Recent reviews by Aschente34

while i haven't been playing as long as a few other people: i can say with certain as a long time STALKER player: this is an honestly fun game. It takes the old STALKER style of games and brings it up to modern day aesthetics. Right from the get go, the game hits you with a fight that just shows that the Zone is not a romp in the park. Expect to die. A LOT. Especially if you're new to the STALKER series.

While there are some bugs here and there, most i've noticed is mostly visual issues or failure to load on some assets. A few cutscenes have broken my HUD as well, but generally speaking, saving and reloading has fixed nearly all my issues. Some of the mutants are a lot tankier than needed (it honestly feels like recruit health bars on higher difficulties) but it's relatively easy to get around.

The anomalies, both new and old, are genuinely cool in my opinion and I enjoy just observing some of them from time to time.

I do wish the stats upgrades was a bit more descriptive so they can explain a bit better exactly what they do, but this is more nitpicky than an actual issue.

FInally I do want to say: while there are quiet a few negative reviews out there, I personally have been enjoying every minute of the game and intend to play this for a long time. If you decide to try the game out: DO NOT RUSH THE STORY. The game is honestly best enjoyed exploring the world. The world building isn't like most open world games where there are hundreds of areas with nothing in them. Every area has a bit of a "show don't tell" story to them if you really look around.


edit: at this time, unfortunately my save seems to be bricked. Upon doing research, it seems that completing a quest for Quiet will result in an issue with the save file (though for me, my file didn't have any issues until i got to Zaton and was messing around with some snorks).

Edit 2: the Quiet questline has been fixed! there are still some issues further down the line including a certain locked door (i bypassed it using a console command mod and using noclip commands). but otherwise, game is running smoother and much better than before!

A lot of fun, just wish it was a bit longer; but can't expect that much out've a $5 game... that being said, it's a typical Chillaz Horror game, if you like them then you'll like this

Awesome atmosphere, awesome gameplay, awesome puzzles, and an amazing soundtrack. Diving into the psyche of each person, understanding who they are, and how to heal them wrapped around a lovecraftian horror. It's amazingly good with a gripping story that made me explore every nook and cranny (getting all the achievements in the process).

pros:
Really great game with an overarching psychological horror that is extremely hard to do. it was a bit bland at time, but overall a great ride.

cons:
most of the cons are minor issues/bugs that can be ironed out: i.e. loading from checkpoints causing lag spikes (with bad positioning, it can cause you to take damage accidentally). Also, a certain "puzzle" in the lucas tape was infuriating mostly because i don't like first person platforming but that's just a personal thing really.

overall, a great story and a great game with amazing music. i cannot reccomend this enough.

so for background sake so people know where i'm coming from: I've been playing the tales games since Tales of Eternia on PS1, and have bought and play'n every tales game since, including the JP exclusive games.

This is probably one of the best tales games they've released, with a great battle system, great music, and some AMAZING visuals (wait till you get to the third area for the first time, literal LoZ:BotW intro to the area).
The story is pretty dang good compared to the other tales games (though i still think Abyss wins on the story/character development).
For End game content wise, we get a special boss rush fight culminating into a final fight with a certain someone that gives you some closure to that part of the story, and was challenging and fun! You will also get a special subquest that involves jumping into different dimensions: all of which are references to the past games, and culminates into a semi difficult final fight between a certain pair of siblings, and was just a good time! Along side these: they have brought back the Devil Arms from previous games, something to consider working on later i suppose! There's a few end game subquests that mostly just touch on some small side story stuff. I personally am using the endgame time to finish out the achievement runs, since the game doesn't seem to have any time sensitive content (looking at you symphonia, for locking me out've sword dancer fights!)

The DLC content is a bit pay to winish, but not enough to break the game unlike Tales of Zesteria and a few others that gave you the level up DLC's, this game only gives you some basic starting items (that you'll barely even need towards mid game) decent weapons up until the 3rd area, and some outfits and hairstyles for your characters + accessories. A word of advice however: if you plan to use the giant angel wings, becareful as they will block the screen for certain cutscenes...

all in all, in terms of the tales series in general, i give this one a sold 4/5, it doesn't necessarily hit the mark for perfection, but it's damn near close!

Many people are talking about how they dislike a lot of changes to the game upon release but i would like to say: if you just play the game you'll find it fun. it reminds me of the old action adventure games from back in the day but a lot smoother and more open worldy One of the smaller issues is how the game has all these "secret" areas that require you to use certain items to get through only for most of them to bring you back to areas that you've already been. I feel that these secret areas should hold something akin to a secret boss or a special item or weapon, or even just a stash of ammo, items, health, etc. that being said though, the game is at an early release and you can get to the end of the story at about 1-2 hours currently (though obvious expansions will come considering how far the progress actually is in game.)

my biggest issue atm with the game is how the inventory system works. i understand what they were trying to do with the hotbar, but frankly i think it's just detrimental and prevents you from being immersed in the world. to explain: the hotbar system has boxes for 1-0 to represent the numbers on your keyboard. small items such as your staff, the magic book, and potions only take one slot. larger items such as a sword takes 2 slots, and certain weapons can take up to 3 slots. this means that to carry all these things so you can use them, you have to pause the game by going into your inventory, switch out a weapon with another weapon in your inventory so you can actually use it, unpause and equip that weapon and then you can use it. it just seems so counter intuitive when you talk immersion. I know they drew inspiration from turok so i'd like to reccomend that they consider using the scrolling weapons list from turok or the weapon wheel from Turok: seeds of evil or something, as it'll allow people to try out new ways to play and will help with immersion since you can switch weapons on the fly with this system, allowing you to use more interesting combinations.
as for switching magic: holding F with a magic selection wheel would be better than pressing F to scroll through magics. making it quick and intuitive would allow players more customizability to come up with some interesting combinations to getting the job done.

either way these were just my suggestions that could help with the game, but in the end of the day: i do reccomend this game, and i think it's a lot of fun! I personally cannot wait to see what the creator has in store for us

I cant help on reccomending this game enough, i've been waiting for this game to release on steam for so long, i refused to watch any videos or livestreams about it to avoid spoilers. Finally, getting the game, I spent the first few minutes messing with the controls and what not, and getting irritated with a lot of things. Finally, after landing on Brittle Hollow, i fell in the black hole while looking for Riebeck. Thinking I was dead, I was teleported to the white hole and just sat there staring at the sun (not realizing there was a station there to return you back) I pulled out my signoscope, and I guess I got lucky and got the harmonic convergence achievement as all the instruments played together. At that point, as the sun slowly went into supernova, was the moment I think everything kinda clicked. Everything just kinda felt fresh and new, I noticed new things like how beautiful the sand in the Ash Twin looked or watching brittle hollow slowly fall apart, or even the fear inducing dark brambles, just something about this game is just perfect. It's a great game for just chillin' and having a good time playing as a "space hobo" while streaming it on discord with some friends. All in all, if you like space exploration and chill games, gives this game a shot, it's well worth the money.

it's a really good horror game, it does have some jump scares, but outside of those, the overall atmosphere is great. my biggest problem is the controls as they elected to do the silent hill/resident evil tank controls, but even that's not that bad as it just takes a second to get used to them. other issues are certain new mechanics i.e. like the one in chapter 2 aren't explained very well and took me a second to actually understand what exactly i had to do (though, i am stupid, so...) It's a great lovecraftian horror that I really love playing for sure!

don't play with a gremlin friend. they like to hoard the wood. they like to shove the giant tuna fish into your face. they jump into the water and steal all the barrels.

10/10 would play again

Ended a friendship when i shot my friend in the head while standing inside a machine that changes things into other things. now Mudashir is my friend. I locked him in a room until he accepts me at the nuke room.

So what can i say about this game. I First started out playing this MMO back in 1.0 on, and did not like it. As the game progressed and became A Realm Reborn, I started to play it again. As time passed, I made plenty of friends, and started getting more and more addicted to this game. Fast foreward to this day, and this mmorpg has taken the most of my time out've every game i've playn outside of consoles. Yes, it'll have it's infuriating moments, and as with all mmorpgs, theres always gunna be people whom will irritate you, but if you're willing to work at it, even casually; even you can get to the point where you'll be able to run raids with friends and be successful.

The games learning curve isn't to high, though honestly a lot of classes/jobs do require a bit more of an active role in learning them. Each job has it's own sort've "specialty" to them that makes them different from all the otheres within the same roles. The battle system does take some time to get used to, but the devs are constantly trying to improve each job so they're "easy to learn, difficult to master."

As someone whom frequents mmorpgs quiet often, i find often times that the biggest problems i have when starting a new mmo is when you're trying to do a dungeon only to find that no one is around to party up, and you can't possibly do it on your own. This is not the case with this game, as party of the daily quests is to do what is called "roulettes" where higher leveled players will be placed in random dungeons, and will have their jobs forcibly leveled down to match a "max level" for that dgn. they will recieve exp proportionate to their level, and special currency used to buy higher tier gear while helping lower level players with their dungeons, thereby making it very newbie friendly!

The story is pretty decent once you get to the heavensward story, as it starts to get a bit more darker. A Realm Reborn (ARR) story for the first part of the game is alright, but i found it to be very long and overly tedious (with over 200+ quests, often times making you go back and forth between places.) However, once you get passed the ARR stories, and assuming you bought the DLC's (which i HIGHLY reccomend) the story picks up and gets better and better.

The music is the typical epic music you'd expect from final fantasy, and i promise you'll find a theme here or there that you'll absolutely adore (personally, it's the theme for sophia).

The raiding in game is pretty newbie friendly as well, as they always introduce an easier "normal/hard" mode to give you some basic knowledge on how to do said raid, and they introduce more mechanics as you go into the "extreme" and "savage" raids.

The UI is pretty decent and very customizable, i've found it takes a bit of time to figure out how to navigate some of the options to customize the game, but they offer you many different kinds of customizations from hot bar shapes and placements, to moving all of the ui's, size adjustments, etc.

biggest thing i can really say is a negative is the subscription fee. I won't beat around the bush, the subscription fee isn't very cheap, and it requires you to go onto their mogstation website to get more time... but at the end of the day, it's up to you if you're willing to pay for it; i would like to note that if you buy the game for the first time, you will recieve a 1 month "free" subscription so that will cover you for a bit atleast, and it is very possible to hit max level and raid with people before the month is up.

Finally, biggest thing to note: if you ever decide to play this game and wish to meet me; I play on the primal data center on Brynhildr, and my character name is Remi Aschente. If you ever need assitance or just friendly advice, help with getting dungeons done or anything; feel free to come by and say hi!