Final Fantasy XVI Review:  In this Final Fantasy XVI Review, we’ll be taking a look at the latest entry to the Final Fantasy series which is developed by Creative Business Unit III and published by Square Enix. What does this game have to offer, what makes it stand out among the other Final Fantasy games, what is the gameplay, and what are the things you can do for both side and post-game content? We’ll answer these and cover your other questions in this Final Fantasy XVI Review.

Final Fantasy XVI Review: An Action-Packed Upgrade for a Beloved Franchise

• Genre: Action Role-Playing Game, Adventure
• Developed by: Creative Business Unit III, Square Enix
• Published by: Square Enix
• Release Date: June 22, 2023
• Platform/s: PlayStation 5
• Reviewed on: PlayStation 5
• Price at the time of Review: USD 69.99 ~ 99.99

Final Fantasy XVI Review: Story and Setting

Storytelling and the fictional world of Final Fantasy XVI are well-realized, breathtaking, and compelling. As a player who finds story-driven games attractive, the game does its job of reeling me into the unfolding plot, making me fall in love with the characters, and imprinting itself in my mind even when I’m not playing it, leaving me wanting to come back for more. That is what Final Fantasy games are known for. Delivering a solid story with a cohesive world. Final Fantasy XVI is no exception, and Creative Business Unit III and Square Enix have nailed it.

Final Fantasy XVI is set in a medieval period within Valisthea, divided into two continents, Ash and Storm. The land is scattered with Mothercrystals that provide people with magic and energy, driving civilization through the Aether’s power. In the present day, the nation is divided into six kingdoms that are fighting to gain control of their respective Mothercrystals, each with different goals of maintaining the alliance, conquering, and surviving the Blight’s corruption that continues to threaten and destroy Valisthea.

The key components of the story heavily revolve around the political aspects of the different kingdoms, their military, leaders, and the Dominants: humans who have been chosen as hosts to the different elemental Eikons. These Dominants can use magic without the crystals and can transform into their respective Eikons, making them the ultimate weapons used in war. However, excessive use of their gifts can lead to serious implications for their lives and ultimately result in death.

The game follows the story of the protagonist, Clive Rosfield, the firstborn son of the archduke of The Grand Duchy of Rosaria. He is also the dedicated “Shield” to his younger brother and successor to the throne, Joshua Rosfield who happens to be the Dominant of the Fire Eikon, Phoenix. As we witness Clive’s life in his teenage years, a series of unfortunate events unfold. The Grand Duchy of Rosaria falls, a battle between two Eikons emerges, and a tragedy befalls the Rosfield brothers, setting Clive on a path of vengeance.

Throughout your journey as Clive, you’ll experience the different phases of his life and learn more about the game’s lore through story progression, interactions with different NPCs, side quests, and the game’s unique feature, the ATL or Active Time Lore. We won’t spoil too much in this review since we want everyone to enjoy the story and the revelations that unfold.

Final Fantasy XVI has a darker tone, and we appreciate it. It may not be how we are accustomed to a traditional Final Fantasy game, but for this installment, the Game of Thrones inspiration and grittier vibe seemingly work. Video games, in general, are another form of storytelling, and overall, the story and setting of this game are among its strongest features. When combined with superb voice acting and a well-written script, it definitely leaves both new and veteran fans of the Final Fantasy series in shock and awe. One tip: you might want to keep a box of tissues beside you.

Final Fantasy XVI Review: Gameplay

As I sat down to play for this review, I was worried that the pacing would slow me down and eventually bore me since there are a lot of cutscenes and dialogue, especially in the prologue. However, with patience and the fact that the game starts off with a bang, I was unaware of the amount of time I’d spent playing and how drawn I was as the tension of the story started to build. More gameplay mechanics eventually became accessible to me as I progressed. Yes, it can be slow during the prologue, but it immediately opens more once you start in the present day, and there is a generous amount of content when it comes to the key features and combat mechanics of the game. Let’s talk more about it.

Exploration

Let me start by clarifying that Final Fantasy XVI is not an open-world game, and this could divide players since the open-world setting was already done in Final Fantasy XV. So why not make it possible here? Honestly, it doesn’t need to be for this installment. It reminds me of classic Final Fantasy games, and it feels like the developers decided to “go back to their roots,” which works for this game. In Final Fantasy XVI, locations to explore become available through the story progression. You’ll gain access to the World Map, and from there, you do have some freedom to travel to different areas, provided they are unlocked and can be accessed during certain parts of the main story. 

The locations you explore are divided into sections and are mostly linear, starting from Point A and ultimately reaching Point B, which is your objective. As you traverse these areas such as forests, ruins, village settlements, the desert, and more, you’ll encounter enemies that vary from beasts to humans, including flora and fauna. You’ll discover different loot and fight against bosses. Some areas may feel large in terms of space, but they can easily be cleared out by consulting the location’s map.

While tackling Main Quests, you are not obligated to go directly to the location where the objective of the main quest takes place. Instead, you can always go back to other explored areas and the main hub of the game to engage in side quests, bounty hunting, equipment upgrades, training, or simply exploration. Yes, it might feel underwhelming for some due to the limited space available for exploration, but I still admired the design of each location and interacting with the different characters. Personally, I didn’t feel overwhelmed or distracted by larger spaces.

In areas that require more exploration, sections can be easily traversed by discovering obelisks. These allow the player to easily fast travel from one obelisk to another, as long as it is active. The world and characters change through story progression, so it’s important to revisit pivotal locations like the hub to discover new items in shops, unlock new crafting recipes, find additional side quests, engage in more NPC interactions, and more.

Overall, the exploration aspect of the game, searching areas as I progressed while fighting enemies and bosses, including interactions with the environment and characters, left me satisfied. I appreciated how easy it is to use both the world and area maps, as well as the convenient and simplified features for fast traveling.

Combat Systems

Final Fantasy XVI excels in three areas: the story, visuals and sounds, and combat. When you start the game, the pacing of combat might be slow for some, but this won’t matter since more options become available as you progress through the main story. Be patient, learn the basic maneuvers, and experience Clive’s journey as he unlocks his full potential as a skilled warrior.

Clive has the capability of wielding different Eikonic powers, as heavily featured in trailers, and this is where the combat shines. Without a doubt, the combat reminded me of a combination of games such as Stranger of Paradise and Devil May Cry. You can execute different combos that involve melee attacks and abilities, as well as switch Eikons on the fly to unleash unique elemental skills. The fluidity of combat enhances the experience, allowing me to instruct Torgal to jump in and attack, heal, and launch enemies in the air while simultaneously using combos of melee and magic, ultimately finishing them off with a cheeky little mortal blow finisher.

During minor and major boss battles, I found myself in awe of the smooth transitions between fighting and cinematic moments that involve Quick Time Events (QTEs). The exhilarating experience of Eikon vs. Eikon combat, reminiscent of Kaiju battles, left me picking up my jaw from the floor. The action role-playing game (ARPG) elements in this installment fit perfectly, and it felt rewarding whenever I perfectly dodged, parried, staggered, and executed combos using different combinations of Eikonic Abilities.

Eikon combat in Final Fantasy XVI plays a pivotal role in the game due to its breathtaking and majestic sequences. As you embody an Eikon, you’ll have access to their unique controls and mechanics. For example, Ifrit is capable of lunging toward the target, delivering heavy blows, and throwing fireballs from a ranged distance, while Phoenix is agile, flying in the air, evading attacks, and shooting a barrage of flames. However, summoning or embodying an Eikon does not work like in traditional Final Fantasy games, where you can summon these powerful creatures at any given time in battle. Instead, it only happens during pivotal moments in the game.

As mentioned, you’ll need to progress the story to unlock Clive’s full combat capabilities. But early in the game, players have access to a set of basic combat skills and the Eikonic Abilities of the Phoenix. Abilities in Final Fantasy XVI are unlocked by spending Ability Points (AP), acquired by defeating enemies and completing quests. You can learn these abilities and improve their effects or potency by “Upgrading” and “Mastering” them in exchange for more AP. For each equipped Eikonic power, Clive can choose two abilities mapped to the Square or Triangle buttons. Pressing R2 with Square or Triangle unleashes the Eikon’s Ability. These abilities have cooldowns and will refill over time.

While the combat sounds exciting, it’s important to note that you’ll need to get used to using combos effectively. Yes, it is an ARPG, but it doesn’t mean you can just keep mashing buttons and hope for the best. I had to learn through the training mode and constant battles that chaining combos while giving commands to Torgal and switching between Eikons requires timing and situational awareness. The number of combos you can perform on the ground and in the air is exciting, and it’s refreshing to see in a Final Fantasy game. The game also features a recommended string of combos, which you can view in the ability details by pressing Triangle, making it easier to try a variety of moves and abilities.

Like any other Final Fantasy game, Clive has access to equipment such as weapons, armor, and accessories that improve his offensive and defensive stats. Once you unlock the forge, you can ask Blackthorne to craft new weapons or reinforce existing ones to increase their level and stats in exchange for materials. Alternatively, you can purchase equipment and items from general merchants like Charon’s Toll. While I do wish they added some cosmetic items like costumes to change Clive’s or the party members’ clothing, I’ll let it pass since there’s still a touch of customization where each weapon available for Clive has a unique appearance, which is a staple in Final Fantasy games.

Regarding party members, you only get to control Clive, and throughout the story, you are joined by different characters who act as AI companions in battle. These companions cannot be controlled directly, nor can you switch between them; they act of their own free will. AI companions do not have health bars, which means they won’t die, but they can get hit with attacks that interrupt their actions.

However, you do have some control over the greatest companion in the game, Torgal. Torgal is a hound who is your trusty companion most of the time. He has access to three moves: Sic, a basic attack that can be used to extend combos; Heal, which recovers Clive’s HP; and Ravage, which launches small enemies into the air. If Torgal accompanies Clive during battle, his Pedigree level improves, increasing the potency of his attacks and effectiveness in combat.

My only gripe is that these AI companions sometimes react slowly when I need them to follow up with attacking a staggered enemy or even help with healing the party. I also wish I could customize their equipment to improve their effectiveness in combat. However, this is a minor issue that doesn’t significantly affect my overall experience. I hope future patches or updates will allow us to control and customize other party members, similar to Final Fantasy XV and Final Fantasy VII Remake.

Side & Post-Game Content

In addition to the main campaign, Final Fantasy XVI offers a considerable amount of side and post-game content. While we can’t disclose the exact number of side quests available in this review, there is a generous number of them. There is also an “Arcade” mode, bounty hunts, collectibles to find, and a New Game Plus mode that introduces further challenges. Let’s delve into the different side and post-game content:

• Side Quests: As you progress through the game, side quests become available and are marked with a green exclamation point on the area map. These side quests are important for your journey as they provide additional lore, unlock features or upgrades, and offer useful rewards. Certain side quests may become temporarily locked during specific points in the game and will only be available after progressing through the main story.
• Collectibles: The lore of Final Fantasy XVI is compelling, and you’ll want to stay updated on the events. As Clive progresses, he can interact with Loresman Hapcrates to find a comprehensive compendium of Valisthean lore. The compendium covers basic information, persons, geography, history, and past ATL entries. By sharing stories of Clive’s adventures with Hapcrates, the Thousand Tomes gets updated, and more topics become accessible as the Loresman’s level increases. The hideaway also includes an Orchestrion that provides background music for the hub. The tracklist expands as you acquire more orchestrion rolls from completing quests, purchasing them from merchants, or finding them as loot.
• Bounty Hunts: As you progress through the main campaign, you’ll unlock the Hunter Board, where you can select from a group of elite enemies that need to be slain in exchange for hefty rewards. These unique enemies can be challenging to fight, depending on their rank, so make sure you are prepared before taking on the hunt.
• Arete Stone: The Arete Stone is unlocked as you progress and offers replayable elements to hone your combat skills. The Hall of Virtue serves as a training mode where you can adjust parameters and try out different combos. Arcade Mode allows you to replay any previously cleared stage and awards a score based on performance. Stage Replay, like Arcade Mode, lets you replay a cleared stage at the current level to gain experience points (EXP) and obtain random loot.
• New Game Plus: Upon completing the game, you’ll have the option to start a New Game Plus (NG+) playthrough. In NG+, you can carry over certain progress and items from your previous playthrough, allowing you to experience the game again with added challenges and benefits.

It’s worth noting that side quests and post-game content provide opportunities to gain additional experience points, AP, and items, which can be beneficial for tackling more challenging battles, optimizing your character’s abilities, and unlocking achievements.

Final Fantasy XVI Review: Design, Audio, and Visuals

The design of Final Fantasy XVI is undeniably beautiful and well-suited to its medieval setting. As I explored different locations, each one felt unique and I found myself admiring the lush green forests with dangerous fauna, towering medieval castles and ruins with impeccable details, bustling cities surrounded by market stalls, and small, quiet towns where citizens lived their lives. Even areas that were once vibrant had been consumed by the blight, turning lifeless.

The characters, including NPCs, are well-crafted and each has their own unique wardrobe. The Dominants are dressed to reflect their personalities and Eikons. For example, Jill, the dominant of Shiva, wears a conservative battle robe with hints of blue, while Benedikta wears a more provocative outfit with feather accents to represent the wind Eikon, Garuda. The representation of different magical elements is stunning, with vibrant colors that pop when magic is cast, making combat visually satisfying.

The audio in the game is exceptional, thanks to the work of music composer Masayoshi Soken. The orchestral score he created enhances the adrenaline during combat and suits the different locations you explore. The intense drums, violins, brass instruments, and angelic choir voices adapt and build tension according to your gameplay, immersing you in the experience.

Voice acting in the game is available in multiple languages, including English, Japanese, French, German, Italian, and Spanish (Latin America). I initially played with Japanese voices but found it distracting that the words didn’t match the characters’ mouth movements. Switching to English felt more natural, but both Japanese and English voice acting were delightful to listen to. The actors delivered splendid performances, fully realizing their characters.

Final Fantasy XVI is currently exclusive to the PlayStation 5 and offers the choice between Frame Rate or Graphics Mode. I predominantly played in Frame Rate Mode for the fast-paced action and over-the-top scenes and effects, aiming for a smooth 60 FPS experience. Graphics Mode, on the other hand, enhances visual clarity with higher quality at the expense of a lower 30 FPS frame rate, which can affect fluidity in battle sequences and input responses.

The game transitions seamlessly between combat, cutscenes, and cinematic quick-time events. Loading times are virtually non-existent, and fast traveling is nearly instant. Overall, the game performs exceptionally well, with the only minor issue being a few seconds of frame drops during a specific cutscene in one of the early chapters. However, I believe this can be addressed through post-launch patch updates.

Final Fantasy XVI Review: Replayability & Price Point

According to game director Hiroshi Takai, completing the story of Final Fantasy XVI will take around 35 hours, and including all side and post-game content could extend the playtime to 70-80 hours. In my opinion, starting New Game Plus (NG+) in the harder mode could potentially add another 90 hours, as it adjusts enemy and boss behaviors and increases combat difficulty.

After finishing the main story for the first time, you’ll unlock New Game Plus, which introduces Final Fantasy Mode (Hard Mode) and other game modes accessible through the Arete Stone, such as gauntlets where players can upload scores and climb online leaderboards.

In Final Fantasy Mode, enemies become tougher, their placements are adjusted, combat difficulty is increased, and better rewards are available for gear upgrades. Completionists will likely benefit from experiencing NG+ features, while most players may choose to end their journey after completing the game once.

The physical and digital Standard Edition of Final Fantasy XVI is priced at $69.99 USD, while the physical Deluxe Edition costs $99.99 USD and includes pre-order DLCs, a cloth world map of Valisthea, and a steel book case. The Digital Deluxe Edition on the PS Store is priced at $89.99 USD and offers digital bonuses such as an art book and soundtrack.

Considering the exceptional quality of gameplay, storytelling, audio, and visuals, the $69.99 USD price point is reasonable for Final Fantasy XVI. If you have been eagerly anticipating this game, were convinced by the demo, or are simply a fan of the Final Fantasy franchise, I believe it’s a fair price. However, if you’re still unsure, you can download the demo on the PS5 to experience and gain a better understanding of what the game has to offer.

Final Thoughts

Initially, I had reservations about Final Fantasy XVI due to my preference for traditional turn-based combat mechanics and my mixed feelings towards previous entries like Final Fantasy XV, which leaned towards an action RPG approach. However, after playing the demo and experiencing the full game, my perspective changed. I accepted and embraced the new direction Square Enix has taken to appeal to a wider audience.

Whether you’re a new or veteran fan of Final Fantasy, I highly recommend this game. Final Fantasy XVI combines new features with the core elements of the franchise. It boasts a refreshing, grittier, and darker tone, with storytelling that consistently builds tension and reveals intriguing revelations. The gameplay is satisfying, featuring different types of action sequences and fluid combat mechanics, fully utilizing the power of the PlayStation 5. Final Fantasy XVI has become one of my favorite entries in the series, winning me over with its well-crafted story and breathtaking gameplay.

The post Final Fantasy XVI Review: An Action-Packed Upgrade for a Beloved Franchise appeared first on Fextralife.

In this Diablo 4 Review, we’ll tell you all about the latest installment of the Blizzard Franchise, having played for over 120 hours, reached endgame with all classes, and explored every last corner of Sanctuary.

If you are wondering if Diablo 4 is worth the price, how performance and connectivity work, how the classes develop and if there is longevity, this Diablo 4 Review will answer all your Questions. If you decide to play the game, make sure to check out our Diablo 4 Wiki, the Interactive Map we have completely filled out, and the many, many builds for all classes that we are releasing starting June 2nd!.

Diablo 4 Review – The Best Diablo Yet

Developed by: Activision Blizzard
Published by: Activision Blizzard
Release date: June 2nd 2023 (early access), June 6th 2023 (regular)
Platforms: PC, Playstation 5, Xbox Series X (reviewed on PC, code provided by Activision Blizzard)
Price: USD 59.99 ~ 89.99

Diablo 4 Review – Story and Setting Impressions

The setting of the world of Diablo is actually well crafted and interesting. As a franchise started in 1997 and with releases spanning several decades, there has been plenty of time to add nuance and intrigue to the worldbuilding of Diablo, and the latest installment does an excellent job at bringing it together.

The story of the game follows the legend of the origins of Sanctuary, where the Demon Lilith and Angel Inarius created a “Sanctuary” world to escape the eternal heaven vs hell conflict. Angel and Demon eventually drifted apart, but their offspring, humanity, populated the world.

Something is now amiss, and you quickly discover that Lilith has been re-summoned into Sanctuary, and has nefarious plans that will likely mean the end of humanity. Thus you seek out allies to find the knowledge of the Horardrim order and counter the evil propagating through the world.

The main story of Diablo 4 is told through optional NPC dialogues and cutscenes, that follow the now familiar act-based storytelling. Your quest takes you to unexpected places and brings surprising findings, which can keep you entertained and engaged into what is happening. Lilith, the main villain, is exceptionally well acted and her story well presented, so she does not seem like an empty “evil” from the previous games.

Similarly, other characters and supporting cast have backstories and personal development that adds depth to your progression beyond what is typical of the older games, and flavor text and special appearances of Unique enemies also hint at a deeper correlation between lore, world and gameplay.

Unfortunately, despite the excellent worldbuilding and a good tempo for the main story and its crescendo, the actual plot is rather stale and predictable, and your character has no personality or development, remaining a pre-made hero stereotype.

Most people don’t play these games for depth of character or excellence of narrative so the shortcomings in this regard were expected, however it does seem like a wasted opportunity to truly take on the excellent setting and worldbuilding and bring it to life. In that sense, the world of Diablo features a very well crafted mythos, but I think you’ll do better to explore those via external content such as our D4 Lore Shorts than within the game.

In addition, I feel like some of the “feel” that I had for the story and world came from the unexpected benefit of playing during the press review period, meaning my world was actually completely empty of other players. This made the open world feel very diablo-like: I was alone, it was grim, and there were no distractions. I feel like regular players will never be able to experience that Diablo 4 that I just played, because they will be forced to constantly watch “skippy232” running by with his fancy cosmetics and a multitude of other players crowding quest NPCs and vendors. This will surely detract from the wonderfully crafted atmosphere that i got to enjoy.

Overall, the story of Diablo 4 will keep you entertained as you progress through the main campaign, and you will come to appreciate the characters you meet along the way. But there will be no reason for you to relive it a second time, and you’ll likely use the “skip campaign” button for your second character.

Diablo 4 Review – Gameplay

When I set out to play for this Diablo 4 review, I was concerned that I may not be able to experience the ‘true’ game as it would require an incredible commitment of hours within the short review period. As it turns out, the gameplay of Diablo 4 is so addictive, that we ended up leveling all characters to Over 50+, tried out all the activities on offer, and even created multiple builds per class. Let’s talk about how this comes about

Diablo 4 Review: Exploration

A frequent struggle I have with Diablo games is the Fog of War of the randomly generated maps of the games. I am an explorer and completionist by nature, so I felt compelled to try and clear every black spot on the map everytime I ran into a zone. This of course became frustratingly pointless eventually, but it always felt like I was missing out if I did not. I am thus really happy that the new open world Diablo approach allows me to keep the map cleared after I have done it, even if dungeons re-fog after exit.

Traversing and exploring the world of Sanctuary is interesting and rewarding, with a great amount of cellars, dungeons and events to find, and sprinkled with Altars of Lilith to act as milestones to your progress by giving you small boosts as you find them.

The regional renown mechanic and the significant amount of sidequests made the game feel vast and engaging, rewarding me for going into nook and crannies and not running past all enemy groups to my pinned objective. I very much enjoyed discovering each unique location, meeting its inhabitants and learning about their customs and troubles.

D4 Review Impressions: Combat & Customization

As an action RPG, Diablo 4’s most important aspect is without doubt its combat and the depth of character customization and progression. The fun of these games rides mainly in giving you plenty of options for fun and unique builds that feel interesting and fresh, and that can be applied to your game farming and be satisfying.

I personally had a fantastic amount of fun leveling up the Sorceress, and felt like there was a significant reward for getting to higher levels and tiers and unlocking more of the endgame progression. I ended up getting that sorceress to level 62 or so in the few days we had for a review just because I could not stop playing and making builds, with each legendary and unique I found giving me new ideas for ways to try to play.

Diablo 4 Review: Side & Post Game Content

There are really many activities to undertake in Diablo 4. Besides your normal main quest progression, there are 120+ quests and dungeons that certainly add a lot to do, but they can also feel quite cliched or copy-pasted at times, so temper your expectations if you plan on doing them all.

You can also find Unique enemies that drop powerful rare items with unique affix mixes, take on World Bosses with a group, and participate in many events that reward gambling materials. Most of this is best ignored for your main quest progression time, as you’ll want it to feel fresh when you get to the core of the game’s brilliance: Endgame.

During the beta, we had concerns that things felt very “samey” when doing dungeons, and there was a feeling that legendaries weren’t adding enough uniqueness to really shape a build. I am happy to report that the endgame in Tier 3 and beyond blossoms your character and build in subtle and smart ways, ensuring that you have consistent progression and creating plenty of incentives to re-run the content.

There are certain endgame modes that I quickly became addicted to:

Helltides: These are special, timed zone-wide events where an entire area is overrun by demons. These enemies drop special currency that you accumulate as you play. Unique reward chests spawn within the zone with the promise of hidden legendaries within, with one chest per armor slot, one for jewelry, and two for weapon types (one handed or two-handed). Your objective is to gather enough currency to open as many chests as possible, but there’s a catch: If you die, you lose half your currency. Helltides have level 72 bosses and many mini-bosses roaming around them, and additional hazards such as random meteors, so you are kept on your toes as you try to quickly kill everything while staying alive. Events last between 30 minutes and an hour, and come by every few hours of play.

Nightmare Dungeons: These are special dungeons that you create with Sigils, obtained from high level content. The sigils apply a special effect and Tier to a dungeon, elevating the difficulty by introducing new mechanics and buffing enemies, while also improving the in-dungeon loot. The real motivation to make the most out of this dungeons, however, is to gain experience for your Paragon system special slots. The paragon system doesn’t just let you select buffs from a skill tree, but it allows you to collect “glyphs” that can be slotted at specific nodes in the paragon board. Those glyphs have powerful effects such as giving +x% boost to rare nodes in range, making your existing points count for much more than what they are. Running nightmare dungeons allows you to allocate XP to your glyphs, that become more powerful and expand their range as they level up.

Bounties for a special NPC: There is a special quest type that also unlocks after main story completion. This allows you to undertake specific tasks just as killing enemies in an area, clearing a specific dugeon, or finding a specific enemy to kill. Doing those bounties earns you points and every 10 points received you can return to the bounty NPC for a chest with an almost guaranteed legendary inside.

All these activities combine with other aspects such as zone events and World Bosses to create a varied landscape for farming, and this is without considering social activities such as group clears on dungeons, clans, or the PvP zones of the game.

In short: the main story and your initial playthrough will take you through Sanctuary in a discovery tour, but even then you will have not done all of the possible content types, and you will find renewed interest in exploring and completing objectives from the many rewards that become available as you level up.

Design, Audio and Visual

Diablo 4 is a visually beautiful game with a unique aesthetic that makes the game feel like a classical painting. The design is well thought out and coherent through the world, and in everything from the town appearances to your extensive and unique wardrobe choices. Magical effects are beautifully thought out and walk the difficult and fine line of being flashy while also functional, making each spell cast, effect and chain reaction satisfying to trigger.

Equally, the audio track for the game is excellently put together. The main themes and tunes for towns and zones are suitable matches for the visual design, creating a harmony that delivers a properly grim but adventurous atmosphere. Boss battles and main quests have their own unique scores and have been realized beautifully. Plus, the voice acting of the game is really well done, even if you end up hearing the same person doing lines for many different NPCs.

If there is a flaw in Audio/Visual it’s actually on its performance, and may have nothing to do with the design itself. Server lag is a thing and I experienced it heavily while playing to put together this Diablo 4 Review, which had a very limited amount of participants. I must disclaim that Blizzard warned us they would “intermittently conduct stress tests and this may generate rubber-banding and invisible walls” so it may have been the cause, however I feel I must mention this for the review to have full disclosure: I checked in with people playing in different regions of the world, including N. America, Europe and Asia, and everyone said they had extreme rubber banding and other such issues come and go. This is concerning, and my beta and server slam experience had not had these big spikes, so I’m unsure if it’s simply a smaller server for press test, their own stress testing, or if we are in for a launch where nobody can log in.

Optimization-wise the game actually runs very well but you should be ready and upgrade your graphic drivers as it will conduct a check and not let you launch with old drivers. I had no game performance issues outside of server lag, and I did not encounter any of the “known issues” that were warned on the press preview. Overall the game is well-polished and the only serious issue I encountered was a persistent crash and error after killing a specific boss for a main quest. I redid the boss 3 times before I was able to proceed, and I’m unsure as to what was causing the crash on kill.

D4 Review – Playtime, Replayability & Longevity

As an open world game, Diablo 4 would normally categorize as content available rather than replayability, however the nature of the game actually merges the best of both worlds.

Your main story and first run, if experienced without skips, can be enjoyed over the course of 25-30 hours. I personally took my time and reached level 50 in about 60 hours (you can do this A LOT faster), then spent over 60 hours playing endgame builds. This means that my extreme D4 marathon got me to level 62 and a reasonable amount of world completion (renown max of most zones, found altars of lilith, etc) in about 120 hours of inexperienced / chill gameplay. Fellow team members on Fextralife played a lot faster with skips, and leveled several classes to 50 and created multiple beginner and engame builds in the same time, so your own mileage will vary.

With the vast amount of open world content to complete and the availability of endgame special runs in the form of helltides, bounties and nightmare dungeons, players can expect to get a lot out of the game. In addition, the game offers fantastic replayability in the form of build variety for each class and class distinctiveness, which really made it a joy to do a Diablo 4 Review.

Making an alt and skipping the main story allows you to quickly get your second character to an endgame farming stage, and since each class plays in its own unique way this adds a fantastic amount of variety. Your loot is mostly for the class you’re playing, so you won’t be doing much farming on one class to give to another, but I found that all classes can be excellent endgame performers and learning how they tick is very rewarding and fun.

Now you may be thinking that it will get boring or stale to redo the same content type just to get new or better loot, or level up your paragon tree. This is true, however I played A LOT and I did not feel burnt out in the slightest, and this is even when playing uniquely solo. The availability of multiplayer adds a whole new dimension of fun: helping your friends find gear on the dungeons they have to do, taking on world bosses, or even farming world events and helltides in a group can give a lot of freshness to the content.

If this wasn’t enough, Blizzard has also revealed that they have planned for frequent content updates, with a post-launch plan spanning years. Diablo 4 will have seasons, with each one adding a gameplay feature and questlines, similar to what Path of Exile leagues have been doing. There will also be free “Season Journeys”, for players to get time-limited rewards that escale with completion progress, with the best one locked behind a challenging boss encounter.

Diablo 4 Review – Pricepoint

An important factor in all games is the pricepoint, but moreso when a game has the now-so-dreaded ingame shop. Unfortunately, the review period did not include the shop so we have no way to see the actual cost of items or verify what is available, but we have limited information from Blizzard regarding what to expect. I’m quote verbatim what we have been told:

The Shop is an optional experience that allows players to purchase cosmetics for Premium Currency in addition to collecting the hundreds of transmogs unlocked from in-game drops. Shop cosmetics include things like character armor sets that can be mixed and matched with other in-game armor drops and mount cosmetics to alter the appearance of your horse.

The goal of the Shop is to give players even more options to customize the visual appearance of their characters, and nothing offered grants a direct or indirect gameplay advantage.

Diablo 4 Press Review Guide

TL;DR Blizzard claims the shop will offer only cosmetics, so if you can resist the urge to look a specific way or have a specific mount skin, you should never feel the need to spend more than the cost of the base game. In addition, they claim the battle pass has a free tier that is unlocked just by playing and leveling:

• The Battle Pass awards cosmetics, premium currency, and free Season Boosts.
• Players can purchase Tiers-but they won’t speed up getting Season Boosts.
• The Season Journey accelerates Battle Pass progression.

Since I cannot verify how this all works in practice, I’ll instead focus on what matters to me which is: what do I get for what I paid for? In this regard, I feel Diablo 4 actually delivers an excellent value for money, and I can see myself playing this game for years to come.

I managed to cram 120 hours into the press review event, and I felt like I could play for at least three times that before considering I may need a one day break. The game’s content scope is fantastic, the combat is engaging and addictive, and the production values deliver polish consistent with the pricepoint of the game. Personally, I feel few games give you as much bang for your buck as Diablo 4 will, so even if the store ends up tempting me into buying cosmetics, that will end up being my personal choice and since at no point during my gameplay I felt I was missing something from not having a shop, I can conclude that it’s entirely possible to play and enjoy the game while completely ignoring the store.

D4 Impressions – Final Thoughts

My time spent for this Diablo 4 review was actually incredibly fun, surprising even me of how much I was enjoying each small aspect of the game. Having played the game in essentially “solo mode”, I may have had a different story experience than what many players will encounter, but I also missed out on the fun and engaging aspects of the cross-platform cross-play at offer.

Few games allow you to play with your friends across platform lines, and to carry your progress from one console to another, and the novelty of that flexiblity is very appealing.

Giving us a complete and satisfying experience with an effectively limitless level of replayability, Diablo 4 has become my favorite game this year, and I wonder what any of the many upcoming RPGs could do to try and win me back from its addictive clutches.

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Be sure to check out our Diablo 4 Wiki for any other questions you have about the game and the Builds page if you are looking for more Diablo IV Builds, as well as our Ultimate Beginner Guide and Best Class to Play Guide if you are looking for more Diablo 4 content!

9.3

Brilliant

Story & Setting 8

Gameplay 10

Design, Visual & Audio 8.5

Replayability & Multiplayer 10

Pricepoint 10

Summary

Diablo 4 is an excellent game and a fantastic next step for the ARPG genre. Smartly melding Open World and Online elements with traditional dungeon crawling and loot farming, this game will become the favorite time-sink of millions for years to come.

The post Diablo 4 Review – The Best Diablo Yet appeared first on Fextralife.

Setting the streets ablaze with another new contender for the long-running franchise, Street Fighter 6 is ready to bring some new elements. We get into how this classic series sets to introduce new mechanics, how it compares to entries past, and much more in this review.

Street Fighter 6 Review

Here comes a new challenger! In this Street Fighter 6 Review, I will talk about CAPCOM’s brand-new and seventh entry in the Street Fighter (SF) franchise. This review will go over the different game elements that it offers to veterans and newcomers. Is this CAPCOM’s best Street Fighter game? What are the classic and new combat mechanics? What makes Street Fighter 6 unique from its predecessors? I’ll be covering all of these and more in this hands-on review!

Street Fighter 6 Story & Setting: CAPCOM Takes it to the Streets!

Street Fighter 6 introduces three foundational modes that are the main pillars of the game. World Tour, Battle Hub, and Fighting Ground. World Tour focuses on single-player and RPG elements. While Battle Hub is where you engage and match up (casually or competitively) with different players around the world. Lastly, Fighting Ground is a combination of the different classic well-known game modes. This includes what the game is known for such as Arcade, Practice, Local Versus, Online Matches and Challenges. Plus a new addition, Extreme Battle mode.

Single-Player Mode – World Tour

The new single-player mode of Street Fighter 6 is called World Tour. It’s arguably an unusual yet compelling feature that CAPCOM has integrated into a Street Fighter game. This single-player story mode revolves around the Street Fighter Universe. It breaks the walls of the traditional fighting game that we are accustomed to. Players can now interact with NPCs, engage with the 18 launch characters, and fully customize their avatar. This means creating builds with a variety of Skills and Mastery of different Fighting Styles. This can all be done while globetrotting.

Welcome to the Metro City

World Tour first takes place in Metro City, which is the same location as the Final Fight. As you progress through the story, the setting of the game expands where you’ll get to travel. The player portrays the role of a robust and fully-customizable student (also known as your avatar). They embark on a journey to learn various fighting styles, in order to acquire their fighting identity. Most importantly, they find out the meaning behind their purpose as a fighter in What is Strength? The avatar is unique, and also acts as an extension of the player. You can fully immerse yourself in the Street Fighter Universe by bringing your fully personalized character to the Battle Hub to fight against other players.

Yakuza: Like a Street Fighter

During my playthrough in World Tour, it reminded me of a specific game, Yakuza: Like a Dragon. In World Tour, you can challenge random citizens to a fight, shop for combat and cosmetic items. Complete different quests, and interact with NPCs such as the 18 launch characters. Luke, Chun-Li, and Ryu to name a few from the roster of global fighters. As you progress in World Tour, you will encounter different aspects such as exploration, discovering secrets, easter eggs, character progression, achieving unlockables, participating in mini-games, and other exciting features that are exclusive to World Tour mode.

On to a Winner

Adding this single-player mode is a smart move that CAPCOM added for Street Fighter 6 because it shows that the game fully embraces different types of players. Yes, we are accustomed to how Street Fighter is meant to be played, where two players challenge and show off their fighting skills to win, but for casual players, sometimes, it can get frustrating if you fight against a knowledgeable player who dominates you with slick moves and combos, or even worse, someone who just loves to troll.

As exciting as it sounds, my only concern is will the single-player story mode stop upon completing all chapters. I hope that this isn’t the case, and knowing CAPCOM’s capability of presenting a road map for future updates, I expect there will be DLCs that introduce new features and additional content.

World Tour is a refreshing feature that I highly recommend for you to try out, not only will it focus on a single-player and story-driven experience, but it will also allow all players to learn the fundamentals of Street Fighter or to just take a break from participating in the Battle Hub. Apart from World Tour, the Arcade Mode in Fighting Ground is the traditional Single-Player mode of Street Fighter where you fight against an AI in sets of stages while following the fighter’s story, the setting and story of Arcade Mode will vary depending on the fighter that you choose. Here, you’ll find yourself in different locations such as China, the United Kingdom, the USA, Italy, and other character-related areas.

Street Fighter 6 Gameplay: A New Era that Elevates the Fighting Game Experience

Control Types

The gameplay of Street Fighter 6 redefines the fighting game genre with its exceptional combat and meticulously crafted system mechanics incorporated into the game. The combat system has both depth and accessibility for both veterans and newcomers alike. It has fluid and responsive controls allowing players to execute certain moves with precision and ease.

As a casual fighting game enjoyer, this is surprisingly my first Street Fighter game in the series, I’ve been playing tons of fighting games over the years, from games such as Tekken and Mortal Kombat to even other anime fighters. But the previous Street Fighter installments didn’t really catch my attention but somehow, something about this game just makes me want to try it out. So, jumping into this game, I struggled at first as I didn’t know how to properly connect strings and such, but I was familiar enough to learn the basics and fundamentals easily later on. First, let’s talk about the control types of SF 6: Classic, Modern, and Dynamic controls.

Classic Controls

Going for more traditional controls, Classic Controls features the 6-button layout with your three normal punches and three normal kicks. This control scheme is perfect for returning players of the series as some special moves are still similar to the previous installments, and precise motion inputs are required to perform these special moves.

Modern Controls

The Modern Controls features a 4-button layout, which allows you to perform special moves with a single button combination. Compare to the Classic Controls, you would need to input forward, down, down-forward, then any punch button for the Shoryuken to come out. In the Modern Controls, you can simply press forward and the designated Special Button, this is perfect for newcomers to the series as they won’t have a hard time trying to input these complicated motions, and they also don’t have to worry about memorizing the list of motion inputs for every special move.

Arguably, some players might look at this as a problem since inputting different moves are now easily accessible, however, this can benefit and also be used by veteran players who would like to experiment on the tactical side of fighting games where you can instantly react to certain situations such as a jumping opponent with a DP (Dragon Punch). 

Dynamic Controls

The last control type is Dynamic Controls, this is definitely a control scheme that I foresee new players or those who are unfamiliar with the mechanics of Street Fighter will use because it provides accessibility to execute flashy moves with a single press of a button. Dynamic Controls is also a good mechanic to use for learning the basics and familiarity of the different characters. Not only is it recommended for such players mentioned, but it is also suited for having a friendly casual game at a party where the players are really just there to have fun.

Personally, I think that the Dynamic Controls scheme can entice people who are not familiar with the game to eventually try out the other control types and learn more about its mechanics and fundamentals. Both Classic and Modern Control Types are Tournament legal, but it is important to take note that Dynamic Controls is only limited to certain modes in the Fighting Ground.

Main Game Mode Impressions – WORLD TOUR

As mentioned, Street Fighter 6 features three foundational modes, first, let’s talk about World Tour. This is an interesting approach that pushes the boundaries of a fighting game’s story mode. Character creation features a high degree of customization where you can freely express yourself and how you would want your avatar to look as the main protagonist in the game. I’ve spent almost an hour and a half trying to mess around with the sliders trying to perfect how I want my character to look.

After creating my avatar, I’m then introduced to my coach, Luke where I go over some tutorials and basic training. Afterward, I jump right into Metro City, and from there, I do the first few main missions, apparently, some parts of the map are limited until you finish the first few missions. Once I got the hang of World Tour, I was finally able to explore Metro City and later, more areas around the world. You can also become a student of your favorite masters including all 18 characters currently available in the game. You can then learn their fighting style and special moves, and by doing so, you can mix and match the special moves you’ve unlocked to create the perfect character that suits your playstyle.

Exploring World Tour Mode

World Tour also features different types of quests which is a good distraction to keep the player off track from completing the main questline, there are a bunch of minigames and side quests that you need to complete in order to progress the main story. For my character, I used Ken’s style which gives me his basic attacks, and I also grinded enough experience, quest completion, and story progression to have access to other masteries which expands my set of moves and unique special attacks.

My only gripe about this mode is that it can sometimes feel repetitive and stale. After spending hours in the game, I find myself mindlessly grinding just to unlock other character masteries and special moves to create the perfect character that I can show off. The story isn’t really that great, but it’s not bad either, at least it keeps the momentum going forward, and it lets me learn more about some of my favorite characters.

Regardless, I am quite impressed with the amount of content and game elements that are featured exclusively in World Tour, but I hope that it doesn’t stop there upon reaching the last chapter and that there are additional DLCs and updates for World Tour mode. This brings us to the next foundational mode in Street Fighter 6, the Battle Hub.

Main Game Mode Impressions – BATTLE HUB

The Battle Hub serves as a central hub or gathering place where players around the globe can engage, communicate, and challenge each other to a fight casually or competitively. Once I set foot in the Battle Hub, I was immediately greeted by tons of players and it was a pleasure looking at the unique and fun avatars they’ve created.

Impressons of the Battle Hub

During my time playing in the restricted schedule in the Battle Hub, including the Open Beta, I’ve had no issues playing on either the Asia or North America servers. I was expecting that I’d have issues with connectivity in the NA servers, but to my surprise, even if the match only had a 3-bar connection status, the game was still playable and the matches ran smoothly.

Although it wasn’t really perfect since there were a few matches against random players where the characters would start to lag during the battle, it eventually resolves on its own and becomes fluid after a few seconds. There are a couple of ways to avoid this and one of them is by checking the connection status of the opponent before you “Request a Match” or if a server happens to be “Crowded”, you can easily move to another that is “Normal” or “Uncrowded”.

Battle Hub Navigation

The Battle Hub area was also easy to navigate, it is organized in a way where you can find multiple arcade cabinets to join or wait for a match, shop for cosmetic items, or use arcade cabinets at the Game Center where you can enjoy a rotating collection of some previous CAPCOM classic games. When you are using an arcade cabinet, you can go into Solo Training while you wait for another player, this gave me some time to practice and it provided me with full access to the training mode features.

In a match, once it’s complete, the rematch feature works instantaneously, you can immediately start the next match once both players hit the rematch button, ensuring a seamless transition from one battle to the next and it can be an endless battle between two players as long as both parties are willing to fight again. Apart from that, players can also spectate a match in real-time.

Main Game Mode Impressions – FIGHTING GROUND

And finally, the Fighting Ground. The Fighting Ground includes the classic game modes of Street Fighter such as Arcade, Private or Public Online Matches, Practice, and Local Versus Mode. Fighting Ground also introduces a new game mode, Extreme Battle Mode which spices up a match by adding unconventional rules and fun gimmicks, we highly recommend that you try this game mode out when you play the game. Next, one thing I want to highlight in Fighting Ground is the Practice Mode.

Training Makes Perfect

For casual players such as myself or those who are trying out Street Fighter for the first time, make sure you train. It helps to understand the fundamentals of the game through Practice Mode. Here you can jump into Training, Tutorials, Character Guides, and Combo Trials. Training provides extensive features where you have accessibility to some tools such as frame data of each move, and the status of the CPU. An important feature is re-creating certain scenarios you’ve encountered during an actual match. This can help to discover different solutions to go around it.

The Tutorial is the place where you can learn some of the basic fundamentals. This includes the combat mechanics of the game. What a counter hit is, a punish counter, a hard knockdown, and other terms that you may not be familiar with.

Character Guides

For character-specifics, the Character Guides mode is essential if you want to have an overview of how each character should be played. It also helps in understanding their archetype. I chose Ken in this mode and I learned that he is an aggressive character equipped with moves surrounding powerful kicks and great space control. He is also a “rushdown” type of character, capable of overwhelming an opponent’s defenses.

This also showed me how and when’s the best scenario to use Ken’s different special moves. Ultimately, the last two sections of the Character Guides taught me how I should play Ken strategically. Giving practice to incorporating certain special moves like “Quick Dash” to close in on the opponent. From there, learning to initiate a mix-up.

Finally, Combo Trials offers a set of starter combos that can help you get an idea of what normal and special moves can be linked to create a combo. It includes three levels from Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced and it is available to use for Classic and Modern controls.

Audio & Visuals

Visuals

When it comes to visuals, character renders and backgrounds still follow the same bold colors and anime-esque art style as its predecessors. Especially when compared to SFIV and SFV. Only this time, with improved details and brand-new looks for character design.Iincluding a silly yet noteworthy feature of adding different facial expressions for characters during the versus loading screen. The different backgrounds are also visually stunning and it respectively captures the theme that is proper for the characters. Colors are well-balanced, NPCs in the background are not distracting, and battle arenas that seem to be set at night such as Cammy’s stage are well-lit and pleasing to look at.

Performance

To continue, let me briefly talk about Performance. During the time of this review, I had the privilege of playing Street Fighter 6 on the PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4. As I expected, the performance on both consoles was noticeable. Playing the game on the PlayStation 5 offers a Resolution and Performance Mode. Right off the bat, I’d highly recommend setting the game on Performance Mode if you prefer the traditional way of competing against other players. This maintains fluidity in movement, inputs are responsive and it runs at a stable frame rate of 60 fps. On the other hand, if you are playing game modes such as World Tour or Arcade, it is better to play on Resolution Mode to improve the quality of cutscenes and overall background and visuals.

Perfomance on PS4

Meanwhile, running the game on the PS4 works well. Load times in the loading screen and character renders require a few more seconds to process. This however is not really a big issue for me when I am in the Battle Hub or Fighting Ground. Where is does matter though, are the matches against players and it performed smoothly on the PS4.

What I found bothersome is playing World Tour. It has robust and detailed backgrounds, including countless NPC citizens roaming around Metro City. However, I would sometimes find myself waiting for an NPC to completely load. Or for them to appear where they should be standing. Even textures of my avatar’s clothing would take time to load when I’m cycling through cosmetic pieces. This could be a problem for PS4 players who enjoy playing World Tour. This just pulls them out of the immersive experience. Hopefully, CAPCOM will be able to address this issue with future updates or patch notes.

Sound

When it comes to Sound, SF 6’s overall theme is inspired by a hip-hop soundtrack which fits perfectly with the visuals. It is also equipped with a playlist of unique Battle BGMs for the stages and characters. Voice Acting is superb here. I find myself wanting to set the voices in either English or Japanese. Who wouldn’t want to hear Aleks Le voicing Luke who so happens to be the English VA of Zenitsu Agatsuma in Demon Slayer? Or the legendary Caitlin Glass who is the recurring voice actor of Cammy since Street Fighter IV.

Real-Time Commentary

Speaking of Sound, Street Fighter 6 introduces a real-time commentary feature. It incorporates the voices of popular Fighting Game Community commentators to narrate matches as they happen. This innovative addition to the game brings excitement to matches. The dynamic commentary that adapts to the current state of the fight. It creates a truly immersive experience as if you’re fighting on the main stage in a tournament. It supports 13 languages with subtitles you can enable or disable anytime. As a Tekken fan, I was pleasantly surprised TastySteve made it into the cast. I immediately tried out this feature to experience his commentary.

This feature can also be customized to suit your individual preferences. You can adjust the volume and intensity of the commentary. The same goes for “Rally Support” where the commentators will cheer for the chosen player during offline matches. However, I think this feature may not appeal to everyone. There may be some who may want to focus on just the gameplay. This might be distracting as the sounds can be annoyingly repetitive.

Overal Sound Design

Finally, another thing to note is the innovative sound design. It really makes you feel that this game has fully embraced inclusivity to its audience. In the options menu, you can enable or disable certain sound effects that can benefit you. For example, you can enable the sound effect that notifies you of the distance from your opponent. As well as a sound effect that plays upon hitting a cross-up, and different sounds that notify you upon landing a high, mid, low attack, and more.

Replayability & Pricepoint

Street Fighter 6 has a lot of replay value. I think it can ensure that players will keep coming back for more with its diverse roster of 18 characters, and the addition of four new confirmed characters that will release down the line. It offers endless opportunities for players to hone their skills. You can also explore new strategies, and discover different approaches when engaging in a competitive match.

I can easily see myself spending hours “labbing” different characters in training mode. On top of that, grinding ranked matches, participating in the community within the Battle Hub, and the occasional gameplay of World Tour. This will will surely keep me going. It’s still early to tell but we assume CAPCOM will be releasing more content in the next years to come that expands the roster of global fighters, new game modes, and additional content for World Tour.

The current price for the Standard Edition of this game is 59.99 USD, which I think it’s fair to say that this game is worth its price considering the amount of content it has for a fighting game. The Standard Edition includes 18 global fighters launch roster and the main game with its Foundational Modes. While the Deluxe Edition is priced at 84.99 USD adding a “Year 1 Character Pass”, additional color pallets for the characters’ outfits, and a bonus of 4,200 Drive Tickets used for in-game purchases. If it’s your first time playing a Street Fighter game, picking up the Standard Edition will suffice, however, if you are a fan of the series, the Deluxe Edition is a must-buy.

Final Thoughts: Capcom Listens

2023 is the year of Fighting Games and what’s a better way to kick things off is with Street Fighter 6 being the first to dominate the stage. It is easily one of the best fighting games to come out this year. It is a remarkable and a outstanding entry to the series. Personally, I think CAPCOM gave it their all for this one since it embraces different aspects such as accessibility, features that the community has been asking for, attention to detail, a refreshing theme, a combination of classic and new fundamentals, as well as catering to a bigger audience.

I enjoyed every hour of my playtime with this game. I’m sure that I’ll be playing more and competing in ranked matches. I cannot recommend this game enough. This is a must-buy for any fighting game player. Or even if you’re just someone who’s curious and want to try it out. I think from now on, Street Fighter 6 should be the standard when it comes to creating new fighting games. See you in the Battle Hub!

For more gaming reviews check out next Miasma Chronicles Review and Redfall Review – PC & Xbox.

The post Street Fighter 6 Review: A Refreshing Approach to an All-time Classic Fighting Game appeared first on Fextralife.

Miasma Chronicles Review – In this Miasma Chronicles review, we’ll take a closer look at developer The Bearded Ladies’ next entry into the turn-based strategy genre following their successful game, Mutant Year Zero. Instead of quirky mutants roaming through a post-apocalyptic landscape, we have a boy and his brother in search of their mother… through a post-apocalyptic landscape. How does their second game fare? Does the tactical combat feel satisfying? What can we expect from the Miasma? We’ll discuss all of these and more! 

Miasma Chronicle Review: Story & Setting

Miasma Chronicles has players following the path of two unlikely brothers living in the backwater town of Sedentary. Meet Elvis and Diggs, a young man who was abandoned by his mother and a sassy robotic companion. The basic premise of the story is that we are trying to find out what happened to Elvis’ mother and why the Miasma came to be. 

There aren’t any surprising twists and turns in Miasma Chronicles’ narrative. It just about shows what we would expect when following a boy looking for his long-lost parent – a lot of anger and confusion. Here, the story doesn’t reinvent the wheel and merely serves as a purpose for us moving from points A to B. 

Also, most of the characters you meet are your usual run-of-the-mill archetypes, such as trigger-happy sheriffs and whatnot. So they’re largely forgettable. But you do get to come across some memorable faces, such as the town’s over-the-top mayor who may have been serving the government for way too many years. I won’t spoil the surprise, but he was one of the more entertaining people to talk to.  

The world itself is much more interesting. We are presented with a post-apocalyptic version of America, one that has been ravaged not just by wars, but by the Miasma. Humanity is on the brink of literal extinction, as they can no longer rely on themselves to stay alive. Areas are very diverse and effectively convey how deprived and broken the population has become. The town of Sedentary looks perfectly like what a group of survivors would build up in desperation. 

You can see that life goes on, despite all of the horrors lurking just outside their gates. There are also imposing statues for tribute collection. This gives us a glimpse of how people have become oppressed by The First Family, the ruling class of the game. Overall, the environment sets the tone of the game even more so than the story and its citizens. 

Miasma Chronicle Review: Gameplay

Miasma Chronicles is a nice mix of free-roam exploration, tactical turn-based combat, and light RPG systems. Overall, they blend quite nicely with each other as they work together to create a cohesive gameplay loop. 

Players can choose to move around areas fully in real time. This loop will usually consist of looking for loot, going through secret passages, and scouting out enemies. You get to gather a lot of different things laying around the wasteland, such as currency, consumables, and text logs that further flesh out the post-apocalyptic world. If you’re lucky, you may even find valuable keycards that open up locked doors containing rarer equipment, such as weapons and weapon mods.

Stealth

Going through areas with hostiles is a tense endeavor. The game has a basic stealth system. It lets you crouch down to try to avoid the enemies’ lines of sight. While you don’t have things like vision cones to determine their field of view, there is a small indicator that lights up when you’re just about to be discovered. This indicator fills up surprisingly fast, however, and gives you only a split second to react before you’re caught red-handed in the middle of your sneaking session. But enemies can also be distracted in a few ways, prompting them to comically investigate and split up from the rest of their group. 

Stealth is not optional in most cases, as you can’t go in guns akimbo like you would in other turn-based tactics games. That simply isn’t a viable option in Miasma Chronicles. Instead, you will need to mix in the game’s stealth system to remove as many enemies as you can from the equation before committing to the engagement. Not utilizing stealth will put you at a huge disadvantage as you will quite often be overwhelmed by the number of foes on the map. It would’ve been great if the game would’ve been more open to a guns-a-blazing style of play for those who just want to shoot things and yell at the top of their lungs. 

Combat

Once you get discovered, or if the game throws you into a combat scenario where you’re disadvantaged, the fun can begin. Think of Miasma Chronicles as a light version of X-COM wherein you ideally hide behind cover while pelting your foes with bullets. Similarly, you have a chance-based system that determines whether your attacks hit or miss. This is based on many factors, such as distance to your target, height elevation, as well as whether your foe is behind light or heavy cover. 

Influencing fights is extremely important. Combat is immensely punishing and brutal, especially if you’re a newcomer to the genre. Playing on the Normal Difficulty, I found it hard to keep my squad healthy since they were always bruised and bleeding after encounters. Characters take a ton of damage – sometimes two hits from fodder enemies are enough to knock them out of a fight. What makes matters worse is that a lot of foes have gap closers that will make them leap into your group or teleport themselves right beside your sniper. So cover is essentially negated.

Moreover, units do not heal in between battles in the Normal and higher difficulties. As healing items are extremely scarce, avoiding damage outright is key to emerging victorious. Cooldowns do not reset either. If one of your abilities was on cooldown at the end of a fight, it will still be in that state once you start your next encounter. 

Despite these issues, fights are very gratifying when pulled off correctly. Combat is quite exhilarating, especially when the rare critical hit just ever so satisfyingly takes out a foe in one blow. Doing so will restore an Action Point, giving you the opportunity to continue the onslaught provided you still have bullets left in the chamber.

The RPG Systems

The game has some light RPG systems in play that lets you customize your party in limited ways. Take Diggs for example. He has a unique skill that allows him to be used as cover by the rest of your group and can even charge at enemies. But the rest of his skills are somewhat disappointing since there’s so little to choose from. The same is true for the rest of the characters. Every “tree” comprises four branches with three skills, bringing this to a total of 12. There is some overlap between them so there aren’t too many options to differentiate each character. 

Customization

You can further customize your group by collecting various consumables and Miasma upgrades. Consumables are your traditional things like Medipods (healing bombs), grenades, and energy refills. But you also get grenades that deal acid damage which eats away at enemy armor, or even explosives that summon dormant monsters from the ground that will do your bidding. There’s a nice variety to these items, but controls can get a bit finicky when using them. I’ve accidentally wasted one too many healing bombs by accidentally clicking the item as soon as I selected it. 

Players will also have access to nice “Miasma” powers that have powerful effects. They are more interesting compared to simple weapons as you have a wide variety of choices. You can fling enemies in certain directions, cast chain lightning, or summon minions to heal you. To further shake things up, you have a lot of Miasma modifiers to choose from as well. You can change an ability to shrink all enemies hit or steal life instead. 

Equipment

When it comes to equipment, players will have access to two weapon slots that they can deck out with one of the game’s four weapon types. Miasma Chronicles offers your standard Assault Rifles, Shotguns, and Sniper Rifles. It also features a more exotic “Bouncer” weapon that fires projectiles that ricochet across surfaces. Doing so will increase the critical damage, but drastically reduce accuracy. It’s nice to get a risk-reward-styled weapon that the players themselves can influence in some way. 

We also get to customize these weapons to a degree. We can attach either a scope or a magazine, giving us small stat bonuses. While the increased numbers may be nice, it would’ve been better if there were some attachments that could fundamentally change the gun’s playstyle instead, such as adding different damage types or even granting additional abilities to use in combat. 

Miasma Chronicle Review: Audio, Visuals, & Design

Quite frankly, Miasma Chronicles is a looker in terms of its visuals. The Bearded Ladies are able to effectively create large and open spaces that truly show how dark and desperate times have become. We get to see ruined cities that have been taken over by nature or explore settlements that are just a meld of random parts and materials strung together. Even further, we get to know what it’s like if the world just stopped one day and gave up. Everywhere we look, we see ruin, and it seems like nothing humanity can do can change things.

It would’ve been fine if the developers just featured devastated towns or broken buildings, as what they created already is great and detailed. What ups the ante even more, is the bubbling Miasma that is almost ever-present in the locations. It is a visual marvel to see the black blobs of the Miasma float menacingly into the air. Areas are chock-full of this disgusting goo that seemingly has a life of its own. Vehicles and other structures are literally torn apart, leaving husks of their former selves. Even humans aren’t spared this fate, as we can often see them frozen in place with only the dreaded element bathing their entire bodies. Screenshots don’t do the game justice, since watching everything in motion is at times, somewhat mesmerizing. 

However, where the visuals do fall flat is in the animations. While some of the characters are beautifully rendered, others look stiff and robotic. There are also some minor animation bugs that occur, like your party sometimes taking cover behind thin air, or clipping through trees and concrete when shooting from cover. Furthermore, Miasma Chronicles does not do well when zoomed in too close during cutscenes. This is due to the poor lighting conditions in some areas, making them appear too dark. 

Audio

The game’s audio is a bit of a mixed bag as well. Music is epic and exciting, especially during the game’s combat encounters. Weapon sounds are hefty and really do highlight the weight and “oomph” that each bullet provides. Even the basic assault rifles give off the feeling that each shot is quite impactful and painful. But the voice acting of the game hovers between passable to just plain cringe. Some of the performances were quite flat and failed to convey the emotion of the scene. Elvis also can’t quite seem to stop whining about trying to find his Mama to everyone he meets. Diggs barks out too many one-liners that are borderline painful to listen to. One prime example is when he yelled “Namaste my ass” to one of the game’s more zen quest givers. 

Technical & Controls

Jumping into the technical aspect, the game runs quite well. Running on a Windows 10 PC, equipped with an AMD Ryzen 3700X and an Nvidia RTX 3070, I was able to consistently manage a stable 75 fps on 1440p resolution. This was using the game’s “High” preset. These numbers are also without AMD’s FSR upscaling technology, which the game supports natively. Using FSR even on Quality Mode minimally increased the framerate but the visual fidelity did suffer since it became too blurry. Miasma Chronicles also doesn’t have innate support for Nvidia DLSS. Overall, the game is a bug-free experience as no major glaring glitches appeared throughout my playthrough.

Miasma Chronicles can be controlled with either a keyboard & mouse or with a controller. However, you can really tell that the interface was designed with the controller in mind. You can freely use the mouse when selecting tiles that you want your units to move to. But you can’t use the mouse when choosing your targets, which is an odd choice and makes issuing orders a bit more difficult than it’s supposed to be. As the controller feels more natural and smooth, it does look as if the mouse & keyboard were an afterthought.

Miasma Chronicle Review: Replayability

Just like Mutant Year Zero, Miasma Chronicles is a linear game. While we do get to choose in which order to do side missions, ultimately we are on a set path with a very defined beginning, middle, and end. Furthermore, you can’t really change combat encounters dramatically, aside from picking off some targets here and there so fights won’t be different on subsequent playthroughs. 

We also don’t get too many weapons or unique skills. This essentially means that there are not that many opportunities to try out different builds. You won’t keep coming back either to experiment with various party combinations. 

Considering these aspects, the release price of $49.99 is quite steep for what you get. It would’ve probably hit a sweet spot if the initial ask was $39.99 instead, which would put it much closer to Mutant Year Zero’s $34.99. 

Final Thoughts

Miasma Chronicles is a mixed bag. On one hand, you have an amazing-looking game that features some jaw-dropping visuals, especially considering how busy things are. Yet on the other, the voice acting ruins the immersion at numerous points of the campaign. 

You are also afforded some options when it comes to customizing your ragtag group of explorers, though you can’t help but feel like it would’ve been so much better if these systems were expanded more. More unique skills, more choices, and more weapon types would benefit the game greatly. 

If you’re looking for an extremely challenging tactical turn-based game that mixes stealth and X-COM, then you’re in for a treat. Fights are frantic and very tense, especially on higher difficulties as one mistake will spell doom for your group. 

What did you think of this Miasma Chronicles Review? Does this type of gameplay interest you? Let us know in the comments below. Be sure to drop by our Twitch Channel if you have questions about the game! If you enjoyed this review, be sure to check out Redfall Review – PC & Xbox and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor Review.

The post Miasma Chronicles Review appeared first on Fextralife.

In this Redfall Review for both PC & Xbox we’ll take a look at the new co-op FPS developed by Arkane Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks. How is the story? How long is the game? And more importantly, how is the performance on both PC & Xbox? In this review we’ll answer all those questions and more. If you love our Reviews, check our our others here.

Redfall Review – PC & Xbox

• Genre: FPS, Open World
• Developed by: Arkane Studios
• Published by: Bethesda Softworks
• Release date: May 2nd, 2023
• Platforms: PC (reviewed), Xbox One (reviewed)
• Price at the time of review: USD $69.99

Redfall Review – Story & Setting

Redfall takes place in the town of Redfall where vampires have taken over and killed or enslaved the populace. Supernatural and occult happenings are regular, and survivors of Redfall need your help to not only figure out what is going on, but to also stop the Vampire threat.

Redfall is not a heavily story driven experience, as its open world nature allows you to the freedom to explore and take on other objects besides the main narrative, but nearly everything you do touches upon the main plot in some way. This is because most activities are providing by the same characters that make up the bulk of the main story, and also because even though the game is open world, there are not a huge amount of things to see and do that would keep you interested if they were not in some way advancing the plot.

The story is not the strongest part of Redfall, as most of the characters are uninteresting and dull, and I generally felt the urge to skip all of their dialogues. There are no decisions to be made in this game, it’s not an RPG, so you’re really only listening for listening’s sake, and I was not compelled to do so. Additionally, most of the main story is told through psychic memories which are poorly done, leading to a severe lack of interest in what could have otherwise been a good opportunity to engage with the player.

The story itself is also very derivative in the sense that you’ve likely heard this tale before in some form, and really the reason to play this game at all is almost entirely for the setting and the gameplay.

The setting though is interesting, and could be considered one of the strongest aspects of this Redfall Review. Not only was I getting burnt out on the whole “zombies” concept before playing Redfall, but one can only handle so much blood and gore before they get put off. Luckily Redfall’s take on a similar formula, only with Vampires and more of a “fantasy sci-fi” feel (think Lovecraft) was a breath of fresh air. The certainly didn’t reinvent the wheel with it, but I at least felt compelled to explore and see things that you likely haven’t seen in any game before (and probably won’t after).

Redfall Review – Gameplay

The Gameplay of Redfall is easily its most compelling argument, though thinking back with my time with the game, nothing really stands out as “special” about it. It features a decent open world, with decent exploration and character progression, along with decent gun play that kept me motivated long after other aspects of the game really made me feel like I shouldn’t keep playing.

Redfall has 4 characters to choose from, each with their own unique skills and voiced lines. You’ll improve these skills via their unique skill trees as you level up from defeating monsters and completing quests, improving their functionality, but never really changing their gameplay after the first couple of levels. That is to say, they will more or less pilot the same way all game, which is common these days in gaming, but disappointing nonetheless.

Players will pick up quests at their main base and head out into the open world maps, of which there are two, to complete their objectives while facing cultists and vampires. Cultists are your run of the mill humans with guns and Vampires move quickly, can fly and require a stake through the heart to permanently kill. Unfortunately, you will face these same two enemy types pretty much 95% of the game, with the only real variation being super powerful vampires which show up now and again. This can get repetitive at times, and the AI of these enemies was basic at best, which made matters worse.

Defeating enemies and exploring almost always nets you new weapons though, there are a decent assortment to choose from, and these have your typical rarity system of common, uncommon, rare, epic and legendary that we’ve all come to know and “love” in just about every other shooter out there.

The higher a weapon’s rarity, the more bonuses a weapon has, and typically its damage per shot is also higher than a lower rarity of the same level. As you level up you will find higher level weapons that will eventually out damage the ones you have, so you will have to continuously upgrade them as you progress the game.

There are also slots for Vampire God gifts and Vampire blood which gives you other passive benefits that follow a similar rarity system, and can be quite powerful, though you rarely find them.

All in all I enjoyed the gameplay of Redfall more than I disliked it, and it was good enough to keep me going, if only just. I was, however, happy when the game ended because it was beginning to wear out its welcome, and too much longer and it would have overstayed.

Redfall Review – Audio, Visual & Performance

On the audio front Redfall is a mixed bag. The voice acting of the game is not mind blowing, nor is it terrible, and for a game that doesn’t focus too heavily on the story I thought the voice actors did an ok job. I also enjoyed the sound effects of the game, and the vampire voices and “lovecraftian” vibe of many of the enemies really enhanced my experience facing them. Unfortunately the music was terrible, and there wasn’t really much even present in the game.

Visually Redfall looks like a 10 year old game, which you’d think would make the game run much more smoothly, but unfortunately the opposite is true. I had massive performance issues playing this game on PC on my Corsair One Pro i182 system, which features a 2080ti GPU and an i9-9920X CPU, at 1440p on medium settings. I could not hold a stable framerate over 60 FPS for most of the game and in some places (mostly on the second map), it even dropped to single digits for many seconds at a time.

Some places I would get 80-90 FPS, but then they would spike down suddenly, with this happening over and over. These are similar issues that plagued Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, which we pointed out in our Review of that game, but one would think them far less likely given that Redfall doesn’t look impressive visually to begin with.

On both Xbox Series X and S, Redfall is capped at 30 FPS with no “Performance” option available, so you cannot get higher than this currently. A 60 FPS mode is expected later on, but no date has been given on when this will happen.

Having played a bit on Xbox for this Redfall Review, I thought it played more smoothly at a constant 30 FPS than my PC experience, it’s just that it was 30 FPS…which is rough to play an entire play through on. I do have concerns about the second half of the game though, as this is where the worst offenders were on PC, but I did not get that far on Xbox to confirm whether this was the case.

Additionally, the settings for your controller are bare bones in Redfall when playing on Xbox, which made me frustrated as the default settings are quite bad. With no real way to correct this, and 30 FPS being worse as a whole than the performance issues on PC, I continued my playthrough on PC instead of Xbox.

Replayability & Pricepoint

Redfall’s replayability comes from the fact that the game does have 4 player co op, and that once you finish the game you unlock a new difficulty that allows you to bring your character into it and keep all your previously acquired gear and skill points. However, I finished the game in about 13 hours, which I probably could have stretched to 15 hours (on Normal) if I did more of the sidequests for this Redfall Review, but I doubt it would have been much longer than that. You’re likely looking at maybe 20 hours on hard because it’s quite easy to get overwhelmed with enemies sometimes.

The thing is I’m just not sure how many people will play the entire campaign a second time unless they have some friends to play with who really love the game, of which I don’t think there will be many. On top of that this game is 69.99 USD on both PC and Xbox, which is a staggering amount considering how short and poorly produced this game is. The only saving grace here is that the game is a Day 1 release on Xbox Gamepass, which means you can play it for much cheaper, and you can also crossplay between PC and Xbox.

Final Thoughts

Redfall is a strange game because I don’t have many great things to say about it, but for some reason I kept playing and (for the most part) enjoying my time with it anyway. Something about the rather unique setting coupled with character progression that was just good enough, compelled me forward through all the issues that I had anyway. BUT, I got the game for free and I didn’t have to pay money to play it.

I cannot recommend this game to anyone paying full price for it, because it’s an unpolished product that, like Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, should have been delayed until it was good enough for release. Between the performance issues, the FPS cap on Xbox, and the general lack of inspired gameplay mechanics that we’ve seen many many times, I’d wait until this game is on a deep deep sale before playing or just downloading it if you already have Gamepass. It’s certainly worth a play, I just wouldn’t spend much money to do so.

You can watch the video review here.

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Star Wars Jedi Survivor Review – In this Star Wars Jedi Survivor Review we’ll take a look at the sequel to Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, developed by Respawn and Published by EA. Is it better than the original? What improvements have been made? How is the performance of the game on PC? We’ll answer all these questions and more! If you love our Reviews, check our our others here.

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor Review

• Genre: Action
• Developed by: Respawn
• Published by: Electronic Arts
• Release date: April 28, 2023
• Platforms: PC (reviewed), Xbox One (reviewed), Playstation 5
• Price at the time of review: USD 69.99

Star Wars Jedi Survivor – Story & Setting

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor takes place some years after the events of Jedi: Fallen Order, with the crew of the Mantis now scattered to the winds, and Cal running with a new crew of operatives, striking at the Empire across the galaxy wherever they can. What happened to the characters from the previous game remains a mystery until further into the story, but I won’t spoil that for you.

Cal and his team once again find themselves battling formidable opponents, this time on a journey looking for a mysterious planet called Tannalor that is rumored to hold a Jedi temple and the remains of the fallen Jedi Order. Can Cal find it and the Jedi? Or is it too late? We won’t spoil it here in this Jedi Survivor Review.

Jedi: Survivor has a much darker tone than the previous title, and there were more genuine moments which felt aimed at an older audience this go around. And, when combined with a wiser and grittier Cal Kestis, the story felt more relatable. The weakest aspect of Fallen Order for me was always the story, and Survivor is a much clearer flowing example of a Jedi tale.

Star Wars Jedi Survivor – Gameplay

Exploration

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor has a similar gameplay loop as that of Fallen Order, wherein players will explore planets while ultimately following the main story line and gaining new powers and abilities for Cal as they progress. The biggest improvement here though is the addition of the “open-world” planets of Koboh and Jedha, which allow the player freedom to go in just about any direction and explore nooks and crannies of the Star Wars universe how they see fit.

I cannot understate how well these areas are designed, mixing in Metroidvania elements that will have players returning again and again to find new secrets that they couldn’t previously discover. It’s on par with some of the best games out there in the genre, it’s simply a shame that there wasn’t more of it!

Combat

Combat-wise players will find they’ve already learned quite a few of the techniques they possessed from the previous game, which makes sense as Cal has learned already. But, there are new additions as well, including the Blaster and Cross-Guard stances which allow Cal further means of dispatching enemies.

Players can also unlock more Skills, via Skill Points as Cal gains experience from defeating foes and finding treasure, allowing them to somewhat tailor how Cal plays to their preferences. These Skill Points don’t change the way you play the game drastically though, and many nodes in the Skill Trees are simply passive benefits that improve a skill you already know.

Players can also gain Perks that improve Cal in various ways, from providing more Blaster damage to generating Force slowly over time. They are, however, few and far between, and usually only 1 or 2 can be equipped at a time, providing little overall impact to the way you play.

My biggest gripe that I’ll mention in this Jedi Survivor Review is that once again no “Weapons” or “Armor” are present in the game, meaning you will never change your gear (except your Stance), and Cal rarely feels like he is getting stronger because of this. I really wished Respawn would have added equipment to the game, leaning a bit more into the RPG side of things, as I feel it could push Jedi: Survivor over the top into elite company.

Quests

Quests are handled in a minimalistic fashion with Cal speaking to locals on different planets and picking up information about their needs and wants with a simple dialogue. There are no dialogue options here, you simply gain some information about where roughly something is located, and you head there to find it.

Conversely the main quest is always clearly labeled showing you exactly where you need to go, and in my case telling me where to stay away from until I was finished exploring. However, there are no branching quest lines or alternate plot points, you simply follow this through the entire game, which as I mentioned, further opens up more exploration options.

Audio, Visual & Design

Design

From a design perspective, Jedi: Survivor is laid out in a masterful fashion with each area being interconnected in ways you don’t even realize until much further into the game. It’s quite genius really, once you begin to understand just how the game was put together, it’s again just unfortunate that the open world nature of Koboh and Jedha didn’t persist all the way through the game.

Audio

Audio wise the voice acting is good but not great, not really adding a lot to the game, except in the case of Droids which are the real star of the show here and made me chuckle more than a few times.

Sound effects were good, and hearing lightsabers, blaster fire and stormtroopers shoot the shit about what they’ll be doing after their shift in their helmety-voice really immerse you into the game world.

The music of the game is decent, but slightly disappointing for a Star Wars game, and you really only hear the main theme once, during a key plot point which I won’t mention here. Overall I thought their would be more familiar music, but it seems like they didn’t have the licensing for it sadly.

One important note here is that on PC I had an incredibly annoying audio bug the entire game that made all cutscene audio skip and loop over and over, ruining just about every cutscene for me. This is not present on the Xbox version of the game (and I assume PS5 as well), but I have been told their is a patch going live on the 27th addressing this issue specifically. However, I caution you to make sure it’s been fixed before purchasing or you may regret your purchase, so don’t say this Jedi Survivor Review didn’t warn you!

Visual

Visually Jedi: Survivor is a pretty looking game, and one that does justice to the Star Wars universe. Vibrant colors and slick animations add to your immersion, and make you feel as though you’re really there with Cal.

Unfortunately I had terrible performance issues on PC, struggling to get 60 FPS the entire game on 1440P resolution on High quality graphics. This while using a Corsair One Pro i300 which boasts an i9-12900K Intel processor and a Liquid-Cooled RTX 3080 Ti.

I had constant stuttering even when the FPS was above 60, and sometimes the FPS dropped to single digits. I simply don’t see how anyone running any mid range system could possibly play this game on PC, since it would be way too choppy, and even with a high end system it will still frustrate you, though it might not completely ruin your experience.

Again I have been told that a patch is being deployed on April 27th to address this issue, but I’m unsure it will truly fix it. Make sure you do your due diligence before picking up the game on PC!

Xbox on the other hand had no problems except with the Quick Resume feature, which seemed to tank FPS into the ground when used. However, simply booting the game normally quickly resolves this issue, so it’s not too big of a deal and I actually didn’t mention it in our video version of our Jedi Survivor Review.

Replayability & Pricepoint

It took me roughly 20 hours to finish Jedi: Survivor on the Normal difficulty, with about 60% of the game showing explored and completed. This leads me to believe you will likely get about 30 hours or so if you complete everything, and possibly 40 hours if you play on the hardest difficulty, since you will die a lot.

There is also a New Game Plus mode which adds Perks to the game that make you deal more damage and take more damage, and also one that increases the difficulty of enemy placements, further mixing things up. Because of the lack of loot and any real meaningful customization, however, I don’t see too many people playing this.

Jedi: Survivor has as steep pricepoint of 69.99$ USD on PC and console, so it’s definitely something to take into consideration before purchasing this game. That said, I think it’s about right for the quality and length of game delivered, if only just, and only if you are a fan of the first game or a Star Wars fan in general. And I definitely don’t think it’s worth this in its current state on PC.

Final Thoughts

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor surpassed my expectations in just about every conceivable way. From the storytelling, to the open world exploration that kept it fresh, to the lightsaber combat that was frankly just satisfying as hell. Jedi: Survivor is another great Star Wars title that is desperately needed by a franchise that has had a lot of clunkers in the not so distant past!

I can wholeheartedly recommend this game to you, particularly if you were a fan of Fallen Order, just don’t purchase the game on PC and pick it up for Xbox or Playstation instead. It is simply unplayable for the vast majority of players out there that can’t afford a 4000 dollar PC, and it’ll likely piss off the ones that can.

You can watch the review here on YouTube.

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Welcome stranger…to a relatively spoiler free review of Resident Evil 4 Remake. In this review, I’m going to talk about overall gameplay, combat, some of the changes and my first-hand experience of playing the revamped Resident Evil 4 Remake. The title has undergone some changes, improvements and now looks much more modern. Is it worth a buy? Should you play even if you haven’t played the previous titles? Let’s get into it.

Resident Evil 4 Remake – Hands-On Impressions Review – Refreshed and REloaded

Story

If you haven’t played the original let me give you a quick rundown of the premise of Resident Evil 4. The story follows the original 2005 title, featuring Leon a special agent on a mission to save the US president’s daughter who has been kidnapped. This leads him to a remote village in Europe only to find that something is definitely not right with the villagers. Rumours of strange a cult are also circling, making for a great setting for survival horror no doubt.

The events of the fourth entry are roughly 6 years after the biological disaster of Raccoon City. It looks like the effects of these events are only getting started. Much like the original the game focuses on characters that you know and love, with some modern reworkings.

Even if you haven’t played any of the previous titles, the game does a good job of giving a little background about the whole situation. Since the game mainly focuses on Leon, you won’t have a hard time following what’s going on. You will find pieces of law dotted around the game, which helps build a greater picture. While still part of the main story, its focus is on the rescue and the strange happenings in the remote village.

Gameplay

Players will enjoy the same third-person perspective they experience in the original. Of course, the remake has undergone a major graphics upgrade to suit modern consoles. It’s also been given much-needed updates to controls. No constant snap back (at least on the Switch version) when you’re trying to look around which was a particular gripe of mine in the original. Everything feels smooth and as it should be. You can actually now take in all the details, look at the ground and take in the morbid scenery. You can still use quick turns which are a staple in RE games.

One noticeable absence is the lack of Quick Time Events during cut scenes. I’m not such a fan of these kinds of interactions, as they always caught me off guard when watching a cutscene, and I’m enjoying it then bam! QTE go. Now developers can implement much better interactions that match the modern-day consoles. Some may miss them but I honestly don’t think it’s a loss.

Combat

Instead, you now have combat mechanics to enjoy such as a new knife interaction, letting you stab up close. However, knives degrade over time meaning you will have to use them sparingly or they will break. This is a great addition as it gives another option when in combat, however still has the adds double edged blade as the knife can be destroyed in the process.

Playing on standard I still felt the same the sense of dread as playing the game for the first time. Mobs now work together to hold you in place, while you mash down X to get yourself free. If you’re not careful they can really pin you in a corner, especially if you break the first rule of an RE game and spend too much ammo. I am guilty of this and there are definitely moments when you deeply regret your decisions in doing this.

As the game relies heavily on the knife mechanics though, you’re going to have to really weigh your options when you’re given the choice stabbing directly or choose to risk some health. This does shake up the combat, making the fights feel more dynamic. The improvements to the weapons system loadout makes it easy to swap between guns mid-fight. So you don’t really have to worry about which one you want to select, you can simply assign them to your weapons loadout and that makes things so much easier than compared to the original.

If you’ve played the demo, you will know too well that mini-bosses in the game like the Chainsaw guy are unrelenting. Running away from the more challenging foes while being surrounded by a group of villagers puts your skills to the test. Often in these moments, your aim needs to be true. Of course, upgrades can help to improve damage, reload speed etc. You will need some cash to get the ball rolling.

Puzzles and More

This leads me to one of my favourite parts of the game, puzzles. RE is known for setting players on a path of mystery to unlock treasures and useful items through puzzles. Puzzles have been revamped but without giving too much away, they still, feel like the classic enigmas you know and love. These often lead to precious items, which may be invaluable for your survival. There’s nothing like being chased down by enemies while you try to remember to locate parts of a puzzles or be on the lookout for items. This just makes things so much more unnerving and the RE4 Remake does a great job in certain places of making very intense situations.

Sound & Visuals

Be prepared for some gore. Since the game has had a major boost in the graphics department, you can see all the blood and guts as well as some really lovely crunchy ASMR to accompany all its gory detail. Rain cascades down, making the games iconic moments that more gloomy and intense. Bosses, characters, and locations have all been given some work. While murkier settings are still quite dark, it’s still quite the contrast from the original game.

I checked out the game on a PS4 and it ran really well. Obviously playing on current-gen platforms such as Playstation 5 or PC will probably result in faster load times down to SSD, I didn’t find loads too cumbersome. Graphics are sharp and characters now look more crisp, they have been reworked but are in keeping with the style of the game. The environments are highly detailed with some areas having been reworked to fit in with gameplay and just looks stunning. Marvelling at the surroundings when you have time to catch your breath that is.

Voice acting is superb with some new lines that fit in with the RE4’s cheesy humour at times to lighten the mood. The merchant is by far my favourite, as he always has some banter to welcome you. The music, ambient sounds and sound effects add to the tense moments in the game, and adds new heights to the horror you will engage in.

Final Thoughts

Honestly I had a lot of fun playing this game, revisiting the locations and seeing the familiar characters again. Resident Evil is one of those iconic franchises that you know you’re in for a good zombie-filled time from the moment you start. Resident Evil 4 is a classic title that honestly needed just some love when it came to controls. The remake does all that and more to satisfy those who are looking for the thrill ride of horror survival. For those experiencing it for the first time, you’re in for a treat as now the game runs smoother and has some great graphics to boot.

For those who are revisiting RE4 you’re in for some changes. Gameplay feels much more fluid, and the chapters seem to flow a little better. While the game has had a refresh, you will still get that nostalgic feel of the original title but now with tweaks here and there as well as some surprises. The overall feeling is the game has been given some enhancements, reworking what could have been better and just adding to what already works. However, there’s definitely enough to make the game feel up-to-date, refreshed and worth playing through. One thing is for certain you’re in for a wild ride.

This title is a great survival horror for those who like a challenge and for those who loved the original. While I would have been open to more changes, I understand why it’s been kept close to its core. Overall if you’re a fan of RE and looking for a refreshed experience you will have a great time.

We hope enjoy our Resident Evil 4 Remake review. Be sure to check out more of our videos on our channel and if you want to experience the game with us when it launches on March 24th be sure to drop by our Twitch channel.

Resident Evil 4 Remake releases on March 24th for PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.

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In this Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty Review we’ll be taking a look at Team Ninja and Koei Tecmo’s latest Action Role Playing title, and tell you how it measures up against other Action RPGs like Sekiro and the Nioh franchise. How long is Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty? How is the story? How is the Build variety? In this Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty Review, we’ll answer all those questions and more!

Wo Long Review – Better Than Nioh?

Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty Review – Story & Setting

Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty takes place just before the Three Kingdoms period, which is regarded as on of the bloodiest in Chinese history. The imminent fall of the Han Dynasty leaves a power vacuum resulting in struggle between warring states. The main antagonist of the game is a “Taoist in Black” who summons demonic forces to assist him in his quest for dominance of China as he seeks the means to live forever.

The Three Kingdoms is an extremely popular period of Chinese history, and no one should be surprised that Koei Tecmo chose this time and setting for Wo Long, since they are well known for their Dynasty Warriors games that also take place during this same time frame, and indeed many of the characters from those games will be found here. However, as I played I felt that the story itself became convoluted and the sheer volume of characters introduced left me confused about their motivations and actions. Those who are extremely familiar with the Three Kingdoms may have an easier time, but for me several hours of confusion turned me off the story and left me not really caring for it whatsoever.

Not only is the story told in an uninteresting manner, with frequent long cutscenes that interrupt the flow of the game, but it failed to give credible motivation to characters or weave their storylines nicely. Admittedly, storytelling is not the strong suit of Koei Tecmo, and I don’t think anyone is going into Wo Long expecting some masterpiece of a tale, but I felt it was bad even with low expectations.

The setting itself is much better than the story telling, thankfully, and you will see more varied environments than in Nioh, which I think is a plus to be sure. You definitely get the sense that this is a war-torn China, and Koei’s experience in this department is brought forward as you would expect.

Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty Review – Gameplay

The gameplay and combat of Team Ninja and Koei Tecmo games have always been their strong suit, and they have once again nailed that here as well. Not only is the combat engaging, fast paced, and skill based, but it’s also extremely fun! I simply could not wait to get back into it over and over, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty retains many of the same systems of Nioh, but it also has some changes and additions to spice things up. A notable mechanic is the inclusion of the Morale system, which makes enemies more or less difficult on any given Mission. Not only does this reward players for exploring, since this will increase their Morale, but it also makes them stronger as most Spells can only be used once you are a certain Morale Rank. This makes achieving higher Morale an imperative for players, and really changes the way you play the game. If you’re struggling to defeat a Boss, go increase your Morale first and you’ll have a much easier time.

Additionally, loot and spell casting have been simplified, allowing most players to make an easier sense of how things work. That isn’t to say there isn’t complexity, it’s just that it’s not quite as overwhelming as before. Even the addition of Martial Arts to the game, which act sort of like Weapon Skills from Elden Ring, shouldn’t overwhelm new players as much, and also provides another layer of depth to each weapon you use.

Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty also features Companions, not unlike Code Vein, which not only help you in combat in various ways, but also provide passive buffs and can even give you their gear if you use them long enough. Since you can use two at any given time, this allows those who are having a tough time playing solo some help, but I will say that Companions seem to have terrible AI and die nearly instantly in just about every Boss fight I take them into. In short they will help you out a bit, but don’t expect them to carry you through the game. There’s multiplayer for that!

Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty Combat

The combat in Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty is sort of like a mash up of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice and Nioh. There is more of a focus on agility and speed, as well as deflecting enemy attacks and retaliating, much like in Sekiro, but the game still maintains an itemization and stat system, that will remind players of Nioh almost immediately. And while the spell system has been altered a bit, I think it’s by and large an improvement over Nioh, and its simplification is much easier to understand once you get a hang of the controls and tempo.

The entire premise of combat in Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty revolves around Spirit which all enemies (and the player) have and use. This is more or less a combination of Stamina and Mana, and is used to perform various tasks such as deflecting, dodging, casting spells, using martial arts and is represented by a Spirit Gauge just below the player or the enemy’s health bar.

Since taking damage and using abilities decreases your Spirit, and striking enemies with normal attacks or successfully deflecting theirs increases your Spirit, there is a fine balance between playing defensive, attacking normally and using abilities and Spells. I like this approach a bit more than Nioh’s, since this prevents the sheer abuse of spell casting in many cases, and eliminates some “cheese” strategies from the game.

If a player or enemy reaches the lower limit of their Spirit Gauge in combat, they will be vulnerable to a powerful attack which deals tons of damage. This means you’re not only trying to deal damage to your target, but you’re also trying to deplete their Spirit Gauge in order to trigger one of these attacks. It is very similar to Sekiro’s combat mechanic “Posture“, just with a few added elements. There are even special red glowing attacks that if deflected at the right time will deplete tons of Spirit that players must look out for in order to not only stay alive but hasten the demise of their opponent by countering it.

Unfortunately, the special attack mechanic makes many of the boss fights in Wo Long extraordinarily easy, since deflecting them and countering them is more often than not the fastest path to victory regardless of your build, and players can literally just avoid attacks until these appear, counter them 3 or 4 times, and that’s a wrap on just about any boss fight.

Compounding this as well, is the fact that the difficulty of the game is all over the place. The first boss in the tutorial level took me nearly an hour to beat (until I found a “trick” for a quick win) and the next 6 to 7 bosses I beat first or second try each. Most of the levels felt very easy, with the exception of spots that are borderline cruel to the player, often putting them in a situation where it is near impossible to win. This balancing issue can break the tempo of the game, and it feels as if there is simply no steady difficulty in Wo Long Fallen dynasty. Players will find themselves rolling along wishing for more difficulty, until they are screaming bloodly murder for 30 minutes, only to wish for more difficulty once more immediately after.

Other Gameplay

Outside of combat the game will remind players mostly of Nioh, just more simplified. Gear upgrades are straightforward, you don’t make weapons and armor any longer, and you can change the bonuses on your gear rather easily, making for a more streamlined experience. You’ll still be able to travel around to the game’s missions and submissions, but again everything has been simplified and streamlined, making the game much more friendly to players new to Action RPGs or to Koei Tecmo games like Nioh. In some ways it’s best to think of Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty as “Nioh Lite”, though that’s probably an oversimplification and of course the combat is a bit different and very engaging.

You can still co op and pvp, with the game featuring invasions for those who want to make the game just a bit more challenging for others, so these things are still present as well. We were not able to engage in multiplayer during the review period, but from what we can see it works similarly to Nioh 2, so it’s likely those looking for a jolly coop experience will get their fill.

Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty Review – Audio, Visuals, & Design

This is an important breakpoint for this review, as PC and Console platforms offered significantly different experiences. I played through the entire game on PC, and then did a few shorter test play sessions on Playstation 5. The difference is score-changing, so please be mindful when making your decision.

PC Version:

Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty stumbles a lot on the audio/visual front. The graphics of the game look worse than Nioh to me, and I struggled to keep a steady 60 FPS framerate when playing on my Corsair One Pro PC at 4k on low settings, so I played most of the game at 1440P on medium and that was much better, though there were occasional “hitches” or “grabs” as things loaded that seemed to tank the FPS for a second before recovering. I do worry about players playing on mid range PCs, and what sort of performance they will get with this game, which seems to be an issue for Koei Tecmo, as Wild Hearts had similar performance problems at launch just last month.

Unfortunately, the build I played was not stable and I had many many crashes of the game. Mostly when trying to boot it up or close it, but sometimes in the middle of cutscenes as well, which was quite frustrating because these are generally after Boss fights. This resulted in me having to complete said boss fights again since the game didn’t save immediately after the fight, and was waiting for the cutscene to finish.

PS5 version:

The graphics are similar or on par with Nioh 2, but the framerate is steady when playing on 4k, even with effects enabled. I did not play the full game on this platform, but I did not experience any crashes during my playtime, and it felt responsive and smooth.

Audio wise the Japanese and Chinese voice overs were good, the English was not, so I recommend changing the game dialogue to one of these. The sound effects are fantastic, and add to the overall fast pacef and fluid combat of the game, but the music other than the menu screen was forgettable though not terrible.

Replayability, Multiplayer, & Pricepoint

The replayability of Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty is solid in my opinion as there are not only various builds you can make, but you can also play cooperatively and competitively to further extend your game time hours. It takes about 30 hours or so to complete the whole game, so it’s not that long of experience compared with Nioh. However, New Game Plus does feature new gear and a higher difficulty, which was a huge part of the Nioh games, so there is that as well if you wish to keep playing. Additionally, you can respec and save builds easily and as much as you want, so you can go into New Game Plus trying out a new style of play without having to make a new character.

All of this is enhanced by multiplayer options, so if you are looking for coop or pvp experiences the replayability of the game likely goes up on that aspect alone.

59.99 is the current asking price of this game on Steam, which would be about right if not slightly high, if not for the performance and stability issues for the game. Those performance issues really hold it back though, and make it hard to recommend until some patches have come through or until the price drops 10 to 20 USD, or both. Please note that the PS5 version of the game does not seem to have these issues, so those looking to play on this platform don’t have to wait for a patch.

Final Thoughts

Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty is a game we’ve been following for quite some time, and in that time I’ve had modest expectations for the game, simply because the story and setting didn’t feel quite as compelling to me as the Nioh franchise. And while I feel I was right in this regard after playing through, everything else about the game met or exceeded my expectations, barring PC performance.

Team Ninja seems to have gotten most of the parts right that they got in Nioh, but they also got most of the parts wrong that they did in Nioh as well. And while many mechanisms are simplified like Spells and Upgrades, which I think is a step in the right direction, pretty much everything that was a pain point for me in Nioh is still there. I would have liked to see improvements to level design, color schemes and storytelling. Though it’s disappointing that the game didn’t improve the studio’s record, they did deliver on the most important aspects for their audience: gameplay and combat.

I don’t recommend picking up this game day one on PC because of the performance & stability issues, but those looking to play on PS5 and other consoles may have a much smoother experience.

For more Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty content you can click here to see gameplay and guides!

The post Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty Review – Better Than Nioh? appeared first on Fextralife.

The magical school of witchcraft and wizardry is finally opening its doors in Hogwarts Legacy. We go over gameplay, immersion, overall experience and more in our spoiler free review for the open world RPG.

Hogwarts Legacy Review

In this Hogwarts Legacy review, I’m going to be talking about my review impressions of the game. I’ve played for about 30 hours or so so far. I am not even close to being done with this game just want to disclaim that here but I am far enough that I did feel like I could give my Impressions on the game what I like about it so far what I don’t like about it, so strap in for that.

Before I get in my Impressions though, I want to quickly note that we’ve tried to keep this video as spoiler free as possible. I know this is a game that you go in blind and just want to experience the game for yourself. So the footage that we’re showing is kept to like the first hour or two of the game. Probably gameplay footage you’ve already seen if you’ve seen pre-release you know videos so it’s not going to be anything crazy. I don’t want to spoil anything for you guys I am not that person so feel free to watch the video with very mild spoilers from the very beginning of the game. Nothing story-related will be included but just gameplay (in the video). If you don’t want any spoilers at all, you can just listen to the video while you read on, and not watch the footage shown.

Hogwarts Legacy Review: Immersion

So, the first thing I want to talk about in this game is the immersion. This is something we’ve been talking about for the weeks leading up to the launch of the game. It’s the thing that’s drawn me to the game, it’s the thing that’s drawn a lot of people to this game, non-gamers included because they wanted to experience the world of Hogwarts or Harry Potter or The Wizarding World for themselves in a way they haven’t been able to yet before because this is really the first game that’s tackled this on such a scale.

And let me tell you they absolutely nailed this aspect. From the way that your dorm feels in Hogwarts Castle to your common room, to the corridors bustling with students and details and puzzles everywhere, to the moving staircases and everything that you will find in Hogwarts Castle when you first begin this game – it’s absolutely mind-blowing. You will never see Hogwarts Castle realized in a way quite like it’s been in this game and it gives me goosebumps just even talking about it right now. I think players are just going to be absolutely mesmerized by it and it’s one of those things where you don’t want to rush through it you just want to take your time and play it and experience it and take it all in like you’re watching a good movie that you don’t want to end.

Beyond that, this continues to extend into Hogsmeade which has this cozy feeling to it. It reminds you of the movies and the books and you’re gonna love it. Like you’ll absolutely love it if you’re a Harry Potter fan. You’ll love the way they’ve done this but the thing that really got me is not something that I expected, which was that this sense of feeling extends throughout the entire game that I’ve played so far. it’s not just Hogwarts Castle and Hogsmeade dropped in a big open world and they’ve used that to lure you in to play an open world game and those are the parts that you like if you’re Harry Potter and you don’t like anything else.

Literally, everything about the game World feels like it belongs in The Wizarding World. From the way the puzzles are designed, to the landscape, to the way you cast spells, to the way you interact with your teachers and other students in the game. It all feels like it belongs. Considering that this is the first game from Portkey Studios, it’s absolutely impressive. I cannot think of a stronger word it’s so impressive what they have managed to accomplish. it actually is an inspiration to the gaming industry of what a studio can do if they really put their mind to it.

Hogwarts Legacy Review Setting

This brings me to my next point which is the size of this game. This game is really interesting because when you start playing and you’re exploring Hogwarts Castle and you’re exploring Hogsmeade, you sort of get a sense of the size of the game. Like you get a sense we’re like oh okay I feel like it’s going to be you know this size of a game and then once you like really get out into the world and they start exploring and you get your broom and you can fly around on the landscape. You start to realize that the game is much much much larger than you expected.

Elden Ring blew me away for its game size. I had no way of knowing it was going to be that large and this game is not as large as that by any means however it is a very very substantial game. Just based on like my percentage completion from where I’m at about 30 hours into the game I’d say you could get anywhere from 70 to 100 hours out of this game if you try to do everything in the game that’s a rough estimate. It depends on what difficulty you’re playing on and how fast you go whether you just take time and wander around but I think it’s probably in that ballpark and that’s insane. I did not expect that from this game.

The other thing is the quality of that 70 to 100 hours so far has been very good. I’ve really enjoyed doing the activities that they’ve placed in the game. There is a lot of the same activity over and over, I’m not going to say they didn’t do that because this is a huge open-world game and that’s pretty common in those types of games. But I have enjoyed doing it so far. That said, I do wonder over the course of you know 70 or 100 hours like double the time I’m in the game now if I will still feel that way. A lot of the activities felt very similar, and copy-pasted a lot.

I think what’s kept them interesting is the feel of the world and my character and how I’ve approached playing the game. It’s more casual and stuff like that. But if you’re like the completionist and you’re trying to get everything I think at some point there’s probably a good chance it’ll start to feel a little bit repetitive. Like not super but you might be like oh I just want to get through this so I can get done with all these.

And I think one of the reasons for that in my opinion and this is kind of maybe my biggest negative with Hogwarts Legacy is that the itemization of the game is extremely poor. The gear you find is almost completely irrelevant. There are almost no stats for your character in this game and by the time you like can get some of the cooler customizations for your character, you’ve done a lot of the activities in the game. It just doesn’t feel like the reward that you get from doing the activities justifies you going to do all the activities.

Like at some point, I don’t know how far into the game maybe 15 to 20 hours into the game I stopped looking at everything I was picking up. When I first started I was like oh what did I get in this chest or that chest whatever in this room or that room? But about 20 hours in, I stopped looking. I don’t care anymore if it’s not a legendary item, I just keep moving on. Even then, it’s like I’ll equip it when I get around to it because it just doesn’t really matter and I feel like that’s unfortunate because good itemization drives exploration and you know staves off that tedium that doing the same sort of activity over and over can bring about. And I feel like if they had had a better itemization system in this game then the exploration would be some of the best I’ve seen. but because the itemization is so poor it kind of takes it down just a little bit.

Now, itemization is not the only driving factor. A lot of people aren’t going to be playing this game for the loot. I like loot. It’s not like that’s the only reason I’m playing I’m a huge Harry Potter fan as well and I think there are enough other things to propel you forward in this game including the story and the sense of wonder you get from exploring, but it would have been nice just to have a little bit more you know, itemization in there to kind of complete the whole package.

Hogwarts Legacy Review: Graphics

Talking a bit about the performance of the game, I played on PS5 in Performance mode, which is 60 FPS. I had like I want to say three frame drops in 30 hours so far the rest of the time it was buttery smooth, which is really great. I tried playing on Fidelity mode this is about 30 FPS. The game obviously looks better from a visual perspective, but it’s not as smooth and it does drop below 30 FPS at some points. So I don’t think too many people playing on consoles are going to use Fidelity mode. It’s nice for screenshots if you want to get like a really good screenshot but other than that, I don’t think you’d want to play consistently at that dropping below 30 here and there. I think that would really pull you out of the immersion of the game.

And honestly, even though the graphics are not the best that I’ve seen in an open-world game, games like The Witcher are better or you know Cyberpunk has better graphics stuff like that, they’re still pretty good, and they’re good enough to convey the sense of the world. And also the Wizarding World is kind of whimsical by nature so it doesn’t have to have a truly realistic feel I feel like the art style that they chose for this game is very fitting anyway.

The load times on the game are just a couple of seconds on PS5 which is fantastic. I don’t know if you know this but there are hardly any load times in this game. You load when you fast travel and there are maybe a couple of specific locations that you load into. But other than that, like when you’re exploring Hogwarts Castle and stuff there are no load screens. Sometimes when you go to open a door it’ll like swirl while it’s like loading what’s behind it, but you don’t actually have a load screen. So there are not too many load screens in this game it’s like pretty seamless which I think is fantastic.

I did have a few bugs on PlayStation 5 mostly like getting stuck in the landscape which happens in open-world games and a couple were like I was doing a quest and like something was supposed to happen in the quest and it didn’t and I couldn’t progress. I’d just reload the game as it auto-saves every two seconds or so. It seemed to fix itself each time. I never got stuck for more than a second or two so there are some mild bugs but nothing really major I mean we’re talking about maybe four or five bugs in 30 hours of that quality. No crashes nothing like that so it plays really really well on PS5.

Now, I don’t know how the game plays on PC I’m definitely going to be looking around at reviews for people who played this on PC or from users talking about their PC experience. This is something I’m concerned about I haven’t seen too much PC gameplay or really any PC gameplay. I don’t know if the Denuvo is going to affect PC performance or not, or how it’s going to play on PC. If you’re looking for PC performance you’ll have to look around and see what you can find I just frankly don’t know how it runs.

The In-Game Store

The last thing I want to bring to your attention before I get to my final thoughts on this game is the in-game store. this is something we had absolutely no visibility to during the pre-release period. It’s just not live. I don’t know if it was intentionally not live or if they’re still working on setting it up but I don’t know what’s in the in-game store I don’t know how many microtransactions there are what you can buy what you can spend your money on or how much it costs. so if you’re someone who doesn’t like microtransactions and that’s a big deal for you you might have to wait to see when the game is out to see how that is.

I would imagine if it’s bad you know the game’s gonna get knocked for that but I don’t know how bad it is or how good it is so I have no way of knowing. but I will say that having played through the game so far the 30 hours I played I never felt like I once needed to buy anything from any in-game store. It very much feels like a game that doesn’t need a store at all so don’t think that you’re gonna have to buy things from the store.

Final Thoughts

So this kind of brings me to my final thoughts on the game Fex and I both played this game over the pre-release period. She is not a Harry Potter fan at all. I’m a huge Harry Potter fan and we both really enjoyed this game. I don’t think you have to be a Harry Potter fan to enjoy this game. Fex is a very skeptical person in general, and the fact that she went into this very skeptical and thought that you know the Harry Potter aspect was gonna be what compelled people to buy it. The fact that she’s enjoying the game and she’s not a Harry Potter fan is amazing and she really enjoys it. She feels like they did a really fantastic job and I myself, a Harry Potter fan or a Hogwarts fan whatever you want to call it at this point – I’m blown away.

If you are a Harry Potter fan this game is a slam dunk. It is the closest thing that I think you will ever see to a perfect Harry Potter game. I mean not Harry Potter but in the Wizarding World it’s the closest thing I think you will ever see. I’m not sure they could do a better job except maybe slightly on the itemization and customization of your character. That’s it. Like I have almost no other complaints. I can’t think of anything at this point other than maybe better graphics which is a very very tiny complaint that I have about this game. they absolutely hit it out of the park and if you’re not a Harry Potter fan or a Hogwarts fan and you’re looking for a good open-world game I think this game will scratch the itch.

It’s not as hardcore as something like The Witcher or Elden Ring or Skyrim or something like that, so don’t go in there thinking that. But if you’re just looking for like a lot of light-hearted fun and exploration and a good time I think this game would fit the bill even for you.

But I want to hear from you guys that are playing Early Access or have started playing the game in the 72-hour early period on you know PlayStation or PC or whatever let me know what you think I want to know what you guys think so far what do you think from watching the game are you excited even more excited to play this let me know in the comments below.

Embarking on your magical journey as Hogwarts student? Why not fly over to our Hogwarts Legacy wiki which covers Houses, Wands, Potions, and more. Misplaced your Maurader’s Map? Check out our interactive Hogwarts Legacy Map.

The post Hogwarts Legacy Review  appeared first on Fextralife.

Warhammer 40K: Darktide Review – In this Warhammer 40K: Darktide Review, we’ll be diving into Fatshark’s next foray into the Warhammer universe. It’s not Vermintide 3 but it’s a new beast altogether… more or less. Is the story remarkable? How different is the gameplay before and after the launch? Are there other aspects of the game that make it stand out compared to other FPS and hack-and-slash titles? We’ll answer all of these and more!

Warhammer 40K: Darktide Review – Exceptionally Fun But Half-Baked

Warhammer 40K: Darktide Review – Story & Setting 

In Darktide, you take on the role of one of society’s rejects to join forces with the Inquisition in the hopes of obliterating the forces of Nurgle, the Chaos God of Disease, Pestilence, and Decay. As to why they would ever want to be involved with him in the first place is anyone’s guess but you’d be surprised by the huge number of his followers. Do you and your allies have what it takes to punish these despicable heretics for their sins? Will you stand by the God-Emperor all throughout or will you consider joining Nurgle as your faith wanes?

Unfortunately, none of these questions will be answered, at least not any time soon. Fatshark’s plan is to periodically add campaigns to expand the story, much like in Destiny 2. As it stands, however, Darktide’s plot is plain and uninspired even if it’s being penned by none other than Warhammer author, Dan Abnett. For the most part, upon hitting certain “trust levels”, short cutscenes will show how the Inquisition feels about recruiting you. The confidence level of these one-dimensional characters pretty much increases the more enemies you kill and the further you progress.  It’s as simple as that.

This is such a shame and a wasted opportunity because the Warhammer universe consists of so many memorable characters and events. Not to mention the countless factions that you’ll come across like the Tech-Priests of Mars, Sisters of Battle, Space Marines, and the almighty and nearly immortal Necrons. Adding in collectibles, notes, and intelligent NPCs to tell tales about Tertium before and after its downfall would’ve changed the experience for the better.

Unlike the story that’ll leave you starving, the setting is thankfully the exact opposite. From the very first time you boot up Darktide, you’ll immediately notice how much work Fatshark has placed in creating Atoma Prime, and in particular, Tertium, which is one of the cities ruled by the Imperium of Man.

They excellently nailed the grimdark atmosphere of Warhammer 40K in ways that were once only confined to the books and tabletop. Even if some locations are as bright as day similar to the dangerous deserts of Mad Max, the overall tone of the game remains the same, and is in sync with the lore – grim and dystopian. The sprawling city complexes, especially the darker ones, are oppressive to the point that I couldn’t help but question the tyrannical methods of the God-Emperor himself. (Yes, I’ll be branded as a heretic!)

Each one of these locations is meticulously designed from tall towers adorned with skulls to Servitors whose bodies are molded into Medicae Stations. Just like us, these prisoners couldn’t escape their fate. Luckily, for us though, we still have the mental faculty to choose the weapons to wield and the missions to participate in, which brings me to my next point – the gameplay.

Warhammer 40K: Darktide Review – Gameplay

In the Mourningstar, you’ll be choosing from several mission types, some of which have secondary objectives and special conditions that make encounters challenging and more engaging at the same time. For instance, the Power Interruption Special Condition will have you and your allies play in complete darkness, making it difficult to aim and shoot ranged foes.

After several hours of playing, however, the lack of mission variety slowly begins to creep up. Regardless of the type, their designs are fixed so sooner or later, you’ll end up memorizing the entire layout. What’s more is the repetitive objectives, which follow a similar formula for almost all of them. For instance, you’ll need to defend Interrogators while they gather data and fix them every now and then. I mean, how much data would you really need anyway? It’s as if Fatshark called it a day to simply rush this part of the game.

The same could be said for the 3 kinds of special conditions. After launch, the implementation became worse since the events were less frequent compared to the beta. Rather than having a special condition for every difficulty mode, these are now limited to say two, for all missions. As such, character progression is now more grindy than ever.

Character Progression & Rewards

Regardless of whether or not you successfully complete missions, you gain experience points. But this amount can fluctuate and increase if you also finish the associated secondary objectives and special conditions. Hitting the midway point of level 20 can take up to 20 hours and this is only for a single character. One mission takes about 25 minutes on average, which can certainly change based on group composition and skill.

But for the most part, you won’t feel strong at lower levels so you’d really need to make an effort and love the class you’re playing to push through. Additionally, there are no modifiers in the game that’ll make the experience less tedious, which means that you’re back to square one should you wish to try out a new class.

The rewards you get after every mission aren’t notable either. You basically acquire some money or Ordo Dockets, crafting materials, weapons, and curios, if you’re lucky. And I mean extremely lucky. The rewards aren’t generous enough for the amount of time you spend quelling the growing influence of Nurgle. But I guess that’s the price to pay in serving the God-Emperor. Due to the low equipment drop rate, you’re better off purchasing them at the Armoury Exchange. Here, at least, you have different weapons and curios to choose from even though the rolls are random.

Another way of gaining purple and orange gear is by finishing weekly tasks at Sire Melk’s Requisitorium. Similar to character progression, however, this is extremely grindy and costly. There are 5 tasks per week that’ll grant special currency to purchase rare items. Should you find them unreasonable such as getting 12 Scriptures, you have the option of rerolling to increase the chances of getting a better one.

Your very first roll will be free but for the rest, you’ll need to pay Ordo Dockets, which will cumulatively increase every time you change tasks. What makes it worse is that the rewards and currencies are not shared across your account, unlike in Vermintide 2. In effect, this pushes you to play the rest of your characters every time, especially if you wish to give them proper gear.

Classes, Abilities, & Loadout

Darktide features four classes and more will be added in the coming months. Each of them fulfills certain roles, which aren’t limited to the holy trifecta even if they lean toward specific playstyles such as supporting and tanking for the team. The bottom line is that all classes are effective in their own right when it comes to clearing hordes and putting down elites so they’re worth trying. Tweaking the way they work to accommodate playstyle changes is straightforward. No resources are needed to modify any of your passive feats so you can easily do as you please.

Some of the weapons you wield are dependent on the class you choose, meaning, only some things are available to everyone, thereby adding to their inherent distinctness. You definitely won’t see a Veteran wield a Psyker’s staff just because. Out of the four, however, it seems to me that the Ogryn got the short end of the stick since the number of weapon families available to them is few. This should hopefully be balanced in due time.

And finally, you have armor, which doesn’t have any bearing on the gameplay since its sole purpose is to make your characters look visually appealing… if that’s even possible.

Combat

In terms of Darktide’s combat, Fatshark delivers. Alongside the applause-worthy setting, you won’t be disappointed with how cohesive, fluid, and responsive the melee and ranged fights are. The encounters are exhilarating and highly engaging to the point that it’s really hard to stop playing. From how swift the Power Sword feels to smoothly slice the enemy’s head off to the way in which the Bolt Gun just annihilates them, it’s all so well-made to bring forth a highly impactful experience. I can’t think of any other FPS and hack-and-slash besides Destiny 2 and Vermintide 2, respectively, that comes close to Darktide.

Moreover, the implementation of ranged combat is done excellently to provide players with another option for destroying Nurgle’s followers. I just love switching between weapons and choosing from so many of them as they change the way encounters play out. For instance, if I wanted to move faster up close and personal, then using the Dueling Sword over the Force Sword as a Psyker would do wonders for me. Additionally, movement is a huge part of the game, allowing for multiple techniques to whittle enemies down. Suppressing to force them to take cover or sliding to slice them to pieces are all possible. There are basically several options available for different kinds of playstyles.

To add to the fun factor of exploring the cityscapes of Tertium and blasting away at enemies like there’s no tomorrow, every character has their witty and humorous banters based on their backgrounds chosen in Character Creation. These include your home planet, defining moments, and reasons for capture, which only affect dialogue during missions. It’s a very good approach to making light of the situation despite the inherent darkness of it all.

The Mourningstar

The last part of the gameplay is the Mourningstar or hub. Aside from purchasing items and trying them out here, you can also engage in crafting and buy cosmetics from the shop, which are some of my biggest gripes in Darktide. Aside from upgrading the rarity of weapons and curios, and gaining a few blessings or perks as part of the process, there’s not much you can do. This is because refining items, earning blessings, and rerolling blessings have yet to be implemented in the game even after its launch.

In the shop, you’ll see the best-looking cosmetics, which don’t affect gameplay and progression and can only be purchased with real money. I mind this because it’s up and running. It’s ironic to see that the story and crafting are both incomplete whereas the shop is more or less operational.

Warhammer 40K: Darktide Review – Audio, Visuals, & Design

In terms of visuals, Darktide is an excellent-looking game, one that successfully brings forth the grimdark future of Warhammer 40K. To add to this is how repugnant Nurgle’s followers look, making the environments feel more unsettling and horrific. Although together with the locations, I would have wished for increased variety considering that players will be spending dozens of hours in the game. In Vermintide 2, for instance, there are multiple biomes including but not limited to open forests, claustrophobic caves, and dreary villages.

Next is the game’s audio, which is its most stellar aspect. The music’s rhythmic and drumming style complements the exhilarating sound effects of the actions you and your enemies make. This is especially noticeable when hordes and elites are nearby, signaling their arrival and your impending doom. The audio cues are on point with the combat encounters themselves so much so that you’ll need to pay close attention to them. I just love how impactful and influential these sounds are to help make critical decisions in Darktide to prepare for the worst.

For instance, the escalating ticking sound of the Poxburster is something to be very cautious about since it’ll suddenly jump and explode to surprise you. And what about the discordant music that accompanies the Beast of Nurgle as it trudges along the metal floors? The voice acting is equally commendable, and definitely adds to the charming banters and battle cries of characters in missions.

Darktide’s performance from the beta until after launch continues to suffer at high and low graphical settings. More often than not, I experienced framerate drops and crashes even when there was not much happening in the game. These are unfortunately random, making the circumstances tough to pinpoint. Luckily, however, I did not experience crashes while rewards were being handed out, unlike some other players.

Replayability, Multiplayer, & Pricepoint

Darktide is highly replayable, mostly due to the classes you can try out. Although I can’t help but question that the bloated mission, progression, and rewards systems have all contributed to this. Nonetheless, I admit that it continues to be a very fun teamwork game worth your time, more so when you’re playing with a good group of people and friends. It’s almost next to impossible not to clock in at least 30 hours of playtime given how addicting Darktide is. Moreover, there are various difficulty modes to further challenge yourselves. To succeed, heavy coordination as well as the best feats and gear available are an absolute must, boosting the hours you’d end up playing.

With this in mind, the standard pricepoint of USD 39.99 is a fair ask if you don’t mind missing some basic features as well as the grind of leveling up your characters. To me, the overall gameplay, combat, audio, and visuals are worth experiencing, especially if you’re new and interested in the Warhammer lore or if you’re a long-time fan. But if you’re keen on the story and you’d prefer to wait until all features have been implemented, then it’s probably best to wait for a sale.

Final Thoughts 

This hack-and-slash FPS seems to still be in Early Access, and therefore needed more time in development. Because of the lack of features, I can’t help but wonder if Fatshark was truly ready for the game’s release. The way missions are structured, which has stripped the narrative elements present in Vermintide 2, in some respects this game is a downgrade versus other Fatshark titles.

Despite the fact that it was obviously not ready for release, Darktide continues to be a feast for the eyes and ears as well as a delight when it comes to decapitating and dismembering enemies. For the most part, I wouldn’t even notice the time flying by while playing, because I was having so much fun with the game. There is definitely an addictive element to Darktide, even if there is a bunch of grindiness involved.

To sum it all up, Darktide will need several more months before it will be completely polished. Hopefully, by then, a well-thought-out story, a less tedious progression grind, and fully-functioning crafting features will be available. The game has the potential to be great but it’s not going to happen over night, even if we continue to slay heretics in the name of the God-Emperor in the meantime!

What did you think of this Warhammer 40K: Darktide Review? Have you started playing it or are you waiting for a sale? Let us know in the comments below. Be sure to drop by our Twitch Channel if you have questions about the game! If you enjoyed this review, be sure to check out The Callisto Protocol Review SPOILER FREE – Exactly What You Expected! and Midnight Suns Review After 100 Hours Played.

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