Recent reviews by FuscusNight

Resident Evil has never had a particularly strong narrative, but this one feels like a waste with what they've done. They retcon or soft-retcon quite a few things and poorly implement new elements into the world whilst also not really doing a good job with the pacing of the game's story beats.

• Pulling completely new villains out of nowhere, yet acting as if they were always there.
  
  
• A new "virus" plot introduced out of thin air. Some characters treat it like the biggest thing everyone has been after for 30 years, yet it was never mentioned before by anyone.
  
  
• Changes to how the T-virus works, even outside the hospital area where the virus was not altered. Since it's Raccoon City, the infection should be from the original T-virus not this minor new variant this includes the agents that get infected in it cause they got infected by zombies roting away there for 30 some years now.
  
  Zombies suddenly being able to operate military mortar installations, weapons, and other gear was never possible before for T-virus infected people, especially those infected with the original strain. It would have been fine if this only applied to the hospital zombies, since they are slightly altered variants, but not for the rest of the city.
  
  
• Where do they even find the room anymore to build even more of these secret labs in the city ? Best part is this one was suppose to be so secret that the other secret labs weren't aware of it, at this point I could imagine the construction crew accidently oppening a wall that connects to another lab during the construction progress.
  
  
• A rewrite of a well-known long-dead villain who previously had zero morality, he was pure evil. Now he suddenly has some out of the blue moral angle. The story leans heavily on memberberries and throws in a Temu discount version of another well-loved villain character who ultimately does absolutely nothing for the plot.
  
  
• Raccoon City is somehow a wasteland filled with monsters, yet there is no manned military blockade preventing people from casually driving into it. And somehow all these years none of these zombies or creatures have spilled out of the ruins into nearby cities that are only a few hours away.
  
  
• A magical new secret shadow organization that has apparently been pulling all the strings this entire time despite never being mentioned or even hinted at before.

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The actual gameplay is alright. It combines two styles:

1. Slower-paced survival horror
2. Over the top action similar to RE4 n' RE5

To its credit, it pulls this off competently well despite it being two very different play styles. However, neither aspect really shine all that much, They're just fine. Like the combat isn't as fun as something like RE4/RE4 Remake and the horror slower paced stuff isn't as good as past attempts I feel, dealing with the stalker/nemesis in this game felt more annoying than scary at times, more so on repeats playthroughs especially

It's enjoyable to play through it once, but it doesn't hold up well for repeat runs. I'm currently doing a second run on Insanity, and I'm not enjoying it nearly as much anymore, especially the pace-killing sections that force you into heavily scripted, linear sequences that take forever to get through.

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Insanity is also a massive jump in difficulty. There's nothing between Normal and Insanity.

I do like that Insanity:

• Changes item locations
  
• Adds more enemies
  
• Makes enemies more aggressive

However, it also turns some enemies into terrible bullet sponges and removes their flinch reactions when shot. That makes certain sections feel less like a fun challenge and more like a frustrating slog at times.

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They're pretty, though you need some level of ray tracing for the lighting to not look flat in some areas too much, it seems more focus was put into using either ray or path tracing for the visuals with non-ray traced being a lower priority. It runs fine on max setting, high ray tracing (not path) in 1440p and quality upscaling on my 5060i 16GB and Ryzen 5700x.


I don't hate this game. I still enjoyed my first run despite its flaws.

If Steam's archaic review system wasn't just a binary Yes/No, I'd probably give it something like a 7/10. It's worth picking up during a sale and enjoyable for a single playthrough.

However, because of the sheer amount of praise and worship this game is getting far beyond what it deserves in my opinion, I'll throw my hat into the ring with a "No" recommendation.
This game does not deserve to sit at "Overwhelmingly Positive."
And I say that as someone who grew up with this franchise since the late 90s, playing all the games including even the ones most people are unware that ever existed such as RE:Dead Aim.

I repeat once more, I think this is still an enjoyable game just flawed and I am bothered said flaws are being overlooked so much by even people who are paid to write these reviews, steam's review system needs an overhaul with actual like metric points or something better than thumbs up and down.

If you can only pick one DLC for Rogue Trader right now (before Season 2 releases), this is the one.

It introduces a genuinely interesting character who can be shaped by your choices far more than any other companion in the game. She might seem to be just an omega edge lord at the start but she blossoms and opens up as time goes showing more than just a dark edgy assasin all the time, unless you push her to keep being that way for good.

It also has a compelling, cool, mysterious plot that stays strong from start to finish, along with far more crew interactions within the ship’s vast, city-sized world. Those moments help you get to know your crew and people better. You also get a new archetype and sub-archetype that are a bloody good time to use. I do wish I’d seen the pre-nerf Blade Dancer myself, since it was apparently comically broken, but even now it’s still damn powerful, certainly not ruined by the nerf.

Sure, the writer behind this maybe watched a bit too much gachi muchi with the dialog choices given towards the new companion but I wouldn't condemn this entire DLC due to that, cause it's still good,

the companion quest from start to finish i enjoyed and the way they inserted the new character into the world was really smooth and well done to the point anyone not aware of this content would very much think it's part of the base game.

New class is fairly enjoyable too but I only used it on the new companion, the quests with-in are also fun such as the fuedal world place you vissit or being given a job to judge people at a tribunal which was funny as hell.

The only thing that will dishearten you from trying this out or stop you early is its very steep learning curve if you want to dig into its mechanics because the game just dumps so much of it from the very first screen when you start making your character, but if you just want the story, adventure and exploration then the game offers a very customizable difficulty that essentially lets you just focus on that and not care about min maxing and learning the layers of the game's complex rpg mechanics.

It took me 160h on Daring difficulty (3rd difficulty out of 5) to beat it, I essentially looked under every rock in the galaxy if not twice sometimes but admitivly those 160h, probably a good 30 or 40 was just me managing my companions, their gear, levels, learning what works and doesn't, the game has so, so many skills and build varieties and items that will make your head spin, the start of the game is definitly the most you will find yourself just trying to understand the layers of how some things work in this game's rule set.

I probably spent a bit too much time trying to make sure my party is a well oiled machine, because half way through ACT2 (out of 5) i essentially had a squad of demigods that finished vast majority of fights with-in 1 round that made me consider bumping it to a higher difficulty which I did but it seems i went so overboard with maxing out my team that it didn't do much of a difference in the actual combat even on Hard, bar causing me to fail more dialog checks so I just went back to Daring since harder difficulty mainly made me lose on some dialogs bits sometimes more often, so not sure if balance is just kinda wack or it's due to me digging into the game far too deeply.

I would often with just two characters destroy everything near the end of act 2 and later, only in rare occasions like more bigger boss fights would I find myself having to use the full might of my squad.

To quickly run throught the rest :
- Visuals look good largely due to the art, but the technical layer of the game look kinda dated for today's standards which might also confuse folk as to why the game's performance is kind of a mixed bag too despite having such low system requirements.
- There's also space combat where you command your ship, this is potentially the weakest aspect of the game, by the end I just groaned everytime I had to do one.
- Game has a ton of different endings and outcomes that show themselves at the end, giving you a good bit of closure on your choices and how things turned out.
- Co-Op is lack luster, 2nd player is largely a side kick, do not expect Baldurs Gate 3 or Divinity OG Sin 2's levels of quality Co-op.
- Game has outstanding voice acting, but sadly is sparingly used. You will have to read a lot and I do mean ALOT of text which could turn off some folk. However recents news has brough us that Owlcat's next 40k game (Dark Heresy) will have full VO for basically everything. so hooray!
- Great replay value, tons of builds, tons of different choices will make it a great game to return to in the future.

Dialog writing, characters, presentation, music, voice acting it's all fantastic and the gameplay bits you do to manage the heroes and send em' out is really fun, to the point it would be a missed opportunity to not explore an idea of making another game set in this universe where the focus is largely on that even, maybe some other smaller dev team or indie team might catch wind and explore doing it them selves with their own superhero management game.

However the one major fault of this game is, that it truly is a Telltale experience and what I mean by this is, choices you do in the story are mostly illusions, a few choices do change some things up a bit but for the most part it's just a bit of dialog or scenes being tampered with, nothing major, no huge branching paths that lead to really different things, even when it seems like it's a huge choice you're doing, it's designed in a way to keep the narrative going a specific path still.
Before someone says that'd be too hard to do, man look at games like most CRPGs such as Baldur's Gate 3 or Wh40k:Rogue Trader or anything else similar, those are 100+ hour long games and those games tend to have far more branching paths and impactful choices that can lead to a lot of replay value, surely a 10h interactive show can have that too.

There's some other small nitpicks, like since essentially all the scenes are pre-rendered and not real time you cannot skip dialog bits so that further kinda weakens the replay value when you wanna skip scenes that are still the same on your 2nd run and don't care to watch em' again.

I do really recommend this because damn i loved all the characters and had such a great time experiencing it. but just be warned, this is not really a big branching choice based game, it's more so a linear story which you can affect the seasoning and flavoring of a bit.

The gameplay is very reminiscent of classic Resident Evil and Dead Space.

Inventory management is straight out of the original Resident Evil games , very limited space where frequent trips back to the save room are required if you forgot something or went out with too little room for new items. I recommend focusing upgrades on inventory space first. Personally, I rarely carried health packs, but I always kept the bolt cutter with me to unlock side doors for more resources and items.

Combat is over-the-shoulder in the style of Dead Space (or RE4), but slower, closer to the pacing of the first Dead Space, if not a little heavier. Unlike later Dead Space entries, where Isaac moved more quickly, Cronos makes movement feel weighty and deliberate. Weapons often require charging up shots, otherwise you’ll be wasting precious ammo. While it doesn’t have the detailed layered gore system of the recent Dead Space remake, it’s still satisfying to fight off the creatures hunting you.

The overall pacing of Cronos is somewhat slower than its most common comparisons (Dead Space). There’s a good amount of action, but it’s balanced with long stretches of atmospheric exploration. I’d say it paces itself very well, never too much or too little of either. Most importantly, it feels like a true Survival Horror game, not an Action Horror game. In that sense, it’s closer to the roots of the genre of the early Resident Evil games , which I really love.

Though comparisons to RE and Dead Space are frequent , the story and setting of Cronos are very different. There’s far more mystery involved, with pieces of the lore slowly piecing together as you play. Not everything is fully answered by the end, which actually helps preserve the sense of dread and the unknown. You don’t always want to reveal everything in horror and I sincerely hope this isn’t the last Cronos game we’ll see. It deserves a sequel.

Criticisms
Despite its classic survival horror approach, there’s no map system, which is bizarre. You’ll need to remember where locked side doors were and return to them later, which can be frustrating.

Color balance is another issue: blacks and dark tones look washed out across all platforms. The game badly needs proper color correction options, contrast and vibrancy sliders, not just a single gamma adjustment slider. *update* I found a mod that adjusted contrast and color values via an ini edit , it drastically improved the color balance, removing the washed out look, check out the nexus for it.

Unreal 5 , performance as per usual of this engine is either at best a mixed bag or at worst terrible , in the case of Cronos it's a mixed bag but maybe a bit better mixed bag , it's not dreadful as some other UE5 games such as Stalker 2 or Borderlands 4 but neither all that great too , I got a new 5060ti 16GB which did get me 50-80 fps in 1440p, High settings (shadows on Medium) with Balanced Upscaling DLSS4, so regardless of GPU you will have to use some level of upscaling, i also recommend not using hardware lumen and stick to software otherwise you'll be slicing your fps in half almost.

Lastly, while the protagonist’s suit design is iconic and very H.R. Giger , the enemy design feels a bit generic. Too many creatures lack a distinct silhouette or memorable style. For example, the Necromorphs in Dead Space are instantly recognizable; by contrast, many Cronos enemies could easily be mixed for designs from other games. They don't look badly designed at all , just lack that last magic touch to set them really apart.

Bottom Line
Yea, I loved it a lot. Took me 15h to beat it and had a great time from start to finish and I intend to do a NG+ run on hard some day soon. I hope this sells well so we do get more out of this setting , really not sure why so many "professional" outlets were so mixed on this game , but a lot of those outlets often praise games heavily that i find mid at best so my tastes don't line up often with theirs.

Lovely cozy lil' game , didn't stop playing till i finished it fully in one day.
I just seem to be magnetized to these kinds of games often about young friends growing up in a small village or town and dealing with various real life problems, granted in this game there's also a much bigger narrative problem to deal with than just the horrors of modern day life and growing up.

I love how this game dealt with branching narratives with its book flipping system and tree branch , it made going back to previous choices to see other paths fast and painless, something that some of these kinds of games can be a bit annoying to deal with when wanting to see different paths in their narrative.

The art is really lovely, the music is wonderful, and the writing and characters strike a nice balance between melancholy and humor. The story as a whole is interesting and enjoyable to follow, and the gameplay offers enough variety to keep things from getting stale. If you go for one of the longer, full endings, the game takes about 3 to 4 hours , which felt like the perfect length. It also makes replays more manageable when going for the other 10 endings. Those other endings can be much shorter and quicker to reach, so not every one is a full 3 to 4-hour journey

I have done all the endings and got 100% in the game and i pretty much enjoyed all my runs really, bar some moments where you had to be, well kinda of a d*ck to some characters.

I'm really surprised this game didn't take off more honestly, this really deserves more attention but it's getting so little coverage and absolutely no attention from any sort of youtuber or streamer person.

Main and really only big complaint i got is that we need to be able to skip animation segments in cut scenes, we can skip dialog but if there's a dramatic animation playing between dialog bits then you gotta wait, which can test ones patience when you start trying to do new runs for different endings.

So yeah this is really great , like I really recommend this a lot, got it for 12 bucks and it was so worth it.

Initially had terrible photon issues that made it not possible to play with friends for a few weeks , it's fine now.

Wanted to delete my negative review as i got not too much else to say with a positive one but i can't , this review for some reason cannot be removed by me and i got not much else to say beyond it's a fun lil friend slop game about climbing, worth the low price if you got some friends to play with.

Relaxing lil' game where you just sail about, gather resources and do day-to-day tasks handling an island town and resort, pretty perfect for summer times.

If you like Animal Crossing, it's close to that, not exactly but pretty close but with its own unique elements.
To boot, the game is very undemanding. I am currently undergoing a 3 month trip to an island irl, so I am playing this on a low end Ryzen 5300U APU and it runs fairly fine in 720p and mixed low-medium settings. So just about anything will run this.

A few complaints i got is, It does have some annoying resource requirements at times for some objectives or crafting recipes, like the game has a habit of not spawning all that many white sea shells for an example, or forcing you to ferry yourself back and forth between your main island and other islands a lot cause you didn't know the next step would need some crafted item that you can only make back at your workshop.

An additional thing that would be nice is to improve the audio when you jump into water, the water splash sound is either not there or it's so low i never hear it, just feels odd jumping into the rather beautiful looking water and yet have no sound of impact upon it or splash sounds.