Recent reviews by Sarge

It's strange. Despite being a game where 95% of it is just words, I have none to describe just how incredible the experience playing this was. And I don't have to; the game speaks (a LOT) for itself.
Buy it for whatever they're selling it for.

EDIT: I've been told that ZA/UM has sold out and the creatives who made DE are no longer benefitting from the sale of the game. In other words, you should pirate Disco Elysium rather than buying it and giving your money to ZA/UM.

A fantastic addition that I consider a must-have for anyone who enjoys this game. Best enjoyed with friends, of course. If you're only playing public lobbies, don't expect to have a good time.

I put 25 hours hours into the demo and absolutely loved it. Now I'm playing the full game and I love it even more.

Public lobbies seem bugged (I join a session but nobody is in the level), but the game literally came out 14 hours ago so I can give that a pass.

I have a list of my top 10 favorite games of all time, but there's also some games I call my "number 0 games" because they go well above and beyond what makes a game my favorite. Not only because of how good they are but because of what they mean to me, or how they've affected my life. TA:VR is one of those games. I can't promise that you will feel the same that I do, but If you have people to play this with or know how to make friends, this game is fantastic and there's nothing else like it on the market.

Because if you don't have people to play with, or don't know how to make friends, you will be put up against what is literally the worst online community I've ever had the displeasure of experiencing in my 20 years of online gaming. Public lobbies filled with devil children/teens (thanks Meta), and an overall community of ungrateful beggars and chronic complainers for what used to be a SOLO project for the better part of an almost 3 year early access development (it's not a solo project anymore. Several mouths to feed now). Go check out the social media pages for this game (or the 0.0 hour reviews), and you'll see what I mean in the comments. You give these people anything and they froth at the mouth for more and complain that their favorite riser or laser sight isn't in the game, or that features reminiscent of completely different games haven't been implemented.

I can empathize that recent marketing has been inconsistent, and that approved leaks over the last two months have been misleading (which was an unfortunate accident that gained momentum until now). That was bad and is definitely a contributing factor to the current mess. But now people complaining that DLC containing new maps, cosmetics, and a weapon is some end of the world change to the game. Did you guys know that there wasn't even suppose to be new maps? It was suppose to stop at 6, yet we've gotten new maps and a remastered map since then (not including the soon to be released paid DLC). And did you know that if this DLC wasn't paid, NONE of the content within would've ever been made? You freaks beg and beg, but when it comes time to work on new content (that wasn't planned to ever be made btw), you cry. That's all this community does is cry. Cry and spread misinformation, fake rumors, and cheats and hacks to try and sabotage an indie game of all things.

Development costs money. Money to pay voice actors, modelers, coders, map makers, and outsourcing in the case of the DLC. The scope of this game has gone beyond what it was even just a year ago, because people wanted more (which on its own is fine). Ignoring the fact that free content is still being actively worked on (something you people seem to ignore in favor of complaining), this is how further development gets funded. Now go back in time to 10 months ago when the Hammer Fire update was released. Congratulations, you've reached the original planned end of the development of new maps! Everything afterwards has been EXTRA.

Still an awesome game though with an awesome dev team (their first ever game project btw!). If you need to find people to play with, use the Discord server's matchmaking channel, or the community channel to find groups to join. Just stay away from the general chats. That's where it's the worst.

No Data for you, Sony.

If I had a nickel for every time I played an amazing game taking place in a sci-fi space dystopia with strong European & Asian cultural influences, multiple endings (one of which made me feel empty inside), a white-haired waifu, androids and "gestalts", and a game director that has an an affinity for an almost all female cast (where at least one of the male characters is an antagonist), then I would have two nickels.

Which doesn't seem like a lot but it's weird that it happened twice.

Can't skip cutscenes in NG+

TL;DR
Lemme get the obvious out of the way before I start complaining.
This game f***ing RULES. The style, presentation, visuals (!!), combat/stealth improvements, and just the amount of content on offer is absolutely worth whatever they're selling it for off-sale. I have some serious gripes with combat in the Arkham series as a whole, some of which is fixed here, and some of which has been made infinitely worse. But despite that, great game.

Now here's why the hand-to-hand is terrible 50% of the time.
The Arkham games play the best when you're just laying people out with punches, kicks, stylish counters, and quick-firing your gadgets for fantastically presented finishers. While I've been playing the series something always felt off. Unresponsive counters, poor enemy targeting during "free-flow" combat, and sluggish stealth movement controls have unfortunately been a problem with all the Arkham games I've played (all but Origins at this point). But besides enemy targeting, these have gotten better with each iteration. However, there's one thing about combat that has made mid-to-late-game combat scenarios straight up ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥:
An overabundance of poorly made enemy variants.

Probably a hot take, but lemme explain. Enemy variety is a must in most games, ESPECIALLY game that use Arkham's signature combat style. It forces you to use your head instead of just punching and countering your way through 30 thugs. Plenty of games do this, and may of those do it exceedingly well. And ALL of them do it much better than any Arkham game that I've played. The issue with most of the enemy types that you go up against only serve to highlight everything that's terribly wrong with combat, not to mention how much it will break your flow during intense fights. The games throws out too many kinds of enemies that when attacked (on accident 99% of the time), you either lose your combo or your health. Knife enemies have a broken button counter system that not only just makes you drop whatever you're doing to watch, but has terrible input registration resulting in you taking damage most of the time. Other enemies like the shock baton guys, electrified thugs, shield thugs, and (most of) the brutes are completely fine on paper, but when your counter system is unresponsive and your attacks can't pick the right target, it just becomes a game of doing the same boring maneuvers on these fun-suckers. The worst offenders are the shield enemies, especially in the AR combat challenges, which can only be taken out by the same stun-dodge-dodge move every time. Nothing else works on them (besides finishers), and even then this doesn't knock them out. And not ONLY does it not knock them out, it leaves the shield on the ground for someone else to pick up. In certain AR challenges, you will end up having 10-15 of these guys on you at once. Probably one of worst things I've ever experienced in ANY game is using the same move for 10 minutes trying to thin a horde of shield thugs. And if you accidentally hit them with a normal attack, well there goes your giant combo. That last sentence goes for most of the other enemy variants as well. Game redirects you into a shock baton enemy? Damaged. Brute? Combo broken. Electrified enemy? Guess. When you make half your enemy count in an encounter with these absolute garbage enemy types, it goes from a fun, brutally stylish beat em' up, to a brutally boring one trick pony show. What would be normal enemy types in any other game end up being the absolute worst part of Arkham Knight.

New enemy types for the stealth encounters are rad though. No issues there.

While combat still has the slow animation and unresponsive counters issue from Asylum, everything overall is much better compared to the previous game. Not much to say other than that the game is really fun, so long as you can look over the unresponsive combat and dated stealth gameplay.

If I played this game when it came out, when I was 15 years old, I'm sure it would have absolutely blown my mind. But it's been 12 years since it's release and games that use Arkham Asylum's combat to this day just do it so much better. Calling Asylum's combat and stealth horribly dated is about the best way I can describe it, and probably the nicest way too.
Counters are slow and unresponsive, leaving a LARGE window open for you to have no control and take damage. Instant take-downs are extremely slow, but enemies won't attack you during them which is a decent consolation.. Though the same can't be said for the equally slow ground finishers, which WILL let you take damage while they play out. Combo timers are also extremely fast and will break a combo for seemingly no reason.

Everything else is either great, decent, or a small nitpick not worth complaining about. But when your entire combat system is reliant on what are basically it's worse mechanics, you start to get really sick of it. By hour 8 I was completely fed up with the game.