Hold up... THIS is the game I kept hearing about? THIS is the 'best game ever made?' This thing? The game with the twitchy controls that make navigating a set of stairs difficult? The forced grind even on story mode? You know, the setting to play the STORY? This game with the barrage of cut scene interspersed with walking or riding? I don't know what 10/10 game other people have been playing but it couldn't possible have been this...
This game kept getting recommended to me as an alternative to GTA I think all those people may have misunderstood. This game is NOT an action sandbox game no matter how many times I'm told it is. It's an interactive movie intermixed with segments of a fighting game. This game falls into the same problem as Mafia. They are virtually identical gameplay loops. This isn't as big an offender as Mafia in the series of linear gameplay separated by cutscenes since there are some minor side encounters. On the other side, the rest of the gameplay is sadly repetitive. The fighting is mostly just tedious button mashing. If this had been billed as a fighting game with some running in between maybe that would be better... Unlike Mafia, I may come back to this but it will be a while. Unfortunately, I have six other Yakuza games I'm unlikely to try now and honestly, I would be much more angry if I spent full price on them. As it is I'm still annoyed I dropped $30 for the set I need to stop getting excited about games like this
I think this game may have suffered from an image problem. Back in the day it was billed as GTA3 but old timey gangsters. This remaster seems to be presented the same way so I was very disappointed when I found out this is not an open world crime game in the vein of GTA and GTA clones like Saint's Row, True Crime et all Mafia is like playing a movie. It's little more than a series of cinematics with some linear gameplay between them. The gameplay itself is fine but there is no player agency or sense of exploration or adventure. If you get hit with a bat too many times, just reload the checkpoint and do it again with zero variation It's not bad, it's just boring The game does offer an open world to explore but it needs to be selected as a whole different play mode. In addition, there is virtually nothing to do in the exploration mode. The game mentions side missions and activities but finding and doing them is tedious at best. The open world is just a big empty thing to run around in If you want a sandbox game in the vein of GTA this is NOT that game no matter how much it seems like it wants to be
I've played worse CRPGs but this is a middle of the road game. It's never dull and there isn't anything to really elevate it above other genre offerings. The Infinity Engine is a super solid and player friendly offering but the game is linear and lacks variety. The gameplay loop is learn about a dungeon in town, clear out the dungeon. Return to town and learn about the next dungeon. Add to that a pretty by the numbers plot and you end up with a game mildly above average
I desperately wanted to like this game but I absolutely did not I have no nostalgia for the game, I've never played it before. I love the games of it's legacy such as Fallout and all the amazing CRPGs that followed so I was hyped to give the OG a go but yeah... no To say gameplay is clunky and dated is an understatement. It is painfully unfun and I'm usually a fan of retro games. I understand this has a fresh coat of Unity paint but my opinion is the same for both versions I am sure there are some who will love this sort of game and to them I say go for it. If you're not, look elsewhere
The game starts out promising enough with competent tactical combat but that's really all the game offers. Other elements of gameplay are clunky and bland. After about ten hours of play, the tactical combat gets repetitive That is nothing to say of the casual cruelty and racism. Being kind, the way the game handles genocide is culturally insensitive I love this kind of game, but I don't even really like this
Is this the best CRPG ever made or is that pure hyperbole? Well, a little of both. It's hard to say it is the best when so many other amazing CRPGs exist. This Enhanced Edition version of the game is a solid update from the original and worth consideration. All of the EE versions of the old Black Isle infinity engine are well done I could waste 1k words telling you about it, but I don't need to. It's great and if you like CRPGs this is among the best
I bought this by accident a little while back when I was buying all the games and played it a bit to see if I liked it before returning it. I did not. A remake needs to improve upon the original enough to justify it's own existence. I'm not some kind of retro fangirl and think most games really benefit from a modern update. This game however not only fails to improve, it is a major step down. The original game is pretty near flawless and all this seems to do is smooth out the graphics and give us new voice actors, so let's discuss. The graphics look decent enough but there really is nothing wrong with the charm of the old pixel graphics. Attempting to change this isn't a terrible thing but it certainly doesn't add anything and actually removes some of the charm of the original. The voice acting. This is the BIG one. The original voice actors are perfect embodiment of their characters. Michael Dorn and Mark Hammil are perfect and Tim Curry as Gabriel is flawless. The new voice actors have a lot to live up to and quite obviously don't reach the same height. But they are actively bad. Particularly the actor for Gabriel. He is grating on the ears and the dialogue is painful coming from him. The final verdict is just go play the original. It's one of the best examples of Sierra's point and click games.
...but it ended up being both boring and frustrating I absolutely LOVE the games that came after this with FC5 being one of my all time favorite games. Being a fan of old(er) school games, going back and trying out the first two entries seemed like a good idea I was wrong Others have mentioned many of the problems with this game and I agree. Repetitive gameplay loop, absurd respawns, too much time spent just moving about, etc. etc etc. The big thing that kills the enjoyment for me here is it's just confusing. Everything is the same color and the lack of a minimap makes navigating even in small spaces is really difficult. When I run up against the constant checkpoint gunfights it's impossible to tell where the enemies are since they are the same color as everything else. I just get shot and don't even know what direction to turn I really wanted to like this game and I almost did. I was willing to look past some of its quirks but it became a slog after only about an hour of gameplay For serious, go play any of the later games, they are all fantastic
Admittedly, it's kinda in between the two I am not very skilled with video games but I still love playing them. Far Cry 2004 is everything I don't like about shooters from the era. Twitchy controls, terrible accuracy... I mapped it onto a controller to more like later games in the series but that didn't really help. I couldn't get out of the tutorial Stealth is terribly difficult in the early game and enemies can swarm and are very difficult to see through the foliage. Nothing compared to the everything is the same color and impossible to see details of FC2 but still real hard to play Without cheat codes working in the version of the game here, I can't recommend this game unless you are VERY good at shooters from the era. For me, it's utterly unplayable
