Recent reviews by [侍] FLx

Yes yes yes.
Incredibly cheap, insane amount of content, doesn't take itself too seriously.

A masterpiece - for your wallet.
After beating the final boss for the first time, I thought I might have experienced most of the game.
Then I tried our wild mods and oh my god there is an unreal amount of whacky ♥♥♥♥ to try out.
By the way: the achievements (or at least most of them) are cryptic af or damn hard.

While I do have a few small to medium issues with the game, it is still a clear recommendation.
As I am writing this review, I am nearing the endgame.

This game ticks most Hollow-Knight cravings.
- Metroidvania exploration
- hand-drawn art-style
- challenging platforming
- great soundtrack
- Japanese folk lore
- cute/funny side characters

- combat is all about being airborne, which ends up being pogo 24/7
- same goes for large platforming sections
- this results in some bosses (and sections) being obnoxious
- Daruma (special attack) doesn't feel satisfying / doesn't really interlock with anything else
- many Omamori (Charms) feel weak/useless
- steam achievements for 100% are annoying
(no death run, no heal run, airborne full boss fight, clear twice, ...)

All things considered, this scratches an itch and is well worth the price tag imo.

Review is a work in progress, will update. // First area and legacy dungeon complete so far
I would love to give a neutral review, but at this point in time, it is negative.
-> Updated on 27.6.:

Changed the review to positive.
Slight increase to player power - just the nudge I needed.
More game time revealed the aburd complexity and size of the map and I am hooked again.
Try fingers but hole and praise the sun!

FromSoft explained that they were trying to make the game more accessible.
Their approach seems to be to make every story detail obvious and give long explanations, ruining the immersion and moving away from their usual storytelling. For some reason this is the only thing they did with regards to accessibility.
Elden Ring received criticism for having high damage - SotE cranks this up to 11.
Almost every single enemy one- or twoshots you, even at 60 vigor and Tree Sentinel armor.
I want to die to bosses over and over again to figure out their moves.
I don't want every single villager mob to instakill me.

The environments looks pretty, sure, but the spirit like nature of objects makes them look glitchy and pixelated at times.
Compared to the base game, some areas feel completely empty.
Running circles on horseback for 10 minutes to find an encampment feels bad when clearing it yields no reward.
With the absence (or extreme scarcety) of caves etc, exploring the empty overworld feels even worse.

As many others have stated, the game crashed every now and then while loading times (especially at startup) have increased by a lot.
Stutters are also a thing, although not as frequently for me.

Great boss design as always. Interesting (but empty) areas for the most part. Beautiful scenery (except for the pixel-art transparency).

Easily the best game I have ever played.

They don't make 'em like this anymore - what an incredible experience!
Without spoilers: this game encourages the player to keep pen and paper ready to make notes - an amazing design choice, perfectly executed.
While a bit on the short side, it is well worth the price!

A masterpiece - for your wallet.
I don't play that many isometric Action-Adventure games, but this one is damn good.
Funny and clever at times, but always visually pleasing with fun puzzles and interesting combat.

First off: I understand why people like this game and I don't think it is bad, but it is just not what *I personally* expected/wanted.
I refunded the game after the first hour.

My expectation: God of War in New England - fighting monsters/ghosts, exploring, smooth gameplay, gripping story.
vs
My impression: Murder mystery detective game with combat that doesn't deserve the name.

Aside from it just not being the type of game I enjoy, I had a few other, smaller issues, even in the first hour:
1. Everything about this game feels floaty, especially the movement.
2. Combat seems to be shoehorned in (smash R1 and rejoice).
3. Lip sync is off, which is weird, since dialogue seems to be such a huge focus of the game.
4. General aspects about the lore (and the main duo) are unclear or too vague - at the same time, there is a huge amount of notes etc. to gather additional info while you still lack the most essential knowledge about how the world works.

If you have a person that you like in your life, play this with them.
Husband, wife, friend, sibling, business colleague, it doesn't matter.
This game is beyond incredible.

Currently waiting for my refund request to be processed.

Having only played Nier Automata but not the original Nier, Drakenguard, etc, I must say my experience in the first 3 hours was so bad I had to request a refund, even if it might not be accepted.
I really wanted to like this game, since I really enjoyed Automata, but I just couldn't.

The story so far was "sister sick, sad. 1400 years later: sister still sick, sad." and nothing else.
Combat is incredibly boring, systems are layered upon eachother pointlessly and with the absurd amount of tedium, I had yet to find anything enjoyable at all after 3 hours.
If your game "gets good after 10 hours", why should anyone play/waste those first 10?