Recent reviews by nhand42

I bought this game back in 2020 and was bitterly disappointed. It ran poorly on my PC at the time. And it was so buggy. After one too many game-breaking bugs I rage quit the game, never finishing it.

Now in 2025 my PC has been upgraded so I gave this game another go. They've fixed the bugs. The graphics look great. The gameplay is better than I remember. There's heaps to do. And the main story is excellent.

It's legitimately worth playing now. Shame it had such a s**t launch but I'm glad they fixed it.

Fantastic. Vast amount of content. Significantly larger than Remake. The mini-games are great. Incredible graphics. The combat system is the best of any FF. I've played them all, this is my favourite. Just amazing.

I never played the original so this was a new experience. I recently played FF7 remake and played this game to fill in some of the story.

It did expand the FF7 story in a meaningful way so I'm glad I played it. The combat mechanic is good but it wasn't difficult and got tedious towards end-game. The roulette system is just bizarre. Not sure what they were thinking but it was just annoying. The level design is bare - a limitation of the original game - but they did a decent job all things considered. There is a lot of content so no complaints there.

It's a port from several generations ago so the level designs are ultra-simplistic. Despite the modern-looking graphics you can't disguise an old game with a new coat of paint. This isn't necessarily a problem but its something to be aware of.

I finished this game on Xbox Game Pass and liked it so much I bought it on Steam and transferred the save, because I intend to NG+ this in 2025. Ignore the low-playtime reported by Steam.

One of my favourite games of 2024. The fighting is difficult but its not luck-based or button-mashing. It's a skill-based fighting mechanic. Get the timing right, learn to parry, its all about that frame-window. Use the appropriate weapons for each boss, manage your upgrades. This is everything I love about souls-like games, and this is just perfection.

Truly a masterpiece of the genre. 10/10.

This is more of an extended movie than a game. There are game mechanics but the story is the main event. Fortunately it's a good story, holds its own against the original trilogy. The voice acting by Troy Baker is outstanding I was initially convinced it was Harrison Ford he's just that good. The love interest Gina is well written, contributes to the story in a meaningful way, and the actress is molto bello. The scenes, music, acting, directing, all outstanding. As good as any big-budget film.

This is the way to keep the franchise alive. I would play another sequel like this in a heartbeat. Five fedora hats out of five.

Unplayable stuttering mess. PC is 5800X + 7900XTX + 32GB + NVME. Even running 1080p Performance it's getting traversal stutters. Tried every "fix" mentioned on forums, nothing works because people are kidding themselves, there is no fix for this. The devs abandoned this game years ago when they realized it was unfixable. Not worth it even on sale. Not worth it even if free. Avoid Avoid Avoid.

Well that was unlike any other Final Fantasy. Which I think is a good thing. Too often the publishers and developers take no risks. They release a remake or remaster, follow the some pattern, or chase the latest fad. This game is not like that at all. It completely departs from the FF mechanics of old and tries something new.

The story is great, not as good as FF7 but that's a rarity which will likely never be repeated, but definitely up there with the best in the FF series. There are interesting characters, hugely detailed lore, and a complex story with many moving parts. I appreciate in-game features like Thousand Tomes and Active Time Lore, because without them I would have been lost. The story is the backbone of any game and this is a solid story.

The new combat system... uh.... not a fan.. I'd just come off a string of games such as Lies of P and Jedi Survivor, where the combat is sometimes difficult but more importantly is intricate. The FF combat is both easy and overly simplistic, which is a poor combination. It does look very impressive - its like fireworks with all the particle effects and fluid movements - but you don't have to do anything to win. You just mash the buttons. I never felt challenged.

The game is extremely linear - like all FF games I guess - but this is definitely A to Z with all the letters lined up in-between. For such a story-heavy game I guess this is impossible to avoid. Yes, there are side-quests, and some areas are gated, but it never feels like you're exploring the world.

The graphics. Outstanding. Everything from the character models to the level designs to the boss fights. Just beautiful. The boss fights are something else. They are quicktime events, again its just a story and you're along for the ride, but ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ they look good.

The music, incredible. Every boss, every level, every character has a theme. The audio design complements the gameplay and enhances the story, which is no mean feat. The mechanic of discovering songs and adding them to the jukebox was a lot of fun.

In summary, outstanding graphics, incredible music, great story, but so-so combat. It's a new direction for the FF franchise and I think that's fine, because I enjoyed playing it and I recommend it.

Everything good about Fallen Order is here but even bigger and better. Significant effort has gone into the visuals and design of the semi-open worlds. There's so much content to explore it's just crazy. The story is good and progression is great. Lots of perks and skills to unlock. The combat is decently hard if you want it that way, but there's also a reduced difficulty story-mode for casual gamers.

Enjoyed every minute of this one. It's a refined polished sequel to Fallen Order and that's high praise indeed. Recommend without hesitation.

However some comments about the bugs. I sometimes got flashing white polygons instead of textures. It only happens in a few locations depending on your FOV, but it's annoying as heck. Sometimes the character models would be janked upwards so they'd be floating mid-air during the animation. And I couldn't get decently stable frame rates at 4K despite a beast of a PC. I had to downgrade to 1080P to get smooth frame rates. Still looked good though.

There's nothing that hasn't already been said.

Not the worst game in the NFS franchise but not great either. I finished it years ago on Playstation and came back to it recently on the PC for the 4K experience. All the physics bugs are still there. Still has that awful steering that seems mostly random. Winning races is more luck than skill especially with the kamikaze AI on every corner. And the 30fps cutscenes look awful in contrast to the 4k/120fps in-game.

Despite the shortcomings it's still fun. It has a ridiculous plot, lots of side quests, hidden derelicts to find, lots of police chases, it's all there as you'd expect in an NFS title. It's a 6/10 which is good enough for a thumbs up. But if you're time poor or cash strapped, there are better games to play.