Recent reviews by Zaros

Photographer here. I've followed this game for quite some time and also tried the demo a while ago. It's a well-thought-out photography simulator, but I can't quite recommend it due to the environments.

The game has a lot of bloom, which makes it a little hard to photograph certain subjects. I struggle to find good subjects that appear natural, which limits my freedom with camera settings. Whenever I try to find something to photograph, it can be difficult to make it look "nice" since the game already feels very filtered. I could overlook this if there were built-in photo editing, but as it stands, the photography mechanic feels like “manual, but actually auto.” I wish there were a setting in the game that allowed you to adjust the environment's hue. There's a filter option in the camera setting, but can only be viewed in the camera's viewfinder.

I didn’t get far into the game, but the Australia environment is a prime example of this. The sand feels too orange, the water too blue, and the shadows are too dark—lots of detail gets lost in the shadows and highlights. I often have to rely on heavy filtering, trying to "undo" a lot of the saturation that's already cemented into the environments. This is an example of the filter example that I'm talking about. The body of water does not match the sky.

In addition to the color saturation, the earlier environments' skyboxes feel very plain. The skies all look like one solid color, with no clouds, and occasionally, there are birds. The lack of detail in the sky detracts from my ability to take scenic images of the environment. An ability to change the skybox, weather, or time of day, is locked behind god mode, and is a feature that must be unlocked.

Levels are locked from the start, encouraging exploration for hidden objects. While I understand this extends gameplay time, I often find myself focusing on a scavenger hunt for items rather than the primary focus of the game: photography. This is fine, but I wish a few more levels were available at the start. I do like that some locations have pre-photographed scenes that you have to find. It would be great if there were a journal or something similar so I could look back at the photos I’ve taken, rather than just going to a pic of these subjects from the camera roll in-game.

I left the Discord after seeing the developer get defensive over negative feedback. I understand how easy it is to focus on negative feedback over the positive, but saying things like "man you suck" and "don't tank my review score" doesn't come across as professional.

Why did they call this game Final Fantasy VII Rebirth? Clearly, the name of the game is Queen's Blood.

The game crashes every two minutes and nothing will fix the issue. Ran flawlessly before and was having a good time, but now I cannot load into anything.

I respect Square Enix for providing a discount upon launch on Steam. However, within the first 20 minutes of playing the game, I'm encountering performance issues. Issues that were also on the EGS, as well as Xbox One from posts made three years ago.

The audio is crackling both in the main menu and in-game. It doesn't happen during a Discord stream, but happened with two separate audio output devices.

Additionally, my game crashed at the first save, sending me back and requiring me to restart the first 10 minutes of gameplay. It suddenly started working again after restarting.

Controller support doesn't work properly. I'm attempting to play the game on a DualSense controller, but certain buttons don't work. I'm unable to open the menu unless I switch to keyboard/mouse.

Please fix this, Square Enix. The Epic Game Store were like your beta testers. How could you port this onto Steam and still have performance issues?

I've had Baldur's Gate 3 on my wishlist for a very long time, never really putting consideration into the game since it has been in early access for years. After seeing a large influx of players and positive reviews, I decided to bite the bullet and spend the $60 on it to see how it is.

I can testify what others have said and say that this is 100% worth the price, even with the MASSIVE amounts of content. I can't comprehend how much value that this game is worth for the large price tag, and I would even go as far to suggest that this game is worth it at full price. I have barely scratched the surface, and I am already struggling to pull myself away from the game.

Highly recommended!

Good game, but I cannot recommend the game on PC due to optimization issues. If they fix the crashing issues, I will switch the review to positive. Running on a 3090 TI, i9 10850k, and 64GB RAM. Playing on 1440p, and it crashed three times within 90 minutes. Even with shaders fully rendered.

It's starting to become a red flag when developers provide PC requirements which are more powerful than the PS5, because it's hinting at poor optimization upon launch. We've seen it with Forspoken, and unfortunately, The Last of Us did the same thing...

Rhythm Sprout is a short game with a ton of replayability. It only took 30 seconds of gameplay to convince me to get the game, and when I got it, I was hooked. The dialogue is a lot like Undertale, and the story is goofy. You will enjoy it all, and the gameplay is one of the best rhythm mechanics that I've ever played.There is a slight learning curve at some points, but once you get past the level, it gets easier later. My only complaint is the difficulty to reach three starts for points/combo. I wish that it were a little more lenient.I HIGHLY recommend this game. Even at full price!

Currently playing through this game through the friend's pass. I'm not much of a horror fan, but I checked out a little of this game shortly before its release. I was very intrigued by it, but the only thing that was stopping me from getting it were two things: The price and the reviews. A few months later, I decided to get all four of the games in season one of the Dark Pictures Anthology, then start off with this game and play the rest afterwards.

Despite a few bugs from online co-op, I've been having a very great time playing this game, and the co-op is one of the most immersive games that I have played. You and a friend get assigned as different characters, picking up secrets that your friend knows, but you don't (and vice versa). Whenever your friend is not in the same scene as you, then you don't know what they are going through.

Gameplay mechanics aside, the story is actually very interesting. It started off a little cheesy, but it progressively got better, keeping me more and more interested in it as I continued playing through it. The characters actually use their brains instead of mindlessly walking into traps and dying in ridiculous ways. The game does make the characters get into situations due to their curiosity, but it's up to you to decide how to get out of the situation, which may result in death or not.

I would highly recommend it!

A very good, modern JRPG which improves upon its predecessor. The characters somewhat copy the jobs from the previous game, but they introduce new stories, which is the more important part. I loved Octopath Traveler I to death, and this game makes me feel like I am experiencing the whole game all over again.

Although the jobs are mostly recycled from the first game, they added new abilities which makes this game a little more different. The game also feels a bit easier than the previous game, which I appreciate since the first game had some unnecessary difficulty curves at the start of it. However, I'm used to the Octopath formula, so I might just be used to the combat system.

I've gone two hours into the game and I don't see any "step downs" whatsoever. Therefore, if I can suggest the first game, I would suggest the second game even more!

This game is letting me experience the world of Harry Potter all over again. The game runs great, looks great, and the story is very engaging! There are some references to the original Harry Potter, but not enough for a newbie to be too confused over.