Recent reviews by Luciel

Not in the least bit scary. The whole "you're totally helpless and going mad" shtick gets old in about 10 minutes. This game is a consistently monotone walking sim through and through.

3/10 because the art style is cool.

Has the potential to be fun, but also doesn't work very well.

I think the best way to describe Fallen Order is a great game that still leaves a lot to be desired.

The graphics are amazing, and the combat is fun, but the story is haphazard and the game is rather short for a modern triple A title.

A lot of the relationships in this world weren't really developed on too much, and one major thing the game lacks is side quests.

Get it on sale, really not worth the full price tag IMO.

As a huge fan of literally every single other FromSoftware game, it breaks my heart to leave this negative review. The original Dark Souls might just be my favorite game of all time. So, when I complain about the difficulty here, keep in mind that I absolutely loved all the other games. The issue isn't 'git gud scrub'.

This is the single most unfun game I have ever played.
The story is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ (at least from the first 15 hours or so), and they completely go against all the other Souls games by, instead of taking advantage of very minimalistic storytelling, the game throws absolutely monstrous monologues at your face every 15 minutes.

I'm baffled how they managed to do it, but the level design is also hideous, and most graphics in the game look worse than the original 2011 Dark Souls. Hell, at times it even looks worse than the original Demon Souls from what, 2008?

The bosses feel rushed, there's way too many of them, and almost none of them offer anything short of a boring and dull experience. The game relies way too much on constantly ambushing you and throwing you into tight spaces where you can't dodge, and the healing aspect is totally broken because, after a few hours, you'll always have a bajillion life gems on you, providing practically infinite healing.

Despite this, I constantly died to the ambushes because of how ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ slow the healing is. 9/10 deaths were barely my fault, and I never felt like there was a challenge to overcome.

The game feels unfair, unbalanced, and unfun.
I really wanted to like this game, I really did. It pisses me off that I will now never see a part of the story of Dark Souls, because I doubt I will ever complete this game.

If I could get a refund, I would.

I cannot, under any circumstances, recommend this game.

Dishonored: a modern gaming classic

TLDR AT BOTTOM

In Dishonored, you play as Corvo, a high member of the steampunk militia in the world of Dishonored, royal protector to the empress herself. However you're dishonored.
That's as much as I'll tell about the story.

So you're sent out to the streets of Dunwall.
The game's scenery is beautiful and huge of variety, ranging between:

Dirty, dark rooftop
Dirty, dark sewer
Dirty, dark alley
or sometimes even the rare, dirty, dark basement!

It's a stealth game alright

The story is slightly above decent, however significantly improved by the fact that there's very little. Your character has no dialogue. It's mainly just gameplay. You're not straightforwardly told anything, and instead you have to get the information by talking and listening to people around the game.

One of the most immersive design choices they could've made. Absolutely fantastic.

The combat however is TOP NOTCH. There's not enough I can say about it. It HAS to be experienced.
Funnily enough, the true way of playing Dishonored is still by hesitating and not killing anyone.

The full price is 10 BUCKS.
Seriously this is a masterpiece why haven't you bought it yet.
Like really.
Why.

TLDR: Dishonored is an immersive masterpiece that will stick with you long after having played it.
The only cons to the game are so slight, they're barely worth mentioning. It's mostly stuff that could've been better in an ideal game. The game in itself is still an almost perfect package.

Dishonored gets 93/100

Far Cry 3, among Ubisoft's first good looking games, is not a new or strange game to me at all.
I've played through the thing 3 times, two of which were on steam.
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TLDR IN THE BOTTOM
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After recently completing it another time purely to review the game, I was surprised by how much good the game has to offer after all these years.

First thing that stuck out was the map size. It holds up even today. However, for a game that was released only a year earlier than Rockstar's GTA V, man, you can clearly tell that this isn't Ubisoft's magnum opus either.

The gunplay is fairly average. Nothing too interesting there.

One con I must put out there would be the difficulty. Absolutely useless and artificial. Basically they made the game to be played on easy mode and that shows. The easy mode players have also become, presumably for this very reason, Ubisoft's main audience.
Literally only thing the difficulty slider does is make you die from an unfair amount of hits. Considering some of the situations the game puts you in, I'd even say it's impossible in some places to complete the game with the difficulty steady on 'very hard'.

Or maybe I'm just a filthy casual.

The story follows Jason Brody and his friends and family. However to avoid spoilers, I will only tell you that you absolutely shouldn't buy into a Ubisoft game for the story. It's silly, un-immersive, adds most of it's characters for no reason and gets rid of them just as suddenly, and is absolutely FILLED with stupid decisions from the protagonist himself, Jason Brody.

Why should you buy the game then? The cinematography.
Even almost 8 years after release, it feels like a spine-chilling action movie. The visuals are great, and the graphics hold up even by modern standards. The amount of silly unnecessary explosions is very high, and let's be honest we all bought the game hoping for just a little of that. Ubisoft usually delivers.

Voice acting is meh. It's clear they didn't put much of an emphasis on that.

Overall, it's not a masterpiece, it's not a game meant to be played more than once, it's not even a game where getting the 100% completion matters at all.

However for the price, especially on sale, it's a worthwhile experience, even if only for the main story.

TLDR: Game is worth playing, but do buy it on sale.

Far Cry 3 gets a 74/100

Still better than Fortnite.

Hollow Knight - The buggiest game on Steam.
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TLDR AT BOTTOM
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Released by Team Cherry, Hollow Knight blends a cute cartoon style with Metroidvania elements and souls-like gameplay. Yes, I just referenced Dark Souls in a game review. What are you going to do, call the review police?

It didn't have the best launch. The few players that did buy it, often cited it as a hidden gem.
Word spread and now I'm just glad it got the attention it deserved.

Hollow Knight is an absolute labor of love.

Let's run through all the pros and cons

CONS:

Just to be clear, it took me a while to even think of any negative things I'd say about Hollow Knight.
However one would be that it can be very tedious and repetitive with it's travel mechanisms for a lot of the game before you start to unlock. The beginning is very slow. Before you get a good 5 hours into Hollow Knight, one may just label it as a boring metroidvania style game.

Also primal aspid.

PROS:

Art; somehow manages to be both bleak and cute at once. It's for certain at least original and memorable.

Story and lore; This game is filled with lore, but it's not very surface level. It gives players the option to either look deeper into it themselves or just go with it and not be exposed to the horrific history of Hallownest.

OST; Composed and executed by the wonderful Cristopher Larkin, it never fails to perfectly describe Hollow Knight. Just the soundtrack would make this review a positive on it's own, even if the game was terrible.

Gameplay; Challenging, rewarding, memorable. Hollow Knight is a very long game. You're definitely getting more than your money's worth here. Every second of it feels hand-crafted and not one bit artificial.

Voice Acting; ''Do pe churo namen o manta dublem. Bis manama bob les. Bis bob les bera. Bera! Aklaba! Aklaba booptis. Emen ba depra da bapne nada. Lok dis. Ba! Puroktis, eh? Manta wanta wanta chokta ba na zur, wunto arewa bis na challa. Oto vi chur onomen ob wanta manta doblem. Emen ba tempra papa nada oktis. Munta arewa bis na challa.''
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Hollow Knight is simply a modern masterpiece. And like most modern masterpieces in gaming, it too is cheap.

TLDR: BUY THIS ♥♥♥♥ FOR THE FULL PRICE, WHAT, YOU DON'T HAVE 10 BUCKS?
*clears throat*

Anyway Hollow Knight gets a 100/100

Neon Drive
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TLDR AT BOTTOM
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Worth mere dollars on sale, it's absolutely a worth-while experience.
The game itself is fairly short.

However it's linear and hand-crafted.

Let's run through the pros and cons

CONS:

The game itself is very short.

PROS:

Beautiful visuals, good soundtrack, it's very cheap, and most importantly;
The product is very interesting and keeps the same quality all throughout the game.

It's really not the most complex of games. Just a fun little something to sink a few hours into.

And for the filthy casuals, it's also challenging in it's own way.

TLDR: Neon Drive is a beautiful game with a good premise and great execution.

You should buy it on sale. It's not a 'must experience' thing, but it's absolutely a 'worth experiencing' thing.

Neon Drive gets an 87/100

It's a nice indie. I thought that the story was a bit cheesy, but still good. The gameplay was okay. The controls, however, felt a bit bad. Especially when the game tells you to play with a controller when it's much easier with a keyboard and a mouse. After 24 hours of gameplay, i feel like I've got what i paid for. However if you don't usually take your time to complete games that aren't so great, definitely get this on sale.

It's like a 7.5/10