Recent reviews by Efflorescized

the great grandfather, founder, and veteran of gacha games. a fun one at that!

NIKITA BUYANOV! THERE'S 1.000.000 WISHLISTS FOR TARKOV'S STEAM RELEASE! WE CAN'T POSSIBLY SUPPORT THAT MUCH CAPACITY ON LAUNCH DAY! WE'RE WAITING FOR YOUR ORDERS, WHAT DO WE DO?!!

Make the Nikita Voicepack.

came for the sex update, stayed for the game

i've done pretty much 2 playthroughs of the game, once when i've cracked the game the first time, then buying it afterwards to fully replay it, both playthroughs staying on the hard difficulty.
the gameplay is as fluid as water, you always have something to do and there's no real downtime, always giving you something to do in either aspects of cult management and crusades. both aspects are also very solid in design, i have very few complaints about them

the difficulty in those aspects are also challenging, whether it be your cultists reaching and dying to old age or the behavior of some of the enemies and bosses you face in the later biomes (especially the bosses, ♥♥♥♥ is like touhou)

very solid game, very recommended

you can pet the dog.

great presentation, atmosphere, the game greatly encourages voyeurism with how overwhelmed you can be if you start shooting without a backup plan

however, i am not at all a fan of the water system which wipes all of your progress if you run out of water. this wouldn't be a problem if it didn't count the days you spend OUTSIDE of the game, not actively playing it. i can't and don't want to dedicate myself to the equivalent of a gacha daily grind just so i can ensure that my progress doesn't get wiped, ive already done enough of that in the past few years. i know that this issue is being addressed with raiders being in your base that are meant to give you water to start up again after you've run out, but it's a short term addition for a problem that can still persist individually.

learned of this game from nextfest, 100%'d the demo, and ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ the wait and the price is worth it. not just from the gameplay, but also the story that's been expanded from the demo and the voice acting that comes with it. ive never been on such an emotional rollercoaster with the second to last level and the scene leading up after it, you'll see when you get there

this game's dope as ♥♥♥♥; it's a great dopamine hit for everyone no matter the skill group, it's simple to grab and play but so fun too!
it's a shame the game's story playtime spans to 2 hours, but i've noticed that post-launch content is planned to release, so i'll be staying up for that (and you should too!). besides, the amount of hours shouldn't dictate how much enjoyment you can get out of the game, even with such a short playtime you can play it a lot more for the S ranks and challenges which i'm planning to do myself

did a full first playthrough in the true difficulty, and i can confidently say that IV2 has greatly exceeded my expectations as a sequel of the first IV. it brings a LOT more to the table of an already fun gameplay flow in the form of more guns, gadgets, improved ai, social stealth, skills, more distractions, etc.

although it's a bit disappointing to not being able to use social stealth more in the later stages though, it's a cool concept that really brings out hitman vibes to the game. i can somewhat see the reason why it wouldn't be implemented though, especially since sean is a literal target by the time you reach the second half of the campaign, so it wouldn't make much sense why he wouldn't get minced the moment he got seen

very confident recommend from me as someone who's played IV1 and IV2:M (prequel to IV2) before, definitely check this game out if you're a fan of stealth action

wake
heavy pulse
bloody eyes
sweaty clothes

it is, indeed, the police.

the gameplay's unique with its way of handling scenarios, officers, reputation and alike, the periodically increasing twists into the gameplay are fun to play with and don't entirely screw up the run (except for one, ♥♥♥♥ you mayor, you know what you've done). however, i feel like the investigations are rather subpar with how they work. later in the game i've had multiple cases where the detectives couldn't find any new evidence on the case, yet i couldn't figure out the sequence of the case at all, even through bruteforcing it. there's no way to know if ive collected all the pieces related to the case already, or if i'm just being dumb as a brick (most likely the former, but knowing myself i can't rule out the latter), which honestly hurts since i was excited to figure out the cases by myself record time, but the cases' ambiguity on the intended sequence and giving me the necessary evidence is too much for me to want to completely figure it out

the story is more of a thing that i want to stop myself from exposing to anyone reading this, as jack's exposition over the course of the game on having to be blatantly manipulative to get his own way, dealing with countless devils causing freeburg's crimerates to stagnate, while having nearly everything in his life turn around diagonally afterwards is something to experience for yourself. i do recommend sitting through it

unfortunately i didn't finish the game all the way myself, one bad thing that i want to say about it is that it's very slow with progressing the story. there'll be days where nothing really happens, which doesn't help when you're later down the game and feel like you're doing the same thing over and over, personally leading to my burnout and distaste to pick the game up again after having started playing some more games afterwards. i don't think people would mind though, some have finished the game regardless

crazy to me how ubisoft managed to basically retcon ALL of td2's plot (including expansion) with their poorly thought out manhunts that are purely there as a form of live service
if you're going to kill off important characters like aaron keener, at least stick to them being dead instead of magically resurrecting them when he bled out from a boss fight RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU just because you couldn't think of some other """shocking""" plot twist to try and catch players interested in the story by surprise (because a body double with equal his skill, equipment and quips is entirely believable, considering his background, uhhuh), instead you catch them infuriated that you can't remain consistent and have to force conflict half the time in your manhunts, even going as far as completely contradicting aaron keener's motive on going rogue in td1 and making him collaborate with the very division he's opposed for YEARS, even to his (now completely defunct) dying breath

the division franchise has basically been run through the mud with the cancelled game and whatever this is, it had so much going for just from the first game. woe is me for believing ubi's story direction in the first place

grab the game for the base game and the expansion's initial plot pre-manhunts if you want, but you unfortunately will have to live knowing that you haven't progressed anywhere in the division 2's story after doing so. the gameplay kinda makes up for it i guess, but even that's crippled with the removal of world tiers and gear score