho, some of the boss fights could be better but they were stupidly too easy that you don't even have to take damage to beat them, like if it was a one sided fight, that easy fights were more than one that's why I had to mention them.

I didn't find the game that challenging until I reached the DLCs, DLC's bosses are in a whole new level they require you a lot of movements learning to get used to them and even if you do you will still die to them, but they are so satisfying to beat.

Multiplayer:
- The first thing I wanna talk about is the Multiplayer, DS series is known for having the worst multiplayer system, even some people say inviting your friend to your session is harder than Dark Souls itself and that's true, they made the Online for this game so complicated not simple as Click & Join, you are rarely going to find out how to play with your friend without using google.
- The game doesn't have an anti-cheat and there is always a chance to encounter a cheater.
- The Multiplayer is based on peer to peer which means you join others host and that will always cause lag and delay in movements even if you have the best internet in the world you will always notice it, all Dark Souls PvP videos on Youtube show the delay between hits check them out to get a clear view of what I mean.
Other problems:
- Ok this one is not an actual problem but it is annoying, DS3 is so big that it has so many corners to check, paths to take and chances of missing an area or an item is so high, it's a bit annoying to take a step back everytime to check that you didn't miss anything, there is always multiple paths in multiple paths and you will always have that feeling that you missed something behind.

DARK SOULS III didn't give me that 2 weeks depression I had after finishing DS1 but it managed to make me feel sad after completing it and it gave me the feeling to replay it again which I'll absolutely do in the future!

NOTE: There will be mistakes in my english below, sorry for that but I will try my best to describe my experience while I was playing this game. Spoilers will be hidden in black, don't view them until you finish the game.

RESIDENT EVIL VILLAGE or RE8 is a horror game developed by capcom, it is a sequel to the previous game (RESIDENT EVIL 7: BIOHAZARD) since it continues the story of our protagonist "Ethan Winters", you don't have to play RE7 to start this game because in your first launch the game will ask you If you want to recap what happened in the previous game.

There are 04 Difficulties in the game (03 at the beginning and one will unlock after finishing the game):

Casual is the easy mode If you don't have time and only want to have fun then go for it.

Standard is normal (I played at that difficulty), I didn't die a lot while playing at that difficulty so I felt like It was easy.

Hardcore is the hard mode, probably any resident evil fan will go for this first and since I find "Standard" easy I recommend this difficulty instead of it.

Village of Shadows is the hardest one, and it only unlocks after finishing the game, If you enjoyed the game and the previous difficulties didn't satisfy you, go for this one.

According to gamewith website the differences are:
・Enemy: HP, Speed, & Damage Dealt.
・The ability (or lack thereof) to naturally heal.
・Different enemy placements (Village Of Shadows Only).

The graphics in this game are so freaking awesome, It's beautiful and the best thing is that its well optimized even for old systems, if you have an old pc you can play it on (High Textures / FXAA + TAA / Others Sets at low / 720p) and still get 45 fps which is playable and with good image quality that doesn't make your eyes bleed, and If you have a beast PC you will find 0 problem running this game on Ultra, to be honest I thank capcom for making this game playable even on old systems since most of recent games doesn't care about optimization, well done capcom you nailed that part!

I also wanna mention that the game has a Camera Mode which Is something I like a lot, It can be found in the pause menu, you might run into a lot of beautiful views and take screenshots of them to share them on Steam.

RE: VILLAGE is a first person shooter like RE7 (unlike the rest of RE series games which they use 3rd person) the gameplay is similar to RE7 but better a lot, they improved a lot of things and added a lot of content to it, they also upgraded the interface of the inventory and
the crafting menu and made it easy to use.

Unlike RE7, this game is kinda more open and gives you more content to explore, that factor gives it more Action than Horror since you have a large battle area to use against the enemies.

When it comes to looting, It's kinda like the rest of RE games, you loot ammo and materials to craft healing potions and bombs, and everytime you progress to another area you get new items. There are also puzzles but they don't require to be Albert Einstein to solve them and they are fun to do.

As a coclusion, RE: VILLAGE did well with the gameplay compared to the previous game, they improved a lot of mechanics and added even new ones.

During your playthrough you will run from an area to an area, each area has it's unique atmosphere and feels different from the other which is something I like about this game.

The story didn't impress me a lot so I can't call it a masterpiece but I got attached to some characters and liked them a lot. This game doesn't connect RE7 Story only but the whole series, in this game you will get all your answers for the questions you got from the previous game and It explains everything, there are notes (items that can be read) and pictures in different areas, read and view all of them because they are important and they explain many things.

After completing the game, you will still have more stuffs to do like replaying it on the new difficulty or playing bonus levels and do challenges.

Resident Evil is known for Its horror, and RE: VILLAGE kinda achieved that factor, I'm not that type who get scared easily by playing horror games, played some of them like Outlast so I'm used to jumpscares, I didn't get scared a lot but at least this game made me scream like a woman 2 or 3 times.

Overall the game is good but it feels like it misses something, some characters were too good that I wanted to see more cutscenes of them, more encounters with them, It's like I didn't have enough of them I just wanted more but the game only gives you a little of it which make it feel short.

One of my favorite characters in this game is Heisenberg, I wish there are more screen time for him, one idea I found in the internet is a suggestion for capcom to make a DLC where Ethan accepts Karl's offer to beat Miranda together, the game doesn't let you decide and I wish if you were able to do that, like choosing between Mia or Zoe in RE7.

The biggest issue that annoyed me in this game is the protagonist itself, Ethan is not the best mc out there and he lacks a lot of things and most of his reactions feels empty and just bad, The Act Man on Youtube explained that part in details on his review of this game at minute 20:26 I recommend that video a lot after you finish the game.

The game is good and the positives of it make you ignore the negatives, not gonna call it a masterpiece, and I only recommend to buy it when it's on sale.

NOTE: There will be mistakes in my english below, sorry for that but I will try my best to describe my experience while I was playing this game. Spoilers will be hidden in black, don't view them until you finish the game.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is an open world RPG game, you might have played a lot of RPGs in the past but trust me this one will be different, you will play as Geralt Of Rivia, your actions and choices will be the factor for every quest's ending. I'll be short and say: buy it, it's worth it and don't forget the dlcs they are so important and you will miss a lot if you don't try them.

The first question that comes to mind to every player who want to try this game is whether you should play Witcher 1&2 before this or no, the answer is it depends on you, sure Witcher 3 is a sequel and you might get confused if you don't play the first games (you will ask who is that and what is this place and what am i doing) but for me I didn't have to play them, I just watched recap of the previous games to understand whats going on and I recommend you to do as well before playing this game unless you wanna play the previous games, Witcher 1 has an old engine and graphics and most of you will not like the old gameplay system so you might skip it but for Witcher 2 its more modern than the first one and a lot of people recommend it, it explains even the storyline of the first game so It's all depend on your choice. And for the books you don't have to worry about them, the books and the games are different story not completely different but the books ended on a specific point of the storyline and the games made a sequel to that point and continued, characters, the world, the history is all imported from the books but you don't really have to read them to understand.

The best plan I recommend is:

- Watch Witcher 1 recap on youtube or read it on the internet.
- Play Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings or just recap it.
- Start your adventure in Witcher 3!

NOTE: Witcher 3 has a special section for characters that describe a lot of things about them, there are also "Books" as an in game item you loot and gain additional information about the world.

There are 4 Difficulties you can choose from at the beginning of the game, you can also switch it during the gameplay in the settings menu, I started my first playthrough with Blood and Broken Bones! (Hard) and I can say it's perfect, it doesn't make the game too easy or too hard, sure you might die sometimes but there is no fun in completing the game easily (in my opinion), Death March! (Very Hard) is the hardest one and I only recommend it for NG+ (New Game plus is basically a new game with the same character and level you were using in the first playthrough including gears, swords, items...etc).

So, i can say If you want to be challenged in your first playthrough go for Blood and Broken Bones! (Hard) but If you only want to finish the game and care only about the story go for Just the Story! (Easy) or Story and Sword! (Normal).

The gameplay is a little complicated for new players, I had some difficult time learning it but you will get used to it by time, It relies on Level system, Skill Tree, Looting items and Gaining materials, and crafting weapons and gear. As long as you level up, you will upgrade your gear, obtain new skills and become stronger!

The combat system isn't too hard, I didn't find any issue playing with mouse & keyboard, I find many people complaining about the combat system but I can't see any problem with it. each enemy has a specific level that tells you if you are ready to fight it or not.

In this game you play as Geralt of Rivia, a witcher which is a super-human (they have strong immune system and strong senses not like normal humans, they also live longer) made to kill monsters and get paid for that , I'll not go in details because you will learn more about them in the game.

The game is Quest based, there are Main Quests (Campaign), Side Quests, Witcher Contracts, Treasure Hunt Quests, each quest has a level that tells you if you are ready for it or not, I recommend you to do all of the quests in level order. (If your level is 10 and the quest level is 15 don't do it until you reach 15)

There are even Side Quests that affects the Main Story so don't skip them, Also Side Quests in this game are different than the other games, each has a different story and a different ending you will not feel at all like you are doing the same quest over and over again, and thats what I love about this game, skipping the Side Quests is totally a sin and you should never do that because you will play half of the game or even 1/4 of it, I even can say I enjoyed doing Side Quests more than the main ones.

Buying this game without the DLCs is a sin too, Witcher 3 is known for it's unique DLCs some people even call B&W expansion The Witcher 4, they are full of content (new locations, new soundtracks, new stories...etc) So never buy this game without them.

There is also a mini-game called Gwent, it's a card game, to be honest I wasn't interested in it, it's an optional feature and it's quests are optional too and they don't affect the story but If you are a hardcore gamer who wants all the achievements go for it, it's not hard at all and they say it's easy to learn.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0i88t0Kacs
The hardest part in the game is not beating some boss or finishing some hard contract, but it's "Picking Choices", the game makes you feel like you are a witcher, almost all the aspects of the game are choices based, be wise and neutral and choose what you think is best for you and for Geralt, accept your fate that you draw with your own hands, don't look in the internet for the best choices to get the best results out of every quest, thats not how the game meant to be played.

"There is no perfect game in the world" - random guy on the internet.

I run into some glitches in this game during gameplay and cutscenes they are not a big problem but you notice them (just wanna say its not rare to run into one of them).

The game lacks some physics like falling alone or while riding a horse (the horse will just disappear if you try to jump from a high area or in water).

The npcs faces are similar and you might run into the same face a lot of times there is just few changes like the hair color or the clothes, sure I know that making unique faces take a lot of work and cdpr didn't have the budget for that so I hope the next-gen version will work on that part more.

There is a quest that broke the RPG rule which is "Reasons of State" a very important quest that decide part of the ending, In the end of that quest you will have two choices but because of the bad writing of that quest, the game indirectly force you and make you choose only one even If you don't want that choice because Geralt would never pick the other one.

The positives of this game make you forget that the game has issues, It's a good game and a masterpiece and I hope the next-gen version will improve it.