Recent reviews by void

In a way, it feels pointless to give this a review. Everyone knows what Skyrim is, most people with a PC have played it at least once. A review is unlikely to sway anyone new, so why bother? Well, I leave this review in protest to the modern state of Bethesda. This game was made with passion, with a love for organic exploration and a respect for the player's time. I didn't appreciate Skyrim as much as Oblivion, having grown up with that first, but after recent duds like Fallout 76 and Starfield, I've gone back to Bethesda's older entries to remind myself it never used to be all bad.

Where Starfield bogs you down with needless loading screens and procedural generated slop that you forget 5 minutes after 'exploring' it, Skyrim has hand-crafted dungeons, questlines of varying quality, a wealth of weapons and armours, an amazing DLC in the form of Dragonborn, and mod support that remains the best-in-industry.

It honestly makes me sad how good revisiting this in 2025 has been, because it reminds me that these good days of Bethesda are well and truly gone as they chase lazy writing, procedural generation and identical prefabs, and an even greater reliance on radiant quests.

Skyrim, you are beloved for good reason.

This is basically a tech demo for the Nemesis System with a game slapped on top of it. It's over as soon as it starts with a very tempered main quest. It begins with a huge event, then you're doing menial things for 18 missions, then you have a final boss fight against a terrible QTE and its over.

Where this game shines is in the unpredictability of the Orcs with the sadly patented and underused since 2017 Nemesis System. No playthrough feels the same and even though the limits and age does show on the system, it keeps encounters with the same orc feeling organic. Would love to have seen it in more games.

Base game: 8/10.
Bright Lord: 7/10.
Test of the Ring: 8.5/10.
Lord of the Hunt: 6/10.
Test of the Wild: 7/10.

It's Dark Souls/10.
Second half is still awful like the original release.
Performance is great.
A remaster presented the opportunity to have blacksmith embers carry into NG+, hugely missed opportunity.

Every bit as perfect as it was on release. This is one of the best survival-horror games ever made, the best horror sequel ever made, and the best game in the Dead Space series. Gameplay, enemy AI, unlockables, performances, score, graphics even after 13 years - all of it holds up. Visceral's closure was a true loss to the industry, the amount of passion poured into this series continues to shine through the in-universe signage, the Marker language, the references to other Dead Space media. EA killed a truly passionate, one of a kind series, and after the Dead Space Remake (great game btw) underperformed, they killed the series a second time.

Buy from a keysite. Through steam, only EA gets your money and Visceral is long gone.

Install the mouse fix on the steam community guides page, turn off Vsync and limit your fps to 60 in either geforce experience or amd adrenalin. All you need in order to play the game on modern systems without hitches.

Wonderful from start to finish.

Wait, you're telling me I can get 30 characters at launch for free, my battle pass lasts forever and I can actually earn the premium currency without any shady stipulations?
And this is FREE?
Wow, rest of the industry take notes. This is how you do F2P.

Performs great on my RX 7800 XT 16GB, feel I should mention since some reviews mention optimisation. I stay consistent 144+ without framegen.

Very fun gameplay, Venom in particular is a blast. This is Overwatch if it was good.

Edit:
DEVELOPERS, there is a high amount of CPU usage affecting players and it's begun to affect me. Please fix.

This was my favourite new IP of 2023 and I had to buy it again for PC after experiencing it on Xbox last year.

This is THE best souls-like out there. So much so, it's a league above merely being a clone/FROM inspired game. I would go so far as to rate it above several of FROMsofts own titles. There are so many aspects of this game Choi Jiwon and his team at Round8 studio do better than even FROMsoft that it's staggering how this game doesn't have a bigger following.

The boss battles are great (Laxasia is one of the best in the entire genre), the lore is rich and straightforward with added depth on NG+ with new dialogues and more context, the music is absolutely sublime and you owe it to yourself to listen to "Feel" and "Arche Abbey Upper Part" once in your lifetime. Weapon variety is here in spades, with a unique hilt/blade altering system that makes your weapons truly your own. The game's estus equivalent, Pulse Cells, actually replenish to (1) if you're empty so long as you keep attacking enemies - this greatly incentivises aggressive, confident play as opposed to feeling like you need to port back to your bonfire/grace/lantern in other games in the genre. The Quartz upgrade system is great, giving you a freeform approach to how you want your character to be.

Either full price or on sale, Lies of P is worth it. A truly special game that deserves to be assessed on its own merits, because it's so far beyond a simple souls-like. It's a gem.

Performance is superb, graphics on max 144+ FPS cap on RX 7800XT. No glitches at launch and no glitches these days either. I could gush about this game for hours, thoroughly enjoying my revisit of the game currently and I'm still eagerly anticipating Round8's next game. South Korea cooked with one of their first big-budget AAA titles.

Though I will say, the Green Monster of the Swamp and Door Guardian are two of the worst bosses in the entire genre. Whoever designed those should be shot into the sun.

Dislikes:
Gemini's voice is annoying but I like that there's a guide character.
Can't damage enemies while they're prone on the ground.
Broken mannequin enemies are too overtuned.
Invisible walls stop creativity in exploration.

Initial review:
Well, I didn't like this last year and now it's growing on me. Patch 1.6 is certainly a much better game. For now, it's a recommended, but I'll update it to a final verdict when I finish it. So far so good, though.

My first foray with this 'series' was the 2015 game, which I was crazy enough to 100%, but can't say I enjoyed much at all. Truly one of the most generic games I ever played, but this one is a little different.

Final review after completion:

This game is good, it has some unique concepts to the genre and a lot going for it. I find it best to list it in a simple format of pros and cons.

(Review edited again after playthrough 3)

+Graphics are gorgeous.

+Performance is great for me, a big improvement compared to last year where I got traversal stutter a lot.

+Weapon and armor variety is on par with FROM's roster.

+Some standout bosses like Judge Cleric are absolutely fantastic. Edit: as is Pieta and Elianne the Starved.

+Level structure. We're back to the old school Demon's Souls formula here: where the level itself is the real challenge trying to kill you, not the boss at the end. For me, this is a huge plus as FROM's later games have become boss gauntlets which you run past on repeat playthroughs.

+Varied playstyles. I started out sword and board, but quickly swapped to a hybrid Radiant spellcaster and had a ton of fun. Spells are OP in this game, and I like that.

+Persistent item drops. Remember all the times in FROMsoft games where an enemy drops something you really wanted, or you open a chest, but then you die and when you respawn the item is gone? Not in LotF. The items are persistent and will remain on the ground until you leave the area.

+Umbral. I thought this would be an annoying gimmick, but I love that every area has side paths, secrets and whole enemy encounters you otherwise would miss simply playing in Axiom (the overworld). I loved this concept in Soul Reaver and I love it here.

+Shortcuts. Interconnectivity in this is great, a real inspired choice to include it.

+Length. For a first blind playthrough, I clocked in well over 40 some hours. Every time I felt like I completed a major event, the game had more to discover.

+Far less obscurity than FROM and its imitators. Lore is simple and to the point, NPCs dont end every dialogue with a question to bait Youtubers into making lore videos, and the world provides some concrete answers.

+Bonus lore/descriptions and tips for those who invest in the 'religions' of the game through Radiance and Inferno stats.

+Commitment to the players. Seeing this game was on patch 1.6 at the time of writing had me intrigued enough to pick it back up after dropping and refunding it at launch in 2023. The end result is a much different game to when it released, and I love that there's not only new achievements for all the free additional content and modifiers, but you aren't penalised for using any of them either.

+NPC summons are tough, but balanced enough that they will get stomped if you rely on them to carry you. Not only that, but each NPC has unique voice lines and intros upon being summoned into a boss fight, which creates a more familiar sense of camaraderie with them than even in FROMs games - though FROM has been dabbling with this, like in Shadow of the Erdtree.

+Armour and weapons: these are the coolest in the genre, from visual design to sheer bad-a**ery, you look and feel like a champ.

+Online multiplayer. This is the best cooperative multiplayer in any Souls-like, even besting out FROMs. Its only competitor could be Elden Ring seamless coop mod.

+Different modes and modifiers increase replay value exponentially. I decided to fire up a second playthrough at the time of this edit, this time turning on upgraded loot, randomised loot, and randomised enemies and increased enemy density. It feels like a whole new playthrough now.

~ Neutral: The vestige seeds are a novel concept, being able to make your own bonfires like the cut content of Dark Souls 3 is a great idea, but the game becomes overly dependent on them in the latter half and you go long stretches without proper vestiges.


-Endings are awful. Some of the most abrupt, low-budget resolution in the genre.

-Repeated enemies. This is a cardinal sin. You cannot expect a boss you make for a game to have lasting impact if in the next area you're fighting 4 weaker versions of them. Enemy variety in this game in general is pretty lacking; you'll fight the same enemies for much of its duration, with some elemental buffs here and there to give the illusion of a 'different' enemy. Not only that, but the game seems to think putting the same enemies you fought in the first area in the endgame area but giving them way more health is somehow good design.

-NPC questlines. Some of these are just...bad. You can fail entire questlines without warning simply by opening a door after a boss and the game treating it as you 'missing' the NPC's request. In addition, one of the questlines bugged out on me and I had to resort to a workaround to get the required enemy to spawn. These NPCs are all vendors, too, so you can lose out on some good loot without warning. Another thing, NPCs require you to summon some of them X amount of times during boss fights. Sounds simple enough right? Well, if you first try the boss, you'll never be able to summon them because summoning only unlocks for bosses you die to. Punished for being good. Speaking of being punished for being good, if you kill the Lightreaper earlier than his Upper Calrath encounter, it breaks an NPCs questline too!

-Bugs. Not only did an NPC questline bug out on me entirely, but I've had instances of clipping through the geometry, some levels having missing textures, enemies falling through the ground and if you use your Sanguinarix and swap to another item and use that quickly, the game ques the input and will use your Sanguinarix twice.

- Some of the bosses just suck. Spurned Progeny is ridiculous; he has a one-shot AOE attack you have to pray RNG blesses you with him not using, otherwise you are going to die. Maxed Vitality? Doesn't matter, it'll kill you anyway. This is not good game design. Some of the bosses also blatantly read inputs.

- Lack of weight/stagger on weapons. I used a longsword for the entire playthrough, so perhaps bigger weapons differ, but I noticed very rarely would my attacks interrupt an enemy if they already began their animation. It's as if they took the hyper armor from Dark Souls 2 and cranked it to 11.

- High CPU usage led to a bluescreen for me, but this is the one occurrence in 80 hours of play.

SUGGESTIONS FOR DEVS:
Please add a flag/checkmark for items we own, as there are way too many items to keep track of for completionist achievements.
A permanent vestige moth we can unlock would also be amazing.
A way to farm Umbral Scourings outside of Crucible, maybe as a low drop % chance.
A colour indicator of loot drops to distinguish between consumables/materials and weapons/armour.

All in all, I'd give this game a very high 7/10. If you were torn on this or Lies of P, however, I say get that. That being said, LotF 2023, Surge 2 and Lies of P are so far, the only Souls-Likes I feel are worth a play. It's said the sequel to this is coming to Epic Games Store only, which is a shame, as I'll only be buying it if it's on Steam - but that's the key takeaway - I liked this game enough to want to play another one.

A misunderstood game that continues to get better. 5 playthroughs all in all, all achievements. Patch 1.7 just came out and has fixed the enemy magnetism and BS tracking that I complained about in the previous version of this review. HexWorks actually seem to listen to us and that warrants respct.

I wish Steam had a neutral review option because so much of Yakuza 3 leaves me asking..."why?".

Combat is probably the worst iteration sans the PS2-era entries; punch, punch, kick is still the standard winning combo but this time around, enemies block EVERYTHING. Fights turn into slow, tedious meandering waiting to exploit an enemy whiffing their strike to get maybe one or two punches in before they default to a block again.

This game is paced abysmally, probably the worst offender in the series. The actual game does not truly begin until Chapter 5; prior to that, you're playing the role of Dad Kiryu to the kids of the Sunshine orphanage with a few fights sprinkled in-between to keep you invested just enough to not put the game down. From chapter 6 thereafter, the game picks up speed and pacing gets a lot better, only to slow to a crawl again in Chapter 10. However, with that being said, chapters 11 and 12 are actually some of the best in the entire series and why I'm not giving this game a negative review outright: the final boss is one of the best of all the RGG Studio games (theme, gameplay, performance, barely blocks your attacks and actually fights you like a man) and the gauntlet of enemies you fight leading up to him is one of the more impressive out of all the games - even 0 which did them the best.

A nitpick and sign of the times it released, but I hate having to pause the game to access the menu just to open the map. I'm spoiled by having the back button do that in 0, K1 and K2.

Soundtrack is awesome, Sega Sound Team never really miss.

If you play this, stick with it past those boring first few chapters because it does get much better. They serve their purpose to get you invested emotionally, but from a gameplay perspective they're the worst parts of the entire series for me and caused me to drop the game for four whole months before I came back to finish it.

While I do recommend this game, I feel it's best to summarise my time with it with a simple list of pros and cons.

The good:
• Fun combat. RGG Studio realised how much we love the Heat Actions in the Yakuza games and decided to give us a power fantasy here, so Yagami can unleash a dozen of them before needing to recharge the EX Gauge. The two stances break up the monotony of the atypical "XXY to win" strategy so prevalent in past Yakuza entries.
• A gripping story with great themes. I was glued to my seat, desperate to find out who The Mole was and found myself enthralled in Yagami's quest for vengeance and justice.
• Great characters. Whether it be Mafayu, Kaito, Yagami himself or Saori and the rest of the lawyers, Yakuza and corrupt officials that line the cast, there's very few characters here that I can call "bad". I enjoyed all of their performances (JP Audio) and found myself attached to them.
• Lots of side-content. As is RGG Studio fare, this game is absolutely loaded with mini-games and side content to extend your playtime well beyond the main story.
• Graphics and performance. Played this in 1440p 60 with 0 drops, stutters or compatibility issues. A pretty much perfect PC port and the best part is Task Manager showed it was using barely 10% of my rig during the most intense moments.
• Longer than the average Yakuza game. Maybe a bad thing to others but for me, I thought this was a meaty game with a lot of plot and world-building, so I found myself a lot more invested than in say, Yakuza Kiwami which was over before I knew it.
• Some of the best fight choreography I've ever seen in any game, and up there with the highest highs of RGG Studio's other games.

Now for the bad:
• Repetitive tailing missions. Most people who have heard about Judgment have heard horror stories about these and yes, they're that bad. Imagine the worst Ubisoft Assassin's Creed tailing mission and dial it to 11, and you have one of the worst interruptions ever. After Chapter 7 these do stop being as frequent, but they'll show up to frustrate you in the later chapters. Just boring, sadly.
• Pacing is way, way off. Prior to Chapter 7, the game insists on breaking up EVERY. SINGLE. CHAPTER. with a side quest that often times is completely unrelated to the overarching narrative. Gone are the brief gameplay introduction missions of the Yakuza series, here's full-fledged missions where Yagami abandons his quest for justice to do menial tasks and chat up Hostesses. The game frequently gives you the "wait around for XYZ to call" objective until the 7th chapter or so, leading you to just wander aimlessly until you can progress the story. I get they wanted you to use that time to explore, but when you're enthralled in the narrative it just becomes a nuisance and is little more than arbitrary padding.

Overall I'd give this game a 4/5 and despite its blemishes, would recommend it to anyone who either likes RGGs other games or just wants a thrilling crime story to experience. For a first game in a new franchise, it's understandably rough around the edges but if you stick with it, you will leave satisfied. Just don't trust how you feel about the game prior to chapter 6, because it gets so much better thereafter.

This is one of the greatest RPGs I've ever played, and has one of the best stories in the series.

I've just finished the game after 50 hours and I'm absolutely blown away by what a good time it was. I didn't expect to vibe with the change from real-time to turn-based, but within four chapters (which isn't that long at all) I was familiar and comfortable with the change of gameplay style. Ichiban is a wonderful protagonist with a big heart and a compelling narrative paired alongside him. This is RGG Studio at their very best; minimal filler, memorable characters, rewarding gameplay systems and a myriad of minigames to play and indulge in. I had such a good time with this game and honestly couldn't put it down. If I had one recommendation, it'd be to make sure you have 3,000,000 yen before Chapter 11. If you do that, you'll find the pacing of the game is absolutely sublime and respects your time. I also recommend using the homeless camp in the beginning chapters for free full restores of your party, and learning the red elemental skills of each job to make a fully diverse all-rounder party.

I was hesitant about the protagonist change from Kiryu to Ichiban, but Kazuhiro Nakaya's performance as Ichi has won me over. Nakaya delivers one of the greatest scenes I've ever seen from a voice actor in any game, rivalling the likes of Red Dead Redemption 2 and Metal Gear Solid for raw, powerful expression. His performance is going to stick with me for a long time and all for good reason. This is up there with Yakuza 0 for my favourite story in the series and a large part of it is thanks to Nakaya.

The only gripe I have with this game is I did hit one point where I had to grind: Chapter 12. I would recommend getting to at least Level 50 in the Sotenbori Arena before progressing Chapter 12. You'll know why when you get there.

I'll sound off here, but since this is currently on sale as part of the Like A Dragon intro pack, I encourage anyone considering it to go ahead and buy it. Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio brought their A-game here and I'm excited to dive into Infinite Wealth next.