Recent reviews by smolbon

I used to have a negative review of this game up because of my issues with the poise mechanic. At the time, I believed there wasn't one in game. This was for a few reasons. Firstly, the fact that the system was completely overhauled from previous titles. Secondly, the fact that the system they did have was semi-broken. And thirdly, a lack of communication on FROM's part about these changes.

For those that don't know, poise is a value in Souls that stops you from being staggered when hit, which can cancel you out of your attack animations.

The game has been updated a lot since then, and the mechanics at play have been made more clear. The system for poise is extremely convoluted, and it's difficult to understand the math, but it works now. The gist of it is that you only get poise enabled while attacking. The frames it's enabled on are based on your weapon, and the value is based on a combination of your weapon, armor, and whether you've been hit recently.

Having played more than a thousand hours of Dark Souls 1 PvP, I think I understand why they made this change. In Dark Souls 1, poise was active all the time, so you could equip some heavy armor, walk up to someone to bait them into an attack, and just walk through it without staggering as you circle around them to backstab before they can finish their attack animation. On tanky builds, this was absolutely worth it if you got someone to take the bait, but it was kind of cheesy.

I do still have some issues with PvP though. The poise system in 3 has the problem of making every fight feel sort of the same. If you hit somebody with your first attack when they're not in their poise state, or even when they are with some of the more broken heavy weapons, often you just hit the same combination of buttons to do the true combo on your weapon that does the most damage. Imagine if you were locked into a cutscene where you do your fancy combo of hits on someone every time you successfully land a hit. It can feel like that sometimes, since the new poise system heavily encourages unbreakable combos and limits the gameplay variety.

A more important issue is the covenant systems. Specifically the Blue Sentinels and Blades of the Darkmoon. In DaS1, the Blades of the Darkmoon allowed you to invade the worlds of guilty players as a blue spirit of vengence (usually against players who invade and kill) and punish them. It was a lot of fun, and gave an alternate twist on the invasion system. The space cops could come to YOUR world and hunt YOU down.

In this game, the darkmoon blades are split into two covenants. The classic darkmoon blades, and the way of blue. However, both of them operate in the exact same way. You don't invade worlds of the guilty. Instead, you invade active invasions to defend the host against an invader. Not nearly as fun. When you get summoned, nine times out of ten, the host will only want to double-team the invader with you, so you either have to fight him in an unfair way, or let the host die. Neither of which is very satisfying. Don't get me wrong, I think this is a fine idea for a covenant. As a powerful red spirit, it can be fun to cut down blue ones one after another while making your way to the host. Blue sentinels do drop more valuable items than the host, so even if it lowers the chances of killing the host, you are incentivised to target the blues first. Additionally, you get some estus back for each kill, giving you some fuel to keep going if you play well enough. All of that can make for a fun experience. My only question is WHY in GODS NAME did the darkmoon blades need to be an exact carbon copy of this. It's so dissapointing, both from a darkmoon blade perspective, and from a finger of rosaria perspective. Gone are the days when invading had real consequences. Playing an invader in DaS1 and having the darkmoons track you down to your world and fight you on your turf was a great experience. You felt like a wanted man, and an absolute badass if you could fend them off. As a darkmoon, there's no way to punish the guilty in an honorable 1v1 situation, unless the host of the world permits, and even then, they don't lose anything. Not even an ember, like they would lose a humanity in DaS1. It's all safely contained in the invasion. I really wish these two covenants were split to offer both the DaS1 and DaS2 blue experiences, but instead, they've opted for two covenants accomplishing the latter with no noticable differences.

With all that complaining out of the way, the game is really solid. I've had a lot of fun making varied and interesting builds, just like my experience with DaS1. If you're not interested in the PvP like me, and the majority of this review was a massive waste of time for you, I'm suprised you're still reading, but I still reccommend the game. The PvE content is just as solid, and would be worth it on its own. All in all, it's an excellent game, and it would be a shame if you didn't get a chance to play it.

This game gave me cancer
9.5/10 would play again for competitive multiplayer and Hideo Kojima's excellent storytelling.
Would rate 10/10 if the game didn't give me cancer, and included actual snowman building mechanics like it promised.

Step 1: Start in Japan
Step 2: Get Japanese soldier girl
Step 3: Give her bright, neon-colored hair
Step 4: Make her flying anime mecha suit

10/10 can make anime mecha waifu
Would make anime mecha waifu again

I started it off not really knowing what to expect, and thought that it didn't give you enough choices. After classes start up though, the game gets really fun. Learning new spells and finding applications for them is fun. Mostly you will use them to get out of dungeons, which function as exams, but you will also be able to use many of them to unlock unique options in random events, which is an awesome touch. Speaking of random events, there are enough things that happen each week to make the game interesting, and a surprising amount of variety in the situations you can find yourself in. I didn't do a second playthrough for a long time, but it's worth it for some different endings. None of the endings are really "the good ending". They're all a bit open-ended, and all have something about them that you'll have to leave behind. The story is enjoyable; definitely interesting and unique enough to keep you engaged. I like to think that this takes place in some female-oriented alternate dimension of harry potter, what with the whole magical wizard school and professor Grabineer*cough*snape*cough*. But it has enough of its own story elements to set it apart from the universe that it drew much of its inspiration from. The main character is a little bit generic, but you're given enough of your own choices to project your own character onto her. My only real gripe is that you're character alludes to parents and a backstory at several points, but her parents are mostly left blank. Although I do have this theory that the school directors hypnotized them with magic to think that you just went off to boarding school... I mean, it really makes sense, and feels like it's hinted at a couple of times. I digress. The game is great to play with a friend for ♥♥♥♥♥ and giggles, as well as for a couple of serious playthroughs alone. I think all of my friends have played at least halfway through this game when we got bored, and I've played it multiple times, so I feel I definitely got my money's worth.

In short, best game ever 10/10. Buy it or yur a ♥♥♥♥♥.

This game is alright. It has some fun multiplayer mechanics, and used to be an awesome game, but recent updates have completely destroyed the stealth system and now they are just releasing weapon DLC after weapon DLC.

I want my money back. This is not the game I bought.

God those ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ clown dolls. There are 50 of the ♥♥♥♥♥♥' things scattered around steamland in the most rediculous places. On top of inaccessable towers: outside of the map: Inbetween scrunched boxes in a corner: Peeking out of the bottom of a vending machine. ♥♥♥♥ where's Waldo, that ♥♥♥♥ is for ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. This ♥♥♥♥♥♥' ♥♥♥♥ takes hours. ♥♥♥♥ killing zombies, who the hell wants to waste time on that. I'm gonna find and shoot every last one of those ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ if it kills me. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

A very fun, innovative game. Worth your money. Sadly, lacks a playable skeleton.

Very fun game. It doesn't take THAT long to beat, but the gameplay is great, and theres still plenty to do.

Pretty good horror game. It's one of the first of its kind, and really pretty good at what it does, but it can be a little repetative. There are many skeletal body parts for you to find in this game, but unfortunately, no animate skeletons. I would more highly recommend the Penumbra series, which can be found on steam. It's similar in gameplay and made by the same company, but has much more variety.