Recent reviews by Zefar

Yeah this is a good one.

Gameplay is good, combat is just fine.

With the performance being so god awful in this game I can't recommend it. I believe Capcom has stated that they have done all they can.

My setup
RTX 5080 FE
i5 12600KF
32 GB RAM 3600Mhz
Installed on NVME 2.0
Just trying to get 75 FPS on my 1080p monitor. It can't keep up with that. All of the other games I play can have no issues staying at 75 FPS with no issues.
Bottleneck isn't an issue.

The gameplay itself though is fine. It's a bit on the easier side compared to Monster Hunter World.

Story is awful and I didn't really care about anyone. The kid being the most annoying one.
With Worlds story it at least felt like a Monster Hunter story. I had an interest in it. Characters where all good. Cats making the food? Love it. Grandma cat making food? Even better!

But this game? Almost all characters are meh.

So I got my copy with my RTX 5080 FE.

But about the game.
I played the previous ones and I do like them as well. You're a bit slower in this game but you have more defense capability due to the shield.
When battles get big you will start having a lot of things going on and the shield allows you to get into the meat grinder and fight with the monsters in a better way.
I like it.

Weapons might feel a bit weak in the start but once you've fully upgraded Super Shotgun that thing will be a beast. The railgun like iron nail weapon is also powerful.
Parrying the right green projectile though will activate your shield ability and the first one with full upgrades? OH boy will that do a lot of damage.

Story is okay, doesn't get in the way.

Performance. Well I did mention my card and yes it runs fine on it. I'm pretty much expecting that it should do it. So can't really judge if it runs good on lower end hardware.

It's good. Can be better. As some moves are a bit stiff and not so smooth.
You trigger movement abilities a little bit too easily. To the point where I'm unsure how I managed to activate them.

It's a bit on the easier side in the start. Gets harder towards the end but the last 5 end game bosses have all been easy. Because I could level quite a bit.

Got some fan service.
Characters are a bit meh.

Oh yes, I love it. 10/10 NAY 12/10 in score.

It is good and I use English Text + Japanese voices and Sephiroth is handled perfectly.

It also runs fine on my i5 12600KF, RTX 3080 FE, 32 GB RAM on Win11 so that is nice.

Yeah this is a fun game. Worth the price.
Took me about 14 hours to complete it and it's not the full game.

Later on with the quests you should aim to do them in order that they appear. Because if you skip some steps it might bug it up. But you can quickly restart a mission so not that much time is lost.

I had no issues with crashes and such while playing the game.

So I finally completed the game. Sided with Ward.

I enjoyed it. I did run into more crashes towards the end of the game. Like more than I've had up too that point. I had about 3 maybe 4 crashes up to that point.

Good things.
Mods fixes problems of the game and I had several installed.
Guns feel good vs humans but against mutants it got a bit different. But the mutants have gotten a nerf from the original HP value. Headshots on humans will almost always kill them.

The whole A-Life part. I don't think it would make much of a difference even if it was in the game.
It's a Stalker game and it feels like one. I played all of the previous games.
Yes you will sometimes notice human enemies just spawning in but it didn't happen everywhere.

I like the voice acting and it adds to the immersion a lot. Main guy is perfectly fine too.
Graphics are okay too pretty good. It depends on where you are.

Negative things.
It's demanding, even on a RTX 3080 FE, 32 GB RAM 3600MHz, i5 12600KF and Win11.
I do not think it justify the demand on my PC for how it looks. Settlements are the worst offenders here.
Human enemies are a bit too accurate with their weapons. No matter what. They never have their weapons jam on them and when they drop them majority are broken.

It has bugs but so did all Stalker games. I am annoyed that Weird Water artifact bugged for me.
Some Quest have bugged for me as well. But only some.

The End game section was almost only about shooting humans. I'd like to fight far more mutant enemies.

Weapon degrade system just seems to favor stronger one hitting weapons. Any automatic weapon is just tear through the weapon and the ammo you got.


Anyway, overall I do enjoy the game. Will replay the game at some later point and picking a new faction. I wonder if I can side with Monolith? Because I wanna walk outside in the emission.

So I haven't spent a dime on this game. Free play only. I have money. But I'm a bit picky with spending money on free2play games.

It does get a bit grindy and if the RNG gods are not on your side that grind can be increase quite a bit.
If now the game are telling the true drop rates for items.

Gunplay is like Destiny 2.
It shares features from Warframe but I'd say that they are nerfed version of it or worse.

Getting those rare resources are also a bit of a pain. It's so limited and often you're locked to 1 mission because it's the only spot where it drops a lot.

The models? All are pretty. The Ultimate versions? Prettier versions.

So for the Cash shop.
Things are priced more than what they are worth to be honest. The Reactor that gives 20 extra module points to whatever you put it into? That one is $25.
In Warframe it's far far less. I just think that's just high way robbery.

Story? Meh.

But overall I am enjoying the game. Just feels good gunning down enemies or spreading large amount of toxic to them.

I saw Asmongold play it and thought, that looks fun. Bought and played it myself.

It is fun.
Good music.
Lots of characters.
So much to get if you're one for that sort of things.

So yeah, it is a good game.

So I haven't gotten the DLC and just going to judge the base version of the game.

The pacing is just bad. I found basically all metals in the starting forest. Or at least all of the materials that are available on the Olympus map which is Iron, Bronze, Aluminum, Platinum, Titanium, Coal and Gold. Also that exotic ore.
So I literally had no reason to go to the desert area. Or the winter area that was nearby. The winter area has a polar bear that has broken hit boxes on it's attacks. It's pretty damn strong.

But once I noticed that I didn't need to go to the desert to get new materials, things just felt boring. I was fighting the wolfs and horses for far too long. The winter area which was closest was the hardest area.
Desert was just too far away to be fun to walk or ride too. Not to mention that after a quick mining operation in a cave or two basically made me full. So I had to go all the way back.


This could have been negated with some sort of fast travel. They could put some limits on it but it would help a lot.
I'm sure people would label this as heresy but it would make the game more fun.

As for armors and weapons. Well half way in while doing some of the missions I got hold of a Platinum pickaxe and could mine any ore. That easily made me skip various metals.
For armors there is one in the workshop which is basically the best armor if you just own the base game. It's not all that expensive either.

I got stuff from monsters that are not usable for me in any way. Either the item doesn't do anything or it's only meant for the DLC. The skills could mention if it's related to a DLC.

One of the worse problems both I and my brother had was massive FPS drops. You're inside your house, go outside and the FPS just tanks.
This is pretty annoying and sometimes it took longer for it to go away.

I have
RTX 3080 FE
32 GB RAM
i5 12600KF

It runs the game just fine on ultra and high settings. But these massive frame drops are really annoying.

Combat is a bit stiff too. Later on you'll either go bow or rifle and one shot majority of the things. Winter area is the only area with strong enough enemies.

If you want a better paced open world game, try Valheim. You can mod it quite a bit too without any problems. It too has some problems but it's less than this game.