Recent reviews by DrDeezee

I'm not going to give an in-depth review. One thing I will say about this game, though, is that it continuously gets better over time. The dev team makes a lot of quality of life adjustments that fine tune all the systems, and makes the early game much more bearable.

Look, here's the thing.

I was enjoying my playthrough for a while, pleasantly surprised that I was given all the negative press (and several false starts with this game, on my end, over the years). Got about 7 hours deep. For no discernible reason, performance absolutely tanked on this game, and only this game, on my machine which has specs that should absolutely poop all over whatever the game throws at me. Most of my playthrough was FINE but then out of nowhere I hit insane chugging in the main menu and in the game itself. Did about an hour of googling and trying a few things and to no avail.

The game is 5+ years old. I was not running any mods - just trying to play the Game of the Year Edition experience as a baseline before maybe thinking about modding it. Performance issues and bugs galore are a Bethesda meme. And you know what? It was enough of a killjoy for me on this one that I just decided, it ain't worth it. I'm gonna uninstall this and spend my time on stuff I'm much more enthusiastic about. I know nobody will read this or care and that's fine. Just kinda silly and I thought I'd note the silly experience for posterity.

I rarely buy day 1 releases. Square's gotten me to shell out for two, recently - this, and FF7R.

This is, in my opinion, a fantastic remaster of a great game many people missed out on. I didn't ever complete the original Seiken Densetsu 3 back in the day, despite enjoying it quite a bit when I gave it a chance. The original maintained close ties to Secret of Mana / SD2, in terms of the battle system. But struck out in a unique way by allowing you a lot of customizability and replayability in party composition choice. With 6 playable characters featuring 3 large story arcs and branching class choices for each character, there’s a lot of reasons to run through the game different times to try new strategies and see new plot beats. ::EDIT:: Upon completion of your first run (as well as the additional post-game scenario new to this release), replays are also streamlined by allowing you to do a New Game Plus feature. You can do a New Game Plus with characters you didn't pick originally, allowing you the benefit of some character skills you earned in a prior run, as well as money, and an equippable skill only available in New Game Plus that increases EXP gain by 300%. If you do New Game Plus with characters you have completed the game with before, they will retain all of the EXP levels and equipment you gathered for them previously - though, their Class will be reset to Class 1. These benefits are, of course, entirely optional - you could also choose to just do a standard "New Game" if you prefer to remain a purist.

Those elements are retained in this remaster. Graphics have been updated to fall in line with the style and type of visuals we saw from Dragon Quest XI recently. The remastered music is more enjoyable and faithful to my ears than the job done on the recent Secret of Mana remake, but that might be a matter of taste to some; thankfully, the game gives you the option of choosing the remastered or original 16-bit OST (much like the recent SoM remake did).

Many game systems have been retooled a bit, which may upset some. Personally, I found the changes welcome and improvements in playability. Combat is much faster and more kinetic without having to sit around and wait for a charge bar to reach 100% before each weak strike (as you still have to do, even with the aforementioned Secret of Mana remake). Instead we have a basic combo system that appears to add more moves as you class up – characters start out being able to string three light attacks together, or two lights and a heavy, or one light and a heavy. (Upon class up, you get three lights and a heavy, and third class gets four lights and a heavy.) You can also charge your heavy attack in order to break certain enemy types’ guard status. Spell animations and items aren’t as disruptive to battle flow as in SoM either. And exploring the large open maps and quickly breezing through combat encounters with extremely minimal load and transition phases makes grinding enjoyable, too.

The story is a bit more fleshed out with additional scenes and dialogue. Voice acting is new and the English performances are very hit and miss; you can always turn voices off entirely if you wish, or switch to the Japanese voice overs.

One potential big con for fans of the original is that there is not currently any way to play the game in coop mode, a sort of series selling point in the early days. There doesn’t appear to be plans to add this feature to the game, either. Another con is very sparse graphical configuration options for a modern PC game, at least from the in-game menus (DQXI was light in this regard as well and Trials of Mana manages to be even sparser, allowing for basically just resolution and FPS limit settings). However, I do suspect that because it is an Unreal Engine game, people will dig into the .ini files and find ways to tweak settings that way. Not ideal, but I found myself having no need or desire to tweak with graphical options on my rig anyway. Obviously, graphics and performance are very much always going to be a “your mileage may vary” situation on PC, but between 6 hours in the full game and 6 hours in the demo, I’ve not once encountered a crash or performance drop to speak of, so the game appears to be very stable and reliable, on my system.

TLDR: if you’ve never played SD3 before, this is a great version that remains faithful to the original while also “modernizing” some features that may have made the original feel just a bit dated. If you have played SD3 before, this could be a real treat for you to see the game world realized in a modern Unreal Engine game, with additional plot beats, remastered soundtrack, voice acting, and quality of life improvements.

It's like Shenmue, except, you know. Good. And refined.

Noticed this was on sale so wanted to give a quick thumbs up for people who might be interested.

For $30 you're getting a lot of entertainment value if you enjoy the basic gameplay loop, which is slaughtering tons of Orcs, building up your bases and waging big sieges (either from an attacking or defending standpoint) in several different territories. Everything about the original game is improved here, and they've done away with the cash shop and all of that. Might have to turn your brain off if you're an LOTR lore purist.

No issues with the port so far from a technical standpoint... My specs are:

CPU: Core i7 4790k @ 4.0GHz
GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan X (12GB VRAM)
RAM: 16GB

Since this is an Unreal Engine game, tweaking things via configs and ini files seems to be possible. The game menu might lead you to believe you can only play at 30 or 60 FPS, for example, but it's possible to set any frame cap you want through such editing.

As for the game itself - I'm not very far into it yet, but it's Dragon Quest and exactly what I expected! I'll update my review with more points about the game at a later date, just wanted to give an enthusiastic technical reccomendation. One of the better day one experiences with a PC Square Enix title I've yet had.

I've not noticed or experienced any frame rate drops that you could catch with your naked eye, but I haven't gotten to the first big city yet either. (I unlocked the frame rate to be the same as my refresh rate but I've been playing via a Steam link so far so I can lay down on my couch, and I haven't had an FPS counter up).

I haven't tried to play with KB+M but this isn't a game I would want to try with KB+M anyway so that's a moot point for me.

::EDIT:: I doubt anybody will see this edit, but for people wondering about the game itself:

It is definitely Dragon Quest. On default settings, it's probably one of the easiest entries in the series (which isn't a bad thing!), but you can choose a combination of different difficulty modifiers when you make a new game that can turn it into the most difficult Dragon Quest released. So that's nifty.

Encounters are no longer purely random; instead you'll see monsters on the map and you can try to start off fights with an advantage by attacking them with your weapon before the battle starts (knocking off a bit of health); this is kinda similar to ambushing enemies in Persona 5, for example, just much easier to do and much more forgiving to pull off.

Battles are entirely turn based and turn order appears to be determined by the agility stat. Most characters have several different trees of skills to choose from, which feature either weapon abilities or more unique things specific to that character. There's a "Pep Up" system which replaces the Tension mechanic from Dragon Quest VIII; entering a state of being Pepped Up buffs a character's stats and allows them to use "Pep" moves, which are kind of like limit breaks. Taking a page out of Chrono Trigger, many Pep abilities can be combined across characters, allowing for some Pep Up moves to burn two or more party member's Pep status for stronger or otherwise special attacks.

A forge replaces the Alchemy Pot from Dragon Quest VIII, which I mostly prefer. While it was cool that you could essentially throw anything and everything into the Alchemy Pot to try things out, it was annoying that you would then have to walk around for a while til the pot finished "cooking," so to speak. The Forge is instant, however, you can only make things for which you have a recipe. Most of the recipes involve materials you collect from "Sparkly Spots" on the maps (which can be viewed from your maps). Crafting itself involves a small minigame of trying to fill various meters to their sweet spots using a myriad of different abilities that you get as you level up and progress through the game (some abilities are half-power strikes, some are strikes across multiple meters, and so on).

The story is better than it might initially appear. It's definitely a slow burner, and I just now got to the major "twist" of sorts that happens at what I can only assume is maybe halfway through the game? I'm 50 hours in and I don't want to spoil anything, but I was hoping this sort of twist would happen and it did. In any case, the story might feel very slow at the start, but characters will grow on you, there are some touching moments, and in more than one place things got more serious than I would've otherwise expected from this game and the way the first dozen or so hours played out. One problem I have with the story, however, is that there is no "skip cutscene" feature, which is always a problem for me in JRPGs when it comes to replaying them or if you get stuck on a particularly difficult boss and you don't want to hear their evil bad guy speech for the upteenth time. (So far, I've not gotten stuck on any bosses, but just saying.)

I do like how, for the most part, you can play the game and more or less do everything and figure everything out without the assistance of a guide. It doesn't quite feel like things are intentionally obscured or way too difficult to figure out, like some JRPGs can be. Most of the in-game menus and information will help you keep track of whatever items you're trying to gather or quests you're trying to complete and so on.

I'm really really digging it and not getting bored of it at all.

This is an excellent port. I played the game on release on a PS4 Pro and playing it on PC with the ability to have a framerate above 30 FPS is just great. I never delved into the DLC so I'm looking forward to playing through the various Episodes as well as the Comrades multiplayer. I've played for 3 hours so far and everything's been buttery smooth and load times are a billion times faster compared to the console release as well. Square Enix really nailed this port (which kind of makes some of their other ports questionable - lookin at you Chrono Trigger, FF6, FF5...) and I highly recommend picking this game up on Steam if you have any interest in it whatsoever.

::05/21/2020 UPDATE if you would believe that::

At some point in the murky past the stars aligned, quiet patches were introduced, and with minimal out-of-game tinkering, you can play this game at a stable, high res and high frame-rate. I haven't played it in a while, but I'm surprised I didn't go back and change my "no" to a "yes."

Here's the thing - the core game is very much polarizing and many words have been written to death about it. This particular review was always more about the quality of the port. If you want my remarks on the game generally: the game is essentially a very, very long tutorial to a moderately interesting/amusing battle system that doesn't fully open up until you've actually beaten the entire main story (itself obviously a subjective thing to criticize, but something I didn't find particularly enjoyable, paced-well, or executed brilliantly). So. There you have it.

::10/22/2014 UPDATE::
So approximately a week and a half after the game launches, Square Enix has quietly introduced a patch. What does it fix? We now get a confirmation that we want to close the game when we press escape in full screen.

Excuse me if I'm too overwhelmed to edit anything else about my review just yet. (Less cynically: at least it's SOMETHING and the patch notes say they're working on other stuff. I'll be holding my breath until I pass out from lack of oxygen. Stay tuned, and, as always... Please look forward to it.)

Original review:

Locked 720p resolution
ESC key is a shortcut for Alt+F4 in full screen mode
Literally no graphics configuration options (whoops, I mean, you can choose full screen or windowed)
Best 60 GB I ever spent 10/10 would fellate Squeenix again

::10/10/2014 EDIT::

60 GB is stupid. The "reason" this game is 60 GB supposedly is because fans clamored for Japanese languages. To maintain everyone's super deep lip sync immersion, this means that the Japenese language pack doesn't just consist of extra audio files, but slightly tweaked versions of every pre-rendered cutscene. So the game installs two versions of every cutscene on your computer. And no, the Japanese pack is not optional. Why not do as Dynasty Warriors 8 did and make the Japanese language pack free optional DLC? I'm not the only one who isn't going to play with Japanese voices (though I know many are). Perhaps they could even offer two separate downloads, a 30GB English install and a 30GB Japanese install. (I don't see the need for having both installed at the same time, since I figure most people would play through the game using one or the other language.)

Locked 720p is stupid. Note that this isn't CAPPED 720p, it's LOCKED 720p. There are literally no resoultion options. The game touts 60 FPS but many people experience stuttering and inconsistent framerames (myself included). Some people have suggested certain workarounds revolving configuring video drivers, with mixed results. Some say it works, some report it doesn't. (I'm in the "it doesn't do anything" boat.) And before the mindless white knighting fanboys tell me to upgrade my toaster hurr durr (in the same breath they tell me to stop being an entitled PC master race elitst for wanting resolution changes), my specs are:

Time of this report: 10/10/2014, 01:58:56

Operating System: Windows 8.1 Pro 64-bit (6.3, Build 9600) (9600.winblue_gdr.140723-2018)
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4930K CPU @ 3.40GHz (12 CPUs), ~3.4GHz
Memory: 32768MB RAM
DirectX Version: DirectX 11
GPU: 2x NVidia GeForce GTX 780 3GB VRAM in SLI

The inconsistent performance is happening for people across the board regardless of their specs.

Once you get past all of that, the game runs and you can play it. So that's a thing. It hasn't crashed on me. But it should be mentioned there are several reports of people who can't launch the game, can't get full screen working, have the game crashing after loading the launcher, and other similar problems.

BUT HEY AT LEAST IT'S ONLY $16 LOL WHAT DID YOU EXPECT??????

I dunno, maybe a port like The Last Remnant which has all the standard configuration options, and even went above and beyond the call of duty by adding extra content and features that make the PC version even better than the console versions for $6 less than what the same company is asking for Final Fantasy XIII?

Lastly, yes, there is a pre-alpha community developed mod headed by Durante (of the DSFix and DPFix fame) that lets you tool around with resolutions but also reportedly breaks menus and has other graphical glitches and such (hence: pre-alpha). Also it has no impact on performance (FPS dips, etc) problems. Forgive me for being old fashioned but I kind of think it falls to the devs to offer these kinds of basic functionalities, not modders.

I'd write a longer review but I just noticed this went on sale. Seriously, get this game if you are a fan of character action games. It's the best one I've played since Ninja Gaiden Black on the XBox.

I really wanted to like Remember Me. The plot was interesting in the beginning and I thought the combo system was fairly novel and fun.

Unfortunately, the game quickly wears itself out. It's very linear, combat is fairly easy and offers little variety, and the story ends up being very cliche. It was also fairly short - I have 8 hours on Steam and I replayed a few of the earlier levels to try and find collectibles I had missed (I can be a little OCD like that) so it's safe to say you could probably beat this game on your first go in 7 or 8 hours.

There ARE things to collect and unlock and higher difficulties and achievements and trading cards and all that if you're into that sort of thing and find it redeeming. The unlockable fluff about the world and characters was interesting, but it seemed like you ended up getting more story from those things than from any of the cutscenes.

All that being said, I don't necessarily regret playing through the game - I went in with no expectations and having heard nothing about the game before. I was just disappointed that it didn't seem to live up to it's fairly novel premise and strong opening. Consider picking it up on a sale.

Final score - 6/10