Recent reviews by Brender

misclick

Best playing game in the Monster Hunter duology. It's fast paced and you have lots of freedom with the movement. And that's all that's good really, it's fun for a while.

The game runs out of content way too fast. When you get to High Rank every monster is reused, because you have already fought all of them. There are maybe 5 new ones but they aren't part of the main quest rotation, they only appear during urgent quests and roam around the maps sometimes. And no matter what Monster Hunter fans try to tell you, adding a few new moves and increasing the stats of old monsters is still recycling content and boring.

Rampage quests are also the worst thing they have ever done, and many of them are mandatory.

I hope the third game, Wilds, is better. Just like the persona trilogy, where Persona 5 is the best one. But other than that this game is just not good enough.

While I enjoyed it, I cannot recommend it or call it high quality. This is the perfect example of why steam needs a piss coloured mixed review option that doesn't affect the review score. FromSoftware has once again made some of the most memorable epic gaming moments ever, with some of the deepest lore and unique direction... all for them to have learnt absolutely nothing from Elden Ring and going against their own foundations of design. I really liked it, but it is not good.

It is just more Elden Ring, specifically late-game. That means more of the strong art direction, detailed world and item descriptions, and more of the big bosses, enemy "diversity" and weapons.
But it also means more of the problems that plague late-game elden ring, in some cases it's even amplified.

The skibidi-scadu system is terrible and unengaging. Progressing your character is one of the best things about RPG games, and now it has been dumbed down to the point where you upgrade yourself like you upgrade flasks. It is too linear for an RPG game while the individual levels themselves don't offer much to make you feel powerful.
And at the same time you need a bunch of skibidi-scadu levels to actually enjoy the DLC. Initially the balancing is like end-game but turned up to eleven, and as you collect skibidi-scadu you even out the playing field. This is just not how you are supposed to do things. The point of progression is to have the playing field be even at most times, while rewarding players who go out of their way to create unique builds and clearing optional challenges. The skibidi-scadu goes against this basic RPG game design and seemingly contradicts fromsoft's established design philosophy.

NPCs and subquests are once again vague and stupid. While the game does give you plenty of notes to direct you, it is clear that they were written by developers who know the entirety of the map and assume the player does as well. The fingie quest will give you maps that are incredibly obvious where they point to, since the fingie locations already stand out on their own on the map. But other notes will direct you to areas like you have already visited them, instead of leading you to them. That combined with the fact that you have to do dumb steps like dying to the same thing four times in a row to progress quests, and having to do a random emote at a statue to unlock entire areas, leads to Shadow of the Erdtree being another wiki game.

Lastly, there are some stand out enemies. Fire knights, who are basically bosses laid out all over the place. Fire knights have a stupid amount of poise that their armour shouldn't achieve in the first place, they have incredibly long combos with really fast start-ups, they have fast fire balls so you can't outrange them, and their dodges damage you somehow. The only time I was able to kill these guys consistently was when I returned to them with around 15 skibidi-scadu and a strength build.
And of course, the final boss. He has 5 gorbillion health, deals 10 scamillion damage, and he has 15 morbillion hit combos that are sometimes literally undodgeable. I would like to think they designed him like this on purpose as an incarnation of everything that is wrong with elden ring, but it is clear they are not aware of anything or playtest their game since one of his signature moves kills your framerate instead of your character. Overcome all of that to get an ending cutscene that would've served better as a cutscene to introduce the boss itself, that just makes the main DLC quest seem like a roadbump in the grand scheme of things.

The new weapons are really cool though.

bleeeeeh it's ugly!!!

The original Shin Megami Tensei V was already the best playing JRPG, and the Vengeance version manages to improve on it. ATLUS is taking advantage of their decades of JRPG experience to make the most mechanically dense take on "simple" turn based combat, while other franchises like Final Fantasy feel the need to make things fresh by changing their systems with every new release. SMT3 was genre defining, and ATLUS took the opportunities they had to expand on it's systems with SMT4 and SMT4A, while also learning from their mistakes (smirk). Thus SMT5V is the closest we have ever gotten to what I would consider perfect JRPG combat.

Of course there are still small hiccups in balancing, like dampeners being super affordable. It's like they knew how powerful dampeners were when they decided to limit how many you can carry to 3, but you can still just buy them at any leyline fount for pocket change.
And once again magatsuhi skills are too niche. It being a frequently used base mechanic means you must give the player access to a good one from the start. But it just ends up overshadowing the rest. You even get access to a situationally better one when you become purplebino. There are rarely moments where you would pick a race's magatsuhi skill over party-wide guaranteed critical hits or repeating the nahobino's action four times.
Same goes for the new demon exclusive magatsuhi skills, I didn't even use them to try them out, because they don't even sound good on paper. The non-nahobino magatsuhi skills just end up as glorified signature skills, they just do stuff that you can already do but at a slightly elevated level, while consuming the resource you could've used for crits.

Other parts of the gameplay are also extremely strong and especially fun, like the progression. With the amount of gospels, incenses and more that drop it is clear that the developers really want to make the player feel powerful. This game really makes you feel like a nahobino. While the other games in the series mostly just make you fell like some dude, sure you're still super powerful and reshaping the world, but the demi-fiend is just a guy in shorts, and the other 3 protagonists are guys wearing cosplay. But I must admit the long hair on bluehobino looks pretty ugly in game, purplebino is way cooler.

And while the exploring is fun and rewarding, it's not really exploring. You're not really finding anything, more like following maps icons and obviously telegraphed paths. While the rest of the art direction is incredibly strong in this game, all the areas still feel the same, even with the awful Chiyoda replaced with Shinjuku. SMT 1, 2 and 4 truly feel like worlds that are alive, while 3's world feels completely desolate, these games nail what they are going for. But this game feels like some weird in-between of a thought out populated world and a lonely wasteland. You're thrown into an undeveloped world with a bunch of soulless ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, exploring to find loot for you character, not to learn anything. The sidequests rarely do anything to expand on the world. I'm fighting the archangel Michael, why? Because the chaos guy told me to. And then that leads to nothing.
All of the "exploring" and side content is fun and leads to amazing gameplay, but it should be used to expand on the world and tell stories that go further than dealing with two demon's holding a grudge.

The vengeance plot is an improvement over the original, mostly because it just scraps undeveloped concepts. But oh boy it's not good either. The majority of the story is dedicated to the Qadistu messing up your day and giving you lore drops in their little pocket dimension. Other moments are spent with Tao and Yoko arguing if eating beans is morally wrong. This is great for their characters and makes the final battle between them feel very satisfyi-
Oh wait. Nah, they put Lucifer as the final boss in every ending except destroying the throne.. but I'll get to that later.
Most of the game is a huge set up for the Qadistu and their vengeance (heh) against the bull god for creating the throne. Which is good worldbuilding and lore compared to the original story.

If you choose to side with the Qadistu your enemy will be Mastema, and man he sucks in this game. His motivation and goal are solid like always, but he just gets no screen time. He acts an avatar of the great will to uphold the mandala system. But because the Qadistu get all the screen time, he kind of just sits in spectator mode doing weirdo stuff all game until the end where he has to butt in because "noooo you can't create a world of chaos you're so sexy aha" and his cool guy moment is part of a sidequest. The sidequest where he fuses into Satan, who seems like a really powerful entity in this universe, only serves to let the player reach level 150 for the new NG+ option. This is the perfect opportunity to have a "true ending" but no, there's just law and chaos.

Speaking of screen time. The rest of the cast get barely any. The hat scene is back and instead of being tempted by Abdiel because he's a baby, he just does a 180 in character because Mastema gave him power. Yuzuru is now more involved with the Egyptian branch because it's part of the main scenario quests, but he just ends up getting killed. So you kind of get less connected to the characters, which doesn't matter that much since they got no development in the orignal, and more connected to the world.

And lastly Lucifer. What an ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ man! Just like in the original game, he has a line of dialogue when you become a nahobino, and then he does nothing until he randomly decides to show up at the end to tell you about a completely new plot device you knew nothing about, the mandala system. What made this worse was the fact that you had no idea about it unless you got the so called true ending, but they did improve this by putting a single phase Lucifer fight in every ending, except when destroying the throne. It is a common theme in all megaten games that the great will is always a step ahead and the world is doomed to be in a cycle yadda yadda. But this is such a terrible execution! The point is that you want to break the cycle, but when it is saved for just until the end it feels like the game is just showing you the finger. Only three of the endings actually break the world from the mandala system, without actually getting rid of the system itself, which is boring as hell.

I know this review was mostly critical, but this is still one of the best games I have ever played. All the pros listed in other reviews massively outweigh the cons.

It sucks. Even with low standards from reading reviews it disappoints.

Even with fan patches the game crashed and took steam down with it multiple times in just the first few scenes. And then when you actually get into the game, after running it in low res windowed which isn't even centered on your monitor, then the game is just a more jank version of FF13. The audio is compressed to PS1 levels, the UI is blurry in 1080p somehow, and the controls are an attempt at giving the player more freedom compared to FF13, but they feel significantly worse.

The terrible first impressions even carry over into the story. Yet again square enix have decided to make a sequel to a mainline FF that does nothing right. Just like FF10-2, this game throws all the established properties of the first game out the window for new characters, new soundtrack and new overall tone to tell a story with time travel. Although this is highly speculative, since I haven't really gotten into these two games. You don't even play as lightning in this game, she is in all the promotional art and all that, but nope, you have to play as her stupid sister who gave her the "worst birthday ever" in the original, the same girl who gets turned to crystal in the first few hours in the original, the literal plot device who's only function is to be the kid Snow loves and Lightning shouldn't have taken for granted.

For gods sake even the guys who were tasked to make the trailer advertising the "enhancements" of the PC port couldn't play the game. All the screenshots and footage on the store page are from the opening scene, you can't make this ♥♥♥♥ up.
I would rather play persona 3!

Still from playing FF13, the trilogy has a lot of potential and I want to give it another chance one day.

eh the game was a pretty repetitive grind... the enemies were boring, the maps were boring, the objectives especially were just bad, the progression was slow, and the guns were not unique.

and now people in bingusville can't even play, maybe you shouldn't have sold the game in that region to begin with!!!

Watch a streamer play it, it's gonna be more fun because it has chat and reactions.

While it has good analogue horror for fans of that (NOT ME!!!) and cool art, it is a bad videogame. There are no stakes, there is no progression because every event is a one time thing, and there is no way to interact with anything except the logs and the submit button. The most engaging part of this experience is the prank caller because he is the only one who returns more than once. Other than that it's just repeating the same steps:

Person calls, "they got my kid!!! they got him after he said [descriptive thing] and he did [descriptive thing] i don't know what to do! I was told to call this number you gotta do something!"
You answer right, nothing happens. You answer wrong they call back.
"My kid is dead!!! ARGGG!! YOU KILLED MY CHIIIILDDD! What am I gonna do? AAAAAAGGHHH!"
or
"Hey idiot you didn't help at all! My kid is still gone and now my place smells like [descriptive thing] and i'm feeling all [descriptive thing] nice job dumb dumb! Never calling back!"
I'm surprised they didn't pull a "it's right behind me isn't it?"

It gets old really fast especially when some of them are so incredibly vague even the second call revealing you got it wrong doesn't tell you much. And the only thing that kept me going was seeing the ending, which wasn't worth it.
The bad ending gets shown in the trailer, yeah you've probably seen it then, surprise factor completely gone!!! The good ending is predictable in outcome, you can tell it's a cult on like the third day, it's in your face and poorly written. But hey the execution of it wasn't predictable, the good ending is all silly and fun to contrast the tone of the game, which is fine and all but it was not worth playing it for that.

Anyway if anyone knows who they used for the Wendy picture please let me know, I need to DM her some important information!

I don't know if they did it on purpose but you can skip every random encounter in tartarus and just do the major battles and still have enough levels for story events. Of course this is very disengaging and just turns the game into a bad visual novel with random decently polished megaten combat thrown in every month.
I still recommend doing it if shadow combat is getting old for you, as it always does, because shadows have no personality and there is no way to interact with them, just badly designed enemies overall and it sucks they reuse so many of them.

I specifically said that the combat is decently polished because shifting (baton pass) is broken, and so is theurgy (magatsuhi skills) you can always just avoid using them if you don't like it, but it's still something that should be critiqued.

Anyway, I recommend this game still, but only for beginners to JRPGs and anime fans. While persona fans love to claim it's dark and deep it still has all the anime stuff like an hour long beach segment where you are forced to hit on girls, a wit studio animated shower scene of a teenage girl, and a hot spring scene where the genders get mixed up. It doesn't matter if you put death, self harm and suicide in this game because it's still persona and it's incredibly cheesy. Nothing can make me take The gang getting crucified and watching Mitsuru's dad get shot seriously, some of these scenes are just terribly executed and goofy, and it's only amplified by the voice acting.
The only good scene is when the teacher finds out you have been edating each other, it's so bad it's funny and the (JP) dub of it has severe contrast to the rest of the game being all serious anime mode. No, I'm not spoiler tagging that, you deserve to have it spoiled it's so bad.

Now I get that music is subjective and all, but this OST has been downgraded from bad to baddddd. The remixes just sound weak and it's odd that they decided to keep the midi horns. The main vocalist went from exaggerated vocals to baby's first vocals, sure it has better English pronunciation but it has just lost a bunch of energy. And Lotus Juice is still maybe the worst rapper ever, he could definitely spit some so called "bars" if a sentient human being wrote the songs, but he is out here rhyming biz with biz so there is no hope.

So it's a high quality remake that makes the worst game I have ever played tolerable. It's probably up there with persona 5 in the hall of mid JRPGs, and it definitely surpasses P5 because it's from before they started doing that stupid mascot thing. Jack Frost will always be the true mascot and Morgana and Teddy should stay on e621 where they belong.
If you haven't played many JRPGs, enjoy anime and/or are 15 years old, try it out! If you are normal, emulate the original first to see if you are interested in the story or themes, because games are stupid expensive and the steam refund time limit is not well fit for RPGs!!!

Also Junpei sacrificing himself to kill Nyx is a really odd writing decision??? Like yeah I always wanted him dead, but that is such a weird thing to rewrite...

Proudly leaving a review so my friends can see I bought this!