ELDEN RING

Surprise... I am back 

So before I began you can read my old review of why didn't I finish this game over here Why Elden Ring sucks. Now on to my review 

Game no: 466
Genre: RPG
Platform: PC
Release Date: 2022

After actually losing badly in the most hype game ever. I decided to play something else. Get my thoughts together and start playing this game. This time rather than just go head on and fight my way to hordes of enemies. I decide to take my time and just play it as how I would play any open world game. Which is to get all the maps first before actually proceeding onto my adventure. It turns out that the map was just right in front of me and once I got all the pieces together I started the adventure bit by bit. 

What can I say about this game. This game is amazing in its exploration and map. Everything you see makes you want to explore it. When you arrive somewhere you are at awe at the surrounding and then suddenly you are ambush with slurry of enemies until you panic and have to run away. I didn't have that problem since I play with a cheat engine (I'll get on that later) so I did enjoy every moment of exploring and getting to discover something new.  Without the worry of dying or getting trampled. This is the best way to play a game for someone who doesn't have the dexterity and skill to navigate a souls game. The weapon are varied with each of them have a special skill onto it. So trying is the key. I had 3 presets so I have two two handle weapons, a shield and one big ass weapon for heavy damage but again that didn't matter

The thing that made Elden ring enjoyable from start to finish was the cheat engine and turning one hit kill. Since my goal is not to be the best but to actually explore everything you can in this game. The best part about being almost invincible (you still die since it's due how much health you have) is that you don't have a sense of urgency if there a boss encounter. I actually enjoy it since I am going to slice it with my lowest stat weapon and he is going to die instantly. The bad part of playing with cheat engine is that I didn't take my time to study the mechanics of the game. I just load a weapon and off we go. Since I don't need to. I say is that to each their own I guess. I enjoyed every moment I was in the world.  

In the end I manage to end the game with the weirdest ending. There are 4 ending and I think I got the one that turn the world into a fiery chaos areas. It did suck that I can't go back and fight the boss again but that is how the game is design unless I want to play a new game plus. So Elden Ring. If you love to challenge yourself. Play without cheats. But If you love to see what is the hub hub about the game. Play with cheats, or anyway you want. The funny thing is that people love to cheese the game (by trying to hit the enemies as far away or cheating the system) so playing it with the cheat engine is the biggest cheese of all. I give this game an S-Rank. Really I enjoyed my time so I think this game will be in my top 10. 

ELDEN RING

First time playing a From Software game

Genre: RPG
Platform: PC
Release Date: 2022

Well after all the hype surrounding this game I have to give it a try. The problem is I already know what I am getting myself into and really I don't know where to start. So let's start at beginning. On what is this game all about. It's basically a ring got broken and divided into bad guys and pieces of the ring makes people into beings called The Tarnished. Ok you got me. I wasn't even paying attention to the story anyway. 

This is a souls game from the makers where their art is making games difficult in nature. There is no sugar coating it. Elden ring is hard and there are bosses around every corner that will make you die multiple times again and again. I love the combat with a small caveat. I put on cheat engine to run with god mode on and one hit kill. I could decided to off that but after that I got bored.  Since you start of as a small level character and you need to slowly needs to level up by killing anything you see to get runes. Runes are use to level up your character. It is a basic RPG trope. The more runes you get the more your character levels up. The harder the bosses the more rewards you'll take. But what this game is most known for is the crushing difficulty when you lose. When you lose you will lose all the runes that you collected and you will have the chance to get it again unless you died before that and then you are out of luck. 

As you can see from the map*. The game is huge and there are a lot do and see. You'll spend hours exploring either by walking or with your horse torrent (which I suspect a lot of PC players will do if they want to check out this game before buying it) There are a lot of points of interest that you can go and you will have you "oh my god" moment every step of the way. Well that's about all the nice things I can say about this game that critics are calling masterpiece in game design 

Okay now comes the bad part. Aside of the difficulty of combat which I am not blaming them since it's a design choice. This game doesn't actually give you anything. You are basically there all by yourself. This makes a lot of people who doesn't have all the time in the world (like me) frustrated on where to go next. Some times we just want to have a clear path saying you should go here next or you should do this. But this game makes it super difficult by actually sending you on fetch quests on finding something without actually telling you what makes what goes. I think a lot of players who in my mind are blind thinking that this game is great. This game is actually an ultimate time waster by asking you to go round and round until you have the right key or something to make the game go. Unlike Zelda there is a clear goal in the end. You can go anywhere you see on the map. Have some fun with it and when you are ready you can go and face the final boss. Over here is different since you are encourage to explore and see where it leads you. They make the game hard to navigate since a lot of places are block by doors, chasms and keys that you need to find

Which brings me to the thing why I don't think I'll ever will like a souls game. This game is build upon mechanics upon mechanics upon mechanics. There is a lot of things you need to learn like weapon loadout, spells, how heavy your armor sets is, all the items and crafting. They do teach you this but there is a lot of information overload when it comes to this. It all can seem a bit to overwhelming for me. 

So that is conclusion of my review. I don't see this game getting as high praise as it does since a game to be the greatest of all time needs to appeal to the masses (or maybe not). But I know that this game doesn't deserve a 10/10. The problem is that the people who review these games are die hard fans of games like this and it can be misleading to the rest of the common folk. Like me I played with cheats and I still had a great time after 20 hours it has given me but after that I felt uninspired to go anywhere since I am lost and this is too complicated to be considered a good time. Will I revisit this game again. Probably when I get a second monitor and probably in a couple more years you will get me to revisit this game. Or probably not. I don't know. But for now I give this game an E-Rank. Since the E stands for Elden itself... This game doesn't need to be easy but at least accessible to people who don't have time to burn to spend all year to be the elden lord

*Credit to Powerpyx.com

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII

An additional add on of the FF7 story 

Game no: 393
Genre: RPG 
Platform: PSP 
Release Date: 2007
Factory Sealed: 217

What is it about?
The events before Final Fantasy VII where we follow a SOLDIER name Zack 

What I liked?
The story actually is good (It doesn't make sense to me for some parts) 
The combat design is active time battle but it is a bit clunky for me 
The game is linear with other stuff added on if you some extra replayability
Backstory on Cloud

What I didn't liked?
I don't understand the slot system in the game. It is fun to see the animations but I don't know how it works
The leveling up system also is confusing. I mean you don't grind for EXP but you get level up by using the slots
The combat is not fun after repeating it again and again

Status: Finish the game. I did watch half of it on youtube but that still counts 

Fun Factor: If you love Final Fantasy you should check it out. If not, this game is not for everyone

Final Fantasy VII Remake

I don't like playing RPGs due to the fact I don't like static gameplay and long winded storylines. But there is one series that I would try to play (even if sometimes I don't enjoy it). That series is Final Fantasy. I've played FFVII close to 20 years ago and I did enjoy it. I knew going in the remake that this is a totally take on the gameplay.

Game no: 364
Genre: RPG
Platform: PS4
Release Date: 2020
Factory Sealed: 202





What is it about?
The story about a group called Avalanche and how they try to save the city from a Shinra Company (of course it more than that but that is the gist of it) 

What I liked?
First of all what made the game for me is the combat. The combat is amazing. The game controls like a fighting game. It's a one button combo but what makes it deep is once you fill your ATB (Active Time Battle) Gauge  you can execute different combos and spells which makes it fast paced and very nerve wracking  
The ability to play with different characters. Cloud, Tifa, Barret and Aerith all give different play styles and movement. So you can strategize on how you want to want to approach the enemy
The Music. I rarely talk about the music since music does elevate the game but the music here is on another level. I think it's due to the fact that I've heard this music before and now it became more amazing since it's enhance the gameplay experience. The best music is the combat music. It really gets the blood pumping
The storyline and voice acting are way better. And they provide a lot of back story to all of the characters
Weapons and materia slots. Everytime you change a weapon and equip a materia it shows in game as well in the cutscene. That small feature is really awesome in my book

What I didn't liked?
It's not as open world as they say. The map is a small area where you go in long stretches of road until you get to the next area. Some of this areas looks climbable but in this game it has a lot of invisible walls 
Lots and lots of loading screens. Loading screens comes from walking into a tight corner for at least 1 or 2 minutes or going down a tunnel. It really breaks the action.
Materia system is different than the old game. Really need to learn that one.
The main part that is going to bug me is that knowing that is not even 10% of the game and we have to wait for an unknown time for the next part.

Status: Finish the game until the credits (32 hours) 

Fun factor: One of the best game of this year. Easily my top 3 (for now). A must play for everyone

Undertale

A game where you don't need to fight



Game no: 322
Genre: RPG
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Release Date: 2018 (Originally 2015)
Factory Sealed: 94

What is it about?
A boy wake up in the underworld and needs to make his way to real world

What I liked?
The turned battle system is one of unique things about the gameplay. The attack system is a mixed of bullet hell as well rhythm timing
The dialogue is fun and interesting. The story starts slow but slowly build up to the finale. Great writing
The puzzles are easy which is great for me
You actually need to beat the game without killing anyone to get the true ending. I didn't know that but I guess the game is design for a second playthrough
The final boss does a number on your switch

What I didn't liked?
The slow paced level up system. The game slowly ramps up your level.
The lack of items (or I didn't find any) to aid you in your quest. The more I look at it, the gameis design with less items in mind.
Some bossess are extreamly hard. The finally boss is way overpowered

Status: Played the game for 230minutes. Finish at level 18. Got the bad ending

Fun Factor: A great game to play. But would recommend to read the walkthroguh first before proceeding

Pokemon Yellow

This is a lack there of a game rather than a game that I played

Genre: RPG
Platform: Game Boy



Does this game holds up?
-Don't get me wrong, if you youtube best/ top 10 games for the Game Boy and a version of pokemon will be in the list. But I don't know why, the game didn't resonate with me. RPGs has not been my cup of tea due to its low response time and slow pacing as well as grinding. But for me the people who actually play pokemon really have a lot of patience in hand. This game where you control a pokemon and fight off other pokemon is a grindfest

First of all 
- You need to make sure that you are stock with pokeballs, potions and other items so that your pokemon won't die in the mist of battle.
- You have to train the current pokemon to be the very best but when they have only 1-2 attack moves and the rest is just specials that depower the other pokemon makes this game like a version of rock-paper-scissors where if you are lucky you can win.
- Does every NPC wants you to fight them... You can't even have a decent conversation outside of towns since everybody just want you to fight their pokemon which becomes tedious and repetitive after a while.

So I will not watch the longplay of this game. I know it's a great game and I am probably one of the minority who doesn't enjoy grinding to fight a boss (I wonder how is it with final fantasy after this or the 16-bits RPG)

Status: Played 1 hour of the game. Got bored after fighting the same metapod in the bushes over and over again.
Fun Factor: It's a fun game. It is just not for me. I would recommend this game to anyone who wants a good game to play for the long haul.

Final Fantasy XV

Well this game is something...

Game no: 188

Genre: RPG

Platform: PS4
Factory Sealed: 120

What's is it about:

This story can't be explained in a couple of sentences. Since you need to be immerse in the whole Final Fantasy mythos to fully understand the motivations of the characters and why they do the things that they do. I can only summarize this is a story about friendship, family brotherhood and scarifies. This is the core that makes the story what it is. This is the story of how Noctis, Ignis, Prompto and Gladious battle to save the whole world

Gameplay consist of:

Where to start. It's an RPG after all so they threw everything except the kitchen sink

- Exploring: This consists of the world map and you go around following your waypoints or main story waypoints. Which comes to the next item

- Driving: Noctis and crew drives around in the car called the Regalia. This car is longer than the average car. Drivng is not like any other open world sandbox games. You can driver around like crazy and your speed is limited to 60 miles (I don't know, since the car feels very slow). You can drive it manually which is just pressing the R2 button or you can ask Ignis to drive which is better. You only can stop at parking spots and rest stops. Rest stops are one stop shops where you can refuel a car and get some grub. You can also ask the local for some extra work to get more money. They usually give you quests like finding an item or killing a beats.

- Running/Walking: When you are not in the car you spend a lot of time walking around the vast map. Since the car can't go offroad, you spend most of the time running to a certain checkpoint. Pressing the Circle button will make you print but only for a couple seconds. While running in the land you will encounter monsters which will trigger

- Combat: This game offers an active combat system. There are no random encounters. You can choose to engage an enemy or not. You only can control Noctis but you can give basic commands to the rest of the crew. Noctis is the only one that has MP. His MP is mainly used to warp from point A to point B. This will give Noctis the element of surprise when attacking his enemy. Some enemies have higher level than the group so you really need to think if you want to fight them. As far as weapons Noctis has his default weapon the engine blade and 13 royal weapon which he can absorb. We can only assign 4 weapons at a time and map them in the directional keys. Beside weapons, there are also 

- Magic: Noctis has the ability to absorb magic to use magic. There is only 3 types of magic available which is Fire, Lightning and Ice. You need to craft them and add items such as potions or elixir to double the power.

That the base of the gameplay but there is more:

- Cooking: Ignis has the ability to cook. He gets new recipes by killing animals, eating at restaurants or finding ingredients in the world map. the more Ignis cook, the better recipes he can make. I think the best part of the game is 

- Eating: Each rest stop has diners and restaurants. They offer photo realistic food. The food offers ability that will last for a certain time. Abilities like add 600HP or gain 50% exp.

- Photography: Prompto has a camera and he takes pictures of your adventures. There are more candid photos with some places requires you do to a photo op. You are allowed to choose the photo at the end of each chapter which makes a good scrapbook. 

- Camping: Gladious skill is camping. Camping is where you recharge your health and absorb all EXP points you gain during your battles. Ignis will cook something at the campsite. 

- Fishing: Noctis ability is to fish. Is not the deep the gameplay but it does offer a fun distraction. 

- QTE: There are a lot of quick time events and answers you need to decided. Most of the conversation has branches that will determine how to end result is going to be. 

- Leveling Up: As any RPG there is level up and there is also a skill tree that you need to upgrade.

What I liked: 

- The ability to choose the song in the car

- Eating food. The food looks so good.

- Combat is fun and frantic. Its hard to get an A for finesse. You need to change weapons on the fly and get good combos to get a good result. 

- The quest are fun.

- Seeing the sights.

- I didn't get to ride a chocobo but I hear that is great. 

- Easy mode. If you die, you will automatically be revived which makes combat more fun.

What I didn't Liked:

- Running. That sucks. Some places you are not allowed to run. It will be suck on a certain crawl.

- The story. It doesn't make that much sense and some parts you will be lost on what the heck has happen.

- Chapter 13. The most out place chapter in the whole game. The most draggiest 3 hours of my life

- Chapter 1-9 is open world and after that is all linear. You can't return back to the world map and the game did mention it was going to be the last time you will be there. 

- The ending... 

Status: Finish the main quest. Played for 23 hours and beat the final boss at level 36. Which is impossible with the current boss.

Score: With all the flaws this game is still a great game. Worth to be played again after you win the game. Just for the exploration part. The story doesn't leave you wanting more but the gameplay does make up for that.

Child of Light

First RPG in years and I blew it

Game: Child of Light

Genre: RPG

Platform: PS vita 

Overview: bought this game because I love the art style. After booting it up the game manage to drag me in the storyline. The gameplay is also part platformer and part RPG. The game requires a certain amount of strategy when playing it. This is because they include a element where you can modify the game during battles

What I liked: characters, oculi crafting, battles, storylines

What I don't liked: The bad guys can have 3 guys on the screen. We can only have 2... Like wtf. Cheap ass bosses. Dying is damn easy in the game. Frustrating when you keep dying...

Status: Finish until the last chapter. Till the final boss. But it turns out you need a minimum of level 48 to defeat the boss. I'm on 42. Since we can't backtrack to grind XP. Technically I lost and need to play again. Probably will play but not anytime soon.

4/5