Recent reviews by chad

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It's a Final Fantasy rip-off with a generic anime story and fast, fun combat and some impressive boss fights.

The combat is where the game shines, which I assume is largely thanks to Platinum Games' contributions during development. Tons of characters with varied, stylish playstyles. When you press a button in the game, your character does a thing.

The game also utilizes Final Fantasy tropes really well. Summons, limit breaks, materia, etc. are all here with different names and used well. Throw it all in a blender with co-op boss fights and a Monster Hunter-esque endgame and gearing system, and it just kinda works. I didn't expect to enjoy or get as much mileage out of this game as I did.

Basically, like Palworld and other derivative games, makes you realize how much the owners of some of these IPs are squandering the potential of their franchises.

"play for free" week immediately disconnects you from the game when you hit 20, which I didn't see advertised anywhere on steam

glad I used 90gb of my ♥♥♥♥♥♥ isp data cap on this so I could experience the worst part of an arpg, the first 20 levels

combat feels nice
game sounds nice
open world is ♥♥♥♥
battlepasses and premium battlepasses and advanced diamond premium fast track battlepasses and $65 horse armor in a $70 game is extremely ♥♥♥♥

Stranger of Paradise is to Final Fantasy what Metal Gear Rising was to Metal Gear Solid. Top tier action combat married with a ridiculous yet sincere story that is simultaneously a departure from the mainline games and somehow nails the tone perfectly.

The job system is a blast and allows for tons of creativity, magic is powerful and satisfying, weapons are varied and awesome, tonberries are terrifying as they waddle towards you knife in hand, and you get to kill chaos.

It's not perfect and has plenty of problems, similar to what you'd find in other recent Team Ninja games. Performance is mostly good on a 3080ti, yet there's still massive frame drops and slowdown during certain segments where lots of animations happen at once. The game in general runs worse than it should for how it looks. There are a handful of difficulty spikes that I just ended up cheesing with guns/magic rather than approach as a "fair" fight. Some ultrawide issues when certain events happen.

However, the biggest failure of this game is that Square Enix stuck it on the Epic store for a year then slapped it on Steam with no advertising, no buildup, not even a store page until the moment it released, nothing other than a tweet a few weeks before it finally came to Steam. Square Enix apparently hates money. I'd wager most Nioh and Final Fantasy fans don't even know this game released on Steam, or that it exists at all.

If you like Team Ninja's combat and the Final Fantasy setting, this game is a knockout. Like all games, even better with friends.

I wish I could refund Wo Long and buy this one twice.

There's a solid game here, underneath all the problems. Not as good as Nioh 2, but still fun, fast-paced Team Ninja action. I'm not a huge fan of the focus on the Sekiro-like deflect mechanic, but there's enough customization between Wizardry, weapon types, Martial Arts, and combat stats that you can actually tailor your own playstyle a bit (unlike Sekiro).

Overall, the game feels way less polished than Nioh 2, which is disappointing. There are some poorly thought out button mappings. R2 on controller interacts with objects AND is the modifier to use your skills, so you may try to cast a spell and end up interacting with some purple ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ on the ground. Dodge and deflect are the same button. The camera is straight up schizophrenic sometimes. Auto-clambering/double-jumping is wacky.

I think the setting and monster design just aren't as interesting as Nioh. Yokai did a lot to add charm to Nioh's often bland environment.

BUT, the actual reason I wouldn't recommend the game, right now at launch:
-co-op is basically unplayable due to random desync issues, where your friends will teleport across the map and you are unable to damage enemies. it's as hilarious as it is baffling and frustrating. this ♥♥♥♥ worked in the demo, what the ♥♥♥♥ happened?

bonus reasons:
-a slew of graphical glitches and poor optimization. you'll see constant frame drops with a 3080/4090/top of the line CPU. screen flickering with ambient occlusion turned on. the occasional crash to desktop.
-either desync issues or straight up cheating invaders in PvP, already

hero shooters are all trash

The weirdest and best Elder Scrolls game.

a great, super creative game with hella tight music

i dont like when a 50 dollar AAA game constantly crashes on my Powerful Gaming Computer That Has Up To Date Drivers

Bloodborne PC when

Yo.