Recent reviews by MaT_T

Game is pretty cool honestly. I'm not going to lie, I do agree with most of the consensus around the poor performance and that the game should be much better optimized (there's no real excuse for this) but ultimately despite all of the that it's a really atmospheric and cool experience and if you like hunting big monsters this game will not fail you on that front!

My take on PoE2 as someone who has just about 1000 hours in PoE is that it has an exceptionally good foundation for future development. I'll list off some of the positives and negatives below.

Positives: +

- I think visually it's very striking (sometimes too much so with all the visual clutter) but generally speaking graphically it is appealing and captures that gritty atmosphere you would expect of Wraeclast.

- Gameplay feels smooth and the combat has weight to it (especially during the campaign) which is good in my opinion. I hesitate to say it's much slower than PoE1 because once you get your movement skills sorted and are blasting in endgame it still feels pretty fast like PoE1.

- Sound design wise it is great. Good soundtrack and you can clearly tell they poured a lot of passion into the audio of the game.

- The Campaign is enjoyable with lots of cool bosses which are interesting mechanically but be aware that it is not finished currently, there are 3 acts where you have to complete the same 3 again at a harder difficulty to access endgame.

Negatives: -

- First off rarity as an affix is really not good. Anyone who doesn't stack rarity on gear basically has an inherent loot penalty and I think this is bad game design.

- I feel like PoE2 started off feeling like a completely different product to PoE1 but as soon as I hit endgame it's almost like I was pulled out of the game and placed right back into PoE1 where you just blast obscene amounts of monsters which is okay because I enjoyed PoE but it really is a stark contrast to the fresh feeling I had playing the campaign.

- I personally don't enjoy the lack of fluidity of endgame mapping in PoE2 that much. I don't like the fact that I have to run towers (which feels like a waste of time) in order to put in a precursor tablet to juice my maps. I also don't like being forced into running for example Vaal Factory because it's the only map that contains a breach at the time with the alternative being "Oh I have to go and run another tower and hope breach spawns on one of the other maps after I place the precusor tablet in".

Conclusion:

Ultimately I do recommend PoE2 for ARPG beginners and veterans alike despite some of the complaints I have. I think there is something for everyone here and I think GGG will continue to refine this game and turn it into something great given enough time.

I'm not very far into the game only 11.5 hours at this point but so far the game is really quite good, especially if you like the dungeon crawler elements of the Persona titles.

The setting is an interesting departure from the usual high school student Persona/SMT deal while still keeping the social links element in. There are also a lot of QoL improvements on Atlus' prior titles, such as being able to easily defeat weaker foes in real time as opposed to being forced into turn based fights.

The soundtrack has been great so far as well. Hard difficulty has been fairly challenging so far.(although it may be because I'm a bit underleveled) All in all I think if you like JRPG's this is honestly a must buy, as few companies can rival the type of JRPG quality Atlus puts out.

Session is a really cool game if you like Skate simulator type games. If you're expecting all kinds crazy manual into grind into 900 into manual into nollie tre into manual into 540 flip into manual ala Tony Hawk games you might be disappointed. However I think this game scratches a different itch. If you like making even simple tricks look clean down a 5 stair and want to have control over how fast or slow your board spins or whether you rotate with your board or not etc. then this is much more likely to be up your alley.

I started playing this game seriously during Necropolis league which was met with a lot of negativity and I can see why. I barely interacted with the league mechanic (though I know it could end up being strong I just wasn't interested in the mechanic at all).

Almost 400 hours, all the stash tabs, a supporters pack and many builds later I find myself typing this review. PoE is a gem of an ARPG, the systems in the game are excellent and provide a ton of depth that you can't really find in other ARPG's. There's a certain satisfaction of getting rare drops in this game (maybe because the drop pool is so large) that I don't feel in any other game in the genre. The amount of tweaking you can do to your builds whether it's by adjusting nodes on the massive passive tree or finding that perfect timeless jewel is just really quite astonishing.

The end game loop is also varied when an interesting league mechanic is introduced along with the customisation of the atlas which allows you to really change up your mapping experience in the end game and kind of allows you to play the game focusing on mechanics you enjoy while largely ignoring ones that you don't.

I also found myself wanting to try new builds a lot and ended creating quite a few characters to experiment with and there are still a lot more I want to try.

Playing PoE has been a hugely positive experience in what could be considered one of the worst leagues that PoE has introduced, so I have high hopes for Settlers of Kalguur.

Excellent follow up to the base game with tons of new weapons, spells and items to get.

I finished the game today (4 days after release) and can honestly say I got my moneys worth. I do agree with some of criticisms of being unable to dodge some attacks (you just kind of have to eat a hit) and it did lead to a little bit of frustration for me but overall it's a From Game, I knew what I was getting into!

I haven't played an SMT game outside of Nocturne and the Persona series (which I enjoyed a lot). But this game pretty much does what Nocturne did except better and adds some QoL things to maps like picking up hp/mp regens. Also there are some neat features like proper refresh rate/fps cap for pc players and a neat modern graphical style to add to the experience.

If you're an SMT fan I would not hesitate to pull the trigger!

Cool game and you get to pet foxes!

Here's my 2 cents. First and foremost the game has not crashed once for me or given any sort of freezes or anything to that effect. Granted I don't have the average steam user's pc I'm running a 4080 with a older cpu 10700k and 32gb of ddr4 3600mhz ram. Framerate has also been pretty flawless for me, I've got no issues being capped at 120fps, it looks smooth as hell to me. One other thing to note for Nvidia users I am running the 537.58 drivers because Nvidia's recent drivers have been giving tons of issues since the aforementioend one. (maybe this could help with some of the freezing or crashing issues some people are experiencing)

So far I'm actually liking it, I've kind of been itching for a game that is not just tons and tons of dialogue and cutscenes and actually lets me get engaged in gameplay often. The combat is kinda simplistic but it's quite fun learning the skills and combos of each character and trying the different characters unique movesets and skills. The story seems kinda standard anime fare but still enjoyable and is constantly moving at a good pace. Though of course the criticism here is that it is short, though I've not got very far yet.

I think it's quite rare for modern JRPGs of this quality to come out and the graphical style kind of makes me think of the first time I played Dragonquest 11 where I was also enamored with the visuals. I genuinely think if this game worked for everyone without the crashing issues this would have a very different review score.

It's a cautious recommend from me because although I really do like the game a lot and I can see myself playing it quite a bit, obviously you need to get past the hurdle of actually being able to play the game without staring at a black screen or a crash. Maybe if you're on the fence consider waiting for a few patches to iron out some of the problems first.

Dark Souls 2 is the ugly duckling of the Dark Souls franchise. I think this game does things both correctly and frustratingly in equal measure.

The first thing I'll comment on is the "gank squad" enemies (specifically relating to bosses). This is pretty egregious in Dark Souls 2 compared to its counterparts and can be extremely frustrating at times.

Another comment I think I need to make is the healing items, Dark Souls 2 is different in that you get access to many healing items as opposed to just the Estus Flask as seen in other Fromsoft games (which can cheapen or make the experience seem easier). This could be a good thing or a bad thing depending on your approach to the series.

The bosses can also feel a little samey (design wise). (though there are plenty of cool looking bosses)

With this being said though Dark Souls 2 is still a great game, it's got the same gritty feel of the other games and it has the most content in terms of NG+ experience of any of it's 2 peers and you still get the satisfied feeling of beating a hard boss. The dlc is pretty great in DS2 as well and provides a solid challenge.

DS2 is a little more janky than the other 2 games in the franchise but I would recommend it easily to any DS fan despite the general criticism it receives. If you like DS and DS3 give DS2 a shot, it may feel a little whacky in the beginning but once you're in, you're locked in.