You could call this an spectacle fighter, but the addition of the rifle makes if so clunky, unlike a certain demon hunter our heroin here becomes very slow while shooting, I was planing on ignoring the gun altogether after getting the skill to dash towards enemies, but then they go and introoduce mobs that require you to shoot them to break tehir shields. I could tolerate the clunky combat if there was any story whatsoever, but after almost an hour and 2 boss battles nothing of interest has happened. The protagonist doesn't sound like a likeable fellow either, always pushy and contemptuous. It doesn't help that artistically is unapologetically a 2010 game, the low quality textures are hidden behind heavy layers of bloom and piss colored vaseline, they spendt all the texturing budget in the scantly clad protagonist, because of course she has to look like a stripper, as was the norm at the time.
A full 3D CRPG in the style of fallout 1-2? sounds great. Unfortunately this game is so commited to be like fallout that does the same mistakes, the interface is as bad as in those old games, inventory management is a nightmare, no matter what you go for, you will always start underpowered, if you build your character at the start to be a gunslinger, tough luck, you are stuck with a brick as your first weapon, dialogues do not show you your chances to succeed in a conversation, is it a percentage, is it a hard skill check, you wish you knew. If the game is this aggresively obtuse at the start I don't wanna imagine how bad it's gonna be later, so I stopped after half an hour. It's ok to be inspired by another franchise, but you should look at them and ask yourselves "how can we make it better"
The game could be described as a thrid person shooter with isometric camera, but it also has immersive sim elements, you can usually sneak your way or shoot your way through missions, one thing that caught my attention is how the physics work, I've seen NPCs hurting themselves because they stumble with a can, or jumping on top of a dymanite bundle to set it off. And something I discovered in the last chapter is that if you incapacitate an enemy that is already sleeping their allies won't freak out when they see tehn unconscious, that's a nice touch. Weapons have different effective range and damage is projectile based with bullet time to top it all off, it's pretty good, the only thing missing is more weapon modifiers or different kinds of ammunition for enemies with certrain resistances. But what really had me going was the story, you are an immortal being that inhabitates different bodies, but they are not generations appart, all the protagonists share the world and you apparentkly are working on some kind of experiment to save the world. Unnfortunately I got a game breaking bug, the game was working flawlessly until it wasn't, started crashing shortly after booting, I tried reparing the innstall and updating my drivers, but at the end I had to reinstall. Itr was worth the extra effort. The game is pretty fun, and it shows the devs put a lot of care into crafting it, just one lat thing: if you wanna play sneaky, don't bring any companions, they'd rather fight until they die instead of hiding.
You are a hunter in a surreal an unhospitable world where creatures are both your prey and your hunters, they can see you, hear you and smell you. There’s a day/night cycle with weather effects that can hinder or help you, there’s no map or compass, but your spirit arrows work as a light source in the deepest darkness or as a scouting tool to get your bearings. So, thread carefully, pay attention to your surroundings and try to avoid unfavorable winds. Uncover secrets to unravel the history of the land and gain gear upgrades, but don’t rush, or you might end up dead before you can “lock in” your experience points. Great visuals, great music and directional sound to keep you immersed, this game is great for those of us that want to play a sneaky character and have no issues with “paying attention” as the most important game mechanic. If you liked Thief, you'll probably like this one.
explorte a sureal 3D overworld in search for the power to stay the tide of a deadly nano dust storm, but don't let the screenshots fool you, the overwold is just set dressing for the real game, where you enter the minds of tyyhe different inhabitants and explore 2D dungeons, very similar to the first game, with lots of enviromental puzzles. I was having fun, until I ran into an issue: I ran out of dust, which is one ofthe currencies used to move forward the plot, I got all the cards I could and I only needed to power up the device with dust, but I got so caught on the dungeons (they are really fun to solve) that I did not turn in my dust after every single one, and now I don't know where to get more dust since you cannot revisit old mind dungeons to grind enemies. So I guess my adventure will never be completed
I can finally actually buy this game, not just rent it on steam, fantastic news, I played it back in 2020, is a lot of fun , fast paced action paired with an epic soundtrack, if you haven't played it, don't wait a second more, it's even on discount af on now (18th of April), You have no excuses.
Pretty much a continuation of the Ys 8 design philosophy, music is great, graphics are nice and story is interesting, even if the ending feels rushed, because the game plays coy during dozens of hours and doesn't show its hand until the very end, at least is better than the ending of Ys 8 (still sour about it) That said, by the end I was bored out of my mind, despite the combat being almost identical to Ys 8, the increased volume of enemies encouraged me to spam skills, of which not many felt satisfactory to use. On top of that, unlike Ys 8, the difference between a lvl 1 and lvl 3 skill is barely perceptible (massive let down), not to mention that getting attacked by 6 enemies at the same time also forces you to overrely on the dodge mechanic that doesn't work very well because enemies track you after commiting to an attack and hitboxes are all over the place. So the best bet is to use the strongest chaarcter, equip a lifestealing accesory and just go berserk (Yufa was my main character the whole game) Another huge let down was the lack of a romantic interest for Adol, I mean, the 16 year old girl has a crush on him but I had to use all the dialogue options to shoot her down because Adol is 24 and that would be, to put it mildly, highly problematic (Yufa was right there, wtf, Japan). I loved to tease Laxia in Ys 8, and, alas, it was not possible this time around. I think it was a mistake to make it the central location of the game. Of the entire city you can only enter a handfulof buildings, sure, you shouldn't be supposed to enter every building, but I have no doubts someone was being cheap when I saw the pub owner standing in the street selling food instead of, you know, being inside the pub. Yet another point where Ys 8 was better, that deserted island was a great excuse to get rid of pointless npcs and buildings, of which there are many in Ys 9. Overall, I think Ys 8 did it all better, except for the ending, and the music. Still worth a playthrough.
Okay, I'm guessing back in the day this was the first Ys with a party system and full 3D rendering, it has the DNA of games to come, and as suchity has its rough edges, it wouldn't be so intrusive if this was like a 2002 game, but this was from 2009 and the graphics are oof, textures are really low so it looks like a N64 game, the audio quality feels lower than it should. The party AI is very basic, there's no party "stance" but you can turn off skills so your AI partners don't spam skills you don't want them to (they use any learned skill not just the equipped ones), skills are incredibly tedious to level up. Therefore, it's better to comit to just four so they get to the endgame almost at max level, unfortunately some of the skills will be only available really late in the game which is frustrating., There's also a little bit of grind to do (jrpgs, amirite) and it's pretty heavy handed in the last dungeons because you are gonna need hundreds of soulstones that only drop in there. At least the story is pretty straightforward (except for the big bad guy reveal, but that was on me, I should have seen it coming) and the ending is exactly what I expected and the music is pretty good. And hey, this is the very first time Adolf don't start falling overborad or sinking a ship, so he's making progress, I thought for a moment Dogi was gonna be the ladies man this time around, but I was disappointed. Overall, pretty good, better than Ys 6, and with a better ending than Ys 8 (yes, I am still salty about it).
This game is rough, it follows the same design pilosophy of Oath in Felghana, combat is active and levels are everything, but there are some design decisions that baffeld me. - Gold is useless, you can buy all the shop has to offer early on , the rest of the game you'll just accumulate gold for no reason, I ened the game with around 400k gold with nothing to spend it on - You'l need hundreds of thousands of emel to upgrade your gear, and you better upgrade or you'll bne severely undergeared, specially against the last boss, that grind is not fun at all - What is map? no minimap, the map you get is a joke, absolutely useless - Lack of direction had me running around trying to figure out what I had to do: at sopme point you need a special accesory to hurt certain enemies, usually in adevnture games you will get such vital item inside the same dungeon you encounter said enemies, but not here; the miniboss you have to kill is in a completely different area and if you are like me, you'll assume is still too strong for you since the first time I encountered it I died in one hit. - The dash move is necessary to get all the quest items, but the game poorly explains how it's done, so tahnk the gods for the internet - One too many bugs: I got stuck on a ledge while trying to do a downward attack, not once, but twice, and at some point one NPC got stuck in a staircase during a cinematic, fortunately, pressing alt+enter a couple of times made her move up the stairs. (again, thanks the gods for the internet) At least the music is nice Overall, a pretty lackluster entry, but atleast is not too long (around 11 hours including the grind), and now I can move on to Ys Seven. Will Adol ever learn not to fall overborad every sinngle ship he gets on? maybe that's why he can't commit to any realtionship. The mysrtery lives on.
The game is fun to play, the fast paced combat is pretty damn good. I love the setting, exploring a deserted island gives the progression a nice pace, there's a little bit of grind to do, but is not terrible, it even includes a little fishing minigame to take a break fro the frantic combat if you want. Unfortunately the music is not good, the village music is good to set the relaxed mood on the beach, but the overworld is just a single riff driven rock tarck that doesn't let down, so taking a stroll down a pleasant looking forest while the soundtrack is losing its mind like if you were in a boss battle. The worst part of the game is the ending, I don't wanna spoil it, but is very anticlimatic, it singlehandedly managed to take down the game from a 4/5 to a 3/5 for me, it's just not a worthwhile payofff for 60 hours of gameplay. But alas, no Ys game is perfect , and I shall in my adventures, following my favorite dog, Adol, who keeps spreading children left and right through the world, but they can't show that since this is a family friendly game. (you don't get 25 people stranded for months in an island withouth some of them getting busy, including the MC)
