Recent reviews by I2obiN

Another banger from Capcom with a further step in the right direction following the RE4 remake. Lots of distinct style, lots of substance. The game is both terrifying at points and incredible fun. It takes itself seriously but at the same time offers the player a ton of interactivity with the action moments being great fun without being reptitive. Respects the players time, no filler or content thrown in, everything is very carefully done. Exploration is often rewarded generously and there are secrets/challenges for those that go hunting for them.

Characters are likeable and believable, very much the cool RE characters we know while still being modern and not ridiculous or very over the top. the environment artists did a great job as well with even mundane items having great details. Certain signs have illegible text, I'm not sure how much of that is Nvidia's fault tbh, but the density of the environment meshes has gone up massively.

All weapons serve their roles well while not making Leon completely OP and turning it into RE4. Ammo balance pans out well, conserving your ammo is generally rewarded but if you want to fight everything you're not crippled or severely punished most of the time.

Level design is decent, nothing is a maze. People on the env team are clearly massive fans of architecture and old European aesthetics. The transition between environments is very nicely done at points.

Inventory management and survival is balanced nicely, you're never overly stressed but you have to keep track of it. The UI interface is simple, uncluttered and straightforward. Weapon upgrades and the systems for upgrading them are also simple and straightforward while being worthwhile. Crafting material categories are simple and the cost for crafting is always clear and easy to work out.

Path tracing looks fantastic but you'll drop a lot of frames for it.

Very much able to tailor the experience to what you're looking for while still maintaining a baseline standard.

The cinema of the scenes is incredible. There's a lot of throwbacks for old fans, considering the series is 30 years old now it seems appropriate. Done tastefully nothing is labored or overstays its welcome.

Engine performance is very optimized, playing in 4k with a 3090 and a 10900 managed 60fps maxing everything out with path tracing off.

Experienced no bugs and no glitches. Worked well despite Nvidia faffing around with drivers.

A masterclass in how to do a singleplayer story-driven game.

Great game, a lot of attention to detail, with style and originality that takes inspiration from a wide range of sci-fi horror sources.

Throughly terrified the whole way through and the puzzles are a nice challenge without being incredibly cliché. Probably will be too hard for some but I salute you for not appealing to the lcd by cheapening it with hand holding. You are never overloaded with lore. Everything is well paced and the lore that is in the game is for the most part short, succint, and gets its ideas across without having to read an absolutely massive wall of text or listen to a character ramble on endlessly.

The gameplay is very story focused and there's some jump scares throw in here and there. Very much along the lines of Alien Isolation and Outlast.

The story is well-paced, interesting with subtle imagery and themes that from what I can tell seem to pose questions about the nature of life. No hidden agendas or axes to grind, just good sci-fi. The graphic design is superb and well above average, monospace unix style fonts are used for the OS screens which is a nice touch, and all panels are seemlessly integrated into the game with high quality sounds and animations. I haven't seen that done in a game for quite a long time, again great attention to detail in everything. Nothing seems cheap, half-assed or thrown in.

Sound design is perfect without being too over the top.

I would love to see a sequel with surival-horror style combat mechanics, something more akin to RE7 maybe. The world shown off in the opening area with the mall etc is one I'd love to keep exploring.

I do have some minor gripes, I feel some graphical fidelity was sacrificed for performance and the ending I think could've been a better payoff for the level of buildup to it. Overall while the pacing is good I think the 2nd area (the ASN) lacked the level of detail present in the starting area and the mall but it does have some great moments as well to be fair to it. There's a lot of things that happen in the vestibule and the tests there that never really come into play or effect the story/game from what I could see but maybe I'm wrong.

For 22.49 euro and just about 7 hours with no filler, it's great value for money and this is easily approaching AAA studio quality in a lot of areas.

More than 10 years in the making, congrats to the devs for getting this out.

do u like le quirky comedy? le gem one liners? terrible writing? heckin science? do u hate men? remember futurama? then cough up 70 euro you disgusting little paypig. that's generally the vibe of this game.

not even comparable to new vegas, from 10 factions to 3, the game rarely allows you to do much with them. it plays a lot more linear with choices that are largely inconsequential to the story and more consequential to the main characters you end up allying with.

its not really like new vegas where it gives you a general objective and you can achieve it in multiple ways, it very often ends up being "just go here and do the objective" as the game forces you into a linear path. because despite the huge world a lot of main and side quests end up boxing you into a linear level anyway. they're very self contained except for one mission where you have to convince some ex protectorate to move to fairfield. that's probably the only example of factions interacting with the world or with each other that i came across and im 99% sure they threw that in to avoid any criticism that your choices largely don't affect the world state. that and one other big one.

that initial first world starts out quite promising but after that the side quests very quickly devolve into fetch quests or something simplistic in a lot of cases. the best ones are just a linear quest through a linear area. i've very rarely come across a meaningful choice i had to think about for a long time. siding with a faction has rarely much of a downside.

gameplay wise the AI is ofc trash, you have incredibly OP special items instead of anything resembling a halfway decent upgrade system or ammo system. there is absolutely no need to engage with any mechanic they attempt to introduce in the gunplay or upgrade system. just get the good items, drop at least a solid amount of points into guns and then you can largely wash your hands of it all. passable but really not amazing, i've seen linear fps games with more options.

crafting is completely optional as are the weapon mods.

the game looks incredible obviously at the cost of terrible performance and the world/level design is incredibly good if a little empty at times, it's a shame the rest of the game lets it down. i get the sense they generally struggled to understand how to make a game like new vegas and this is the result. they decided to focus more on character/companion choices in a linear story.

unfortunately a casualty of design by committee and rigid processes is lack of being able to implement novel or fun ideas. what they've managed to make here is a game that they can go copy + paste at least another 2-3 times with different characters and factions. bureaucracy wins again i guess

tldr; there's times where you get the illusion of playing in an open world rpg world but then you realize you are just trudging to the next objective and mindlessly picking up food/junk because the game forces you to, often times in a corridor. the game itself is not at all focused on clever ideas and instead is far more focused on political allegory and a weak story, an allegory that has been done before by the original game mind you. the only difference being it's dialled up to 11 now

GOTY contender for the sole reason of just trying to do something different and experimental. The last game I played with combat this fluid was DMC5. That's the level this game is on. (with the exception of the music)

Production is incredible and engine performance is good. Was getting 100+ frames on my 3090 at 4k with upscaling. Some might not like the futuristic Tokyo but there are other cool environments here. I do think it could've done with one more env, like a snow/ice area with themed enemies.

Enemy variation is very decent, although you'll be ripping through them at lightspeed. Bosses for the most part are well done except for one early flying one. I sort of got the hang of him, but I just didn't find it as enjoyable or fun compared to other bosses. Most other bosses provide a satisfying skill check or are just plain fun in some cases. Nothing feels cheap or artifical.

Comparison is the thief of joy and I think Platinum understood that well, in a lot of ways just wholesale copying NG2 would've been predictable and dull. I'm sure a lot of people wanted that and while I certainly understand many wanted the full range of weapons. Imo the whole concept of "use x weapon for y job" is a lot of work for minimal gameplay payoff. The honest reality is you absolutely can do NG2 largely just using the Dragon Sword if you discard the bats/fish.

Do you really need the eclipse scythe graveyard spin spam back? I don't think so.

NG2 and NG3 have a great core system. But a lot of Ninja Gaiden 2 and 3 for some people was asking online "what weapon/move do i beat this boss with", and in NG3 the prevailing advice was "eclipse scythe graveyard spin through the entire game and don't look back". For NG2 you did have bosses like Gigadeath where the reality is your options are spam UT with the lunar staff and bow shots. Some bosses were great, big fan of the original water dragon, many were just straight up bad.

And that is the weakness of NG2 and NG3. Many new players simply resorted to Izuna drops, ninpo and UT spam to get through the game. A very small amount of players learned to fight their way through the staircase using only counters, dodges and chaining combos with shuriken cancels

So you might say "well why not an NG1 style game" which is fair but I think it's reasonable to say people aren't looking for that. This game strikes a reasonable balance between exploration and linear progression. You are rewarded for venturing off the beaten path with interesting encounters and items. There are secrets to be discovered but they are not required by any means.

In terms of the combat, a good dollop of DMC has been sprinkled in here with weapon switching and keeping weapon utility to a minimum, although each weapon for Yakumo can have utility that is typical for NG. His staff has big aoe, the drilla is fast, the weapon box has ranged attacks, explosives, aoe, the sword can do a bit of everything.

NG4 uses blood raven form (which is effectively like bayonettas weave moves) to solve two problems, expanding the moveset and offering a way to break an opponents guard or punish them. Blocking enemies are back! Unlike the alchemists in NG3 you now have a lot more tools to break that guard and deal with enemies in general. You can come up with really satisfying combos like the sword spin from pole into the jump and carpet bomb move. You have way more AOE options than just spamming UT now so no excuses.

There are pros and cons in moving to a more stylish combat, some great some iffy, but you have to keep in mind this combat system hasn't been looked at seriously in a really long time by developers, so kudos to Platinum and KT

Pros:
- Bigger combos, far more move synergy, more moves period
- All moves work on all enemies as far as i could tell, so there's very little innate knowledge you have to have.
- expanded dodge/parry/counter system
- weapon switch is instant and will maintain your combo switching between all 4 weapons
- OT kills are still amazing and part of the tactical game
- shurikens are still useful.
- berserk mode is great fun and usage is tactical
- high skill ceiling, im sure dmc pros will have insane combos cooked up with this game, ive seen some crazy ones already
- Less incentive to cheese, there are really no instances where your best tactic is "spam ut" until it dies. Ninpo is not a "delete the enemy button" but does soften them up.
- There are many enemies that are punishing and will punish things like spamming flying swallow.
- Throwing is now a much more effective tool
- much more verticality, you spend more time in the air in general and have more options there
- air dodge
- bosses are good and there are a lot of one on one duels to test your ability and understanding of the mechanics

Cons:
- Resource management. So the trade off to this expanded moveset is you have to keep an eye on two bars for berserk and bloodraven form. My issue with this is that keeping track of a bar in combat is not particularly good design. Some kind of visual cue on the character would've been better. Eg, the more an item on him glows red the more blood gauge you have. This leads me quite often to only using it when i have to break an enemy or a hard attack and if you don't see it come out then you have to dodge immediately. This is fine in games like DMC because devil trigger is non essential to combat mechanics, here it is critical to dealing with heavy attacks and blocking enemies.
- Bloodbath kills are cool but practically never used. You build up your berserk gauge and then save it for when you need to wipe out everything or take a chunk out of a boss. Actually using the gauge yields little gameplay reward. There is an item you can equip to restore health on those kills but in my opinion there would've been no harm having bloodbath kills restore health period. Then you'd have an interesting choice between saving the big aoe kill everything attack or getting health back.
- Enemies in general outside of purgatory i found to be less aggressive but have bigger toolkits to punish. I very rarely found myself getting overwhelmed in the normal game even when i was surrounded in a crowd. They will punish predictable tactics though and will punish basic combos if not staggered.
- Projectile spam. In my opinion dodging projectiles is not interesting in action games. Didn't give me a lot of trouble but they don't really add much to the gameplay is the reality
- Bloodraven form is not well indicated, Ryu is the worst offender to try and figure out if he is gleaming or not, but Yakumo is also not great due to how dark everything is. There should be a more clear visual light indicator and toggling it should be immediate regardless of the situation. It feels like a lot of the time you are just praying the move works instead of deliberately doing it.

Some will prefer the more simple NG3 system of a heavy attack to break guard. Most won't. The main plus here is twofold, the NG2 system is back, which overall imo is a lot more interesting than just plain old heavy/light attacks. Doing big combos is now much more accessible. Yakumo feels a lot like Vergil from DMC5 where anyone can pick him up and have fun.

The options are extensive and there is tons of quality of life adjustments that can be made out of the box without much fuss. I rarely felt there were issues with the camera or having too many enemies on the screen. The visual design is staggeringly good. I feel like the only thing missing is a soundtrack that goes a bit harder but hey maybe I just missed the good tracks.

Overall the main thing is the game is very satisfying and you can return to the combat much like you would DMC5 or NG2 and get something out of it, even in a short sitting.

As a fan of NG there are spoilers I don't want to put in here but there are some really epic moments. The overall execution is amazing and you very much get that feeling of going from a beginner to a powerhouse by the end of the game.

Overall not bad, some performance issues and confusing mechanics but overall very playable without being crushingly difficult

Great game so far, definitely on the harder end of things for a souls like. Can be a bit complex but overall pretty fun

Fun souls like with interesting mechanics, combo system is interesting and it adds more than one dodge/roll type on top of the parry system. I think special moves would've been more interesting than the beta attack stuff but it's pretty okay. Bosses and monsters have interesting design, env is nice and varied so far, music is well above average

edit: so after completing this and putting a bit more time in it's actually criminal this isn't goty, i think if this had come out on PC in 2024 it would've been a much bigger hit.

80 euro downgrade from eternal, the gunplay is mediocre and is largely overshadowed by the melee system. you can spam combos as much as you want with no repercussions for not using guns. the on rails sections of the dragon, the turrets, etc go on FAR too long. the open world aspect is simply lazy versus actually designing clever levels. secrets are pointed out to you on the map. the story takes a front seat when it couldn't been less relevant.

interesting experiment but hard to recommend this for 80 euro if you're expecting something on the level of eternal

crazy epic

the most helpful review is still 100% accurate. good gunplay and customization but there's no content here