Recent reviews by Kishamizu

This is the review I least wanted to post, but after finishing the story, I felt it was necessary. This will be an ongoing review and I will update this likely after 7.3 and 7.5. This is a very, VERY mid expansion at best. There are definitely some good things about this expansion, but the bad vastly outweighs it in my opinion.

Let's start with the good. The dungeons and trials are arguably some of the best the game has ever had. A perfect mix of spectacle and difficulty mixed with an amazing soundtrack really keeps you hyped up through the entire time. The zones are (mostly) beautiful. The graphical update really makes everything look so much better and I really enjoyed marveling at all the new textures and lighting effects. The music is also (mostly) good. Soken rarely misses with his tracks, but some don't quite hit the mark, but i'll get to that soon. The role quests are also really enjoyable, but that may be just because it gave me an excuse to leave behind the MSQ for a bit.

Now on to the bad. The story is, for lack of a better word, bad. At best, it felt like I was playing through a long chain of side quests, and at worst, a poorly written, self-insert fanfic. I genuinely believe that this stems from the change of Main Scenario writers that happened after EW. I'm fully aware that more often than not, a writer change after finishing a major story can be good to bring fresh eyes to the story going forward, but this didn't feel like a good move here. And before people say I rushed or skipped cutscenes, no. I watched every single cutscene and played through every dungeon and trial that I could with NPC's to keep myself immersed. The story just wasn't good. Wuk Lamat was a fun character at first that felt like a shonen anime protagonist, but the more time I spent listening and interacting with her, the less I liked her. Her character growth happened early and she never really grew after that. She was the epitome of every boring shonen anime trope rolled into one character. Family and friends are her power and everyone is her family/friend. I want to like her, I really do, but I just don't.

Unfortunately, she's not even the worst character of the expansion. Zoraal Ja and Soreel Ja are arguably the biggest wasted characters. I won't say much without spoilers, but the "twist" with these characters was only shocking because of all the lost potential. Also, you remember when everybody was excited to find out about Krile's past and see how she grows as a character? Yea, that mostly happens off screen. She definitely got more screen time, but mostly in weird ways, like giving her an Echo vision just for her to tell us that Zoraal Ja is super emo. Not what I would call character growth if you ask me.

I mentioned some of the music being subpar before, so let's touch on that. Some of the music, specifically the music used at the end of the Succession Rite and after defeating the final boss during Erenville's monologue, just feels very out of place. It has a weird Lion King/Jungle Book vibe that just doesn't fit. Sure it sounds victorious in a way, but it also just doesn't sound like it has a place in this expansion.

I will end this by saying that I genuinely hope that this is just a Stormblood situation where the story is mid (although I really liked the Stormblood story) and the combat and post-MSQ stuff will carry it, but for now, this ranks at the bottom of my FFXIV list. I genuinely enjoyed ARR more than I did this expansion so far, and I hate saying that. If you did enjoy it, I'm super happy for you that it struck your fancy. For me, I cannot recommend it at all if you enjoyed any of the FFXIV story so far.

This is an incredibly fun game to play with friends! It's a huge nostalgia trip for anyone who ever played with action figures or toy soldiers as a child. The game modes are enjoyable, the gun play feels great, and the graphics are incredible for an indie game. The only negatives I see in this game are the lack of different guns in the plague mode, and the bots picking up money in the wave mode. Other than that this is an amazingly fun game! 9/10 would buy again

The game is good, but there are some huge flaws with it. I know it's still in alpha, and I only have 45 hours on record, but that's about all i can stomach. I will say that it is the best zombie survival game currently on the market, but if you are looking for a survival experience, The Long Dark or The Forest is likely a better choice. The zombies in this game have insane hitboxes and because of server instability (at least this is what i attribute it to) you don't even have to be near a zombie for it to smash your face in. That paired with the hackers that you will find on nearly every server makes this game nearly unplayable. I say nearly, because until you get decent gear, you really don't seem to run into any hackers. If you manage to stay undergeared and avoid major cities, you should be ok.

That however, makes this game incredibly boring. The map is big, and that makes it great for a large number of players, but even with a full 64 person server, you will rarely run into anyone in the wilderness. This means that if you want to pvp, you must either venture into a city, or camp up on the road and hope that someone is stupid enough to stroll on through. The graphics look good, but the constant framerate drops make it a huge buzzkill. The mod is more fun, doesn't have bad framerate drops if your machine can handle it, and has much more to offer. I would recommend passing on this game for now and going to the mod instead. I'm not saying there isn't any hacking there either, but i've killed a few hackers that forgot their godmode scripts. Of course they still killed me by nuking the city, but cmon, it was still a pretty fun sight to see.

5/10 c'mon son

Amazing game! Feels like what we all expected Diablo 3 to feel like.