Recent reviews by Escrypha

Great stuff! Comes with a mount and base items, but I personally got it for character styles. Love that they're all color-custom. Can't wait for more cosmetics (assuming it provides a sustainable business model for the publisher). Might finally get into Vox Machina, too.

This expansion is a bit unfortunate compared to the shadows of the past.

For example, in Skyrim, you got new powers/shouts with every major expansion. Here, you see new abilities enemies have like phantoms, yet you never gain that teleportation power. It may be unfair to compare it to Skyrim, so on its own, it also under-utilizes the NG+ Foreknowledge mechanic I love so much, in that for a quest, you get to say, "I bet it's in one of your old bases," and yet you don't get to skip unlocking a measly novice lock on some whack-a-doo's computer. I'll be honest, there isn't much to be lost there, so I can't understand why the Foreknowledge mechanic doesn't just bypass it, like it does many beats in the base game. Some Creation Club DLC, like the Vulture do far worse with it, but with DLC like this, one would expect to at least reach the base game in terms of usage.

There are no new ship parts from what I can gather, but it comes with about 3 new weapons, plus 3 based on the Equinox, Orion, and Solstice pistol for ~6. The DLC also comes with about 2 new meshes for outfits and mostly re-skins that might as well just be skins applied at a bench than "unique" items. The shop near the space port only sells science outfits for minimum role-play. Wanna dress like Va'ruun out the gate for your Va'ruun character role-play? Better hope it's your 2nd play-through where you're okay with using console commands to spawn 'em in at the cost of achievements. It also comes with one new spacesuit type with tiers differentiating 'em. Would be neat if the DLC also came with a more organic one (similar to the NG+ armor) for phantoms as drops or if we could equip the gear Redeemer's use, but what can ya do? I do love the heavy Va'ruun assault suit variant. It's great in my opinion and well worth weighing down my pack, even when not in current use. Good stuff!

The voice acting isn't too bad, and some of the choices, particularly with Veth'aal sit well with me. Although I've yet to see if NG+ can let us reveal the mole before-hand, I also like the House Divided side quest which is one of 2 side-quests that evoke tragedy pretty well imho, so it's not all bad. I think the main quest could've been done better, though. One would think a multiversal Starborn with all sorts a' powers would be able to survive being sent into the void on subsequent playthroughs, with that possible teleportation power, but I understand if the budget didn't allow for that. The bubbles of low gravity are also a nice touch, and the planet is pretty atmospheric, although I dislike the lack of beach-front shores, which are my favorite places to setup bases. I also encountered a fair few glitches on my first play-through, which only had outfits (mesh, texture) and UI mods enabled for achievement hunting. Still worth praising Bethesda for allowing those cosmetic mods to work with achievements, especially since that "Dark Mode terminals" mod easily treads into the area of accessibility for these worthless, hypersensitive eyes.

Because I had fun with it for the most part, I recommend it, albeit at a discount. It's just that with Bethesda's dealings of the past, like Skyrim, it does feel a bit under-cooked, and I say that as a huge Starfield simp who bought the Collector's Edition for Xbox after loving the base game on PC. Given that bias, please take my verdict with a grain a' salt. Hope you enjoy it as much as I, if not more, however unlikely. The DLC is average in my book. Hopefully the next one does better. More powers, please! Let us expand further on the Starborn concepts. It's what caused me to replay the game so, so many times!

So glad I never threw that snowball.

This game turns into such a different experience when using a controller that Game Freak would sell it as a separate version.

It would be nice if we could use that sleeker, modern interface with KB+M with WASD for movement outside of combat, similarly to how other games translate controls between KB+M and controller. With the current setup, saving a video with shadow play (even when using a macro) temporarily switches to the keyboard UI which causes a huge hiccup and makes for inconsistent videos.

Still an awesome title. I don't usually like DnD nor do I like turn-based/RTS, but this one hits. Also love how unabashed it is with queer rep. I am quite pleased as an enby! Highly recommend!

Edited: The settings already allow one to manually switch controller icons. My mistake. Sorry.

Great game. One of my favorites to come out of Sony's publishing so far.

The story, characters, and gameplay are great in my opinion, making for a wealth of experiences I enjoy on every playthrough. I also enjoy being able to play this with KB+M. This is an easy recommendation for me. I love this game!

However, as with all things in life, it has its issues. The climbing is highly restrictive. Encountering so many invisible walls along with arbitrarily placed climbing paths (thankfully more than there were in the first game) sorta breaks my immersion when playing. I genuinely hope they just rip-off the climbing mechanics from BotW/TotK for the next game.

On the topic of KB+M support, I agree with others who note that too many controls are tied to the same keybind, leading to moments where I attack instead of overriding certain network access points. Sometimes, this causes Aloy to attack forward and fall down, losing a certain amount of progress. It's only about 15 seconds of frustration and backtracking, but it certainly doesn't enhance the gameplay. They have been detaching certain commands as more updates roll out, and all I'm getting at with this is that there can never be too many. Certain commands came naturally to me, though, having played through the PS5 version before-hand (like aiming and hitting another button to switch to the grapple hook).

It's also strange that I still have to pull things out of storage manually in order to unlock my overrides; even stranger that I have to do this in NG+, too, given that one conveniently needs not do that for the workbench. Why make it different here? Please update that QoL, and speaking of, if I recall correctly, there might have been a setting on PS5 that allowed me to skip having to hit space when finishing loading. If I’m not just missing that option as a result of being dense, please implement it, too. Thank you.

Lastly, the implementation of language selections through Steam works poorly if at all. When I switched it to Japanese on NG+ for practice (ゲームとかアニメで日本語を練習することが好き), the audio was still English, even when leaving the UI alone. Since I already criticized this inconvenient and roundabout implementation in Miles Morales, I likely wouldn't have complained about it this time if it at least worked. Nixxes otherwise did a great job on the port.

Now, the reason I still recommend it, despite these issues, is that they are circumstantial enough to not get in the way of the gameplay through most of my playthrough. They only annoy in select few moments, so as a whole, I still love this game. I'd love it if they could address these, but I still certainly have fun with the game, regardless. I hope you enjoy it, too. Cheers!

"Thank you, Gotham Knights. Perhaps I treated you too harshly."

Avangers had more varied gameplay between characters than this, and it released with 6.
Here, everyone plays like Black Widow with superficial differences albeit legitimately varied traversal mechanics. Gotham Knights was more varied, too, which is an absolute shame, 'cause the game does want to be a good looter shooter, but even from that perspective, the tried and true combat systems present in Warframe or the Division are somewhat lacking in this attempt to throw 'em in a blender with the Arkham Free Flow system that just ends up with a smoothie of what feels more like busy work than actual fun. They should've allowed for melee builds, especially given their roots.

The worst part, though, is the story, and that's only because plot armor is so, so jarring. You could honestly write it so that things just fall into place to make sure they live long enough to satisfy their mission, but it doesn't feel like there's even an attempt here. Batman and others had so many opportunities to kill them, with that objective explicitly stated, too, but instead, he uncharacteristically knocks 'em out (after killing other characters mercilessly moments prior). It's made worse by the fact that half the cast is grating to watch.

The jokes got a few chuckles out of me (like Nanaue subtly donning his hat of "invisibility" when Batman attacked), so it's not all bad, but watching the story play out with main characters I just wanna see die is not a fun experience. The Suicide Squad movies at least understand this. Even the humor I enjoy suffers for it. I hate Boomer so much, which is also a shame, 'cause his gameplay is great. Ugh! The game is just a huge ugh! I'm the kinda wacko who has a high tolerance for Live Services, too, yet even I hate this attempt. It's just so, so bad.

In my opinion, the execution is terrible and better spent on the taskforce's necks.

Edited: The gear system and gameplay grew on me with the release of my new favorite, gaysian snow mommy, but that's still not enough to recommend this, given my aforementioned issues. Also, please allow us to transmog melee weapons. Parasite's weapons look disturbing. @.@

It has its whole host of issues, but I somehow still have fun with it. I lose sleep, my productivity goes down, and I get massive headaches, all from personal neglect as a result of playing this game. I'm hooked. Can't wait for mod tools and the Creation Club. I also love that it runs on the Steam Deck with Proton GE, even without official support, albeit on mega-low 30 fps.

The ship customization (though expensive) and characters are good enough for me. Lin reminds me my grand aunt (who raised me), so it's a shame that they didn't flesh her out as well as the members of Constellation. Either way, I'm invoking reverse adoption. She calls me "dusty" with the same inflection at which I was called "anak." It's great. She's my mother now.

Edited: Went back to my unmodded save in preparation for the Shattered Space achievement hunt, and after a bit of testing (which unfortunately reveals that my cosmetic suit hide batch commands disable achievements), it appears that some texture, mesh, and UI mods I've come to love don't set the save file to [C] or "modded," which is fantastic! It even allows me to keep the "hold boostpack" setting in the custom .ini without getting tagged. Thank goodness! Good on ya, Bethesda! This is grand!

Despite how cliché its story is down to the twist one can read coming a mile away, I don't believe the game suffers for it, because although predictable, it makes fun choices.

ACNH makes it look like a technological marvel in comparison. For one, I don't have to wait days between moving buildings, nor do I have to pull items out of storage for crafting. It also has actual fast traveling outside of the two locations the Mario tube allows in ACNH. It has so many QoL improvements that hopefully its existence serves as a good rival for Nintendo to motivate them towards improving their frankly obsolete mechanics in the next Animal Crossing installment.

Customizable controls go a long way. I hope they add it in the future. I also hope they allow us to upgrade chests without taking the items out, removing the chest, putting the better version down, then returning the items, if better chests get released. Given how many items I now hoard, that would be an absolute pain, but going past 2 lines might be worth the hassle! x'D

As with all Early Access titles, it is up to a given person whether or not they wish to try a game before release. For me, this has become my latest obsession, thanks to its relaxing gameplay, charming characters (especially Wall-E whom I had no idea could be this cute *^*), and cross-saves/progression, which incentivised me to buy it on multiple platforms, but it is not without its issues, even when played on the Switch. Its FAQ also states that it will go free-to-play at release, so the price of entry basically just gets you crashes and other bugs along with nebulous "exclusive content that won't be available after release."

In my humble opinion, at this stage, it's an easy 8/10. Buy it if the things you hear about it allure you. If the aforementioned plans to go free-to-play turn you off, then that is more than understandable, but if you do decide to get into it, I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. Cheers!

Edit: They went back on their plans to go free-to-play. Unfortunate. Not even gonna excuse it. I am happy that multi-player is coming together. It's motivating me to play more, if only to farm stuff for new players.

Just like the previous installment in the series, Insomniac delivers another knockout with Miles Morales (this time with a hint of Venom for spice). The voice acting, attention to detail, graphics, story, combat, and other gameplay aspects are phenomenal in my opinion. Optimization for the PC port doesn't seem too bad, either. Combining DLSS with ray tracing is treating me well, and I'm still in love with Peter's new face. 👀

In my opinion, it successfully expands upon Peter's game, both in story and gameplay, making me prefer this over the first, especially with the absence of the dreaded forced stealth sections. There are also plenty of moments between characters that exude chemistry. I hope Spider-Man 2 delivers, although I don't know if Insomniac can keep raising the bar. Still getting used to playing it with KB+M, but it's an easy 10/10 in my book. It's lousy in my opinion that we can't just change the VO language in-game without changing Steam's, but that has no bearing on my recommendation.

Already got Platinum on PSN. Just double-dipping, hence the low play time at review. Lastly, I reached this high opinion by going in with tempered expectations. Hype can ruin a person's experience, so for your own enjoyment, please dive in that in mind. I hope you enjoy it as much as I.

I also absolutely love that BLM mural. 💙

Customization and gameplay are great in my opinion. It also runs quite well on the Steam Deck, which has become the only platform I play this on. Awesome work, Dimps. I hope the next one (if there's one after Lycoris) commits to the anime aesthetic instead of making the clothing textures realistic. I believe that clashes with the character designs.

Regardless, the game's a solid 9/10 for me. It's a good amount of dumb anime fun, and I'd probably enjoy it more had I played it with a friend.