Recent reviews by NANIO

Everything in this is so close to perfection, if not simply perfect. The art style and especially the environments are straight-up gorgeous, the soundtrack and sound effects are perfect for this kind of game, and most of the gameplay is great.

I really like how it barely explains anything, leaving you to figure everything out for yourself. The only time you get some cryptic explanation is through a digital game guide scattered throughout the world, and even then, you often have to piece together what it actually means. Sometimes the pages come too late, and you’ve already been there or figured it out yourself. I just loved opening the manual each time to see whether I had found an explanation for an item or area.

The combat itself is fine. I liked it for the most part, especially against normal enemies. There were some parts I found a bit frustrating, but that was mostly because I wasn’t prepared for a semi-challenging area in a game like this. Boss fights, however, never really felt great to me. I can’t quite put my finger on why, but I think part of it was that the blocking mechanic against them felt inconsistent. The combat system also just feels like it shines the most against smaller enemies.

Exploration, though, is really rewarding. Almost every single corner that looks like it might lead to a secret path actually does, which felt great.

Overall, I really liked it and almost loved it, but after finding all three of a certain thing, I started feeling a bit burned out. The overall atmosphere started to grow stale for me. That said, I still highly recommend it, and there’s even more playtime to get the alternate ending.

Honestly, I didn't like this. Crysis 3 feels like a larger and more ambitious game than the previous ones, but I feel like it goes against what made the previous one fun, even the first one. It's way more cinematic, meaning player agency is reduced so much that it felt like I was playing some generic COD game. The dialogue has always been pretty bad, but at least before it was delivered during calls while you had the freedom to kill enemies and do stuff. Now, most of it is forced down your throat in boring cutscenes, so you don't have a choice but to sit through it. The story is still terrible, and because of the cinematic approach, you're stuck watching it. The emotional depth is just as shallow as ever, like Psycho being furious with everyone and storming off, only to come back 30 minutes later without any real progression.

The core of the combat is the same, but I didn’t enjoy it as much for a few reasons. First, the level design is even more linear than before. There are a few levels that are a bit more open than those in Crysis 2, but overall the design wasn’t interesting. The previous game at least had some more engaging layouts. It’s set in a mix of post-apocalyptic urban jungle and rainforest environments, but honestly, I got bored of it after just an hour. They could’ve used the high grass, sneaking under the water, and verticality a lot better. I initially liked the new bow, but after a short while, I realized it just made stealth too easy and trivialized combat sections. Another thing that irritated me was the enemy and turret marking. With enemies and turrets always on your radar and their positions shown above their heads, you’re never going to be surprised by one. Sure, I could ignore this feature, but it’s clearly the most efficient way to play, so why wouldn’t I use it? Perk progression is a little better, but after you get the four perks you want (which is easy since you can use your scanner to spot upgrades from hundreds of meters away) there’s no real need to collect more.

The visuals are definitely improved, but the art direction still doesn’t do it for me. The audio design is fine, though nothing stands out.

Overall, I didn’t enjoy this game. It’s better than the first in some ways, but in others, it’s worse. Personally, I wouldn’t bother with the first or third game, just stick with Crysis 2.

Instantly a lot better than the first one because I was actually able to finish it. The story is still ♥♥♥♥, but at least it’s an improvement over the first game. It doesn’t really know when to end, though, and after a while, I just stopped caring. The AI is pretty dumb, which makes a lot of encounters feel way easier than they should be. Cloaking also completely trivializes the game, even on the hardest difficulty, since you can just run through entire levels without killing anyone. For the last hour or so, I barely engaged with the combat because I was just cloaking through everything to get it over with.

The gunplay is much better than in the first game, making combat feel more satisfying. Stealth is also a lot more fun, even if it’s a bit overpowered. The level design is generally decent, with multiple paths most of the time, and the more linear approach compared to the first game allows for better pacing. That said, I’m a bit mixed on the linearity overall. On one hand, it helps the game feel more structured, but on the other, it takes away some of the freedom that could have made encounters more interesting.

Visually, it’s a big improvement. The graphics are better, and there’s finally some form of art direction, though it’s still just a generic 2010s military shooter style. It looks fine but nothing special. I didn’t run into too many bugs, but I still had my fair share of forced checkpoint reloads. A handful of times, I also had a bug where I couldn’t shoot or melee, which was annoying.

Performance-wise, vsync caused my 1% lows to feel like 20 FPS while my average was around 160, so it’s definitely worth turning that off. As far as I know, there’s no built-in way to limit FPS above your refresh rate, which is annoying.

Overall, I’m not the biggest fan of the game, nor do I feel like replaying it. It’s a fairly generic shooter from its era, but it’s mostly a step up from the first one, which I didn’t like at all. The shooting and level design are pretty good, so if you like 2010s-era shooters, it’s worth picking up on sale. I just don’t think it’s worth €30 at all.

During my playtime, I kept going back and forth on whether I’d recommend this or not. On one hand, it’s a super generic first-person shooter with almost no real art direction, not particularly great gameplay, and a horrible story. But on the other hand, the shooting itself feels okay, the semi-open world level design is an interesting concept, and the environmental destruction is kinda fun.

But then Act 3 happened, and that completely killed any chance of me recommending it. The enemies are ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ boring, the level design somehow gets even worse than the already generic layouts from before, and the whole thing is just buggy as hell. I had to reload checkpoints and entire levels multiple times because I killed those flying enemies too quickly, and the game just refused to register them as dead. Even waiting didn’t help, there was always one ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ that wouldn’t count as dead, making progression impossible. After a certain point, I just had enough. I was wasting my time trying to push forward, not knowing if I’d have to reload the entire area again a minute later.

Besides that, I just wasn’t having fun. Every chapter felt like I was just waddling from one terminal to another in a world that feels completely bland, with nothing interesting about the combat to make up for it.

I've only just finished the "main story," so basically low rank, and I have to say, despite some issues, I've been having a great time with Monster Hunter Wilds. The gameplay is a solid step up from World, and there are some really cool additions, but the performance is pretty rough, and there are definitely some aspects that could use improvement.

One thing I really liked is that some characters actually have personalities instead of just being overly positive all the time. Werner, for example, isn’t afraid to clash with others, even if just briefly, and that makes the interactions feel a bit more natural for a moment.

That said, the writing itself is still pretty weak. The dialogue is extremely uninteresting, and the game loves repeating the same lines over and over, especially the classic "this must be the apex predator of this region." It gets old fast. While the Handler is much more tolerable this time around, there are still some really annoying characters, and Nata in particular might be one of the worst kid characters I’ve ever seen in a game. I would happily push this stupid little ♥♥♥♥ off a cliff.

The cutscenes also suffer from some really weird cinematography choices. The camera constantly moves, zooms, or shifts around like some cheap soap opera, making the whole thing feel way more dramatic than it needs to be. At least we can finally skip cutscenes now, so that’s a plus.

Gameplay-wise, it’s great. Combat has more depth thanks to the new combos, and there's way more variety in monster designs. World had a ton of wyverns, but here there's a chicken, a frog, an octopus, and a lot more, which makes things way more interesting. The map is basically one giant interconnected map which feels more natural, almost a bit like The Guiding Lands, and gathering materials is faster, which makes exploration and prep feel smoother.

There are a lot of nice smaller additions too. You can make meals on the go, the radial menus are easier to use, and male and female armor is available for everyone. Weapon polishing on Seikret is a great feature, and being able to walk on top of slain monsters is a nice touch. Also, Poogie is back, which is great.

The shorter hunts are nice, but I also kind of liked how in World, after spending 30 minutes fighting a monster, I’d start feeling exhausted myself, just like the monster. It made the longer hunts feel more intense, like a real battle of endurance.

There are also some annoying issues. There are too many sequences where you literally can’t do anything except gather resources, which feels like a waste of time. Seikret also feels a bit janky to control, and unless I missed something, there’s no quick way to load a saved loadout. In World, you could just use a chest at camp, but here, you always have to go into the tent and sit through an animation, which is just unnecessary.

The low-rank final boss was also a bit of a letdown. It reminded me of a smaller Xeno’Jiva, though it did have some interesting mechanics. I also kinda wish investigations were unlocked a little faster.

The art direction is really good, especially for the monster, armor, and weapon designs. Some of the Palico armor is freaky as hell in the best way possible. The forest environment especially looks incredibly lush and just beautiful to walk around in.

The problem is that the graphical fidelity itself isn’t great considering how intensive the game is. It doesn’t look bad, but for how demanding it is, you’d expect better visuals.

The music is great. Tracks like Radiant Cry of Life, the Jin Dahaad boss theme, and Justice Breaks Forth are all really good, and there are plenty of other solid ones too.

Most of the voice acting is fine, but Nata is unbearable.

There are a lot of settings for gameplay, menus, and HUD customization, which is nice. Unfortunately, there are some issues too.

On my setup (Ryzen 7 7700X and 7900 XT), I got around 80 FPS on average at Highest-Ultra settings at 1440p. With frame generation, it jumped to around 120-130 FPS without any noticeable input delay. It’s playable, but the game is very demanding, and I can see it being a problem for a lot of people with weaker PCs.

I also ran into a bug where my radial wheel stopped working mid-fight, forcing me to restart after the hunt. There’s no way to adjust controller vibration properly which is annoying because the rumble is extremely volatile but without it’s a bit boring, and the HUD scaling options are pretty limited, you only get presets instead of a percentage slider, which would’ve been way more customizable.

If you have a strong enough PC, I definitely recommend Monster Hunter Wilds. It’s a really fun game with a lot of great improvements, and despite some issues, I’ve been enjoying it a lot. But if you're not sure whether your PC can handle it, I’d suggest downloading the benchmark tool first. The performance is a real issue, and if that’s a dealbreaker for you, then it might be worth waiting for patches or better optimization.

Seems pretty fun, but not for me.

Looks and feels like a more boring version of Darkest Dungeon.

Honestly, way more fun than I expected. That said, I’m not going to finish it since I don’t think the typing and bullet hell dodging work that well together. I want to type, but then I have to move my right hand to the arrows to dodge, which means I can only slowly type with one hand, and there’s barely any time to actually get words out. I don’t know, just not a big enough fan to keep going.

I mean cool concept and all, but the gameplay just doesn't work or something, like nothing of my abilities seem to do anything and I either just win or lose.

This is one of the worst UI's I've ever had the displeasure of using. Also the gameplay is just a snoozefest.