Recent reviews by ({x})Kyoji

PROS:

The design of the world will leave you in awe. Between the sprawling paths that branch out to random areas to secret locations all are done very well with amazing vistas and gorgeous locations. The Cerulean Coast and Chaos Hidden Grave are stunningly beautiful with the various glowing foliage.

The combat is very challenging with the new Scadutree system which allows players of all levels to enjoy at a similar enjoyment. While levels will allow you to equip more weapons and hit your stat caps easier they don't provide an overwhelming advantage. With a plethora of new weapons you can find ways to make the game easier if you so choose.

The scale of the game is impressive with many new enemy designs in addition to some re-purposed familiar faces. There are tons of bosses and mini-bosses to enjoy throughout the game each providing a unique experience. With three new legacy dungeons and two more minor legacy dungeons there will be a good amount of the linear progression, massive scale areas that Dark Souls players will love. There is also a ton of areas for open world players to sink their teeth into.

A ton of new weapons, spells and incantations are the least of it as there are several entirely new play styles to enjoy, including but not limited to bare fist Shaolin monk style of combat, thrusting shields, throwing weapons, backhanded weapons, perfumer arts, etc. Some are better than others but can offer a unique and new experience compared to the traditional fare of combat from Elden Ring.

Cons:
While I mentioned difficulty as a pro earlier, depending on the player it could be a con. While there are tons of ways to trivialize boss encounters or make them easier it can be said that there are fewer ways to realistically attack some bosses. With the boss design focusing on high attack speed, long chain attacks, and some camera wonk you may feel disoriented on learning the move-sets of the bosses as some bosses chain animations have similar starts but a couple branching attack patterns which can punish you if you are not right on the gamble. I will say that some play styles will simply need to focus on using their summons to draw aggro if you plan to do things like sorcery. For people that are not familiar with Dark Souls DLCs this ca be a rude awakening as Elden Ring allowed players to play at their own pace and you could level up to offset some of the difficulty, whereas in the DLC you will get two-shot by a lot of things quite a bit until you can progress and get the fragments and even then you will feel like a punching bag half the time.

Some extreme examples are Bayle and the final boss which seem a bit over-tuned and have too much going on the screen that can make you feel like your going into epileptic shock from all the spell animation spam.

My advice would be to buy the game, enjoy it to your hearts content and if an area gets too frustrating and you want to quit simply google an OP build guide and destroy the boss in question.

Worst part about the DLC is that there won't be a continuation. It's sad to see an amazing legend of a game such as Elden Ring not get a second DLC. We can only hope for a sequel that while unlikely is the only candle of hope we have.

Overall a 10/10 game. While the content can be a bit restrictive on some of the more balanced weapons and spells it doesn't take away from the overall enjoyment of the game.

Hogwarts Legacy is a very fun and engaging game for the Harry Potter fans out there and even for those not inclined towards the series will find themselves immersed in the wizarding world.

Pros:
- Great Design: While the graphics are nothing to write home about in 2023 the atmosphere itself is quite nice. The main castle is quite large and the map is detailed with various trees, grass, artifacts and structures to make the world feel lived-in.
- Immersive: Being able to cast spells on enchanted shrubs pruned in the shape of a dragon and having said dragon spit out what amounts to confetti dragon breath or having a scarecrow flail its arms rapidly as you hit it with a spell are just some of the examples of immersion give to the world. The environment reacts to you as you interact with it.
- Fun combat: While some have pointed out the pros and cons to combat I will say the combat is nice. The mechanics are solid and easy to counter if you are paying attention. The management of spells, shields, dodges and blocks is well done and feels intuitive. The only issue I have is the difficulty which I will discuss later.
- Voice Acting: Quite simply it feels like a movie. The quality is so top notch it's impressive, minus the few quirks here and there such as Headless Nick not being John Cleese, but at 83 years old I understand why it may have been hard to obtain him. All in all the voice acting is a highlight of this game.

Cons:
- Difficulty: Normal difficulty feels easy and hard feels like normal. There isn't anything too hard and potions are easy to come by which makes the combat largely easy outside of select fights or very large groups of mobs.
- Pacing: Playing for 18 hours into the game and just receiving a broom seems off. A majority of the spells are time-gated which means you won't have the most fun till the end of the game but that is also when the game ends. It would have been far more impactful for spells and abilities to come much earlier leaving the game more open to explore as regions are clearly defined with level-ranges. Furthermore, gear enchantments, beast taming etc all happens later in the second act which takes around 20 hours to get there while doing a reasonable number of side quests. All in all there should be much more to do earlier on.
- Spells: While the spells themselves are very well done the variety and amount of them leave much to be offered. Combined with the lack of spells early on and you find yourself wanting more akin to Skyrim. Talents do a lot to bring spells more in-line with what you might expect from a wizarding game, however, the variety and only being able to cast 1 of 4 spells easily without having to mouse-wheel to a different spell selection is a product of having a limited number of spells. This may be limited to Harry Potter lore, however, I do wish there were more enchantments and spells out there.
- Quiddich: The lack of this spell-oriented sport is sadly missing and even more noticeable in the fact that they incorporated a near 1:1 replica in the game next to the castle. I imagine it will come in a DLC and they didn't have time to polish this feature but I would be remiss if I didn't at least mention it.

I think the game as a whole is very well done and the cons listed can be annoying but it doesn't detract from the awe and shock you get at the level of detail given to the world. It's a solid 10/10 for any Harry Potter fan and a solid 8.5/10 for general players. Not quite as awe inspiring as Elden Ring or God of War, but not horribly far off either.

If the developers add-on some world bosses, world-events/raids, dynamic events, or something to liven up the world from an enemy NPC standpoint the game will be a solid 9/10. At this time the enemies patrol their little area and it misses the mark on how dynamic this game could have been when the level of detail given to everything else was on such a high point.

I would recommend this game to everyone. 8.5/10

Challenging and fun once you get used to the feel. The game is very diverse in it's surroundings, enemies, and dungeons. Offers tons of content and a large map to explore. Magic could be balanced as the basic spell is better than most of the other spells you find later which makes magic boring to a degree. Overall much better than most releases and very fun.

Sadly I cannot recommend this game. The fact that the game is heavily driven on randomness means that you frequently run into enemies that can deal WELL more than the damage you can reasonably block EVERY turn meaning that you either spend all of your time trying to defend or try to burst the enemies down before they take you out. Lack of proper healing makes any runs without SPECIFIC upgrades/cards/items near impossible. This translates into a grind to try and level up and get the upgrades necessary to progress further.

Things that could improve the game play would be slightly increasing the mana you start with and/or increase the number of mana wells in the game.

There also just isn't enough ink (unless you get really lucky) to prepare yourself for the endgame bosses with 350+ HP and near game breaking mechanics, eg. Majinata.

So to reiterate the issues lie with the fact that you really need several hours of death runs to unlock the talents necessary to progress to the third act with any semblance of reliability.

Also I do notice my game time may appear low but that is only because I play with my laptop at work with no internet so the stats don't translate over.

It is an enjoyable game for the base building genre and there are a lot of things done right.
- Great graphics
- Smooth with few bugs
- Plenty of content and buildings
- Pretty good AI

There are a few things that could be done better and i'll mention them here to be fair.
- Don't like the tech tree being locked behind main storyline
- Would prefer a better mix of agents throughout the game after maybe the first hour to where level 2's will spawn occasionally in between level 1 spawns and level 3 occasionally with level 2. Also, for how early you get advanced doors in the tier 1 tech you don't really get rogues or saboteurs early enough. It's the same level 1 investigators that can, now, be very easily distracted outside the base.
- Instead of lowering the resist chance for diversion I think that they should smoke bomb and continue on rather than always be lead out or fight back.
- Mission diversity. Not until later in the game (baring maybe the very first few investigations) does minion count matter so you just find whatever the fastest money count is and do that. $20,000 for 30 minutes or $15,000 for 3 minutes? Easy. Too easy. Plus the lower amounts give less heat. It should be inverse. Maybe $20,000 for 20 minutes and $15,000 for 3 minutes but with more heat gain. This means you can get cash fast when you need it but you injure the overall total income you could gain before heat shutdown.
- Heat shutdown should always send 1 tier higher agent count and have some more challenge.
- Balance some of the super agents to be difficult but not so much that you avoid them like the plague - symmetry. Also perhaps have "levels" of agents to where symmetry at level 1 is much more manageable early on to a level 3 symmetry when you actually have the ability to fight back.
- Last but not least the information given on things is beyond abysmal. My henchmen loves kittens? What does that even mean? They offer you the ability to manage your minions and what types of things they prefer doing but not only is it difficult to figure out what they can do better it's also even difficult to get them to the training even after selecting them to focus on deception as an example.

Overall the game is amazing and I know the cons seem more than the pros but that isn't the case. The game is well worth it and future fixes and updates will only make it better.

For how expensive it is to get all of the relevant DLC I would say the game isn't worth it as it stands. The biggest issues for me are:

NEGATIVES:
1) Forced deckbuilding to compete against certain NPC/Boss battles which takes a lot of fun out of being able to play with the decks you have made.

2) Not nearly enough good cards to make a multitude of decks. You usually see the same 1-2 decks for each color with mi nor variations in between. Really needs more diverse card strategies to make matchups more fun.

3) Practice missions against the AI are far too easy with AI using the weakest of cards. In Wild missions or campaign modes the AI use various game-breaking changes to your deck, their deck or the map to take away from the enjoyment. I wish there was more of a standard you vs a standard AI deck without cheat cards or map manipulation.

4) With the game being updated to buy to play it means some of the previous free to play mechanics are plaguing the game. You buy the game and all the DLC but still have a very hard time getting new chests to unlock cards. You reach a time-wall where you are unable to really progress further. It takes 7 battles to complete a wild mission pack and you need to complete 4 of those to get a single chest. You can also get 2 chests if you participate in daily PvP matching and win 3 games, however, it is still far too slow.

POSITIVES:
1) It is a fun game overall. The design is unique enough to really put in hours to enjoy. The combination of card building and turn-based tactical combat is very refreshing and fun when compared to the traditional "lane" style MTG or Hearthstone.

2) The game is of high quality development. You can see the development team put in a lot of effort to make this a good game. The graphics, animations and battle mechanics are all on point.

3) Lot of battle modes. You have infinite AI matches you can do with varying mechanics to spice things up, you can do Co-Op, Boss battles, draft, online casual and ranked play and puzzles which can be both fun and frustrating. The only downside to all of this is that a lot of the matches utilize strange forced mechanics that nullify your deck strategies forcing you into a specific net-deck style of play where you create a one-of to defeat a boss. Would have been far more fun for the developers to simply focus on making unique and fun bosses that exemplify their own mechanics rather than pidgeon-hole you into a deck you have no love or interest in.

Overall the game isn't bad but I would wait for the price to drop to enjoy some of the single player aspects. I haven't had a huge issue with matchmaking as a whole but I know it can be annoying to wait for a few minutes to get a match. The game aspects are refreshing and fun but simply fall short in the execution in several areas. I think if the developers didn't try to contend with Hearthstone and simply made a cheaper buy to play or free to play but with fair pricing compared to the competition then I think it could have stood a chance. Sadly, with little to no marketing the game couldn't get off the ground when compared to the giants of card games MTG and Hearthstone.

Good

Horrible Launch. Horrible Game.