Recent reviews by Stealthbat

TLDR: If you're a fan of Gundam or past Breaker games, this game is for you. Otherwise, you might struggle to like it.

Intro:
I've been a long time fan and player of the Breaker series. I've played Gundam Breaker 1,2,3, New, & 4. All on Playstation consoles. This is the first time I've been driven to play a Breaker game on PC. While I was playing Breaker 4 on PS5, I was encountering quite a few performance issues. For transparency, I was playing Gundam Breaker 4 using a physical copy I bought for my PS5 Slim (Disc drive model). Most of the game ran fine. However, near the end of the game the FPS was dropping down to somewhere around 15 frames per second. Yeah. On a PS5. I couldn't stand it and also couldn't justify getting the PS5 Pro at the retail price. So I bought it here on Steam.

Review:
Playing on PC has been a MUCH Smoother experience than on PS5. My DualSense controller is instantly recognized (via USB) and all the on screen icons show exactly as if I was playing on Playstation. Also, so far, I've ran into ZERO problems with performance (I will be listing my PC's Specs at the bottom of this review). I am deeply enjoying Gundam Breaker 4 on PC. I have only gotten through about 12 missions so far but I can tell this is the platform I will be playing this game on going forward. I already enjoyed this game on PS5, even with it's performance issues. I will warn anyone reading that this game is pretty repetitive. If you're not already a gundam fan or a fan of the previous Breaker games, I would say there is a decent chance you may struggle to enjoy this game.

Final Verdict:
I give this game a 9.5/10 as a Gundam fan and as a fan of the Breaker series.
However,
I give this game a 5.5/10 if you're not already a fan of Gundam or the Breaker series.

There isn't much here for people who aren't fans of this series or gundam in general.
After you beat the game, there isn't a lot to do other than chase DPS numbers, test out new builds and creation ideas and maybe participate in a Theme'd Gunpla creation event every now and then.

Hope you found this review helpful. Thank you for reading.

PC Specs:
OS: WIndows 11 Pro 24H2
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5800x3D
GPU: Nvidia EVGA RTX 3080 Ti
RAM: 2x16GB PC4-25600 DDR4 G.Skill 3200
Storage:
1. (Boot) WD Black SN850X 1TB M.2 SSD
2. (Game Storage) Samsung 970 Evo Plus 2TB M.2 SSD
Motherboard: ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero

I've only been playing for just under an hour and I already can't stand this game.

(Note: I've been playing the PS4 version for years, and the PS5 version for the past 8 months)

1. my rig:

Windows 11 24H2 (Fresh install)
AMD Ryzen 7 5800x3D
32GB DDR4 ram
Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti

2. Problems:

Every 4-5 seconds, the game will consistently freeze up for about 1-2 seconds.

This literally made the opening training segment nearly impossible to complete. Plus, once I finished the training tutorial and got into the main lobby area, it became so unbearable that I quit the game outright, and I'm now uninstalling this game and never looking back.

3. Verdict:

This game is unplayable in it's current state. I give it a 0 out of 10 (0/10)
How this game got green lit in this condition is beyond me.
This should NEVER have been allowed to release in such a dysfunctional state.

4. Recommendation:

Do yourself a favor, Play this game on PS4 or PS5.
If not, just stay away from the Steam version. It's not worth your time, money or patience.


Anyway, that's my 2 cents,

Now that that's out of the way, I'm off to play Gundam Breaker 4.

Peace out!

Warning to any and all pervs who are interested in this game. Even with the free patch, They still censor the stuff below the belt with mosaic patterns. As it currently stands, this game, again with the patch, is only 50% uncensored. If you were hoping that it would be 100%, then i'm sorry to say It isn't.

The game is ok with an interesting progression system with different scenes and a development system that encourages you to try all the content without throwing it in your face.

Because of the censorship, I give this game a 6 out of 10 (6/10). If they ever decide to remove the rest of the censorship, It would easily be a 9 out of 10 (9/10).

Anyhow, those are my thoughts.

(Disclaimer: I bought this game full price day 1. I did not receive this game for free.)

On with the review...

To start...

A brief description of Vanguard Knights can be summarized with the following statement…

A bullet-hell game in a Star Fox style 3D rail-shooter environment.

I bought this game because I am a huge fan of Star Fox style games. However, after playing through the game for the first time, I quickly realized that it was more than I could handle. Because of this, I had to have a skilled friend play through the game in front of me. I made sure that I played through as far as I could go before having my friend play it for me. This review is based on both experiences.

First of all, this is a very ambitious game. It tries to be a 3D rail-shooter while mixing it up with bullet-hell elements, plus a color swapping system.

The color swap system is pretty easy to understand. This player’s ship/fighter can change colors between red and blue. Based off of what color you are determines how effective you are in certain situations. How you may ask? Because all enemies will also be either red or blue or can swap colors just like you can. Why does swapping colors matter? When you are a certain color, let’s say red for example, all weapon fire from your ship/fighter will be red colored. Here’s how this works. All weapons in the game, whether it be fired from enemies or yourself, will have a color tint of red or blue. If you take enemy fire from weapons that are the same color as you, you take no damage and your missile energy will increase. If you take enemy fire from weapons that are the opposite color as you are, then you take damage. On the flipside, if you shoot enemies that are the same color as you, you will do average damage. However, if you shoot enemies who are the opposite color, they will take double damage.

This system however isn’t limited to just weaponry. It also effects barriers. There are barriers that you fly through in the game that will be either red or blue. If you change your ship’s color to be the same color as the barrier, you can fly through it without taking damage. However, if you fly through it while being the opposite color, you will take damage. This doesn’t mean that you can’t take damage from non-colored things. If you fly into a physical object, you will take damage regardless of your color.

I mentioned that you have energy for your missiles. Well, that’s partially true. Your missiles have 2 modes of fire. Homing and non-homing. The non-homing mode is fired by taping the missile button/trigger. This mode fires the missile in a straight line and travels faster than the homing mode. The homing mode is fired by holding down the missile button/trigger and releasing it when it reaches your desired charge amount. After you fire the missile in this manor, your missile energy will be depleted. You can recharge this energy by taking enemy fire from enemies that are the same color as you. Also, note that the amount of energy you decide to use when firing your missile will affect how much damage it deals on impact. The more energy used to fire, the more damage it deals.

The other weapon you have is your gun. It’s basically fires like an energy gatling-gun.

All weapons do not use ammo. They are infinite use. However, don’t think for a second that this makes the game easy. The reason I say that is due to how you aim your weapons in this game.

During gameplay, your targeting reticle (crosshairs) do not move with the player’s ship movement. The ship and the aiming crosshairs are moved independently from each other. If you are playing this game with a controller, and I highly recommend you do so, one joystick will control your ship and the other will move the crosshairs around the screen. The crosshairs in this game are larger than some games. But it’s still small enough that if you don’t move it around, you will still miss most of your targets.

Now on to movement.

In the on-rail parts of the game, you only need to move the ship in 4 directions. Up, down, left and right. In the off-rail parts, you can also move forward, back, and rotate in a 360-degree sphere.

You have an ability that’s like an instant side-dash. It uses energy but that energy recharges automatically over time. This ability can be used in both on-rail parts and off-rail parts.

In off-rail sections, you also get a booster that uses the same energy but propels you forward faster for a short period.

Ok. Now that the mechanics are explained, let’s move on to overall gameplay.

This game is difficult. Very difficult. If you are not a person who is comfortable with high to extreme levels of multitasking mid-combat, you will not enjoy this game. This game is not for the casual player. It will challenge you. And it will do so without mercy. However, if you’re the kind of gamer who enjoys a good challenge, then this game was practically made for you.

Next, here’s my opinion on the level design.

I have no complaints with the levels themselves. I do have one complaint about the bosses. I didn’t like how every boss was virtually 2 boss fights in one. You would always fight the boss as normal. Then, when it looks like it’s about to kick the bucket, it turns around and resets the boss fight. At this point the fight is virtually the same, only this time the boss’s colors are swapped. The boss battle doesn’t stop until you have defeated both forms. Now that’s not to say that other bosses don’t do more than just change colors for their 2nd forms. It’s just that those kinds of bosses are too few and far between. It feels like the fight gets dragged on. Almost for no reason. But the game is kind of short. So, I guess they felt this added to the overall gameplay and difficulty by doing it this way.

Now here’s my thoughts on the Story.

It’s fun, but not much depth to it. There’s a funny line said here and there. But not much is explained about the background of the characters. Just the overall situation is addressed. But that’s not to say the story isn’t good. It’s just not super great.

Now for my thoughts on the game’s settings.

The menu is a bit basic, but it does its job well. You can customize every function for your controller. It has settings that allow you to basically change anything on the controller to do whatever you want. It’s actually quite amazing.

As for the graphics settings, the settings are controlled by giving each category a number value of 1 through 10. This goes for resolution and graphical detail. I personally don’t like the fact that the resolution settings don’t show you what resolutions your setting it to. All it shows is a single number and your just expected to know what resolution that number translates to.

Outside of that, the interface is just alright. It’s nothing to fancy but it gets the job done.

For my closing thoughts, I’ll say this…

This game is unique in its concept of mixing a bullet-hell game with a 3D environment by giving it an on-rail shooter twist. It’s personally not a game that I enjoy playing. However, for more capable players, there is a lot of fun to be had here.

On a scale of 1 to 10, I give this game a 7.

That’s my 2 cents.

I love this game. I love this franchise. This time around they got it SPOT ON. I do believe that with further DLC this game will go down in History as the best SoulCalibur game EVER! There is soo much in this game to love and very little downsides to it as well. Maybe I will elaborate some day, but right now, i'm diving in for another go!

Let me briefly say that I own the US version of this Steam product on a Windows 10 Operating system. I preordered both collections for myself on July 3rd with my own money. I was not given this for free to review.

Ok. On with the review.

First of all, I own all 8 X games in their original versions. I also own all of the original consoles they were released on. I also own Mega Man X Collection for both PS2 and GameCube. I've been playing these games for decades. I know what these games are supposed to play like on original hardware. I'm also a big emulator user as well. I've been using emulators since they first came out. I've also invested over $1,000 in a variety of hardware options to upscale and/or convert these retro games to HD on HDMI TVs using their original consoles.

With that being said,

I own a Windows 10 operating system on this PC. I've done a few tweaks to settings but nothing that should improve or hinder performance. What I did was I went into Steam's Big Picture mode and changed some controller settings that are unique to that mode so my controller would be more compatible with both X Collections. Also, FYI, apparently the controller settings that are exclusive to Steam's Big Picture mode also carry over when you play that game outside of Big Picture mode. Those settings solve a lot of controller problems that people have been experiencing with the Steam version.

After I changed the settings in Steam's Big Picture mode, my controller was now compatible with both X Collections and was giving me no more problems.

I've also noticed a bug with both collections where if you've already set either collection's screen mode to fullscreen, and you try to launch that collection, that collection's frame rate gets cut in half. To work around this... When you launch either collection and the frame rate is slow, go to the main screen and then select Options>Screen>Screen Mode and then change the mode to something other than fullscreen. Once you've change it, you can change it back and the frame rate will be normal again. However, that fix is only temporary. Because, if you quit either collection, and you had the screen mode set to fullscreen when you did so, you'll just run into the bug all over again when you re-launch that collection. At which point you just do the trick again to fix it. Or you can just have the screen mode permanently set to "Windowed" or "Windowed Full", since those modes don't seem to have this issue.

Outside of that. I tried to reproduce the problems that everyone has been complaining about. And I can tell you right now, I have 0% Input lag, virtually 0% slowdowns, and this is for all setting combinations. Yes. That's right. For Full Screen, Windowed, Windowed Full. And for all 3 different filter types with each of those modes. This goes for all games. X5 through X8.

Now before you think I'm some kind of lucky person, Think again. I own a $2,000+ desktop PC that I built myself. I've also got one of the more recent graphics cards installed from Nvidia. It's not the greatest one out there. But it's still pretty up there in performance.

I will be including links to articles (at the bottom of this review) that will help you if you are having the same problems that I had.

Now on to what I think of this collection.

I love the X series. This series is one of my all time favorite game series from any developer. In this collection, I love the fact that there is an option for different screen filter types, different screen aspect ratios, and different screen resolutions available in the settings. It really does give you a variety of ways to enjoy these classic games.

The extras are a nice touch as well. Lots of pictures, concept art, and a small collection of video trailers for the games from their original homeland of Japan. There are 1 or 2 English trailers featured as well.

As for the gameplay, I don't know what to say here since all of the games play exactly like their originals (depending on your controller). Everything is perfectly preserved gameplay wise.

There is an exception to this however.

All Japanese songs have been replaced with the English music for all Rockman versions of each game. This includes all games. I'm guessing there was a licensing issue here, but only CAPCOM could answer this.

Outside of that, I love this collection. I love this collection a lot! Especially X8! It's a very underrated game! If you think X7 was a terrible game and you didn't play X8 because of it, please give X8 a chance. CAPCOM really redeemed themselves with this one. It's a completely different experience from X7. With X8 they went back to the formula that made the X series great in the first place. So If you haven't tried it yet, please do so. I'm sure you won't regret it.

But seriously though. If you are a fan of the X series or a fan of Mega Man as a whole, get this collection. It's fantastic. Just make sure you have a PC that can run the games at full speed.

I give this collection a 9 out of 10.


Here are the links that I promised...

How to access controller settings in Steam's Big Picture mode: https://www.howtogeek.com/234427/how-to-remap-buttons-on-your-steam-controller/

End of review.

Let me briefly say that I own the US version of this Steam product on a Windows 10 Operating system. I preordered both collections for myself on July 3rd with my own money. I was not given this for free to review.

Ok. On with the review.

First of all, I own all 8 X games in their original versions. I also own all of the original consoles they were released on. I also own Mega Man X Collection for both PS2 and GameCube. I've been playing these games for decades. I know what these games are supposed to play like on original hardware. I'm also a big emulator user as well. I've been using emulators since they first came out. I've also invested over $1,000 in a variety of hardware options to upscale and/or convert these retro games to HD on HDMI TVs using their original consoles.

With that being said. I own a Windows 10 operating system on this PC. I've done a few tweaks to settings but nothing that should improve or hinder performance. All I did was download and installed a DirectX runtime from Microsoft, released in 2010. Then I went into Steam's Big Picture mode and changed some controller settings that are unique to that mode so my controller would be more compatible with this game. Also, FYI, apparently the controller settings that are exclusive to Steam's Big Picture mode also carry over when you play that game outside of Big Picture mode. Those settings solve a lot of controller problems that people have been experiencing with the Steam version.

Once I installed the DirectX runtime, I was able to get X Legacy Collection 1 to play audio. After I changed the settings in Steam's Big Picture mode, my controller was now compatible with the game and was giving me no more problems.

I've also noticed a bug with both collections where if you've already set either collection's screen mode to fullscreen, and you try to launch that collection, that collection's frame rate gets cut in half. To work around this... When you launch either collection and the frame rate is slow, go to the main screen and then select Options>Screen>Screen Mode and then change the mode to something other than fullscreen. Once you've change it, you can change it back and the frame rate will be normal again. However, that fix is only temporary. Because, if you quit either collection, and you had the screen mode set to fullscreen when you did so, you'll just run into the bug all over again when you re-launch that collection. At which point you just do the trick again to fix it. Or you can just have the screen mode permanently set to "Windowed" or "Windowed Full", since those modes don't seem to have this issue.

Outside of that. I tried to reproduce the problems that everyone has been complaining about. And I can tell you right now, I have 0% Input lag, virtually 0% slowdowns, and this is for all setting combinations. Yes. That's right. For Full Screen, Windowed, Windowed Full. And for all 3 different filter types with each of those modes. Even X1, X2, & X3's original slowdowns from the original SNES was improved. Not eliminated, but improved to the point where the original slowdowns are less noticeable.

Now before you think I'm some kind of lucky person, Think again. I own a $2,000+ desktop PC that I built myself. I've also got one of the more recent graphics cards installed from Nvidia. It's not the greatest one out there. But it's still pretty up there in performance.

I will be including links to articles (at the bottom of this review) that will help you if you are having the same problems that I had.

Now on to what I think of this collection.

I love the X series. This series is one of my all time favorite game series from any developer. In this collection, I love the fact that there is an option for different screen filter types, different screen aspect ratios, and different screen resolutions available in the settings. It really does give you a variety of ways to enjoy these classic games.

The extras are a nice touch as well. Lots of pictures, concept art, and a small collection of video trailers for the games from their original homeland of Japan. There are 1 or 2 English trailers featured as well.

As for the gameplay, I don't know what to say here since it plays exactly like the original games (depending on your controller). Everything is perfectly preserved gameplay wise.

There are 2 exceptions to this however.

In Megaman/Rockman X4's Intro, They removed a section of the video where General was reaching his hand out to salute his troops. I guess this was considered to offensive since you could look at it as a Hitler reference from Nazi Germany. I do not think this change was necessary since this edit was not made to any other release of this game in the past. Plus, by making this change, it slows down the pace of the entire video. And yes. The edit was made to both the Japanese and English version of this intro.

All Japanese songs have been replaced with the English music for all Rockman versions of each game. This includes all games. I'm guessing there was a licensing issue here, but only CAPCOM could answer this.

Outside of that, I love this collection. I love this collection a lot! If you are a fan of the X series or a fan of Mega Man as a whole, get this collection. It's fantastic. Just make sure you have a PC that can run the games at full speed.

I give this collection a 9 out of 10.

I'll be slightly altering this review for X Legacy Collection 2 since I have practically the same opinion for both collections. However, Steam won't let me post 1 review for both collections. I have to post the review 2 times. Once for this collection and another time for the 2nd collection.

Here are the links that I promised...

No Sound in X Legacy Collection 1: https://steamproxy.com/app/743890/discussions/2/1760230157503351374/

How to access controller settings in Steam's Big Picture mode: https://www.howtogeek.com/234427/how-to-remap-buttons-on-your-steam-controller/

End of review.

A good friend of mine recommended this game to me, so I checked it out.

This game best reminds me of Mega Man X8 on the PS2(PlayStation 2). Both playable characters in this game are a unique mix of all 3 main characters in Mega Man X8 (X, Zero, and Axl). With Axl's 360 degree firing ability, Zero's ability to double jump, and X's ability to upgrade himself.

The game can be challenging at times, but it's never so difficult that it seems impossible to complete.

There are a lot of hidden items and secrets to find and a few alternate routs.

I used an Xbox Once controller with this game with no problems since it had a pre-setup profile for the controller built into the game right from the start.

Overall I've found this game to be a great game, and a good example of how to do a Mega Man X game right!

If your a fan of the Mega Man X series, or just a fan of the Mega Man franchise in general, then you can't go wrong with picking this one up. And that's my 2 cents.