Recent reviews by NonToast

This game feels like a PS2 remaster of some wacky Sega Saturn game. I mean that all in the very best way possible. Feels like I'm playing NiGHTS into Dreams mixed with SSX3.

Another Final Fantasy I'm walking away from feeling conflicted. Seeing the crew from FF7 in high definition 3D is great. But a lot of the textures are very muddy or low resolution.

The voice acting and camera direction during the cutscenes are great. But there's far too many cutscenes for little throwaway moments. Towards the latter half of the game I held down the speed up function for cutscenes.

The story, well we all know they've made changes. I just don't remember the script being so cringe. The added in cursing for the characters stands out, it doesn't feel natural. Also I wish Barret would stop monologuing every moment he gets.

The combat system feels very stilted to me. None of the characters really feel good to control, with the exception of Yuffie in the side story. Even with mods the AI companions leave a lot to be desired. I wish you could set one your party members to heal automatically, without having to constantly swap who you're controlling.

All in all it's similar to a lot of modern games, a very mixed bag hidden underneath a shiny veneer.

Honestly, one of the best games I've played lately. The demo sort of put me off, dropping you into the middle of the game without much idea what was happening. However playing through the full game, there's so much emotion and nuance to the normal JRPG tropes. The soundtrack is incredible, and the fluidity of the combat has been fun to explore.

Honestly this is kind of what I wished Dragons Dogma 2 had been more like.

This game caught me by surprise, I hadn't heard of it until I saw it on Steam. The art style, and 3D perspective sold me almost immediately. I wasn't sure what to expect, but I'm so glad I decided to purchase it.The combat reminds me of Chained Echoes and Octopath Traveler, the exploration reminds me of Wandering Sword, the characters and world remind me of Discworld, and Wakfu, and even the Xanth books. There's playful silliness woven throughout everything, but without lacking levity.

The developers have done a stellar job with the dialogue, and character development. This world they've created really is something special. So far it's not been too challenging, but the combat is still fun and rewarding. It's best played slow, talk to EVERYONE, read the in game newspaper. There's a beautiful flow between the story, the puzzles, the world building. There's not much hand-holding, but again the more you immerse yourself the more you're rewarded.

TL:DR I've had more fun with Terra Memoria than Dragon's Dogma 2.

The game is good, the models look great, as do the environments. The voice acting is also great, but man everything else kind of isn't. The combat is a major drag, it honestly feels like something ripped from a generation or two ago. None of the upgrades are meaningful to the game play, it's mainly "Shields Recharge % faster" "Have % more health", it makes me wonder why they needed a leveling up system at all? The platforming with Star-Lord's jet boots doesn't feel great, and the formulaic way they hamfist in new "puzzles" sucks too. Oh we just happened to get Electrocuted and now I can shoot electricity and what do you know, there's a bunch of puzzles using electricity, but few using Ice, because we got Ice in the last area. It just feels very low effort.

Also, I'm so sick of having artificially huge health bars on enemies and having to stagger them like in Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3. It doesn't make you feel like you're playing with super heroes. This game would've done well to make all the members of the Guardians playable, maybe even make it co-op. But not a "game-as-a-service".

If I had to sum up my thoughts, the game is good, it's kind of like if Marvel did their take on Uncharted. It looks pretty, but it's shallower than a puddle. Yes this is better than the Avengers game, but that's a low bar.

Simply incredible!

The game shouldn't have been released in this stage, but alas this is what happens when executives make decisions over engineers. I work in software development, and I understand the pressure to deliver on a certain date, but I also know that every time I release bad code it reflects poorly on me.

I hope this follows the trend that No Man's Sky set, but honestly something bigger in the industry needs to change.

A wonderful, and moving little indie game. I really hope to see more from Angela He in the future!

Imagine if someone made a better version of Harvest Moon.

I struggled with how I felt about this game for a very long time. My final thoughts are, it's a great story filled with good characters. It's a shame that most of the gameplay is such a slog. Push through it, it's worth it.