Recent reviews by SP1TF1R3

After 51 hours I can proudly say, that I have completed the entirety of Crash Bandicoot 4 with all achievements, aibeit with some help of Online Guides, but I I have no shame in doing so, but I'll get into that in a bit. As always I have listed my subjective thoughts on the game in positives and negatives,


- a faithful continuation of Crash Bandicoot 3 "Warped"
- extremely colourful, dynamic and ambient soundtrack, with each level and boss having a unique theme and it changing depending on how far and where you are in a stage
- extremely challenging plattforming, easily the hardest 3D plattformer I have ever fully completed
- extremely smooth and fluid controls with massive improvements to the base controls, compared to the older games and also the addition of new abilities in form of the quantum masks to change up and create new gameplay
- stunning visuals and a lot of scenary changes, no level looks the same and even the ones that are in the same timeline all feel extremely unique
- lots of bonus content and stuff to collect for completionists (however not all of it is positive)
- inclusion of Tawna, Dingodile and Cortex as playable characters in their own stages
- amazing cutscenes, which flesh out the story and characters and give the game more charm
- addition of unlockable skins, which are locked behind gem milestones in each level, giving Crash and Coco a variety of fresh new looks and designs, fitting to each stage and timeline
- unlockable Flashback Tapes, which are nice 2D plattforming challenges paying homage to the old Cortex and N. Brio bonus stages from Crash 1


- inclusion of the extremely unfair N. Sanely Perfect Relics, which require you to beat a level in either Normal or N Verted mode by breaking all the boxes and getting 80% of the wumpa fruit without dying a single time
- Platinum Relics are now needed in order to fully complete the game and to get the 2nd bonus ending
- levels have to be beat in N Verted Mode, also with all gems in order to complete the game
- a lot of the hidden gem and box placements are extremely cryptic and nearly impossible to find without hours of searching for them
- some levels have alternate routes for other characters, however after finishing these portions you have to play the rest of the level you already know with Crash or Coco, only with slightly different box placements, which means for a full completion of the game you have to play certain parts of a lot of levels a minimum of 6 times, IF you get everything first try that is
- all of the things above lead to an insane amount of padding, which doubles or for some even triples or quadruples the time you'd need for just finishing the levels in Normal Mode in 100% and getting the gold relics
- minor bugs like enemies phasing out of existence or sticky corners, but nothing grave that breaks the game
- removal of the hub world from Crash 2 and 3, making the game now more linear like Crash 1


If you paid attention you can tell, that most of the negative criticism comes from wanting to beat the game 106%, which obviously is something not everyone wants to do or should do, in fact I'd advide against it unless you are someone with a lot of patience . The game for a casual player is honestly a blast though and as someone, who played the original Crash trilogy back on the PS1, I couldn't have wished for a better continuation. The game is riddled with a lot of easter eggs and references to the older games and I don't let my suffering from wanting to complete it, taint my otherwise extremely positive opinion of this game. Definitely a must buy for everyone who has nostalgia for Crash and wants something fresh, without changing to much of the original formula. An amazing game to play casually, but a hell ride for any completionist out there.

Positives:
- beautiful graphics and a lot of scenery changes keeping the visuals fresh
- an incredible musical score accompanying the bosses, with a more atmospheric soundtrack at the normal parts of the game
- one playthrough takes about 25-30+ hours, if you take your time and try to collect as much as possible in your first run
- about as good as a Soulslike can get from a company that isn't FromSoftware
- for the most part a really fluid and overall challenging gameplay experience
- character quests are pretty streamline and easy to fulfill with no cryptic randomness being involved

Negatives:
- the progression of the game is really linear, and off paths that do exist are usually really short or connect to the main route anyway
- the difficulty curve is a little unbalanced at times, especially going from Chapter 8-9 the difficulty skyrockets and throughout the game some follow up bosses, are much harder or easier compared to the previous one
- towards the end the game it a little bit padded, especially in the final chapter which, throwing strong and tanky enemies at you without a break
- combat can be at times frustrating, especially with inescapable stunlocks and some of the game mechanics being a little inconsistent on their intended uses
-the game kinda indirectly forces you to level the "Capacity" stat a lot, since it's really easy to go over your weight limit, whenever you get and use a new accessory

Man what an experience, I write this review literally the minute after my first playthrough and am really positively surprised. I gotta be honest I may not be the most qualified person for reviewing this, since I haven't played a lot of Soulslike games with the exception of Elden Ring and a bit of Dark Souls 3, but damn the experience this game gave me, definitely felt like I was playing a game made by FromSoftware. The game does have it's issues though, that become pretty obvious once you get to the last third of the game, where it feels like the devs tried to do everything in their might to artificially increase the difficulty to pad out your playtime. May it be due to spamming strong non boss enemies, that up to chapter 9 you only got to see once or twice within a chapter or making some of the bosses incredibly frustrating with nearly impossible to read and react attacks, due to their speed, so the finale left a somewhat bitter taste in my mouth sadly, since at that point it felt more like padding, rather than a fun challenge. The lore all things considered is extremely good and the game does a good job at making you care about most the characters you get to know. All things considered, if you like Soulsgames and can't wait until the next release from FromSoftware, you should definitely bridge your waiting time with this title. I wouldn't consider it a masterpiece, but it is definitely up there in terms of quality. Would definitely recommend.

Mohg hardest boss, also p gud gayme.

AIDS, but still better than Valorant.

Trash game

Positives:
- pretty addicting when you start playing it as a new player
- fast queueing times for most game modes and most elo ratings
- easy to learn, but hard to master
- a lot of options for car customization
- taking everything into consideration after queueing, a match is usually done in 7-10 minutes or less, making it a good game to play, if one doesn't have a lot of time to spare on the daily

Negatives:
- physics are sometimes a bit unrealistic and unreliable (i.e. weird corner bounces, often unpredictable crossbar and goal post hits, being stuck after trying to jump of walls with corners in particular)
- demolitions are an important part of higher elo games and they feel like pure RNG, you can be supersonic speed and hit someone who is standing still and at times even then they don't die, it's even worse if you try to hit a moving enemy, seems like a small issue, but for a lot of strategic plays, if the demolition that should've happened, just didn't occur, you essentially took a risk without any kind of, what normally should be, guaranteed payoff
- a community that consists to a high percentage out of tryhards in casual gamemodes, smurfs and overall toxic people
- having no mute option, I don't want to see some basement dwellers spamming "What a Save" in chat without being forced to block them like why did they remove it ( also I know it is possible to hide the chat entirely, but what if I just want to single someone out, without the forced block)
- as addicting as it can be at the end of the day, those 5 minute games will start to get repetetive and boring really quickly

Summary;
Gotta be honest, when you start playing Rocket League it is a really great and fun game, especially with friends and the learning process is also quite rewarding, from when you hit your first flick, to hitting the ball in midair more consistently to finally hitting your first airreal goal, but the more you play and the better you get, it gets more frustrating in my opinion. It was the biggest mistake to make it Free to Play, cause it just spawned an entire wave of smurfs, tbf they also existed before, but at least I could sleep at night knowing, that some people actually paid another 20 bucks to just destroy low elo players. Also the amount of toxicity is unreal from continous demo chasing, to trashtalk, to just quickchat spam, tbf most comp games are like that nowadays, but how can people be so immature in a game about car football. At some point it just feels like a repetetive grind and a chore if you are at a certain skill level, making the game less of a fun and more of a tedious experience, especially if you want to learn most high level mechanics, you gotta pump at times a solid 100+ hours into just learning and mastering one singular mechanic. In the end it is hard for me to say if I would rate it overall negative or positive, cause it isn't a bad game, but I think the reason why I will give it a negative rating, is because it is the only comp experience I have played myself, where even if I take elongated breaks from it ( I am talking about weeks or sometimes even months at a time ), after playing just one game, after aforementioned breaks I am usually already bored by the gameplay, frustrated by the physics,infuriated by the unneccessary toxicity or all of the above. If you are more of a casual and only want to play it sometimes to chill without trying to take it serious or without wanting to get a high rank I'd definitely recommend it, but as a Comp Experience I think it fails to hit the margin after a certain amount of playtime.