Recent reviews by sefith

It's just good at full price bro. Capcom cooked.
I appreciate a new IP instead of some remake or sequel that's more samey.
Performance is as good as you can expect, though RT isn't working for me atm.
Vibes are like Dead Space + Armored Core with unique combat.
There are actually mechanics introduced throughout that keep it interesting.
Replayability and challenges are all there. Fashion is there.
Hooks you, but not addicting. Visuals are great. Story and VA is good.
You can come back anytime or wait for a sale for real value.

9/10

Updated: I'll give a positive review since Intel GPU support was (finally) added.

TLDR; kind of worth on sale and has potential to improve with patches still as PA is pushing them out frequently. I guess they read reviews because they fixed the horrible balance and design issues and crashes I mentioned or experienced. The game is still kind of janky and puzzles vague.

Old review:

So this game released, extremely hyped by everyone, and I never heard about it. But I have poured a sizeable amount of time into Black Desert (off Steam), and after watching some gameplay, thought it sucked. Had nothing else to play at the time, so I decided to try it anyway.

Turns out, it really does suck. Yes, the controls, menus, even graphics are kind of awkward. It really is single player Black Desert, down to the NPC models, animations, and even game mechanics like NPC favorability, knowledge system, and combat. And somehow the skill trees are even more ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ design than expected. At least Black Desert had some thought.

First two skill trees are linked to stats like spirit and stamina, and the skills in each happen to use spirit and stamina. Third skill tree is linked to health, and the only skill you can even upgrade in that tree costs 200 stamina when you start out with like, 160, so you'd need like 3 points in another tree before being able to even use it. Who the hell thought of this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ design with a non-option? I'd rather trade 90% of my health to activate the skill.

But hey, I stopped thinking of all the flaws everyone else has already brought up and just thought of it as a single player action MMO, for lack of a better term. And if you think of it that way, it's about what you would expect from it, where the fetch quests are what they are, and you progress for the sake of the exploration and just enjoy the ride, and suddenly the game doesn't suck as much.

Performance-wise, RT/Regen off, and everything else on High (55fps) or Ultra (45fps) the frame pacing is great and makes up for lack of FSR framegen allowed in use with DLSS. I'd like to see that added as an option but tbh I didn't see much improvement with framegen on (FSR only). Indoors screen space also looks muddy and kind of horrible with this ghosty/blurry feel to the textures, but it's playable.

It's actually probably a decent buy if you just want to not think and explore slowly, without any expectations for compelling story or a cohesive, tight-knit experience crafted for you. It's just not that type of game. People that say it gets good after 8 hours, are wrong. It's more like 25 hours.

good game overall, worth a buy. extended notes:
story - nothing too deep, but cutscenes are cinema. horror portions done well. not too long either.
gameplay - played 1st/3rd mix, very similar to older titles. I disliked the movement which felt delayed, but the environmental interactions were nice.
content - less replayability than RE4make at a glance, but not bad.
enemies - seemingly varied at the start, but later on variety plummets. there was one boss I considered good.
performance - it run fine with some tweaking, might be rough on 8GB vram. there is some traversal stutter in larger areas where the frame pacing is off. EDIT: For nvidia, 595 drivers fixed the artifacting and stutters
graphics - looks better than ever, less gap between high/mid settings.

Not my favorite entry in the series but this is alright

worth it on sale, with an option for a fresh take on camera views. The controls aren't explained well unless you proactively get the dialogue from the Major and check the menu tips. Otherwise it's Kojinema as always

can't recommend the dogwater navigation and camera jank in this game even if the boss combat and art are amazing. Compared to similar games like nine sols or blasphemous, this just doesn't motivate me to continue playing nonstop until completion, and finds me quitting out much more often. Second time I've tried to play it and feel like giving up due to how boring travel is. I'm sure silksong is more polished but this ain't it for everyone bro.

Jeff? I can fix him

TLDR; Good combat and exploration, story mediocre. performance almost like native w/proton.

Bosses/enemies are tedious during the first segment, enjoyable later, and trivial at the end (NG Hard).
Puzzles/platforming are alright but can be jank.
I didn't really care for the main story but the side stories were decent.
No frame drops in combat, cutscenes, or general gameplay unless moving between areas where game seems to not discard previous area from memory. Restart of game will fix it, rarely becomes an issue.
Play with CN voice or something, I couldn't handle the English but personal preference

having to metagame to understand how a game mechanic works, then finding out its based on audio cues that have zero accessibility accommodations, just to solo a simple mission after a long break wtf. fix ya game DE

have not lost a thumb war since buying
thumbs up

I moved to Linux but this is still goated. No idea about the fate of my reverb G2 though