Recent reviews by Divad Legor

Fun even for weirdos like me who don't watch any of these streamers.

At the time of writing I am two achievements away from 100%. I love this game, but I cannot for the life of me remember why I decided to give it a try. Glad I did, though. Some of the story beats were a little predictable, and I have a hard time understanding some of the mechanics involved in the combat, but neither fact was enough for me to stop playing. The characters are fun (Shionne especially), the art is beautiful, and the owls are flipping adorable. I remember I tried the demo at one point and was unimpressed, which makes the fact that I actually ended up playing the game even more miraculous.

I am *terrible* at this game. Doesn't stop it from being one of the best games I've played all year. It's pretty short, but that's because it's essentially an album with each level containing two tracks (the main level theme and the boss theme, with some boss themes being reused).

This is a simple game. You are presented with a series of buttons. Sometimes you'll pick the one that gives you a new set of buttons. Most of the time you'll end up humiliating the title character instead. Occasionally, both will happen at once. Regardless of what you pick, it will be amusing. The game also has more references than Dragon Quest XI has puns. Which is impressive. DQXI has a lot of puns.

I went into this after having played both of the first two games, and I can honestly say that this one is very, very different. Lemme just start a list of things.

Edit: I'm adjusting the list because I've played a whole lot more of this game now and there are things that need updating.

* This game was made with the PS4 in mind. Abandon all hope, potatoes who enter here.

* To my fellow Blast Gunners: They took out the Blast Guns and replaced them with the Ray Guns. It is a tragedy, but I understand why they did it: They also took out friendly fire, the one thing limiting Blast Guns' destructive potential.

* The story has been criticized for being short. It is definitely short compared to the first two games, but one would do well to remember that every time they remade the first two games they added even more story. GE3 has never had a remake, so of course the story is comparatively short.

* The characters are great. Some of the English voice acting feels a little choppy at times (sorry, Claire), but the characters are definitely fun.

* Phym gets her own bullet point. She's a little Aragami girl not unlike Shio from the first game that imprints on the main character. Imprints is definitely the right word because she follows you around the main base like a duckling. She is too cute for human words other than "bean" and I can't deal.

* Weapon skills are handled very differently from the first two games. They only go up to level five, though some can stack to level 10. There also don't appear to be any weapon skills that are two or more in one slot. These two factors greatly limit the potential for customization. I also haven't been able to find any rank 5 Stamina skills and I think I've maybe found 1 rank 5 Health. Edit: I've now found enough Rank 5 Staminas and Healths to max out those stats on my normal loadout. It took too long, but I done dids it.

* Edit: This paragraph used to be me talking about how I haven't tried out the new melee weapons yet. I still haven't done much with the Biting Edge (the twin swords), but the Heavy Moon is pretty fun.

* The new Ashborn Aragami are terrifying. Like, my goodness. If they hit you with Devour, if you get downed *your allies can't revive you.* Running like hell only sometimes works depending on the Aragami you're trying to run from and the map you're running in. Edit: Perfect Guarding will stop a Devour Attack in its tracks, and is more efficient than running, so I've been trying to get good at it. It's not easy, but it does work. Just make sure you don't for any reason lose sight of the Aragami in question.

* People have said that this game isn't a great sequel to the first two. I can see what they mean. The setting is an entire continent away, and only one character from the first two actually shows up in the third (though there's a second who makes a cameo and two more mentioned by name).

* Edit: Here's a new paragraph. I just wanted to mention that they did a fantastic job with the one character that got carried over from the first two games. They did an amazing job with him.

Overall, probably get this on Playstation unless your computer is pretty decent. There are definitely things in it that are better if you're familiar with the first two, but they're not only few and far between but subtle enough that you wouldn't even know you're missing a reference. Edit: For the most part. There are a lot more fun references in the post-postgame that will go over the heads of anyone unfamiliar with the first two games.

This is a great game if you're trying to make friends. It's random enough where nobody ever truly has an advantage, some of the shenanigans are so ridiculous nobody's really all that mad about them, and since it doesn't keep track of scores by default it's hard to get really competitive about it. Plus, nothing unites like a common enemy, and there is no enemy more common than the snakes.

I played the demo, loved it, talked a friend into buying it for me. A lot of this review will be comparing it to my knowledge of the Soulsborne games, which is admittedly limited however I will do my best anyways. These are in no particular order, partly because I wrote them as I though of them and partly because what one person sees as a bonus someone else might see as a downside.


* The character customizer is amazing. I spend way too much time in it. If all you're looking for is a $60-$80 character creator and nothing else, that's kind of odd but hey, it's your money.

* It's often described as an anime Dark Souls. From what I've heard it's closer to Bloodborne, which means that if you don't have a PS4 and want to play that game this is the closest you'll likely get.

* Combat feels very fast, very smooth. If you build for tank, you're likely gonna have a bad time, but if you manage to make it work, congratulations. For the most part, you dodge to win, though if you manage to master parrying then things will likely go a bit better for you.

* If you're looking for Soulsborne levels of stat customization, sorry, we don't have that. Instead, you can mix and match class abilities to taste, and if you're good enough you can actually do this in the middle of combat (though why you would do that to yourself is beyond me).

* This game is made slightly easier than Soulsborne stuff by the fact that you can bring an AI partner into combat with you. You are not alone in the world of Vein.

* Code Vein is a lot more hopeful than the Soulsborne games. In those games, the world sucks and there's very little you can do about it. In this game, there are people (yourself included) actively trying to make the world a better place. Which ending you get determines how successful this attempt is.

* There are about 3.25 endings. I say 3.25 because the Good Ending is slightly altered if you manage to complete a certain task right before fighting the final boss.

* I mentioned earlier that this game is slightly easier than Soulsborne because of the presence of an AI partner. Emphasis on the slightly. This game is still very hard, and you can choose to make it harder by choosing not to bring a partner.

* The Blood Veil finishers are really cool, especially the Stinger-type veils (long coats that give you a stinger tail) and the Ivy-type veils (If you've seen Fate/Apocrypha, think Lancer of Black's spikes being summoned by what is more or less a scarf).

* You will likely struggle to find a human co-op partner just randomly. This is unfortunate, however I've found that there will occasionally be someone willing to help. I've even tried being that person on occasion.

* You can sit on all but maybe two of the chairs in the Home Base. This includes the piano bench and all of the bar stools. If you sit there for long enough (like 10 minutes), your character will fall asleep. Different chairs have different animations for this. You will also fall asleep faster if you decide to lie on one of the beds in the back. They really put too much time into it. I appreciate whoever put in the time and effort in to make all of those animations work. Such people are heroes and deserve to be recognized as such.

* They managed to tie in a couple of different mechanics into their hot spring fanservice. First, resting in a hotspring will restore half of any lost Haze (Haze is the equivalent of Souls in Dark Souls and I think it's called Blood Echoes in Bloodborne. You can also lose it in the same way). The other half will be lost forever, but it's better than nothing. The other mechanic is an index/cutscene viewer. It's literally described as your character collecting his/her thoughts.

* The story is kind of eh, admittedly. I enjoy it, but it's not the best. If you're looking for Soulsborne levels of world building and writing, you will be disappointed. There is a little bit of that here and there (there are hints here and there about the outside world and in one area you can see a landmark that tells you exactly where in the world you are), but it's not as well done as Soulsborne.

* You can't leave messages to other players like you can in Soulsborne, unfortunately. On the other hand, random people won't invade your game and try to kill you, so I guess it's a worthy sacrifice. You might disagree, which is entirely reasonable, however I've found that in many games the people who actively pursue PvP opportunities are typically way better at the game than the people who don't.

* Rule number one: You are being ambushed. Rule number two: If you are not being ambushed, you are walking into an ambush. Rule number three: If the first two rules do not apply, you are either walking into or are in the middle of a boss fight. Rule number 4: If none of the previous rules are true, you're somewhere in the Home Base.

* I should probably talk about the level design. From what I can tell, it's not Soulsborne level of good, however there are clearly areas inspired by that series. Notable examples: The Cathedral of the Sacred Blood has similarities to Anor Londo (though the latter is likely easier to navigate. The Cathedral is a maze of walkways that are nigh indistinguishable from each other); I forget what the area is called, however there's a sewer level that features large numbers of enemies that can poison you and puddles deep enough to slow down both your movement and your dodge speed. I have been told that many of the Soulsborne games have an area that is like this. It's pain incarnate.


Final verdict: Play the demo. The demo is set up to give you an idea of what you'll be facing in the main game, and it does a pretty good job of that. If you hate the demo, then the full game isn't for you. If you decide to get the full game, it's $5 cheaper to buy the Deluxe Edition than to buy the base game and then later add the Season Pass. Plus, getting the Deluxe Edition gets you some extra cosmetics to play with. Always important. Another thing with the demo: If you save your appearance settings, then they'll carry over to the full game. Your progress won't be saved (which is actually pretty reasonable if you ask me), but if you liked how your character looked you won't lose it. You can even tweak it a bit since some of the cosmetics in the full game aren't available in the demo. Video game fashion is serious business.

Anything I could really say about this game has already been said elsewhere, so I'm going to give the short version: The gameplay is a massive upgrade from Umbral Star. The story is pretty meh, but the characters more than make up for it, especially since there are more of them. Charlie is awesome, Astolfo remains hilarious, and the interactions between the various characters are very fun indeed. My only real problems are kinda nitpicky, like the fact that Darius' Noble Phantasm is more eldritch-looking than Gilles' despite the fact that the latter is actually wielding a tome of eldritch lore and that Saber doesn't have the Mysterious Heroine X skin from last game. RIP baseball cap. Also, Smoltera is available as DLC and she is so adorable that I can actually feel my brain melting whenever I play as her. Must protect.

Got the thing and almost immediately started looking for Saber wallpapers. Found entirely too many, still haven't downloaded enough. 11000/10

Is goodest civilization. Is Smoltera. Must hug.