Recent reviews by du0plex

It's so far ahead of its time. There just aren't enough words. Get the game. Don't wait for a sale, you'll want to get your hours in now.

Some things to note before buying
- IGN was indeed right, the game run time is roughly 90 hours if you try to get most of the games content in your first run.
- This is both the easiest and most difficult out of all FromSoftware games. You have far more options and freedom than any souls game to date, but also the most amount of bosses, with some being the most difficult in the series.
- If something is too hard, the game gives you the full and complete freedom to just
do something else.
- There are performance issues, crashing, and cloud sync errors atm, but as long as those get fixed soon, this will easily be one of the best games ever.
- If at any point you felt bored while playing Breath of the Wild, or that the combat wasn't challenging enough for you, or that you weren't too concerned with insane collection grinds, this game is for you.

In my most brutally honest opinion, I have to get this off my chest. All enemies in the game have a very specific tendency to delay their attacks just that extra second more to catch you at the end of a roll, and I think at least for souls veterans, it can break the wall of immersion because it feels deliberately crafted to punish the habits we've cultivated for years. It makes the gameplay feel like it's not self contained. It's normal for souls games to make you have to work for everything, and most times I can shrug it off, because that's the whole point, but this is the one time it annoys me. Other than that, this is easily one of the best games I have ever played.

I have yet to have found something I can't parry. I spent 2 minutes learning how to do 1 movement tech and I have discovered how to cross the entire map in seconds. You can make the game look like it was made in 2004. You can make the game look like it was made in 1984. You cannot make the game look like it was made in 2014. If you don't feel like doing something a certain way, you simply don't have to. Enjoy.

If you weren't a bisexual before, you probably will be after about 15 minutes of playtime.

All jokes aside, I am not exaggerating in the slightest when I say that this is one of the most well-crafted games ever made.
Art style is S tier
Gameplay is A tier, S tier if you really get into it.
Story is A tier
Characters are S tier
Level design is S tier
Dialogue and Voice Acting is SS tier (better than any game I've ever played, including FromSoftware games)
Controls can be janky depending on if you use m+k or controller, but at the very least it's extremely responsive, so I'd put it at a solid B tier.
There are very few games in which I never consider modding, and this is one of them. It's perfect just the way it is.

I genuinely think this is one of the most well-designed games ever made. At the root of this roguelike third person shooter, the main core mechanic of the game is that there will always be a worthwhile challenge for you to face no matter what you're doing, where you're at on the map, what items you have, and how long you've been playing.

I kid you not when I say this, but the items in this game are the most unique and creative ways to power up the player I've ever seen. There is no item that simply increases your damage by 15%, it is never that simple in ror2 because the devs understand that the game needs to be stimulating, but not boringly so. Instead you get items that seem useless at first but will instantly make you a deity of destruction upon finding an item that pairs well with it. Some survivors utilize certain items better, and very few items are seen as worthless, which is honestly kind of healthy because it gives other items more value.

I guarantee there will be a survivor you will absolutely love. Everyone I know that plays this game has chosen a different one, and it genuinely matches your personality in the same way that astrology girls wish their signs did for them. When I say this game is accessible for almost any gamer to play, I'm not just talking about the survivor selection. Even though the runs are around 45mins-1hour long, a casual player can optimize their time spent through the use of artifacts that help reduce the grind while more avid gamers can work hard to get more reward and both parties be satisfied.

I will say that the map designs are not quite so masterful as the survivors or items, but they still offer a nice arena in which to fight enemies, and with the way that enemies spawn, map design isn't really that important.

The progression is phenomenal in that every single important ability, item, or survivor is unlocked through completing challenges related to the thing being unlocked. It's always meaningful, never feels to grindy, and for some higher tier items, an adequate but not overwhelming challenge is presented for the player to overcome.

Last but not least, the action and shooting is absolutely amazing, and it's easy to get into the groove and realize you've been on a 7 hour run and need to go to bed because it's 3am and you have a 9am shift.

This only covers the basics of what the game has to offer, but there are a ton of subtle details that greatly enhance the overall experience. For such a small file size of a game, it joins the ranks of Terraria, Minecraft, and Valheim as one of the "tiny file size but fantastic game experience" games.

The game is 1.5 hours long, but the story and concept is amazing.
Edit: I have since bought the product back after much reflection, and I would like to add this:

Yes, the game is short, but it has an underlying reason for this. Life itself is short and can be gone in the blink of an eye, which kinda seems to be the point of making the game controlled by blinking in the first place. It's worth your $10 and even if you beat the game in enough time to do so, you shouldn't exploit Steam's system and refund it.

3 words
Titanfall Battle Royale
The movement isn't as good as Titanfall 2, and if you go from playing that game to this one, you'll feel very sluggish. The guns, however, feel a lot better to use, especially with how they sound.

If you scroll back up and hover your mouse over where it says "overwhelmingly positive", you'll notice that the results speak for themselves.

I haven't even played that much of this and it's one of the best FPS games I've ever played. Moving fast is so fun, and it's one of the only games that incentivizes me to play off meta builds. I cannot recommend this game enough because from top to bottom, it's designed for maximum fun in every aspect of the movement shooter genre.

Unless you want to spend an unreasonable amount of time and effort trying to get this 12 year old game to even run, don't even bother with it.

Aside from that issue, there are a LOT of issues with the experience as a whole. Bugs through the roof, gameplay gets relatively stale very quickly, and the open world movement is simply outclassed by much more modern games. The bosses are absolute stinky dog sh*t type of badly designed.

Verdict: it's outdated, don't play it.