Recent reviews by Suzuren

To preface this review, I'll first say that I have played quite a few Atelier games on PlayStation and some here on Steam. I have also played other games of JRPG genre and some games which have some similarities to the Atelier series (imo) such as the Hyperdimension Neptunia games.

For those who have played Atelier games before, especially those of the Arland (former) trilogy series, this game will feel extremely different probably both in good and bad way, which is due to the lack of a constant deadline (time restraint). In previous Arland series of Atelier games and in most of the Atelier games there is a constant deadline for story progression, side quests, alchemy quests and adventure quests (although everything besides story quests are in a way side quests...). There is basically none of that in Atelier Lulua, not even on quests or story sections where they keep hurrying you to do something, as for why I said "basically" is because there are two events in the game that are time related: first being the Arland Festival, which happens each December and is a nice place to snag some rare goodies especially in the early game if you can afford it; second is the Dunkelheit gathering event, which allows you to gather this rare resource only during November. The game is otherwise very similar to previous Atelier games, and I personally do enjoy the freedom given by the loss of deadlines (even thou having to think of how, when, why etc. was fun in its own way when you did have limited time)

For those that have not played Atelier games before, I would say that Atelier Lulua is one of the best Atelier games to start with. Of course, that is assuming that you're looking to get into a series, which many consider to be somewhat niche even by JRPG standards. The lack of deadlines does make this game bit more "casual" in comparison to Atelier Rorona (the first entry of the Arland series), which too happens to be a Atelier game I would recommend people to start the series with. I should also add that while Atelier Lulua is the 4th entry to the Arland series (and 20th for the main Atelier series) you do not need to play through the other games to be able to enjoy the game, although it does certainly enhance the experience if you have played through the other Arland series of games (In order: Atelier Rorona: The alchemist of Arland; Atelier Totori: The Adventurer of Arland; Atelier Meruru: The Apprentice of Arland).

As for any tid bits and fancier descriptions on the game mechanics and how the game looks and sounds etc. I can only say that personally I found the game to be a fantastic game enough to recommend it to my IRL friends, if you want to find out anything more then I would recommend looking into YouTube or just buying the game. Latter being the option I have chosen to all Atelier games thus far that I have been capable of buying both platform and money wise, and am also looking forward to A21 Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness & the Secret Hideout, which is coming in November this year.

One of the very few FPS games I've liked ever since my days of playing WAY too much BF2 and Bad Company 2.

Things I love about Siege:

1. Destructible (to an extent) and nice looking environment
2. CS-like limited lives
3. Interesting and more or less complex maps
4. Great and very memeful characters
5. Dokkabae
6. Hinabae
7. Ash = 0 Hitboxes

Things I don't like about Siege:

1. Give Frappuchino a damn breaching tool
2. 99% Memes is not enough, we need more (READ: Keep up the SERIOUSLY great character design Goobysoft (In other words the actual complain is about the "trustful" and "stable" Goobysoft servers)
3. The lack of Baes is disturbing
4. The Lord and Savior of ATK (READ: Montagne) can't apply skins to his shield (tbh I don't really mind this as I mostly play with my friends and I don't really want to see those cancerous shields they would be trying to protect my ass with).
5. The Lord and Savior (READ: Tachanka) needs more meme powers (AKA buff the bastard or just make his turret bit more.... I dunno memeful than it is (don't know how that is even possible....)
6. The rather worrisome future of Siege perhaps turning into a field of super high-tech toys which would in turn, make all the old folks piss poor in comparison.

All hail the Lord and Savior, Tachanka!!!

Things I personally like about FFXIV:

1. Crafting
2. Dungeon and Boss Design
3. Crafting
4. Soundtrack
5. Crafting
6. World, Gear and Character Design
7. Crafting
8. Surprisingly Great Combat
9. Crafting
10. Story
11. Crafting

Things I don't care too much about:

1. Tab targeted combat and long GCDs (don't get me wrong, I don't like these things but FFXIV did them right)
2. Some of the new gear especially, being kinda reskin-ishy
3. Fishing not being as much of a minigame I would love it to be (Tbh for some reason or other I just miss BDO's fishing (I know WASD spam ain't much of a minigame to be fair but still) and the only reason I haven't gone back is because I used to play that damn thing like it was the manifestation of my soul or something and trying to figure out what in the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ seven hells I had planned to do next in that game before I stopped is too much for me to endure with the time constraints I have atm)


All in all: A pretty nice MMO that I definitely had no problem of handing my money over monthly.

I've been playing DbD ever since Beta days and seen lots and lots of nerfs and some buffs along the way.... some of them have been good, some of them.... debatable. All in all I've gone through most of the ups and downs of DbD and I'd personally say that if you plan to play this game by yourself, you better have quite a bit of patience as well as tolerance for some of the bs that the game has....

And no matter what anyone says that bs exists on the both sides of the coin, SWF (Survive with Friends) is something that in a way could be called the bane of killers as trying to kill a group of people with proper comms is a pain in the fu***ng a**, SB and SC (Sprint Burst (makes you pretty damn fast for a few seconds (is about to nerfed in a way soon) and Self-Care (Allows you to heal yourself from injured to healthy (below injured is downed where you can most of the time either recover and wait for someone to raise you up or try to crawl to the other end of the universe) another.... Hex:Ruin (makes the game go quite a bit slower and is really annoying especially when you're new to the game), NOED (No One Escapes Death, which allows you to put a person to the downed state with a regular hit (usually needs two hits) (which is a hex nowadays for those old players in the crowd that haven't been playing this game for "a while") could be said to be annoyances for the survivors.... and according to some people, a friend of mine for example, just the fact that the killer's base movement speed is much faster in comparison.

I personally mainly play the game with at least one friend if not a full group of friends as I quite simply think that the game is much more fun to play with friends, when you can laugh at each other and to be quite frank be a huge douche to your friend every now and then (READ: Often), also hearing your friends get jumpscared is pretty damn funny (as this game ain't actually all that scary after like 10+ hours of gameplay or something....)

I've personally enjoyed the game both as a killer and a survivor ever since the launch to this day and unless Behavior makes Emblem System 2.0 in the sense that it starts worse than the Emblem System did not too long ago, I don't think I'll be quitting this game any time soon and would recommend anyone out there who hasn't already to give the game a try as well.... even more so if you can convince (or manipulate) some of your friends to join with you like I did all the way back when I started (and I'm quite happy to say that my friend ended up liking the game as well so I haven't exactly lacked someone to play with.

An Amazing 4X game that in a way revolutionized the genre for me, someone who has spent hundreds maybe even thousands of hours in series like Civ and Heroes of Might and Magic.

The greatest pro as far as single player goes is that the AI is actually somewhat challenging and unlike Civ for example you seriously can't research every single tech in that tree.

The greatest con for now... is simply the lack of 'proper' co-op multiplayer and that's all.

All in all a great game.