Recent reviews by Joe Steel

Kunimitsu

Edit: ♥♥♥♥ all FTTAWSBFTMA archetype characters

One of the best third-person shooters with super divers options to play the game.

The story is unfinished because Konami is a terrible company that fired a great man with a great vision.

Graphically the game holds up well and it runs good too (I mean, it managed 60fps on the PS4 and it didn't even sound like a damn jet engine).

The game has some great socialist and anti-war themes, as to be expected from Comrade Kojima.

Can definitely recommend.

Edit: I ended up finishing the game and I realized something. The Dark Souls series and Elden Ring, they aren't good games. They are genuinly some of the worst RPGs my hard drive has witnessed. The balancing is completely off, you're either demolishing the enemy or the enemy demolishes you, unless you take the time to learn literally every enemy animation by heart. My conclusion now is, this game and the Dark Souls Series is the Earth Defense Force of RPGs, just without a lot of the fun of it. I'd still recommend Sekiro though, that game was genuinly good. Also, it's been almost a month since the release and the developers did ♥♥♥♥ all about the horrible netcode or the broken performance. Stay away from this disappointment.


Right now the performance is unbearable during some fights, one of the first optional bossfights being a prime example. And honestly, this level of graphical fidelity doesn't warrant poor performance. I can run the better looking Death Stranding better than I can run this, especially since we still get that wonderful 60fps lock we've been stuck with almost a decade now.

The exploration is fun generally, but the side dungeons are the same trash they were in Skyrim, all of similar design, often the same enemies, very basic puzzles, if any at all.

The world map is *horrible*, there is almost no consideration for whether you are actually on the top layer or in a dungeon or non-dungeon cave.
The bossfights... are weird. They feel like they are designed for the gameplay of Sekiro, some don't feel like Soulslike bosses at all, the same goes for some other bosses before Elden Ring, but regardless, the bosses generally don't seem to fit into the game, using openings goes punished more often than in DS3 even, which looks like said attempt at an Sekiro-esque flow, which just doesn't work with an RPG not designed around that parry mechanic, in my opinion at least.

The bosses also found a new love for AoE attacks and running attacks, which are both more Monster Hunter things I'd say. Not like AoE wasn't a thing in other Soulslikes, it just wasn't on essentially every boss, and avoiding it is way harder than it usually is.
The cost of an open world sadly seems to be that you're going into most areas underleveled, as the enemies drop way less runes than they did drop Souls in past games, and you never really know where exactly you should be for your level of progression either.
Weapon customizability is through the roof and literally better than ever. Faith builds are actually kinda fun now.

I'm not sure whether you should bother leveling Vigor at all, unless you plan to go all out on it and stay with your starting weapon, leveling Vigor seems to barely impact your health at all anymore unless you pump a good 15 to 20 levels into it.

The coop still has stupid location restrictions. We had to put up with a horrible coop mechanic for 11 years now (counting the 3 years Dark Souls 1 multiplayer barely worked in the first place). Just let people play their games together man.

The camera is still as horrible as 11 years ago, especially when backed into a wall. Learn from Rocket League. And maybe vary camera distance when facing big enemies. Learn from Monster Hunter World.

After 11 years we finally have a dedicated jump button. Congrats, the movement has advanced to the level of 1980s gaming. Beyond this, the controls are mostly fine.

You get a horse to quickly traverse the overworld. Except for when you play co-op. Or get invaded. Even offline invasions by NPCs. This obviously really sucks, controls of the horse are generally fine though, I think the weapon controls in particular were solved elegantly. Vertical traversal of the world is still a *huge* pain in the ass though, but that might be subject to change later into the game? I don't know yet.

"Death" is now replacing Curse from DS3 as a status. I generally hate insta-kills in all games in all forms, unless it's something like Titan Souls, so I enjoy DS2s solution of Curse reducing Max HP temporarily the most... buuut it still has petrification as a replacement, what the hell guys.

Considering all this, I can't recommend the game, especially not at it's current price. If the framerate issues are fixed, I'll liiiightly tip to "Yes" but probably not enough to recommend it. I feel past the original Dark Souls no subsequent game has been able to capture the same magical first time experience that made me want to experience and look through almost every small crevice of the interconnected map.
I think Elden Ring and Bloodborne are definitely closer to this than both Dark Souls 2, 3 and Sekiro though especially since DS3 didn't even have a traversable interconnected map. It's a shame a lot of the basic gameplay mechanics like the camera for example simply have not been designed well or improved on in ER.

Short and sweet game with some very likable personalities, can definitely recommend it, but with that game length, definitely wait for a sale.

I got this game out of nostalgia because I played it when I was like 3 to 4 years old. I was incredibly hyped for this to come out. That being said, I hated the Remake. It wasn't anything the Remake did per se, it was just... playing this made me realize I hated the original as well? Nearly every level gave me a feeling of "oh ♥♥♥♥ not this again", except for like 2 or 3 of them and I wasn't exactly hooked on those either.

At the time of me playing the original, I only had access to 4 games and as a then more avid Spongebob watcher, this was the first game I ever 100%ed. Twice. I loved it at the time but some levels I dreaded more than others even then, namely the Beach and the Jungle. ♥♥♥♥ the Jungle.

I personally can't genuinly recommend this game because of my hindsightful experience, telling me I hated everything about it even back then? It's really weird to me. That being said, you might still very well enjoy this game, it's mechanically all well. Another game I played back then was the original Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy. It is conceptually exactly the same, but I guess the differences do add up, as I still generally love that game.

Anyway, yeah, buy it or don't buy it, just don't be too hyped.

I played this game around 1 to 2 years ago and I still cannot name a better overall video game experience. The game felt worth twice it's release price. Buy the game and if you can't, save for this game instead of whatever else you were saving for.

nö

In a Movement based game the Movement mechanics need to feel natural, fluid and the controls need to be perfect.

Lets just say a dash that *always* propels you forward instead of being directional and midair dodges *requiring* you to go into slow motion are just about the worst ideas in a fast paced movement game ever. I like everything else about the game but this one small mechanic ruins it for me. Right now I cannot recommend the game.

In the current state I cannot recommend this game with a good will. I, more commonly than ever, experience disconnects, an inability to join the lobby of friends but being able to invite them, totally random packet loss issues (usually it's 0 but I had one match where it went to ninety ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ seven percent package loss. How the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥?), being in a lobby with a friend and not joining into the game while they *do* join into the game. I also only have *any* of these issues with this game only so I have high doubts there are issues on my end, unless a Apex Lobby is more demanding than an entire match in any multiplayer game I ever played. As for the game itself, it's a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Titanfall in less balanced and with more third parties and some more or less likable personalities, the balancing and virtually all server issues get worse each season with the only one that has improved a *little* being the packet loss issue. The issues were present on both Steam and Origin version, even upon file checks and reinstalls. Think I remember it being less bad on the PS4 but I stopped playing on that when crossplay dropped.

Conclusion: This game makes you desire death so much, you become a Persona 3 character. Play Titanfall 2 instead, the worst thing that can happen is a Spitfire camper or a max level Kraber player. Both nowhere near as frustrating as half an hour in this piss poor excuse of software

I cant recommend this absolute gem more, its a really fun Hack and Slash games where the Personas where incredibly well implemented (take a piece of that, P5A), the story and setting are really interesting up until now and there are some new nice leveling mechanics as well that do improve the experience quite a bit in my opinion, as you can now get new Personas on par with the rest of your team level wise if you did the grinding.

Like Hack and Slashes? Get it.

Like Persona (5)? Get it.

Like both? Get it, but press the buy button with twice the amibition.

Also P5R for PC, pretty please?