Games You Beat in 2025: Year of the Backlog

[toxicitizen]

The Last of Us Part II Remastered

 

I finished it last night. It's good to have finally played it as I feel like I've been waiting for it for an eternity. I had a feeling the game would make me feel like everyone else is smoking crack and that turned out to only be partially the case. On the one hand, I think it's a massive improvement over the original and I found the gameplay in particular to be incredible. On the other hand, I understand why the game was so divisive based on the story alone. I imagine your typical gamer isn't used to narratives with characters this flawed and nuanced. I also don't think the execution was necessarily the best it could have been.

 

Without getting into spoilers, I felt like the inciting incident was handled about as well as it could've been and when Ellie decides to go after Abby and her friends I was 100% on board with her. The first half of the game was basically what I expected: more TLoU but better.

 

The second half of the game is where I think some issues crop up. Most importantly, I fucking hated Abby so at first I wasn't crazy about having to play as her. When the game finally revealed who she is and what set her on that path, I was like:

 

 

The game did a good enough job of giving her character nuance up to a point. After a few hours of playing as her, I stopped hating her (it helped that her gameplay was really good) but, despite the writers' efforts, I never stopped seeing her as the villain of the story. So when you catch up to the present after her part of the story, I didn't really like having to continue playing as her during

Spoiler

the fight against Ellie. 

 

The game also keeps banging on that "I could've killed you but I didn't" drum as if to highlight that 

 

Spoiler

Abby only killing Joel vs Ellie killing Abby's friends somehow makes her better but that is complete bullshit. Abby only came after Joel because Joel was the only one that wronged her. She would've had no reason to kill anyone else unless she was a complete psycho. But her entire group was actively complicit in Joel's murder (and torture, really), so they were fair game. They were absolutely a part of this and that's on Abby.

 

I also found the ending unsatisfying but that was clearly by design, so I'm not holding that against the game. At that point, I was kinda shocked the game was still going, tbh. When I got through all of those cutscenes after the theater and then there was more gameplay I couldn't help but ask "why is this game still going? lol". I don't mean that as a criticism, though. I'm honestly amazed that a linear, single-player game this meaty was made. Especially one that's arguably mostly a stealth game. I liked that. I liked that a lot.

 

So yeah, basically all of my criticism is about the story. I thought the gameplay was absolutely fantastic. Why did no one tell me this game was influenced by MGS3?! At least, that was the first thing that came to mind the first time I found myself crawling in tall grass to sneak around and pick enemies off one by one. Ethan mentioned not liking the encounter design a while back and I couldn't disagree more. I had a blast crawling around in the grass, taking enemies out with the bow and leaving mines in choke points only to toss a bottle to draw enemies right to it. The resource management also added another great layer to it. I would crawl into a hiding spot and consider whether to craft more arrows vs breaking stealth and using my limited ammo. I can't remember the last time I found a game's combat this engaging and rewarding. Maybe playing on hard mode had something to do with it.

 

There's actually an achievement for beating Grounded mode this time and I'm tempted to jump right into it but I'd like to finish AC Shadows within a reasonable time frame, so I think I'll go back to continue that for now. Maybe I'll use this as an excuse to do a Grounded run of both games at some point down the line.

 

And with that, I think that was the last big Sony game I was really anticipating. I can't really think of anything else that I would be nearly as excited to play on PC. Well, there is one game that starts with B and ends with "loodborne" but Sony seems adamant on pretending it doesn't exist, so I gave up on that one a while ago. If it does get an eventual rerelease, I expect it to be in a form no one asked for: i.e. a needless remake by a different dev that completely butchers the art direction.

Edited April 14 by toxicitizen

[TheMightyEthan]

Blue Prince

 

I'm of two minds with this game. On the one hand, at its core there's a really great game here, with a really cool idea behind it. On the other hand, it's constantly shooting itself in the foot with the RNG bullshit. It just does not respect the player's time. There's tons of stuff that should be a permanent unlock but just isn't for some unfathomable reason, the metaprogression and story reveal is so thin on the ground that you can go multiple runs in a row without making any significant progress on literally any avenue of investigation. It's just frustrating, especially because a few small tweaks could make it so much better. So like when you open a door and are putting down a new room it gives you three options to choose from, and there are dice in the game to let you re-roll those three options if you don't like them, but they're quite rare on most runs. If those dice were more common it would alleviate so many of the problems, and that's just one example, the game is full of things like that where it's just like "why would you do it this way? it's needlessly time-wasting."

 

So yeah, I both love and hate this game. It's a great game that is fatally flawed.

 

Grade: B-

[toxicitizen]

Assassin's Creed Shadows

 

It's been a while since I played one of these at launch. Overall, I really enjoyed it and I think it might be my favorite AC game so far (keep in mind, my only modern point of reference is AC Origins since that's the last and most recent one I played) but ultimately it's still Assassin's Creed. The setting is great, the visuals are gorgeous and the parkour is the most polished it's ever been but that AC jank still shows up every now and then. The "modern day" story is limited to text entries in the new AC launcher and a handful of glitchy sequences in the actual game.

 

The actual story starts out really strong but then it sort of just goes away. After a brief intro with Yasuke, you play as Naoe only for the entirety of Act 1. That includes an opening sequence that features some Tarantino-ass musical choices. It's almost like Prey 2017 where the opening is so freaking awesome that the rest of the game struggles to reach the same height again. Basically it sets up Naoe's motivation and the group of enemies she'll be hunting down for the rest of the game. If you're like me and do a lot of side-content alongside the main story, it might take you close to 20 hours before you unlock Yasuke. When you do, you'll get a bunch of flashback missions giving you more of his backstory, including one that's basically a 30mins short film with the occasional interaction and that might actually be my favorite part of the entire story. Naoe's story is perfectly fine (and she also gets some flashback to flesh out what happened to her prior to the destruction of Iga at the beginning of the game) but Yasuke's story is just so freaking good. Once that's out of the way, though, you're mostly just going after your targets one by one. Which is fine, don't get me wrong. I'm all for the lack of padding. It was just weird to see the story almost taking a backseat after such a strong opening.

 

After a while you go through your entire list of targets and then some more personal quests are introduced for Naoe and Yasuke that pick up where some of their respective side-quests left off. And then the game just sort of ends. Like, when the credits rolled I literally said "What the fuck?!" because it was so out of nowhere. I'd literally just finished a fairly pivotal boss fight/scene that seemed to be setting up the next bit of story and then it just... ends. I have to assume it's setup for the DLC because if not then I don't know what the hell that was.

 

The story isn't the only thing that's uneven. Both Naoe and Yasuke are incredibly fun to play as. Naoe has all the cool parkour moves and tools to go stealthy and Yasuke is for when you just wanna cut down everything in your path and burst through big wooden gates like the Kool-Aid man. The problem is that stealth as Yasuke is treated like a joke. When he does a leap of faith, he immediately bounces out of hiding and the pile of hay is destroyed. When you do a "stealth kill" with him, he screams as he impales the enemy and lifts their corpse over his head. He's really fun in combat but since this is supposed to be a stealth game you end up favoring Naoe most of the time. The game is at its best during main story missions where you alternate between both of them in scripted missions: e.g. sneak in as Naoe to open the gate, Yasuke fights his way in to create a distraction, switch back to Naoe to use the commotion to get to the target and take them out. Having some agency over that kind of stuff to come up with your own strategies could've been great but as it is you can only swap between them either at pre-determined moments during story missions or from the menu when outside of combat/hostile areas.

 

One thing I really liked is that there is no quest log like in AC Origins because, well, there are no boring quests like that game had. When you get a quest from an NPC, 90% of the time it'll just add a circle on your objective board and on that circle will be targets for you to take out. Imagine that, most of the gameplay (both main and side-content) has you just getting lists of targets to... assassinate. In an Assassin's Creed game! I'm surprised it only took them like a dozen games over almost 20 years to figure that one out! (I have no idea if Odyssey and Valhalla were also like this lol all I know is Origins sure as shit wasn't...)

 

So yeah, overall I thought it was very enjoyable but if you don't like Assassin's Creed (or care for the Japanese setting) then YMMV. Oh and another thing I appreciate is that the achievements list doesn't require an insane amount of completion or grinding:

 

 

I was able to get all the missing ones fairly quickly after finishing the main story. The only annoying thing was some stuff required specific time of day/seasons to be doable. If I'd known earlier I could've planned around it, but since I didn't I ended up having to sit around waiting for in-game time to pass because for some baffling reason they removed the option to "medidate" to fast-forward the day/night cycle. Even though there's literally a meditation mini-game for Naoe... There's technically a mechanic to skip ahead to the next season but it's kinda unintuitive and useless. Oh and another thing they removed for no reason whatsoever is the ability to sell more than one piece of gear at a time. This was a solved problem all the way back in AC Origins so idk what the fuck happened there. They patched it back in like a couple weeks ago but I guess it was buggy cause they already patched it out.

[MetalCaveman]

Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge

 

This was the improved version?! 

 

Looking at it, it does come from that era of Armored Core V, and Ace Combat Assault Horizon, and it follows them in that, more "western" style, more cutscenes, more story, QTEs, a darker grittier look, "cinematic" slow motion shots, "cinematic" climbing, "cinematic" everything!

 

The problem is that none of that is Ninja Gaiden, the base gameplay isn't that bad all things considered, and is the greatest improvement over vanilla 3, though that is a pretty low bar to clear lol. The Steel on Bone mechanic is neat, and it does lead to some cool moments, but it also becomes the only way to clear certain fights since all enemies are now faster and more agile, evading, blocking or parrying most of your attacks. Some of the new animations are pretty cool, the Lunar Staff in particular, has a really cool one that is the perfect example of overkill.

 

But then there's all the other stuff, the climbing mechanic was pretty annoying, there's a stealth ability that's only used in a couple of places, QTEs are everywhere and they make boss fights more frustrating than they need to be, the lack of healing items is pure madness and I have no idea who the hell thought that was a good idea, the obsession with having several enemies with rocket launchers led to some pretty cheap feeling deaths, the last boss is one of the worst last bosses I've seen, and a more personal pet peeve, upgrades now being in a generic menu instead of the Muramasa shop was disappointing.

 

The story is also the worst of any of these games, yes, the story in the Ninja Gaiden series was never award worthy, but it did its job, it was silly and cheesy in all the best ways and was all about being a badass Ninja saving the world, the story in this one is pretty bad, the English voice of Ryu is also the worst of the series lol, IMO 2 had the best one, Josh Keaton >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Troy Baker, for this role.

 

The Ayane chapters weren't that bad though, I def enjoyed her gameplay and how brutal some of her attacks are. \m/ \m/

 

Grade: D-

[danielpholt]

Bionic Bay is in the books!

 

 

Limbo meets Super Meat Boy meets Tiny Wings meets The Swapper.

 

Great platforming that'll make the hairs on your neck stand up that's elevated even higher by a truly memorable soundtrack and some very nice visuals make this something I wholeheartedly recommend for anyone who likes platformers with a bit of an atmosphere. 

 

Took me 11 hours (give or take) to get through the games campaign. It certainly gets a little demanding towards the end, but I never felt like giving up and only had to use a guide in one spot (which, as it turns out was because I wasn't looking at the screen well enough).

 

 

4/5  - Great

[Mal]

 

HEY SO YOU KNOW I CAN PLAY OTHER GAMES?

 

Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade

 

Solid experience but I definitely see the quibbles of it being fan fiction, and bloated. With that said, the story is a synthesis of everything that came after the original so not being the same is to be expected. I guess I should also say it is very anime when it's presented this way. With the OG, you can contain a lot. You can also contain a lot of silliness to a kid (like kid me). Adult me can't help but go "wut".

 

Gameplay is decent and about what I expected. I think the only true frustration was with grab attacks. It was a constant pain point. I also feel that some mechanics are poorly explained. Like, for the Yuffie part, I didn't know about synergy attacks with Sonon until their final boss!

 

Ys VIII Lacrimosa of DANA

 

Gameplay is far from being as tight as the OG games but it is decent. Some enemies or bosses can feel spongey but nothing a tornado sword can't fix. Raids are an annoyance to me since they break the flow of the story/exploration. It also doesn't quite make sense early on. Like, please help if you have time! You can for some reason teleport before being explicitly told you can do so, so it really was no big deal.

 

I just have lots of qualms about party management, however, it is a improvement on Ys SEVEN when it comes to the final boss: you don't need to use everyone! You're not going to be casted down for being unable to level and/or play this or that character. I recalled I had issues in Ys SEVEN at the final boss because of it, so I dropped it for a bit, then wrecked the boss after I reoriented myself lol

 

I guess I should mention this is like a very concerning amount of time that Falcom added a totally garbage optional dungeon.

 

Story wise, this slaps. The titular Dana is a joy. This game really does try to expand and connect with the other games (though it should be said it can feel hamfisted since they are expanding on some simple concepts from like 30 years ago lmao). As for within the game itself, I felt like a few parts didn't needed to be there since they didn't quite add anything, however, I wouldn't mind if they allude to some greater thing.

 

Music. Not as many banger tracks but the title screen music (and basically anything piece related to Dana) hits quite differently after you are done. The Sibylline Road (Dana!), Gens d'Armes (tided to the level and part of the game), Volitional Decision, Vanishing Trail (jazzy lol) slaps.

 

---

I guess I had a lot more to say about a Ys game than a Final Fantasy game lmao

[toxicitizen]

Ys X Nordics

 

I have also beaten an Ys game this week. I actually started it last Fall when it launched but I fell off of it after 20 hours or so. In part because Indiana Jones came out and I was super excited for that but I also wasn't really feeling Ys X at the time. That was weird since I usually devour these games. At the time I couldn't really point to any single thing about it that I didn't like (and I still can't) but now that I'm done with it, I kinda see what the problem was.

 

Basically, this is pirates/vikings Ys. The entire game has a Norse theme and you sail around on a ship and spend your time exploring islands and fighting undead monsters. The problem is that, early on in the game, the ship is insanely slow. It gets better over time as you upgrade it but it's fairly tedious early on. I'm speedrunning through new game plus on Nightmare difficulty right now and even though I was skipping all the cutscenes and ignoring most of the optional stuff, the first few chapters were still excruciatingly slow because of it.

 

That alone isn't a huge problem but the best part of Ys has always been running around and killing monsters while listening to that sweet soundtrack. So the ship exploration fucks with the pacing, and since you're exploring islands that tend to be fairly small, you only do the running around killing monsters part for short periods of time. The game also keeps introducing new gameplay elements up until about the halfway point. So when you take all of these things into account, the pacing gets absolutely obliterated in the first half of the game. It gets way better in the second half as you upgrade your ship to be faster, the dungeons become longer and the game is done throwing tutorials at you. Ironically enough, I had stopped basically right when the game was about to get better. Everything I've been playing over the past week has basically been what I want out of an Ys game. It really was just the first half that had pacing issues.

 

So yeah, overall this is a solid Ys game. It's biggest strength is the new combat system. It drops the party-based combat of the last few games in favor of a dual-protagonist setup. The focus is on rapidly switching between them while chaining up skill attacks and precisely timing your blocks to build up a meter that allows you to perform big team-up attacks. I hope they'll keep this system for the next few games because I absolutely loved it and I want to see them iterate on it like they did with the party system.

 

Other than that, it's Ys. If you love the series, you'll love this one. 

Edited May 5 by toxicitizen

[TheMightyEthan]

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
 

This game is so goddamned good. It's cliche but I laughed, I cried, I went on a journey with these characters and I love them. I also love the combat from beginning to end, parrying feels so good, and it's so satisfying to see the end battle screen where you took 0 damage because you parried everything. The story is compelling, the world is interesting, everything about it is about as near perfect as you could ever ask. I have some issues with the ending, not so much what actually happens as the way it's presented, but they're not serious enough to mar the wonderful 60 hours I had up to that point.

 

Grade: A+

[toxicitizen]

Onimusha Warlords

 

With the remaster of Onimusha 2 finally coming out this week, I figured I'd give the original a replay since it's really short. I was a little worried that it wouldn't be as good as I remembered but I realized that was dumb pretty much as soon as I started the game. This is a really fun take on the classic RE style of gameplay. It has a few flaws but overall it's still very enjoyable.  I'm not sure why I was worried in the first place because I played it for the first time in 2019 when the remaster came out. So, it was already as dated as it's going to get then lol.

 

At the time, I was super bummed out that they didn't seem like they were going to remaster the sequels, so I'm really excited to finally play the second game. Hopefully they'll keep the momentum going this time and will at least remaster Onimusha 3 as well before the new one comes out next year.

[TheMightyEthan]

RoboCop: Rogue City

 

This game is pretty good, all told. Definitely AA, but it's a decent RoboCop simulator. Took 15.5 hours to beat, it definitely could have stood to be a little shorter. By 8 hours I was looking up how many chapters there were to get an idea of how much time I had left, and was not thrilled to see I was only halfway through. That said, I still enjoyed it overall, it's fun to just have a completely mindless shooting game where you don't even need to worry about taking cover, just walk right up the middle of every area mowing down the bad guys.

 

Grade: C+

[danielpholt]

I have finally finished Khazan. And yikes. 

 

Ultimately I ended up knocking it down to 'easy' and yet even with that extra help, I'd argue that's the hardest soulslike I've ever played. The final boss was all sorts of ridiculous and both exhilarating and frustrating in equal measure. 

 

It's done. I can spend time with my children once again, finally start a new book and maybe even start a new videogame. What a time to be alive.

 

If I had to give it a rating (using my own system) I'd give it a 4/5, which is 'Great', although I'd add that for the sort of person who enjoys these games, I think it's basically a must play; just maybe knock it down to 'easy' where it feels much closer to a traditional From game in terms of raw difficulty, although even then, I'd argue it's harder than anything From has produced, even Sekiro.

 

 

[TheMightyEthan]

The Invincible

 

This is a game with good elements that just can't seem to get out of its own way. The story is compelling, the environments are gorgeous, and it's clear there was a ton of attention to detail through the entire thing, but everything about interacting with the game is absolutely miserable. All you do is walk and interact with set points, but the walking is too slow (there's a run but you can only do it for about three seconds before running out of stamina), the objectives are poorly communicated, and the whole thing overstays its welcome by half. I want to like this game, but I just can't.

 

Grade: D+

 

PS: It is very pretty though. (Spoiler tags just for big images.)

 

Spoiler

 

[toxicitizen]

Onimusha 2: Samurai's Destiny

 

This one is supposed to be the fan favorite but I think I actually liked the first one better. Onimusha 2 is longer, bigger, and more ambitious for sure. Especially in its storytelling. It's probably a better game for it overall but I just really liked how short and sweet the first one was. The story is very minimalistic and it has that Spencer Mansion kind of layout where you're running around the same area for the entire game, going back and forth as you unlock new sections.

 

Onimusha 2 is more linear in that sense: you're going through a sequence of mostly linear areas and while you do revisit some (and even revisit some sections from the first game, which I thought was pretty cool), most of them are a one and done kinda deal. It also kinda tones down the horror more than I would've liked. Hell, horror isn't even the right term. It's really more of a spooky atmosphere, which is something I always appreciate. So seeing even that getting toned down was disappointing. Onimusha 1 is very much Feudal Japan Resident Evil but this one feels way closer to just being a sword action game with some demonic stuff in it. At that point, it's basically Devil May Cry without the stylish combat. It also has a bigger focus on story but it has the story of a Japanese action game from 2002, so... yeah...

 

One thing Oni 2 has going for it is a companion system where you can give gifts to some characters and it affects which story route you end up on. So some sections will play out differently depending on which character you have the best relationship with. I think the sections where these companions are playable will vary as well because I only played as one side-character in my playthrough in that one area but other areas had some chests that the protagonist couldn't open. So I'll definitely be doing more runs to see what else can happen.

 

So yeah, it didn't blow me away as much as the original did but it did surprise me a little bit. I really hope they won't wait another 6 years to remaster Onimusha 3. We're halfway there at this point, two games done out of four. Might as well commit. Unless the new Onimusha is an early 2026 release, there should be plenty of time to remaster Onimusha 3 before it comes out. Jean Reno is down, so that's not an issue! After that they can remaster Dawn of Dreams whenever but imho they really need to get Oni 3 out before the new game.

[danielpholt]

A Game About Digging A Hole

 

Silly little game about (you guessed it) digging a whole. Only took me like three hours, but those three hours completely flew by and I had a really good time with it. So if you've got an evening to kill, or enjoy the dig>loot>upgrade sort of thing, give it a look.

 

4/5

[danielpholt]

DOOM: The Dark Ages

 

This one is fun eh? 

 

So for context I really enjoyed my time with DOOM (2016), and then bounced off Eternal so quickly that I damn near gave myself whip-lash. I went into this expecting very little, and leave it with DOOM TDA being some of the most fun I've had with a shooter in quite some time. 

 

4/5 - A must play.

 

Deep Duck Trouble (Staring Donald Duck)

 

I'm not going to assign a score to this one, because, well I'm not sure it's fair to the game given I'm playing it some 30 years after it originally launched. DDT is was Sega Master System game (that I believe was also pushed out on the Game Gear). It's one of the first games I've got memories of playing (and sucking at) with as a kid and I wanted a big ol' spoon of nostalgia shoved down my throat. 

 

I had a brief but fun time with the game, although as you may expect, time hasn't been kind to it. It's got some pretty horrific slow downs, the platforming is mediocre at best and the enemies aren't exactly difficult. That being said, it looks gorgeous for a SMS game, it's got some real cute animation and sprite work and the soundtrack is kinda catchy.

 

Took me around an hour to beat (using save states) and I'll likely come back to it again and again in the future. 

 

Edited Saturday at 03:36 PM by danielpholt

[toxicitizen]

Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury

 

I've been wanting to play this one for over a decade at this point, since first hearing all the praise it got when it initially came out on Wii U. At the time, I only had a 3DS so I settled for playing 3D Land instead. This and other ports from previous Nintendo consoles were a big part of what finally made the Switch so appealing to me. I've been wanting to buy one for at least a couple years but had been holding off because it always seemed like the successor was right around the corner.

 

Anyway, 3D World was about as great as I expected it to be. I love how it feels like an evolution of the old side-scrolling games. On the 3DS version, I had done basically everything including replaying all the levels as Luigi once I unlocked him but this time I'm drawing the line there. I beat the game, then beat the post-game worlds and collected all the green stars and all but 5 of the stamps. The last 5 stamps require replaying all the levels as the other characters and there's an extra 4 characters this time. Maybe I'll come back and do it at some point but right now I have other games to play.

 

Bowser's Fury was a neat little expansion. It's kinda cool how they managed to build a mini open-world Mario game from the building blocks of 3D World, which was very linear. It did feel kinda limited by it but it was still a ton of fun. I basically played through the entire thing in one sitting. I got the first 50 Cat Shines and rolled credits, then took a short break and came right back to get the other 50. I was under the impression that there would be a secret ending after getting all 100 but as far as I could tell it was the same. Bowser just had different hair during the fight... But yeah, not a bad way to spend an evening. And it definitely whet my appetite for a proper 3D Mario game, so I'll probably be playing Odyssey sometime soon.

[TheMightyEthan]

I love 3D World + Bowser's Fury so much. Odyssey's also great, they're both in my top 3 3D Mario games.

[TheMightyEthan]

Tempest Rising

 

This is a very C&C-coded RTS that just released a couple months ago, and it's a lot of fun. There's two campaigns, one for the Global Defense Initiative Force, and another for the Brotherhood of Nod Tempest Dynasty. Each campaign covers the same time period of a war between the two, focused on an energy resource known as Tiberium Tempest.

 

I quite liked it, though it's a little shallower than I like my RTS in terms of tech trees and stuff (I've always been more of a Starcraft guy myself), and definitely would recommend it for anyone who's itching for a new strategy games. I don't really have much in the way of detailed thoughts, it kind of is just a fun and competent RTS, not really anything standout great, but not anything seriously bad either.

 

Grade: B

[MetalCaveman]

Elden Ring Nightreign

 

Edit: First time I got a character ending, did another solo run and got the normal ending, now it's easily a 10/10.  

 

Wasn't sure how I'd feel about this, I love Elden Ring, but I'm not a huge fan of rogue-lites/likes/adjacent games or multiplayer stuff, not to mention that online has never been FromSoftware's strong suit lol, but I ended up pleasantly surprised, and I think I get the appeal of these games now, though it does have some serious issues.

 

In terms of gameplay, it's really fun, and it's likely to have the same effect on Elden Ring as ER had on older Soulsborne games, I struggled to go back to Demon's Souls and Dark Souls 3 after playing Elden Ring, specially with the lack of jump and QoL stuff like the stakes of Marika, Nightreign introduces: climbing, super sprint, infinite arrows, and most importantly, NO FALL DAMAGE, all of these will be missed when/if I go back to Elden Ring lol.

 

It's also way faster, you're not taking your time to explore, find secrets and farm for stuff, you're running from one place to another, mark it on the map, run there, grab the item or defeat the boss then immediately run to the next spot, repeat until the day is over or your party gets wiped out.  The way you level up has been changed to keep up with this, instead of allocating points, you just spend runes to gain a level, points are automatically allocated based on what class you're playing.

 

One thing to consider, being a rogue-style game, you're not going to be winning every run, or clearing every camp, there are places you should try to clear before everything else and there are times where RNG will simply decide to kill your run early, I feel like a lot of the friction that caused negative responses came from people expecting a more linear progression, like "OK, clear the whole map, then beat the boss, then go after the next main boss", kind of thing, and while it can be annoying when RNG decides to mess with you, once you accept this is part of the game, it's not an issue. I had runs where nothing went right, all the drops were pretty bad, and still managed to reach the Nightlord, there were also runs where everything went right, had legendary gear, max healing flasks, and then we still got stomped.

 

The story is pretty decent, not the main thing which is simple, but good enough, I'm talking about the character remembrance stories, each character has their own story, some of them overlapping with the main Nightlord stuff, some independent, though I haven't completed them all, the ones I have have been pretty good, with the best so far being Raider's, some also have a unique ending when you defeat the last boss.

 

However, there are some issues, some which devs have already said will be addressed.

 

The revive mechanic is pretty fun, when a teammate goes down, you just beat the crap out of them to bring them back lol, each time you die you get another tick added to the revive timer, making it take more hits to bring you back, this resets with every boss/site of grace. The biggest problem is the rate at which each tick refills compared to how fast you can deal enough "damage", it's very easy to run out of stamina before being able to clear all ticks, and before you have enough stamina for another attack, the revive timer is back to full. Hitboxes are also super wonky, making it easy to miss with heavy weapons, bows and poking weapons are the best at reviving with heavier weapons being more prone to missing the target entirely.

 

The randomization is also lacking, there's only one map, field and night bosses are pulled from fixed pools based on which Nightlord you pick, and even though there are map altering events, there's only four of them and, as far as I've seen, once they're gone they're gone, though this might be a bug.

 

Relics are underwhelming, relics are items that change your stats or give you buffs or equipment, these are a sort of fixed progression, you get them from completing expeditions and from the murk store (murk being a currency you get from expeditions), their effects are mostly "tiny increase to HP" or "start with some item", I haven't played many other games in this genre, but I do remember Taboo Trial and Duel Princess having some pretty ridiculous items and units, Nightreign needs some stuff like that, the devs played it way too safe with their effects IMO.

 

Many relics also end up feeling useless with the way they combine effects, you can get a relic with three buffs, one might be super useful for Wylder, but the other two end up being completely useless, so that relic ends up never being used because no class can actually benefit from it.

 

Then there's the remembrance skins, remembrance skins are unlocked after completing a character's remembrance and they're by far, the worst of all the available skins, except for Raider, for everyone else it ends up being a game of Spot the Difference lol. The other available skins are pretty cool though.

 

There's other issues, but I don't know if I should count it against the game or if they're just part of the genre, bosses are weak to specific elements and sometimes you'll get a map without a single drop of that element, so you just have to rely on whatever else might be effective, except for the last boss which is immune to most effects. Some bosses are also extremely challenging for certain characters, but again, this might just be a case of "alright, now you know what class to pick next time".

 

Overall, I liked it a lot, but I do hope to see more maps, bosses and skins, in fact, given the more experimental nature of Nightreign, could be fun if they had some more extreme stuff, like an Armored Core themed skin for Wylder or a Sekiro map, fun stuff like that.

 

TL;DR:  If you're looking for more Elden Ring, this isn't for you, if you want From's take on the rogue-like genre and are willing to put up with some issues, then it's worth it, specially for $40.  

 

Grade: S

 

Edited 4 hours ago by MetalCaveman
Improved grade.