Recent reviews by MachineZenic

I never really played a factory game other than trying factorios demo, so I can't speak to how this compares to the other factory games. I like it a lot. Nice artstyle, interesting expansion mechanics, no issues with performance and only a single minor bug.

I think it would be cool if they added a few more decorative things in the future, but as it is now I think it's very good for the price they ask.

I was concerned about the direction the game was headed when I heard it was open world (or field as they would say), but actually for a game like nioh where you collect loot constantly it makes exploring very worthwhile. This is Nioh: Elden Ring edition really, that's how it feels. It feels like Nioh but in an open world.

I have a few things I wish I could change, like how I wish there were more returning yokai from the previous games, I wish Tonfa wasn't ninja mode exclusive because it was one of my favorite weapons and I loved the full moveset. I'm also sad that because of the environment graphics upgrade we probably won't see any of the old locations used as a mission again. I would have liked to run around some of the old levels with my new abilities just for the sake of having the extra content.

Despite all that I think they somehow did what I believed was impossible, they found a way to make the Nioh combat feel fresh while still feeling like Nioh, and Ninja mode is largely the reason why. It feels like a new layer of complexity when I expected it to be more of a dumbing down, and in the end I can say there's not a lot more satisfying than weaving ninja stance into combat like a 4th stance that plays like ninja gaiden.

I think the highest praise I could say about this game is that after just finishing it now at 77 hours the first thing I want to do now is play it again and try something new. Mihi placet.

The second entry gives up a LOT of it's original ideas in order to be more like smash bros, the plus side is that this game is trying so hard to be smash bros that it feels just as polished in most areas. The roster is very strange though, counting DLC characters ATLA reps have 3 firebenders. They really dropped Toph to add THREE firebenders. I don't know what they were thinking there. It makes the roster feels smaller than the first game despite being actually larger.

On the plus side this game has a ton of singleplayer content compared to the first, it took a lot of the ideas that smash bros has used such as "break the targets" and the classic mode with boss fights. Even as a single player game I could recommend this it's pretty fun and challenging on higher difficulties.

Fun game, worth picking up on sale just to play with the characters. It has a good roster and some interesting ideas put into it. As far as a proof of concept goes for a nickelodeon smash bros this was on point. It lacks single player content so it's not a very good game for a solo player. Very fun to fight your friends in.

Fun but really not worth more than 5$, get it on sale for sure. It's more repetitive and grindy than I expected it might be, kind of fitting considering the name.

Really fun combat model in this. I actually wish there was a western gacha game because it's kind of annoying playing a game where every character's name is a mix of xuan qi feng chi li cheng. Yes I know not ALL of them have chinese names but at least in the early storyline it is most of them.

I wonder to myself whether the reason gacha games work is specifically because of the anime aesthetic contributing to highly stylized characters and exceedingly dramatic story and I think it might be the case. A realistic gacha would probably fail because the characters would be too boring in their design, I think anime cringe might be specifically what makes gacha games work as a business model.

Anyway I like the game it's really good, the production values in this one are crazy high. The only place there are regular mistakes is the translated english text sometimes has typos. The graphics in this are the best I've ever seen in any anime style game which is pretty nice considering the combat might also be the best skill based action combat in any gacha.

If you want an idea of how much work is put into each character you can play, there are transition animations when you stop attacking and in your basic attack combo this animation is different depending on which attack in your combo you stop your attack on, and furthermore these animations are different for every character.

Disappointing. I think technically the game is pretty impressive, but I hated the writing and the shallow rushed character relationship systems where literally every character will offer to ♥♥♥♥ you after 2 interactions but if you ever turn them down no matter how gently you cannot change your mind later in game. I also found the combat annoying because every encounter you are outnumbered and die in 2 hits. Because everything is a dice roll you basically have to cheese every fight or savescum your way through it.

If I could refund this I would, but it's a 5/10 game for me I definitely am not interested in anything else these guys put out. It's a decent enough game if it's your type of game, but everything I was hoping to get from the game (deep character interactions and a combat system which isn't just gambling on every attack) was the exact thing I didn't want. It's pretty rare for me to go into a game expecting to really like it and I end up finding myself struggling to want to keep playing.

I recommend this if you're not me.

Interesting experience. Very difficult as you would expect, it almost wants you to find the cheesiest strategy to play because almost nothing else works which I think is kind of unfortunate. If you're the type of person who wants to just chill and still win all the time this game is definitely not going to be fun for you.

I like what they are going for here, sometimes I don't replay dark souls or elden ring because I think of all the busywork you have to do to build a character, but nightreign gives you the same experience condensed into a single match which is cool. The fact that it is basically forced multiplayer is contentious for some but I always wanted souls games to have a better co-op functionality rather than the fishing hook into the void method they have always done, so I do like that they finally built a game around the coop idea.

I think the game should have maybe been a bit cheaper for what it is, other than that I am enjoying it and I hope they add some more characters in the future.

Fun typing game honestly, might keep it installed.

Got the first two levels on the first try at the hardest difficulty, third one seemed impossible at first but I got it eventually. If you didn't beat this on the hardest difficulty you don't really care about the Emperor you're just a poser.

Well I finally finished the game. I dread that I might end up writing a novel for a review but I have a lot of thoughts about the game.

I remember a lot of the controversy around the game when it first released, primarily buggyness but also subtle changes in the design of what was first advertised as an open world game inspired by the tabletop game. Now I couldn't give two ♥♥♥♥♥ about the game was supposed to be, only what it is. As a side note I also think tabletop rpgs are tedious and boring, and trying to do justice to a tabletop game with a video game is at odds with its own goal.

This game is not a 10/10, but it's so ambitious, reaches for so many cool concepts, and has a level of detail and inspired design that I wouldn't even try to argue with someone claiming it is a 10/10. This game is still prone to bugs, but I had a very smooth experience overall and really enjoyed almost every aspect.

I think the potential this game has is in the life simulation aspect honestly. What I didn't expect going in was to find out this game is basically a first person GTA game, and honestly comparing this to the last GTA game I played (vice city) this feels like a proper modern day version of it. What I wish the game COULD be, is an extremely in depth world sim where you play a character completely of your own choosing. I think modern AI tools would be absolutely key in making this a reality. Imagine if you could interact with a random person in night city and behind the scenes an AI would generate a personality based on that NPC's social archetype, then it would save this person and remember them so you could talk to them again.

Now imagine you could take that further and the more you talked to one of these saved NPCs the more the AI would integrate them into your game, such as giving them a job, a history, preferences, romance options & so on, essentially I believe you could turn any random citizen into a potential character in your game with the power of AI and clever use of a dynamic memory bank that saves NPCs you talk to and forgets ones you don't over time, effectively making it so if you like one of the NPCs you just need to keep interacting with them when you see them so they show up more. To top all of that off the NPCs all have an AI voice that essentially turns them into a sophisticated chat bot, you don't get predetermined chat options, you just type what you want to say or hell just have voice recognition software integrated into it. There's so much more possible with this type of game now, I really do think this sort of tech is the next logical step for games like this.

My biggest gripe with the game is lack of depth, if you can't tell already. I get it, it's not an RPG as it was originally proposed as, it is a narrative driven action game, most of the dialogue choices you get are just different ways to say the same thing except during really big story moments, but you're playing a mostly fixed character in this world. I would say this game was more inspiring than it was impressive, because I see the skeleton of what could be. The lack of choice and dynamic interaction was exemplified by the romance options in my eyes. Because everything has to be recorded and scripted there really isn't much there at all. I think the options that are there are good characters I just wish there were more options. I wish there were more ways to interact with the characters in the world, it's disappointing to see a cool looking character but you can't do anything other than hear their 2 generic greeting lines. I mean you can kill them but that's hardly an interesting interaction.

As it stands I recommend the game as a cyberpunk GTA game. It's got insane production values, beautiful graphics, really interesting if a bit janky combat. The map is so big and dense it's a shame they never really make full use of all the cool areas they built for this game, not that the game is lacking for things to do. It's weird to think this but I think this game's most impressive feature is the traffic and pedestrian systems which work great like 90% of the time. You can drive around like you would IRL and it actually mostly works.

TL;DR I think this type of game would be improved wildly if we actually lived in a cyberpunk dystopia, but alas we don't and so you'll be happy with your fancy cyberpunk GTA because it's about the best we can pull off right now.