Recent reviews by Bread Santa

1000xRECOMMEND

I completely agree with the review written by "Meat Clown" here: https://v1.steam.hlxgame.cc/profiles/76561198025321433/recommended/2806640/

It was a pleasure to revisit one of my absolute favorite puzzle games, but this version is inferior to the original in almost every way except strictly screenshot cosmetics. The original running the Serious engine is incredibly well optimized and plays beautifully on pretty much every device I've tried it on, only takes up 8gb or so, and because it runs so much more smoothly I find it more pleasant to actually look at and play (no blurry/smeared UE5 visuals).

In contrast, this Reawakened release drops frames even with my 3080, takes up over 50gb on disk, doesn't have a linux release (though it did run fine with proton), and the new content (puzzle editor + The Beginning) were quite underwhelming.

Also, you can often (like right now during the summer sale) pick up the original for $5.

Nioh 2 completely took my breath away the first time I played it, and cemented Team Ninja as my favorite action game developer. This game will kill you over and over and over and yet if you want to beat it the tools are always in your hands. No challenge is too extreme, no conflict comes without danger, and there are thousands of ways to express yourself and survive.

Word of advice for new players; the max level is 750, so you will keep getting better gear every level for pretty much the entire game the first *few* times through (there are multiple NG difficulties that raise the level cap). This makes the early game actually harder, because you will be learning the game with only a tiny fraction of the options you will have at the end-game. Blacksmithing and soul smithing are absolutely critical to creating strong builds, yet both are expensive with very limited rewards early on. Just disassemble everything except what you're currently wearing, and swap better gear in as you get it.

The story of this game will also sneak up on you. I did not really expect much coming in, and the star of the show is still the action combat itself, but the characters are all so memorable and over-the-top without feeling out of place in this fantastical historic/folkoric/mythologic past, and the things I have taken away from the game have enriched me greatly.

Reviewing this game in early access (sigh) because even though it's been 4 years, I find this game to be worth it, and worth the wait. I'm okay with Iron Gate taking their time to finish the game as their vision intends, and there are many other games to play while I wait for them to finish it.

Maybe later I'll write some play-test notes here before an actual review.

Things I like:
- Simple, expressive building, that does a great job of scratching the engineering itch without simulating too much. I have some improvements I'd like to see which I'll describe later on, but I have spent the majority of my time in this game building imagined structures, and it's very fun already.
- Vibes are immaculate.
- Combat is adequate. I'd love to see deeper combat, don't get me wrong, but it's adequate, and approachable to more casual players.
- Progression system makes sense once you figure it out, even if it's much too strictly tiered.

Improvements I'd like to see made:
- Either built-in mod support or a very conscientious approach to community mod support. There are many things about the game that mods change in one way or another that I think are pretty subjective and don't necessarily need to be in the base game (like seasonal weather, for example), but should be very easy to mod in for people who prefer that.
- I don't like the default world gen, I think it's much too random and ends up creating fairly boring looking worlds that make exploration very repetitive. A world gen that creates more "realistic" worlds with sensible rules about where regions are split and landscapes that are geographically legible (and actual geographic features, like ridges, rivers, valleys, actual mountains, etc) would increase the fun of exploration considerably. The mod "Better Continents" does a pretty great job at this, but honestly this should be the base game experience.
- Better control over world aggressiveness, more "animals" that are not hostile unless attacked, reduced chase distance for monsters... I find the default world to be a chore to explore, but making everything passive removes the need for good fortified structures.
- Networking needs to be improved. Again there are some mods that have attempted this, but we need to see some more advanced networking techniques used to ensure better multiplayer experiences.
- Complex worlds completely tank performance. Even on a very high-end PC, worlds with even just slightly complex builds will drop the game framerate considerably. This issue is probably going to be tricky to fix but it's a high priority before this game can be called done, IMO.
- The cartography table / map sharing system in the base game is bad. I always use the mod "better cartography table" but this should again be the base game experience.
- Same about base game experience for build piece placement capabilities. I always use the mod "comfy gizmo", which allows for WAY more expressive and precise placement. It does kind of throw users into the deep end immediately, so I could appreciate it being behind an "advanced build placement" checkbox or something like that, but we should be able to place any piece the way we want, even in cases where it clips or doesn't make sense for the object, at a larger range of angles, to allow us to build in ways that look and feel more the way we want.
- Honestly most of the mods by Azumatt go a long ways towards making this game a complete experience, but in particular, crafting/building from nearby boxes, searchable craft/build menus, and the first person view are all critical and should be in the base game.
- I mentioned that the build system does not simulate too much... but I think it can simulate a *bit* more than it does, in particular the height limits are just arbitrarily set and have behaviors that are hard to predict, it would be a very big improvement to have a bit more of an accurate calculation of the physics being applied to build pieces, allowing for more advanced support structures to be used to create larger buildings, just like in real life.

This game is dead now, but I've never had more fun with a multiplayer game than 8v8 T:A matches with teammates that are actively playing alongside you. RIP.

Bring back community servers and make that the default. Ranked matchmaking seemed like a good idea at first, but it's clear to me now that it makes the game more toxic and less fun, and mainly benefits the profit-mongers that circle this game like carrion flies... including Valve itself... by trapping the player in a state that is never -quite- fulfilled.

Don't get me wrong; if my playtime is anything to go by, I love CS. It's one of the most fun games to play with friends, and has an immense skill ceiling that allows for some extremely fun and tense moments.

The money behind this game is doing real damage, though, and I can no longer support it.

This is a game I come back to again and again and I strongly recommend it. If you haven't played it, give it a try, and if you like action games and want to have one in 3rd-person shooter form, play it now! The soundtrack is incredible, the gameplay is a satisfying level of stress vs reward and often continuously so, and it's really fun with friends (use ShareSuite mod)!

Edit Jan 2024: I have now had time to play through most of the remaining end-game content, and my ultimate verdict is that this is a conditional recommendation, even with my own personal love of the game being so high. If you give it a try, remember to embrace using wizardry ASAP (the game trickles in wizardries to you over the first many hours, arguably a little too slowly as they are so important, but once you have them all builds are viable).

If you want incredibly kinetic, movement-focused 3d action combat (and experiencing that is worth some rough edges), or you really like the Three Kingdoms stories (not specifically from Dynasty Warriors even though they are both Koei Tecmo games so there are many character likenesses, which is a nice treat for fans of DW), then I highly recommend playing this game, even if you don't take it all the way to end-game. If you are looking for another Team Ninja game with a massive amount of end-game replayability, this game falls short of the mark a little, due to the incredible repetitiveness of the Thousand Mile Journey combined with janky multiplayer support, but I still hold this game near and dear to my heart and will probably occasionally continue playing it just to experience the thrills of combat for a while.

This game would benefit SO MUCH from a proper functionality expansion to the multiplayer: searchable co-op lobbies and drop-in/drop-out support (like in Strangers of Paradise, for example?), proper PVP arenas + dueling, and a more careful approach to balancing PVP. The PVP experience in this game with two people playing together for fun, e.g. in a voice chat and intentionally dueling with reasonably matched equipment, is some of the most fun I've had with PVP in any game and gives me a true "fighting game but in 3d" feel when it comes to how the duels are fought. Players have a large but not infinite number of options, the 5 virtues are intuitive (once you get used to them); playing off of strengths and weaknesses respective of which virtue you are combating gives a big advantage, and positioning and timing are super tight. Unfortunately, this is slightly let down by netcode and difficulty in initiating that experience to begin with, but when you have a good connection with a friend, this game is magical.

I really hope Team Ninja makes Wo Long 2, continues their (IMO excellent, but please use the Chinese voice acting!!!) retelling of Three Kingdoms stories, and seriously introspects on and listens to the community about their approach to multiplayer. It will be that much closer to my perfect action game.

There have been a few performance / stability / bugfix patches since the last DLC which returned the game to working pretty well for me for the most part, but it is not perfect. I have also played a few hundred hours on PS5 and the stability is substantially better on PS5, but I prefer playing via Steam on a 1440p 21:9 monitor (the game looks incredible in ultrawide). Just remember your return window and try it out!

---

Edit: December 2023, the last DLC has released and a pile of performance issues have returned with it. I have crashed a few times, fallen through the floor, and clipped out of bounds all without trying... the added content itself has been wonderful, but I now, again, have to disclaim above the statement I make below that the PC version is indeed still a hot mess performance wise. I will update again if they do ever fix the issues for me, though it seems even then to be very specific PC dependent.

---

This is one of my favorite games, another reviewer nailed it when they described it as a playable Wuxia movie (with a little elemental wizardry), and I think it's one of the best action games out there, period. The steam reviews don't paint a great picture right now, though, and after reading through a whole bunch of them I decided I should just throw this review up here even though I don't want to write a more complete review until the release of the final DLC (Team Ninja games tend to truly flesh themselves out with each major update, sometimes game-changingly). I guess we'll see if I do ever come back and write more.

I am writing this specifically to address the elephant in the room; performance. At launch, this game had some severe performance issues, jittery animations, tons of slowdown, poor load times, could barely maintain 60 FPS, and crashed frequently. This is a real shame, but I find it much more a mark against Koei Tecmo as a publisher trying to get this game out to market too quickly than any sort of indictment of the developers. I know game development is not free, but this one needed more time in development, or a reimagined release cycle (perhaps leveraging an early access with active community involvement?) no matter if it cost more up front. The poor state of the game at release is, I believe, a large part of why this game has mixed reviews.

With the second DLC, I can finally say that this game is running correctly, and I have smooth 120fps+ gameplay at 3440x1440. It's not perfect; since the update I've still had at least one crash, and my load times running Windows are still substantially longer than on Linux, but I think the vast majority of the performance issues at launch are now solved. It even runs (albeit, barely holding 30fps with pretty noticeable resolution downscaling) on the Steam Deck, though I would not necessarily recommend this to players who only have a Steam Deck. This is more or less where the game should have been on release in terms of optimization and bug fixing and should now be totally playable for most people.

I have only played this game a few hours and have already had some of the most electric and satisfying losses and heart wrenching victories. The balance is excellent, and somehow on my 4th or 5th run when I was starting to click with it I got a no-hit on the first boss, was thrown into a sweet temple area, beat a secret boss, and got to play with its weapons for the whole next level, laughing maniacally the whole time. I will revisit this review maybe at some point to add more thoughts, but the early game has so far pulled me in just as much as any of the other roguelite greats.

I am coming from a combined 1500+ hours on Epic and PS5, so already have had a lot of time to make up my mind about this game. I think that means it's deserving of more praise than just that it is meme-worthy (which it definitely is).

While knowing a specific developer created a game does not necessarily mean anything, I still think it's worth noting that this was made by Team Ninja, so think Nioh/Nioh 2 (and now Wo Long) in terms of gameplay feel, as I believe all of these games run on potentially the same engine. Each game has their own unique spin on combat, but all of these games are very focused on, and in my opinion deliver, deep and flexible combat and build systems that give the player a huge range of ways to express themselves and make a powerful character at the same time. If that idea sounds appealing to you after reading this, then go check out (if you haven't already played them) any of those other Team Ninja games, they're all pretty great. Stranger of Paradise Final Fantasy Origin earns its place solidly alongside the others.

This game is also, absolutely, a love letter to the Final Fantasy universe. The score is filled with some beautiful original tracks that often make poignant use of motifs from other FF games, and straight up covers of Final Fantasy songs. The enemy design goes through so many classic Final Fantasy enemies and gives them some incredibly good looking 3d models. The job system is absolutely amazing at pulling from Final Fantasy jobs as inspirations but giving them a Team Ninja twist. Each separate level is an environment that is diegetically ripped from another Final Fantasy universe and replicated here, in Jack's world.

And the story...

The story, while incredibly meme-able right from the start (especially with the english dubs, which are seemingly intentionally campy, IMO the Japanese voice acting is much more believable and less campy, and both are great depending on your mood/preference) delivers a fairly straightforward time loop story that nevertheless hooks you, because Jack's fight is real, and the right thing to do, and obviously badass, but it is not quite a heroic ending. I do not think it's the best Final Fantasy story, but when I consider channeling my inner Jack outside of the game to make real world changes, I feel it's a very poignant one in today's increasingly dissonant and divided reality. Literally just become Chaos.

For people coming from other Team Ninja games, this game is probably one of the easier ones. Late game builds really do have the potential to break the challenge, a large part of the end-game is balanced around the knight 400% affinity ability giving you literal invulnerability while Lightbringer is active, so you are effectively forced to break the game in order to win. There's still a fair bit of challenge, especially if you impose some restrictions and are actually experimenting with options that aren't just "what currently works", but Jack is overpowered, and that's by design.

For people coming from Final Fantasy games, this game may seem daunting at first, the combat can be pretty overwhelming, the menu and inventory systems inscrutable, and the storytelling much more environmental and direct. However, set your difficult to "Story" (there is literally no downside to this), and give the job system a chance to make sense, and you may find your Final Fantasy knowledge pays off.

Early game inventory means nothing, just equip whatever is the highest level, and use whatever weapons and abilities you find fun.

Anyway, I like it.