Recent reviews by bansheevt

Fantastic game. Great visuals, thrilling action and combat, and a good (if not tremendously original) story that delivers some emotional depth while being fun.

Lovely simulator - very little to comment on or complain about in that respect, other than to bemoan the lack of a combat mode as in some of the (typically) much older games. I remember flying around in a Sopwith Camel on a green screen, so FWIW...

My only MAJOR complaint is the download size. Every install is about 127GB at this point, with no ability to trim the fat (e.g. leave out airplanes you don't want to see or fly until later, etc.). At absolute minimum, letting someone copy the files from one PC to another before activating the game would be a... game changer ::winces::. Sorry. Still, it's true. Finally, if they can't do any of that, maintaining a transfer speed of better than 2mbps would be great - it takes 2-3 days straight to download the game, whereas downloading a game from Steam direct only takes a few minutes or an hour at most (looking at you, MK11).

So the game itself is great (real-time weather sync!) - I can't evaluate HOW realistic the planes or flight models are - but the way you GET the game on your machine isn't. It's pretty terrible.

Excellent classic JRPG.

Pros
-The HD-2D (or whatever they're calling the tilt-shift effect) is gorgeous, and really adds depth to the world visually.
The combat system is interesting and new to me, the character stories are fun, and their interactions are nice to watch.

Cons
-I don't know that I'll come back and play through it again in a decade, but it's a solid game that I'm glad I played.
-The characters are likable, but their interactions are limited enough I'm not really 100% sure I "get" them.

Time sink. I keep playing, it keeps draining my time. Love it.

As a game, it's merely OK. Enjoyable for what it is.
As a sim... it's AMAZING. You want a giant supercarrier armed with nuclear-missile suicide drones? Go for it. You want to build a death-star like super-laser? Sure! Almost anything can be built with enough time and effort, and it's fun to see how various designs behave in the sandbox.

Well worth $20.

Edit: Problems fixed with a community-sourced patch. Activision should be ashamed, but in the end, the game runs like butter now without stutters and freezing. Amazing gameplay, and so satisfying when you "get" a pattern or system down. This absolutely IS the game I was looking for!

TL;DR: Great game, pretty severe bugs. Qualified recommend as of now.

~2 hours in, so this review is shallow, but should help at least some people.

First, the gameplay is amazing. Fluid, satisfying, challenging, etc. Never played a game quite like this before, and I like it a LOT.

Second, the visuals. They're good, not amazing, although the setting and design elevate the graphics from merely good to excellent. Plenty of games even from 2018 look as good or better, IMHO, but the aesthetics of this game are consistent, and top-notch. Some camera work is weird - conversations are had at full camera distance, making it hard to make out faces and see what's going on. Not bad, but it feels like something out of a very old game rather than a new chart-topper.

Finally... the problems. Every few seconds the game chugs. As in, the audio continues while the visuals just... take a break. I can relax for 2-3 seconds, then need to get right back into where I was. Mid-jump, mid attack, doesn't matter. I've died doing simple jumps more often than anything, and combat goes from challenging and fun to irritating and exhausting when the battle keeps pausing. NEVER had this happen in a game in recent years, and it's not a hardware issue (Assassin's Creed: Odyssey runs fine at 30+ fps 4k high visuals, or 60+ 1440p, for example).

Once I trouble-shoot this problem, if possible at all, it's going to be a HIGHLY recommended game. Until then... man, I really thought a year after release they'd have the bugs worked out, but... Activision, amiright?

Good story, simple but attractive graphics (2d/3d blend), simple controls and combat. Very enjoyable, definitely worth a play-through.