Recent reviews by inaginni

TLDR: I love the story in this game and the narrative choices, but this game drowns in the clear malicious apathy of the developers regarding gameplay. I strongly recommend playing on normal or lower so that this severe shortcoming does not harm your experience of the story.

==The following is a sad rant about the aforementioned malicious apathy of the developer. A truly unexpected experience from Remedy Entertainment.==

Following Act 1, I was certain that I was going to love this game and place it among my own hall-of-fame. Act 2 through 5 ensured that my initial opinion reversed.

This game has a good story with a wonderful way of presenting it. You will have to read and watch videos, a lot, but if you keep the game difficulty to normal or below, you will have a good time. Despite my negative experience, I continue to appreciate this aspect of the game.

The issues begin the second hard is chosen. Suddenly, what were minor inconveniences from what seemed merely poor design choices for gameplay rear their head as absolutely unacceptable. This becomes more readily apparent as significantly more environmental, spelling, and gameplay issues crop up as the story progresses. I believe this was a lack of play testing on release, but shows a malicious apathy that it is still present years later.

The most egregious issue arises due to how the developers implemented their cover mechanic. There is no way to disable this mechanic. It is automatic and instantly activates when the player approaches most objects. This mechanic has precedence over many choices the player can be attempting. The most significant one I ran into was trying to shoot right as the mechanic was activated. This results in the player's character being unable to shoot for seemingly forever. I eventually found a workaround where attempting to aim would re-enable the ability to shoot after a second. This is probably a result of how the cover mechanic works in this game, where one must aim to pop-up their head before shooting. This led to many scenarios where a close enemy I was going to kill shot me quite a few times instead. While it would be possible to shrug off damage received in these scenarios on normal or below, on hard this is rarely the case. I found myself avoiding anything that would activate the cover mechanic, as at least there are other mechanics to protect yourself without it. That the final boss battle is covered by so many objects that this is impossible felt like the final insult from the developer.

Beyond this horrifyingly badly implemented mechanic, there are other issues that are minor in comparison. First among them is the terrible performance of the game. With a 3080 at 1440p, I would regularly see short drops to 40 fps, and some more consistent drops to 60 fps (this is an 8 year old game). From others commentary online, the developers did not optimize this port from the console version. In fact, this game was apparently set around playing at 720p! What the actual hell!? An astounding choice for a AAA title. You get this experience too if you leave upscaling on in the game settings.

Next, as if to compound on the troubles of the cover mechanic lies some horrifying bad checkpoint placements. In one level, you can go through the first third, die, and start from the beginning. A specific trait of just this one level. On another, the entire last half of a level has no checkpoints until the end. Another specific choice not reflected anywhere else. I can only see this as resulting from malicious apathy, as it is impossible such a thing was not brought to the developer's attention after release.

Thirdly is the inconsistent implementation of the climbing mechanic. Some spots appear well adjusted, accounting for the many ways a player could choose to approach an object. Others required specific directions, which was only a minor inconvenience. Still others required a specific direction, at a specific location, that does not include being in contact with said object. Such inconsistency led to me abandoning this mechanic in firefights as well as a good deal of agony in platforming levels, one of which is the one that contains no checkpoints in the last half of it, as previously mentioned.

Other issues I ran into are:
-Spelling issues galore! For a game that wants you to read so much, this really should have been corrected.
-The game will change settings on you. I found graphics settings being toggled as well as difficulty, which was especially annoying as I was aiming for the hard difficulty achievement. The only way to correct the difficulty toggle was to replay all levels from before I noticed.
-More on the gameplay front, it is possible to shoot the npcs from complete cover. It seems the only requirement is that the player is able to place their reticle on the enemy, not that the player character's weapon is clear of the wall they are hiding behind. Considering how hacked together other gameplay elements are, I believe the third-person perspective was set by the developers as being the actual location for the weapon.
-Forced camera motions, sometimes during combat! What were they thinking!?

In summary, a well told story has been drowned by the malicious apathy of the developer regarding gameplay. Truly unfortunate.

TLDR: This game is a mess of cliche catchphrases (they rammed every single last one into this), poorly implemented game mechanics, and bad software compatibility.

Details:
-Chunibyou catch phrases are cringe. Adding several dozen does not lower cringe. Stop.
-Destructible buildings are interesting, but no thought was put into it here. Small pieces of scrap can stop you from moving entirely or even kill you.
-Cutscenes fail two out of three times when loading, sending you right back to the main menu. Enemy walker boss reaches you in 3 seconds if running above 60 fps.

TLDR: This is an Sci-Fi shooter that delivers on the promise of fighting Skynet while also supplying a background mystery thriller. I highly recommend it!

The following is a love story.

I was surprised how strongly this game gripped me. It was to the extent that I ended up finishing the main campaign in a single play session. The entire time I was going though it, I was enraptured by how the developers managed to bring the reality of Skynet's war on humans to a grim, beautiful light. And it was indeed beautifully done. The hours spent agonizing on specific background scenes, knowing that the player would stop and stare at the horrifying reality that had been put on display so artistically, was obvious. Truly spectacular.

The game world felt both open and focused, a unique experience compared to many games I have played. Every area had a purpose and a story to tell, but only a few were required by the campaign. Scavenging felt rewarding, with fights containing a strong feeling of horror. This was especially true during the first inescapable interaction with a terminator.

The campaigns (main, DLC, and time trial) all contain an air of mystery to them. Design choices for combat, movement, and interactions all feed into this background mystery, with evidence building of a shadowy influence following around the player. It was incredibly fun to speculate about who/ what this was, especially as the campaign unfolded, knocking out some of my theories. In the end, I felt the developers could have taken a different route with it, but I was more than satisfied nonetheless.

There existed some minor issues in the experience. The game engine was clearly not fully fleshed out, having weird visual glitches, often involving the ground. When playing through the side story (DLC), one map clearly lacked polish. It contained many issues with movement collisions on invisible object, loading of objects causing stutters, and general issues with gameplay. The time trial would have been even better if the character you play as was implemented in correspondence with lore, although there are understandable reasons why it wasn't.

Overall, I am extremely satisfied with this game. I am very much looking forward to playing other games made by this developer.

It was okay, but there are clear bugs in the game. Some of the bugs have the dev commenting on them as being fixed in an upcoming patch. Clearly that did not happen

TLDR: Only play LC if you want to stay completely sane.

I had no problems with the PC port of this game. This game only suffers from poor pathing, which is truly bad at times. It can cause units to take wildly unexpected paths, stepping on mines or making enemies aware in the process. One faction, the LC, seem to be immune to this, though. In fact, the entire game feels like it is on easy mode when playing the LC. This is partly because none of the movement and targeting bugs seem to affect them and also b/c they are just OP.

Overall, I enjoyed the game greatly, including the campaigns for the less blessed factions.

The first two thirds of the game were great. Everything was well polished. The story and narrative camera pans were all well designed. Everything changed once the fire natio... ahem... once the story moved to accessing the primary city.

In this city, it became immediately obvious that the polish was gone. Forced narrative camera pans resulted in Lara jumping off cliffs instead of to required platforms. From these deaths, I learned that event triggers were only occurring once every other reload. I also found that necessary ledges to grab during narrative action scenes only responded a third of the time, with the typical outcome of watching Lara ignore hand hold after hand hold and plunge to her death. This required many attempts to get past each such stretch of gameplay, requiring the odds that each hand hold and platform is not bugged to align. This experience continued throughout the remainder of the game.

A truly unfortunate end to what had been a well executed game.

This game feels like it was not fully developed. This game has a short story that feels as if details were never fleshed out. It clearly has the potential to be enthralling, but was not executed fully. Additionally, there is a clear lack of polish with regards to the combat, responsiveness of the menus, and responsiveness of the environmental view box.

TLDR: If you are the type to only go for the main story missions, it is a great experience. If you are an explorer, as this game is designed for, seeking the hidden truths buried in the sands of time and the stories of the hard lives of the people remaining, then this game will be an odyssey of pain and suffering. The bugs present after the first third grind away at the potential this game had.

This is a beautiful game buried in bugs. After the first third of the game, it becomes increasingly obvious that vast swaths of it were not play-tested alongside a willful ignorance of game-breaking bugs. As I progressed out of the starting area, only the main story quests were my oasis, being entirely free of bugs, reminding me of the potential this game could have achieved.

The bugs present in this game are of an insidious make. Their presence is first felt in dangerous situations presented through side quests or exploration, but rapidly open the eyes of the player to their omnipresence. Their constant pressure, and unpredictable nature, grind away at the beauty of this game, leaving only a chore for the curious. A list of bugs I encountered are as follows:

- Aloy (the MC) will constantly stop sprinting when there is a bug in the collision of the character model with the ground. This is a truly game breaking bug, as so many fights rely on Aloy's ability to evade attacks, beyond the usage of the dodge skill. This bug goes further by only somewhat consistently transferring the movement state from sprinting on ground to swimming to climbing (all have the option to do so in a faster manner).

- When Aloy is using her scanning ability, walking up even shallow inclines can become impossible. I believe this to be a symptom of the above issue.

- Aloy will sometimes refuse to reload weapons until a different weapon has been swapped to. The higher difficulties of this game were clearly balanced towards this bug not occurring, and it is thus an extreme impediment to the ability to fight. Further, I have experienced the wiping of my loadout in a fight. I had to enter the menus and re-add the weapons to my loadout slots to continue said fight. I have had this glitch also occur when loading a save.

- Machines will clip through walls, attacking while invulnerable, as well as scale vertical walls in manners that are clearly unintended.

- Machines that have been set to cautious instead of neutral (stealth system) will sometimes bug out, chasing you into entirely different biomes. This cautious status never ends, even when attempting to wait it out by being undiscovered for several minutes.

- When entering the many menus, the mouse sensitivity can spike to ridiculous values, causing it to be impossible to navigate through them. Only closing and opening them again resolves this.

- Being centered around mountains, frozen tundras, and desolate areas, a climbing mechanic was incorporated into this game. Where such a mechanic is used in the main story quests, there is no problem. Step outside this and you encounter Aloy's death grip on ladders in the face of devastating firepower, preference to fall down and grab hand holds instead of jumping over a gap that I could irl, or to even grab handholds at the height of her shins instead of her shoulders. This often leads to brief, heart-stopping moments, wondering what is going on as Aloy seems to be attempting to suicide off many a cliff.

- When Aloy picks something off the ground, say a weapon dropped by an enemy, she will sometimes spin around instead of proceeding in the desired direction. This can have devastating consequences in an active fight.

- At times, Aloy will slowly sink into the ground, threatening an instant death should you fall through the world.

- There are optional tutorial missions for each weapon you receive. Unlike all other quests (story, side, errand, hunting, etc.) these must be highlighted as the primary focus to achieve any progress in them.

- The model faces are just awful. The eyes are constantly bouncing around at ridiculous rates.

- Many a times, I have swum across a rock bridge several feet above the water.

Some issues that are, most likely, not bugs, but a result of inadequate play testing are:

- Aloy's spear damage zones are well adjusted to the path it swings. However this path does not adjust based on the target. This means that if you are hunting small animals, they must be on a slightly raised hill, or hunted using a power attack, of which only one of three variants will reliably hit them. Similarly, if an enemy is a mere three feet higher than Aloy, you will watch as her spear scrapes the ground underneath their toes, not even cutting their toenails.

- There are modifications that can be added to Aloy's weapons. Some of these modifications are artifically not allowed on certain weapons. As far as I can tell, this limitation is not balanced related, as superior mods exist. Instead, it appears that one stat is being chosen to pick the allowable weapons. Fire damage+ on the mod alongside damage and tear? Well only a weapon that has fire damage will be allowed for this mod, although other mods that have fire damage as a secondary addition do not have such a limitation.

- As the game progresses there is a clear balance tilt away from "it's a game" to "it's a movie." From scenes where Aloy stands in the open, gawking at enemies that you just spent significant effort sneaking up on, to cutscenes that start one after the other three times in a row. Such occurrences rapidly increase as you explore the later areas.

In summary, I love the story of this game and the sense of exploration it gives, but these positives just cannot stand against the sheer wall formed by the ever shifting presence of the above bugs and clear lack of play-testing. It is truly regretable.

TLDR: This game comes together really well. The conclusion ties the mysteries together and has a very strong climax feel, unlike any game I have played. Truly wonderful.

This game is very much a train starting from a full stop. In the beginning, you are left with questions, but not much to work with. As the game progresses, more gameplay styles are unlocked, which dramatically increases what you can do in the game and what you are able to discover. By the time I was halfway through the game, the story's momentum had built to the point that I wanted to find every file on the supernatural items and the forces behind them. The need to know more has been built into this game, and done so spectacularly well.

The concluding act was nothing short of spectacular. Urgency is clearly felt, and is coupled with a cleanly lain out and elegant series of events leading to a final confrontation. It is an impressive confrontation with a grand mustering of all the power the omnipresent hidden entities can supply. This conclusion was so clearly a climax, in a way that no game I have played has presented.

The aftermath has its own charm, giving a unique perspective to "what comes after" that most games gloss over. This cements the pathway for a sequel and the excitement that brings with it.

This game has the most beautiful ending of any game I have ever played. I will cherish it forever.

I know it can be hard finding all the ends in this game, but I sincerely want you to find the truest end for yourself. To help you on your journey, know that the "Bad End" icon in the upper right is a button meant to help you find all the endings.