Recent reviews by ItsSeras

Hi-Fi Rush and its developers deserved the world, yet they found themselves with their jobs taken from them.

Very few games come close to the amount of love, care, effort, and charm implemented into its core product... yet Hi-Fi Rush managed to be one of them.

- Collectibles and rewards for exploration? Check.
- Endearing and colorful art style? Check.
- Memorable cast of characters? Check.
- Satisfying controls and combos? Check.
- Killer soundtrack to hack and slash away to? Check.
- Replayability? Also check

This game had everything going for it, including the fact that it won BAFTA and GoTY awards for Best Soundtrack. Not to mention that Microsoft themselves[x.com] stated it was a smash hit across all metrics.

So tell me, Microsoft. Why did Tango Gameworks have to be fizzled out and cause the developers that made you this "break out hit" in "all key measurements and expectations" to lose their jobs?

Because truthfully? I fail to see the reason other than being out of touch with your core audience and workers. No wonder nobody wants to make a good game anymore, why should they when they will lose their jobs either way?

Arrowhead, you have developed a phenomenal game with an enjoyable gameplay loop and had a loyal fanbase with more than positive approval.

It is a shame that Sony is forcing this requirement. No player should lose access to their account simply because they can not/will not make an external console account to play a PC title.

My review will change if the PSN requirement is removed.

We did it Helldivers, we have managed to complete the Major Order.

After sinking over 1,000 hour+ into the previous title in the franchise, I have a fair amount of concerns and worries I want to share as to why I can not recommend Payday 3 at the time of this writing.

... and unfortunately, my gripes does not even originate from the new gameplay adjustments/mechanical tweaks (in which, I still have fair concerns there as well).

While it would be unfair to expect Payday 3 to have the exact amount of content Payday 2 has in its current state due to the amount of time they had to implement new heists, heisters, weapons, etc. etc, launching with only 8 heists, 6 heisters, and missing some nice quality of life tweaks from the previous entry leaves a bit of a sour taste in my mouth. Especially considering that one of the game's potential price tags ranges up to $90 on promised future content. While the entry costs is only $40, this still feels a bit difficult to justify when the replayability stems on gaining IP to level or grinding weapon levels.

Speaking of which, let me shift to the new changes made to the progression system.

While I want to applaud the developers for the new tweaks to difficulty and enjoy not being forced to meta weapons that can hit break point values for DSOD, I am not particularly fond of the means of level being entirely restricted through the new challenge system.

In order to acquire most items, you need to be a certain level for it. I find it really strange as they encourage users to play in the means that they want to (hence the changes to the difficulty tweaks and giving challenges to specific guns to reward you for using them), though at the same time, penalize the player in terms of their overall progression as each gun has their own set of challenges. So if you are not actively switching guns to grind out those challenges, you will not hit the "soft cap" of 100 which was stated to be the intention in the Dev Diaries 3 & 6 regarding their approach to progression and combat. For the 50 levels after 100, this isn't much of a big deal. Though it leaves the initial grind to 100 to come to a screeching halt halfway through due to the game only having so many challenges to complete on a certain heist, set of guns, etc. etc.

While this can be argued that it encourages variety, I would argue that it discourages the original vision of allowing the user to utilize their favorite heists/weapons/gadgets in order to reach that soft cap of level 100. While even in Payday 2 the game would eventually deduct experience from replaying the same heist over and over, the penalty still allowed for a fair amount of experience game and took a while to kick in. Especially when alternating heists doesn't incur the penalty or raise it. This also is less of a problem in that game where you have a much larger list of heists that you can select from instead of being locked to just eight.

While I have not gotten far enough to unlock all the skills and skill points to allocate, I am not entirely thrilled with the new system either. It is clear that a combination between Payday 2's perk decks and skill trees was done... though a lot of the changes seem to be fairly small besides the initial Basic/Aced versions. Especially when a lot of them boil down to "You gain Edge/Grit/Rush while doing this specific action!". This feels a bit of a step down from the variety and different options in Payday 2. While this may have been intentional to make skills less of the focus and put more power into the gun play, it really does make some skill choices to feel lacking in terms of having impact or down right negligible. It feels like build variety is very basic and a lot of different experimentation that could be done and what was treasured in the previous entry got watered down.

These changes are absolutely heartbreaking, though the worst of all has to be the fact of the always online portion. This is my MAJOR concern. Especially considering that the launch only solidified my fears.

To anyone unaware, this game does not have any means of playing offline/without an internet connection. So even while playing by yourself with bots, you can be lagging in your own game.

While it's difficult to not compare it to Payday 2, the fact of the matter is that both Payday: The Heist and Payday 2 had offline functionality. Hell, Payday 2 even encouraged it to a certain extent with unique bot skills to not leave you feeling penalized for not wanting to play with other people.

This also is a problem whenever the game goes down for maintenance or has server issues, as seen with the launch.

The game has officially launched, and has been down for effectively 12+ hours at the time of this writing. While issues on Day 1 are not surprising for most games these days, this also means that the game is quite literally unplayable currently. Even if you do not wish to play with anyone...

I am not sure why the decision was made to force an online only environment, though it also penalizes the developers as now players playing by themselves have to use the servers offered by the game instead of their own lobbies for peer to peer connection? So it really leaves me confused as to who really wins with this new change, because it doesn't seem like anyone does.

While I have been stating doom and gloom, I do want to give credit where credit is due.

The new changes to stealth are phenomenal, especially when paired with the AI tweaks. It is a massive step up from Payday 2 and has a lot more depth with the new "Public/Private/Secure" areas and having the AI react to noises you make causes them to feel more alive. This was a refresher and made it more interactive, especially with the new "minigames" to lower waiting on timers for things like lock picking and glass cutting... which was a massive problem in Payday 2 for me. (Hell, I bet 100 of those 1,000+ hours were probably waiting on 3-5 minute drills!).

The new engine also does wonders as it has a considerable amount of improvements from Diesel. Especially terms of pure visuals, optimizations, and not having crashes as frequently (at least, from my experience at least).

This game has a lot of care and love poured into it, and that is something I cannot deny...

However.

With the concerns I addressed above while still requesting a $40 charge at minimum for entry, I just... can not with a good conscious recommend this game in its current state to anyone without some adjustments.

I am happy they removed Denuvo before launch, and know the guys at Overkill/Starbreeze are usually good about making changes that people requests- however, I highly recommend people waiting on a sale or for updates to be made to improve the game on the fronts I brought up.

I will more than likely continue to play this game as I am a sucker for the Payday franchise at this point... though I know not everyone will feel the same as me. Especially to new players who never got a chance to play the original or Payday 2 and this will be their first experience.

It's a shame, as I want to recommend this. I do. Though I just can't.

"Master Chief, you mind telling me what you're doing on that ship?"

"...Sir, spending $20 on a new helmet."

Well worth the $10 I spent.

Amazing writing, characters, and story overall that brings you into this immersive story.

There's a reason why the reviews are Overwhelmingly Positive...

Get this game, you won't regret it.

I’m surprised they allow me to write a review for this...

This review be looking kinda sus...

the game is okay i guess

Bring this game back :(

What are you doing if you don’t already own this game?