Recent reviews by Eddie Booker

Nah, this game is awful. They somehow managed to make the grind a horrendous and frustrating experience.

The game would be fine if the controls weren't so FREAKING AWFUL! More often than not, I found myself in a constant struggle just to get the character to respond to my button inputs rather than actually fighting the monsters. Unacceptable by the standards of a normal person, but this is normal for modern game development. Unresponsive controls masking a lack of actual design skill when balancing the game for difficulty.

Came back because of the feature that lets players tweak their No Man's Sky experience. NOW, I don't have to wade through mountains of sentinels on EVERY planet in the universe, but can still experience high intensity space dogfights.

I'm in love with this game all over again.

First, I can't hit the enemies. Then, the controller stops working on startup. NOW, the freaking KEYBOARD ISN'T WORKING EITHER. Is there ANYONE in the industry interested in testing their product before release??

Good - Baiken and Johnny are back. Art style is better than ever. High energy and genuinely fun to play.

Bad - No Jam Kuradoberi. No Dizzy. No Jam Kuradoberi. Sol Badguy is the most low skill, overpowered, broken character in any fighting game outside of M.U.G.E.N. No Jam Kuradoberi. No Jam Kuradoberi. Having to "unlock" in game items randomly. No Jam Kuradoberi.

The game is an absolute masterpiece. Play it. Graphics, story, voice acting all top notch. And that soundtrack.

Freaking PLAY IT!

It's a great game and it feels like a Final Fantasy game. Most of the negative reviews of the game came from people and reviewers who either didn't like Final Fantasy games or people for whom THIS was their very first JRPG and they weren't used to the story focused gameplay. If you're a fan of the Final Fantasy franchise, you should play this one.

Update Failed. Update Failed. Update Failed. Over and over and over again. This is why gaming is dying. Constant problems that nobody fixes.

Great game...when the controls actually function. I've suffered more cheap deaths from dodge, block or elixir buttons simply not registering out of nowhere. I don't know if it's intentional or a bug but it needs to be un ♥♥♥♥♥♥.

A decent game that held a great deal of potential but seemed rushed out the door. For every one thing the game gets right, there are two things it gets wrong. It begins with a relatively deep character customization system which, for its time, was a rather novel idea for a game of this type. The environments are well lit and relatively immersive which speaks to the skill of the developers in this area. Even at lower resolution, the graphics hold up rather well. The combat mechanics require the player to practice at their chosen combat class and actually rewards players for doing so. The Bitterblack Isle expansion is little more than a slug fest against powerful monsters but it's still actually enjoyable, allowing players to kill endless hours just fighting, collecting alchemical items and searching for powerful equipment. Player equipment can be enhanced to do extra damage or provide greater defensive benefits, theoretically keeping the player's gear from becoming obsolete too soon.

On the downside, the game's quest narratives are little more than filler between monster battles. The main quest rarely gives the player any options that impact the story. This reduces the main quest to ushering the player from plot point to plot point without any reason at all to care about the characters in the game beyond his own. The side quests feel like pointless fetching or hastily tossed together "Ambush" quests that appear whenever a specific enemy is within sight. Monster battles are frustratingly difficult due to the player being woefully underpowered thanks to an inherently flawed damage formula that sees the player dying in 1 to 3 hits. This can be mitigated somewhat by changing the game's difficulty to easy mode but since easy mode only decreases the damage the player takes and doesn't affect any other aspects of combat, it seems as though the developers could have just balanced player damage from the beginning. The game's environments, while well detailed, allow for no immersion. The player can pass through solid objects such as chairs, tables and trees with the only world interactions being lever pulling, door/chest opening and smashing crates and barrels. The Pawn companion AI is questionable, with pawns suicidally jumping into bottomless chasms, running around in circles during times when the player is in dire straits and ignoring player commands. Character facial animations are laughable as NPCs rarely ever open their mouths when speaking unless it's shown in a cut scene. Gaining better equipment is more difficult than it needs to be with upgraded gear appearing only after one has advanced the main quest. This effectively hampers exploration as the player seeking higher end gear will find themselves forced to advance the quest rather than take their time exploring the world and gaining skill and experience. This is further exacerbated by the enhancement system which often requires items that can only be found in areas blocked off to the player unless they've progressed the story far along enough. Also, some of the crafting materials for lower end gear are so rare that by the time the player has found them, the item to be enhanced will be obsolete.

Still, despite these issues, the game is fun once you have advanced your level high enough and stick to Bitterblack Isle. It's just a shame that the game's problems could have been fleshed out with a few more months in development. I would still recommend that anyone looking for a monster killing good time give this one a try. Not the best game I've ever played by any means but I'd still play this before I'd even entertain the thought of playing a first person shooter.