Recent reviews by HazyNorseman

HAVE A CUP OF LIBER-TEA SONY!

DEMOCRACY PREVAILS YET AGAIN!

I enjoyed the game, but it's a disappointing mediocre mess and not worth 70 dollars. You can break down this game's issues for hours, but I want to talk about an aspect that disappointed me the most about it, and it's Starfield's world and how artificial and lifeless it feels.

Bethesda Game Studios has always done a consistently good job of creating immersive worlds for the players to explore. It's one of their core strengths and they were ahead of their time hand-crafting these worlds full of life during the days of Morrowind and Oblivion. Whether that be an interesting story or quest tied to a dungeon, how NPCs react or behave to the player's actions, how it feels to travel through the world itself, etc.

Starfield's locations are handcrafted, but most of them (besides the cities) are copied and pasted on procedurally generated planets. This kills a lot of the fun and immersion in exploration because the player already knows what to expect since they explored those exact locations on a different planet. Part of what made traversing to these locations and exploring them so much fun in games like Skyrim was that every location was different from one another. Sure they will re-use some assets, but the point of interest will have a different layout than other dungeons, have a different lore reason for existing, they might contain a unique reward, and maybe a quest tied to the place to complete. Having every location hand-crafted to be different from one another is what makes the player interested in traveling to the location and exploring the place in other Bethesda games. Since Starfield's locations are copied and pasted from one another, it not only butchers the fun of exploration but also ruins immersion because the player knows that the only reason these points of interest exist is because of an algorithm.

Speaking of exploration, space exploration feels disjointed and unnatural because of its RESTRICTED RELIANCE on loading screens and fast travel. Fast travel in Bethesda games is nothing new. In Morrowind, players could use fast travel through the Netch bulls in towns and cities. In Oblivion and Skyrim, players could fast travel to points of interest they discovered. However, a major difference between those games and Starfield is that fast travel isn't the only way of traversing the world. In games like Skyrim and Fallout 4 fast travel was highly encouraged, but players always had the option to manually traverse to locations without it. This is important because not only does it give the player options, but it is also essential for immersion by allowing you to explore a big open world, which is a core aspect of Bethesda's design. In Starfield although you can do this when on planets, the same can not be said for space travel. The most you can do is just fly around a planet in space.

Another immersion-harming aspect is the transition from space to a planet, or vice versa. The player can't actually travel seamlessly from space to a planet because it is done through a loading screen. This is bad because of the same reasons stated before, it harms immersion because it does not feel like the player is exploring space. Todd Howard did give a reason why it's like this in the game. IGN spoke to Todd after the Xbox and Bethesda games showcase of 2022, and in this IGN article by Joe Skribils, paragraph 6, it reads "'If you try to really spend a lot of time engineering the in-between, like that segue, you're just spending a lot of time [on something] that's really just not important to the player." I'm not a programmer so I can't say much about how hard it would be to implement it in the game, but I disagree with Todd when he says it's not that important to the player. It matters to the player because it's important to immersion and the overall experience of the game. Experiencing the world in Bethesda games is part of what makes these games special, and one of its core pillars is immersion. So when you disrupt that immersion, it not only harms the world but the overall experience of the game.

In yet another thing that disrupts immersion, we have the way NPCs react to the player, or rather how they don't. You've probably seen videos that compare Starfield to other RPG games like Cyberpunk 2077, how the NPCs don't react to the player when they aim a gun at them or shoot around them in Starfield, and how they do react in Cyberpunk. I don't need to explain why this is immersion-breaking, but what I find especially sad is how Bethesda managed to implement this in one of their games before, IN SKYRIM 12 YEARS AGO! If the player casts destruction spells around town, NPCs will say things like "Whoa, whoa, whoa! Watch the magic!" If the players uses shouts, the guards will ask you to stop. This simple thing of having NPCs react to the actions of the player is just gone in Starfield, despite the game being in development for 8 years.

To wrap things up, Starfield's world and immersion are underwhelming. Out of all of the problems in the game, this was the most disappointing aspect for me because this was not only something Bethesda used to excel at but was also one of their main strengths and appeals. Morrowind was an instant classic that saved the company from bankruptcy with its in-depth RPG mechanics, player freedom, and world. They were ahead of their time during the days of Oblivion with its impressive (for the time) AI NPCs and how they would go about their daily tasks in the game. Skyrim focused more on other elements of immersion and realism in the open world, like making certain locations like towns and villages seem more realistic, improving the sound design, having wildlife that act more naturally in the world, etc. Despite the issues these games had, Bethesda always focused heavily on designing the worlds and making them feel immersive. Starfield seems like the first single-player open-world game by Bethesda that kind of deviates from this core principle that has helped them be so successful in the past. They used to be ahead of the game in crafting an immersive open world, but now they're behind. To me, it's sad to see such a fundamental aspect of Bethesda games be cracked and tarnished.

An absolute masterpiece. A true work of art that will have you captivated till the very end. Play this game completely blind, and enjoy one of the best indie games ever made.

This game is like having a high-end gaming PC. It's fantastic, but MAN is it expensive.

My favorite game of all time

Great horror game! Loved the survival mechanics and the unique WW1 setting.

I played RE4 all the way through so I can be ready to play the remake, and what can I say? It's an outstanding masterpiece that not only revolutionized 3rd person shooters, but video game cinematics and cut-scenes. I'm excited to see the improvements and changes on the remake!

"Furi, is a game where every boss fight feels like the final boss. They taunt you, they demand you get back in your prison cell, they pound you into a pulp, and even make you doubt the righteousness of your own quest towards freedom, but, the soundtrack man, it keeps egging you on.. to WHOOP SOME ASS!"

-Dunkey 2017

HOLY BALLS THIS GAME IS INCREDIBLE. Like, really REALLY incredible. I was surprised by just how hooked I was from beginning to end, not only from the fast-paced combat but the amazing story as well!

Buy this game NOW! It is so fun and satisfying, one of the best indie games I've ever played. 10/10, a must-play!

This game is really good. A must-play for people who like Furi, Soulslikes, or boss rush games. I bought and played this on Xbox right before Elden RIng came out, and I did it again on PC to support the developers.

Also, don't listen to the negative reviews of this game. They complain about the combat being too "clunky" and the difficulty being unfair, but this is false. I completed the game and I found all of the bosses to be challenging, but fair. They just heavily punish you for reckless decisions, same thing for combat. Yes, you're only given 3 dodges that recharge slowly, but you're rewarded with a free dodge if you time it perfectly with an enemy attack. This means that rather than mindlessly panic dodging, the player is encouraged and rewarded for analyzing the boss's move set and dodging appropriately.