Recent reviews by Mindworm

I really struggled on if I should give this a yes or a no, but ultimately I decided no.

For series Veterans, Tales of Arise presents an intriguing change of direction for the series, trying to emulate the typical fast action games of this day and age (think Devil May Cry or anything made by Platinum Games) while also keeping things familiar. Unfortunately, the things they tried to keep familiar are spectacular animation locked Artes (Special moves for you new folks), while what they tried to introduce is twitch reaction perfect dodge mechanics. at the cost of the block button.

As should be obvious, these aspects of combat mix like Oil and Water, especially against bosses who are nigh impossible to stagger, and only stay staggered for the briefest of moments.

the issue is compounded by the new Penetration and Resistance stats. Penetration raises your critical hit rate and chance to put your target in Hitstun to be comboed (called Break), compared against the targets resistance stat which reduces their chance to be critically hit or Broken. if you hit an enemy and get a Break, cool! Do your combo, fun time to be had, assuming you don't get attacked by anything else while doing so and get Broken yourself/have to dodge. This is especially egregious in the case of your Magic User. Mages in Tales Of games are pretty famously destructive forces of nature, filling the screen with brilliant particle effects and punishing damage. Now, unfortunately, it's a roll of the dice to see if your mage actually does anything, since if you fail to get a Break in the initial hits of the spell that a long time was spent casting... the target walks out of the AoE and the attack is wasted. doubly so considering this one's gimmick of combining multiple spells to reach higher tiers of magic.

the writing is also incredibly frustrating. It's normal for Tales Of games to have a big blaring moral message (Symphonia is about how Racism is bad, Vesperia is about Climate Change, etc.), usually this doesn't become the main focus until the latter parts of the game when the real antagonist is established, commonly with a "well intentioned extremist" flavor. To quote my friend: "this game has probably some of the least interesting things to say in the series, and it wrenches open your jaws and screams them down your throat".

all in all, I feel like this game has good aspects, and it is fun to play when it works, but those bits just don't outweigh all it's flaws, especially not for a $60+ price tag.

I guess it's better than Dawn of the New World at least?

I can't say enough good about this game. The exploration, the unique and varied equipment, the plethora of different blocks and furniture allow for all sorts of creative builds, Terraria feels like everything the Open World Crafting/Survival genre should be.

while I would have preferred a speaking protagonist for the Warring States political drama that serves as a backdrop for your Demon slaying adventures, especially considering this time around we aren't a foreigner with a one-track mind, Nioh 2 retains it's predecessors visceral combat and tight controls to create another challenging but immensely satisfying action-RPG.

playing this game has given me so much Freelancer nostalgia. It's a fun space dogfight game, but I have to admit I'm a little turned off by the looter-shooter aspect of gear having it's own levels instead of being a fixed improvement curve over the course of the game. what's the point of finding a cool hidden wreck with awesome equipment if you're just going to replace it with something better from the next batch of outlaws?

otherwise, it's grand. I can hardly wait for the them to finish it up.

Update 2.0 is here and it is both literally and figuratively a gamechanger. There's no conditions on it now, Cyberpunk 2077 is an amazing game.

There's definitely a learning curve here, but the progression model is fair, there are no microtransactions, and when you get the hang of handling power distribution while managing your thrust to make turns and line up targets (while possibly shifting your shield direction if you've got shields) and get the kill it's a sense of power like you wouldn't believe. This is quality space combat.

As it stands the K+M controls are kinda jerky. The translations are so bad they're funny. Music's ok. looks pretty enough if you like Breath of the Wild style Cell Shading.

a grindy gathery crafty game but there's 100% a playable single player experience here. It definitely needs a lot of work, but if the devs stick with it this could easily be the definitive Survival Sandbox game.

I am recommending this game based purely off gameplay. if the gunplay were not so fun I would not hesitate to thumbs down this game with the fury of a thousand suns.

Gearbox has gotten way too far in to their "Wacky audacious borderlands writing!" So much of the game is extremely pointless menial tedium that was only included under a misguided pretense of comedy, and the rest is ham-fisted attempts at social commentary before trying to suddenly wrench you back to an actual story which itself is terribly paced, with each twist more frustrating and unsatisfying than the last.

you are forced to sit through so much "oh wow this quest is gross ISN'T IT FUNNY", or "Hey people worship livestreamers aren't we funny and meta?", or "OH NO THINGS GOT WORSE WHILE YOU COULD ONLY STAND THERE AND DO NOTHING BECAUSE IT'S A CUTSCENE DESPITE BEING LITERALLY RIGHT THERE"

BUT, if you can ignore all of that and shoot bandits in the face, mess with skill builds, and hear that sweet sweet sound of an epic/legendary dropping, the game is excellent.

from a gameplay perspective, it feels a lot like Path of Exile but simpler. It sports a fairly large tree of passive skills, but it's more focused and harder to get lost in. The active skills are item based, but are single use and can be augmented directly from the skill menu.

A very good middle ground for people that find Path of Exile too complex, but Diablo 3 too simple.

It's Legally Distinct Final Fantasy Tactics!