Recent reviews by Tanox Branar

I have tried to be as far as I can to this game, because in all the most important ways it's actually a really good game. Great art, really enjoy the story, music is good, controller is pretty decent (though not perfect). But the game design puts a lot of focus on boss fights, and many of them are just really really bad. There's a false sense of difficulty in many of them, things like bosses initiating the next attack while the previous one is still going, meaning you can't avoid being hit. Some boss moves lock you in place so they become one-hit kills because your invincibility frames are so short (a LOT shorter than the bosses btw). Boss patterns are inconsistent and lack any telegraphing, so good luck figuring out what you should do right now, because it's mostly guess work. There's a general pattern, but the number of times they will repeat a move before moving on changes constantly. It becomes an exercise in frustration and stubbornness, and in the end you just have to button mash your special move in the hope it will keep you invincible long enough (rarely does). The timing of moves compared to your characters abilities, the height you can jump, your speed, all are out of whack putting you at a disadvantage. Maybe this is the intent, I don't know, but I can't say I like it.

All this being said, if you don't mind the self-punishment that is the boss fights (I know some people enjoy this sort of absurd difficulty where winning is partly learning, but mostly luck) then go ahead and enjoy it, because the rest of the game is good! Controls are reasonably tight - with the exception of looking up. The game seems to prioritise any up movement of the stick over horizontal - I don't always push the stick exactly level and then I'm screwed, because when you're looking up, ALL your controls are now locked off. You can't move, attack, jump, nothing. So that's a pain in the arse if you tend to push slightly on the wonk like me.

It IS a good game, I just can't recommend it because these issues to me overshadow the rest of it

No Man's Sky, for me at least, is a great game. NEXT is now released which has really changed the way I enjoy the game (I decided to start a brand new save file for this one) and I'm loving all my time in there. Be aware though, this game may not be for everyone; I can't stress enough that "Space game" isn't a genre and that's why Hello Games don't offer that as a singular description. This is a chilled out slow paced game for the most part, unless you go seeking out conflict and high octane stuff, but again be aware that you SEEK IT OUT. I loved the original release, I watched all of Sean Murray's interviews before buying and got exactly what I expected, so I do advise you to be very cautious of anything in the gaming press; quite frankly they're all still covering their asses for the fact they all montrously misrepresented the game in the build up and then shifted the blame squarely to Sean Murray. Find a person you know and trust with the game and ask them. Like I say, I love it, the stunning art, the tranquil soundtrack, the feeling of losing myself in vast universe. All of this, and every now and then throwing myself back into the narrative for that bit more info to ponder over for a while before I decide to take the next step. If you like the kind of game that this is, you will like this game. If you want to play Elite Dangerous though, I'd recommend trying Elite Dangerous rather than No Man's Sky, because they're not the same game!!!

I bought this game after seeing Nerdcubed's video on it because it looked so fun! And it is...to begin with.

The sense of humour and the whole design of the game is imbeccable, it's great fun, strangely immersive even though it's ridiculous, I can't fault the design of the game in that sense at all. And the first league is great fun to play through, but this is where things change, and why I wouldn't be willing to recommend the game just yet.

The difficulty curve, if we can call it that, suddenly takes an enormous jump. Aside from the ocassional glitches that are still in the game, the AI suddenly remembers it is a computer and can kick your sorry meat-arse without even trying if it wants to. And it does! Quite suddenly the ball is being passed around the pitch from player to player at such an incredible rate you'll be lucky to know where on the pitch you even are any more. A bit of speedy silly play does fit in with the theme of this game, but it reaches such an insane speed it is literally untouchable, borderline un-seeable. At present as well, you have to get used to successful tackles somehow resulting in their player not losing the ball, your defenders refusing to ever be behind the halfway line in some games, the auto-select of players (for you may not do this yourself) is often very unhelpful, either not selecting anyone near the opposition with the ball, or randomly changing your selection when you want to tackle to someone who is not in a useful position, and then the game won't let you try and tackle again for quite some time.

This game will be brilliant, I don't doubt that, as long as it keeps being updated and improved. I just don't know how long we will have to wait for these things to be improved on, because at the moment they are taking the silly fun this games offers and turning it into an infuriating affair that is best described more as a video than a game, because all you can do it watch, and feel just a bit humiliated as the AI keeps passing the ball across your goal at 200mph because none of your team are even in your own half...

I'm looking forward to changing my recommendation to yes, because I feel confident it will happen, it's all there! It's just not meshing right yet :)

As of right now, I cannot recommend this game to anyone, not for the price, not for the completeness, and not for the game. I feel I have to be pretty brutal about this, considering how the gaming community reacted to games like No Man's Sky suggesting it was mis-advertised; this has done that much more so.

I feel this was marketed as more of a fighting simulator rather than the mash-em-ups we all know and love, but I'm afraid to say it's more of the same with a brand new control system. I see what they're trying to do, and it still has potential to grow into something that could be more skill and tactic based, but they have been afraid to let go of all the tropes we recognise, all of which were designed for that old-style fighter and have no place in a "simulator". It looks like a simulator, and to some small degree they've achieved it, but not enough to suggest that's what this game actually IS.

As for balance, still a long way off! You'll notice 90% of players are all using one of two Heroes, because they are insanely overpowered in speed, attack strength and so forth. You're character is a bit slow right? Well surely he makes up for this slow movement by the attacks striking quite the blow when they land. Oh, nope. My attacks are significantly weaker than the super fast guy I'm against. You'll also find that occasionally (and I haven't figured out why yet) your character will decide to lie down on their back for a while during a fight and refuse to move out of the way of the incoming (and painfully slowly wound up) attack. Not a clue why, no part of the story campaign touches upon this that I've found.

As I study Kenjutsu, it goes without saying I was excited to be a Samurai warrior, and this kind of comes back to what I was saying before about this NOT being a fighting simulator; do not try and use actual fighting logic in this game, 80% of the time the game has mechanics that work against this. I've lured a big burly knight into thinking he can launch an attack on me, but I'm ready. Excellent, he's gone for a heavy attack, he's doing a ridiculous pirouette to gain some momentum on his sword, the fool!!! Quick shoulder barge will obviously knock him well off balance and he will be facing away from me, and then I'll hit the hell out of him. Hahaha, don't be silly. No, what actually happens in this circumstance is that the knight in question is quite untouchable, I stumble backwards for having dared use well-established fighting tactics and don't even slightly throw the knight off his stride as his blow lands with no less force than it would've done had I recited Shakespearen text at him instead. Unfortunately I can't help but think along these lines, as I've spent a lot of time learning about when to use certain approaches in a sword fight. Perhaps someone looking this purely as a game will have better luck getting past this stumbling block.

I'm still hoping for this game though - they seem to be saying they will continue working to improve this game, and I still trust Ubisoft to eventually make games good (I wish they'd put more effort into doing this BEFORE release but if EA can carry on never trying at all and making money, I see why Ubisoft do it this way at the moment) but I worry that the things required to make this game into what they suggested it would be will inevitably annoy a lot of players who have realised they can just over-power a few things and then button mash to epic-looking fights that they're only minorly involved in.

Oh, and don't even get me started on the joke of a matchmaking system in the online modes (which is pretty much the only purpose of this game) but to be fair it's still early days and I think matchmaking systems will always require a good bit of tweaking after release, you can never anticipate how a playerbase's skill ratings will diversify until it happens.

I hope I can change this to a recommend eventually, because it's all kind of there, but it feels like they pooed their pants a bit in the process thinking maybe this would be all too unfamiliar for a lot of gamers and so you've ended up with a bit of a Frankenstein's monster rather than the beautiful baby they'd intended.

Updated: I did request a refund of this game, unfortunately my desire to try and find a way to enjoy it has exempted me from refund rights so I'm stuck with it now. Don't buy it, at least not yet. Maybe in time it will be improved and I can feel less stupid for having wasted my money on it. Obviously by the mixed reviews, some people enjoy this game, it obviously has some appeal somewhere, but my biggest piece of advice is that if you don't enjoy it after an hour and a half, refund it before you find yourself in the same position as me.

Further update: This turd of a game continues to upset me in how dreadful it is, and unfortunately Ubisoft's pitiful attempts to stop people cheating don't seem to be working, expect lots of games where there are players you can't lock on to and therefore land no attacks, or people who can be impervious to your attacks. Also, this isn't a cross-platform game as advertised, the little fantasy football section called the faction war map is the only bit that takes stats from multiple platforms. Misadvertised, unfinished, lazily created - a waste of money and if I had the energy to make this a legal battle I would.

I don't honestly know whether to recommend this game or not. I have loved the Sonic franchise since I first learnt to actually control anything way back in the Mega Drive era, so the fact the Sonic team decided to continue on from those days was something I had to get in on! But we all know that the Sonic Team of recent years have let us down more times than they've given us anything wonderful. This game somehow lives in between the two.

The visuals, the style, it all harks back to the good old days, and it is wonderfully vibrant. Controlling Sonic though, it's not anywhere near as smooth as it was back then. Sonic feels jerky, and can feel like he has no momentum, though there are times when you manage not to notice this! I think they have hoped this lack of smooth control is made up for by using modern Sonic's new ability to make this sort of homing attack, somewhat negating the need for precise control. This being said, they seem to have enjoyed creating puzzle sections within a couple of the levels, requiring much more control than the game gives.

So much is in this game that should make it great, and nostalgic, and all that. And it sort of achieves this, sometimes. But it doesn't do it well. I want to love it, but the level designs are mostly either lazy or just plain poor. The real work seems to have gone into half cloning a few parts of levels from the 90s to make it familiar, which I find quite absurd considering this is Sonic 4. At no point in Sonic 3 did any of us go "Ah yes, remember this bit from Sonic 1?" It should be a continuation, bringing it into the modern world, but these attempted "homages" only serve to make you notice all the things they've changed about the way the game works, and how you don't like it in this setting.

I'd recommend it I think, because it still has something there, something you can enjoy, but don't expect to get that feeling back, for some reason, although the game is following on from 3, they seem to have targeted it at the kids who would never have touched any form of Sega console and think they have only ever made games for Nintendo.

Really good setting and well created, the soundtrack alone is worth a look!