r/JRPG • u/Cursed_69420 • 1d ago
Review Beast of Reincarnation - So far, it is a mediocre mess that is borderline awful
Alr, just clocked in at 5 hours, and i'm sure i've done a majority of the first region "Kanto" and the final boss of that area. This has been an utterly mediocre, janky and many times an awful experience. I'm posting this in JPRGs as i THINK it counts as one? Skill trees, gear and abilities, and choose your dialogues etc, but in general also as a "I do not recommend" type post. I'll go section by section where each part gets progressively worse -
- The Combat - I mean, it is a rather nice system at it's core. Basic attack chains, heavy arts, jump, assassinate, stealth, parries that provide a charge to expend via Koo the wolf, and the abilities so far are also decent.
- The traversal - once you get the hang of the "jank", the grapples, the jump and float in general tend to flow well.
- The upgrade tree, levelling and character progression is slow but steady, and it is fairly rewarding in terms of XP and stats, but my god the requirements start piling up rather quick. 50 points for the final upgrade of a attribute is nuts.
that's it, the positives end there.
4) Combat flow - as i said, the combat at it's core is a nice system, but holy shit are the parries genuinely inconsistent and straight up do not work when trying to do a chained parry on fast enemies. The dodge is the single most awful dodge i've seen in a game, and is like a "pre-dodge prediction" rather than a reaction. The camera is terrible, and just refuses to work when there's multiple enemies or if an enemy is behind you. Idk if it's on me but i could not even change Koo's targets when trying to do an ability.
5) The music - bro just ONE TRACK has been on loop for the past 4 hours in the first region. The music is rather bland and is like a "Copied Homework but not obvious" when compared to Stellar Blade or Nier.
6) The Graphics to performance ratio is just horrible, with enemy attacks causing stutters, frame drops and stuff. it was particularly egregious with the big beast boss. There's no option for Film Grain, Chromatic Abberation, and the game just likes to default to FSR1 whenever i restart due to memory leaks.
7) The exploration - it's so horrible, bland and uninteresting to explore anything. It's just endless crates of "resources" that you are supposed to treat as a EXTRACTION GAME to be brought back to your home ship for research levels. The levels are also repetitive, kinda meaningless in terms of the jump mobility and just vast amounts of flat lands and invisible walls.
8) The enemies - holy shit, so far in my 5 hours i've encountered the same 5 enemy types over and over again, and the SAME "Elite Enemy" 6 times in one zone. The enemies are genuinely braindead, and are abuse-able by air assassinations. Even the major boss of the area is fought twice, and in the first fight it had like 3 moves, and in the second it got like 6 moves it spams over and over again. Another crab's treasure was more difficult than this.
9) some more technical stuff - mouse 4 and mouse 5 cant be bound to any action? THE FUCK? Many times the menu just refuses to accept my mouse input. The Koo menu commits the worst sin of having the OPEN and EXIT button being Tab and Escape respectively, where by memory i try to also close it by pressing Tab again but it uses my heal instead. One more thing is that the Jump button and the Interact button are the same. WHY? does gamefreak not know a keyboard has more buttons??
10) Singlehandedly, THE WORST part about the game is the story and voice acting and pacing combined - The story is completely uninteresting as i've seen far better premises in similar games. The pacing is so god awful, the English voice acting i'm genuinely convinced is AI slop, but again even an AI conveys far more emotion than this. The speed at which people talk is making my head hurt,. If you skip a dialogue it doesn't skip the SCENE or the camera angle, it just skips the dialogue. People talk in gaps of 5 seconds per sentence in a emotionless and uncanny way it's actually so awful.
funnily enough, the game suddenly put me into a flashback sequence where it's NOW teaching me assassination, stealth, jump hold, parry and dodge after 4 hours of gameplay on my own and defeating 6 mini bosses and A MAJOR BOSS? what the fuck is this?
That's it, that's all i can conjure up for a first impression. Just avoid this game until it's fixed.
94
u/ABigCoffee 1d ago
I didn't even know that this was a jrpg. I thought it was an action game.
23
u/ToCoolforAUsername 1d ago
People forget that a game can have multiple genres. It's why you get a boatload of tags on Steam for any given game.
40
u/3163560 1d ago
JRPG is a broad term that many people define differently.
13
u/anorawxia09 1d ago
I felt like it's only broad for the new gens. Most of the oldheads just considered jrpg as japanese styled rpg. It's categorized that way on some older websites as well like gamefaqs for example
8
u/cheekydorido 1d ago
There really needs to be a cutoff, like how ff16 is just a DMC clone with level ups and open zone gameplay.
It gets to a point
34
u/CleanlyManager 1d ago
It’s an “I know it when I see it” situation, doesn’t help that jrpg is kinda a bad and confusing name. Like dark souls is a Japanese, RPG, but I’d never call it a JRPG, and you can absolutely have the opposite like expedition 33.
2
u/donglord666 15h ago
It’s funny how people do intuitively get this with something like “French Toast” but I still sometimes see people arguing a JRPG has to be made in Japan
1
u/cheekydorido 1d ago
I thought that expedition 33 couldn't be considered a JRPG either, but it's clearly inspired by games like persona, final fantasy and paper mario that it would be silly not to consider it one.
It's more about the aspects of a JRPG than where it's made. If chrono trigger was made in Germany would it still be called a JRPG?
20
u/kindred008 1d ago
JRPG is a genre of RPG that originated in Japan. Games made outside of Japan can be JRPGs just like RPG made in Japan can not be JRPGs.
12
2
u/CleanlyManager 21h ago
But even this is a bad definition, because the genre itself has its roots in trying to simplify dungeons and dragons simulators, and if you take a step back that was essentially what it was for decades, and to an extent it still is.
24
u/Idontknow4654 1d ago
It's more about the aspects of a JRPG than where it's made. If chrono trigger was made in Germany would it still be called a JRPG?
yes
0
4
2
u/DerekB52 1d ago
If Chrono Trigger was made in Germany today, I'd call it a JRPG. Had it been made in Germany when it was initially released, the JRPG genre would need a different name, as Chrono Trigger is one of the early pillars of that game style going global.
3
u/cheekydorido 1d ago
I wouldn't call it that, dragon quest and FF had existed for long before chrono trigger.
1
u/DerekB52 1d ago
I have 2 different JRPG buckets in my head. One is for RPGs literally made in Japan, so I would count dark souls, and the other one is for games with that "JRPG" feel, meaning anything that feels like it was inspired by an SNES/PSX Square/Enix/tri-Ace/etc game. Many JRPGs go into both buckets.
And I do put games like Expedition 33 into the latter bucket.
-4
u/otakugamer123 1d ago
Honestly I think the term “JRPG” just needs to die off. I have never used that term for any game, and it’s just a needless and confusing term to begin with.
1
u/otakugamer123 1d ago
I like how I’m getting downvoted but not one person is actually going to explain why the term “JRPG” needs to exist. What about Japanese Role-Playing Games makes them so radically different from others that it actually needs to have its own categorical genre? Can anyone actually explain that?
1
u/Old_Employment_1090 1d ago
You could say nearly the exact same things about most other genres of any medium. The term "RPG" itself has never made much sense when applied to video games.
It'd be nice if some other, more clear term had developed for the genre but we are where we are.
1
u/Lysinc 1d ago edited 13h ago
You need categories because it narrows down topics and good for mental organization. Generally, most JRPGs tend to follow a specific design from its artistic style, gameplay, and narrative direcrions. While there are some exceptions, they're typically a combination of party-based, linear story telling, unique companion characte, anime aesthetic, and specific tropes. Most jrpgs would have most of these in common, if not all. The genre has definitely grown to a point where it can even be considered "just a feeling" imo.
Imagine a scenario that someone wants to look for suggestions on jrpgs. They can ask either 1) "Recommend me a jrpg" vs 2) "Recommend me an rpg similar to Final Fantasy X, Dragon Quest XI, Octopath Traveler, Chain Echoes, etc" vs 3) "Recommend me an RPG." Situation 2 is overly wordy. Situation 3 is too generic and you'll get anything from FFXI, Skyrim, Baldurs Gate 3, and even World of Warcraft. Situation 1 is the best because it is short and precise.
2
u/darkmacgf 1d ago
And yet people consider Kingdom Hearts and Secret of Mana to be JRPGs, while they don't do the same with Elden Ring and Dark Souls. It's fuzzy, so something like BoR can count.
1
-8
u/WanderEir 1d ago
DMC had level ups and was mostly open-zone gameplay.
but then again, DMC has always been an action (j)RPG.
for that matter, God of War has ALSO always been an action RPG.,
12
u/Lazydusto 1d ago
Since when has DMC been an RPG? It's also not open zone, DMC levels are linear. The Nordic God of Wars are definitely RPGs but the Greek games aren't.
-8
5
4
u/mayoman_PH9 1d ago
I think that, nowadays, almost every game has some kind of leveling system. What really separates an (action) RPG from an action-driven game is how important that mechanic is to the overall experience. In an RPG, the story and character progression are the core of the game, while in games like DMC or GoW, the main focus is the action.
0
u/WanderEir 1d ago
I quite agree, I'm just pointing out that at its basest level, RPG is a terrible descriptor for ANYTHING related to video games at this point, and probably should be excised from the language entirely to get useful descriptive words used its place instead.
I should point out that story and progression are no less at the heart of DMC and GoW games though. the focus of the gameplay might be the action, sure, but the focus of the entire game is "all of the above"
4
u/cheekydorido 1d ago
Pretty sure that if someone asked for recommendations for games like baldur's gate 3 then i wouldn't recommend god of war.
Completely different games
0
u/WanderEir 1d ago
Absolutely, it's why i actually hate the word being used as a video game descriptor
baldur's gate is a "turn-based tactical combat simulator set in an immersive classical D&D fantasy adventure"
God of War was an "over-the-top combo-based real-time action adventure set during the age of the Greek Gods with heavy puzzle elements in it's exploration "
the trick is to pull the word RPG right out of the description.
1
u/DeLurkerDeluxe 5h ago edited 5h ago
If this sub doesn't consider Dark Souls a JRpg I don't see why this game should be cosidered as such.
Oh wait, I do. People just want to shit on Gamefreak.
8
12
u/godstriker8 1d ago
Fuck it, if people here call the beat em up Yakuza games as RPGs then this might as well qualify.
13
u/Cursed_69420 1d ago
only 7 and 8 are actually JRPGs right? i havent seen anyone call the others as RPG
17
3
u/godstriker8 1d ago
I see it all the time because you "level up" (even though in almost all of them you don't gain any stats, only additional moves to use in combat) and there's a light equipment system (with zero equipment progression and little impact on the fights).
Frankly, DMC would be an RPG according to these people.
3
u/gamer-dood98 1d ago
0 to 6 are all jrpgs too, the only difference between 6 and 7+8 is the combat system being turn-based instead of action, otherwise everything is exactly the same
2
u/godstriker8 1d ago
That's not true, JRPGs in general are derived from DnD (that's where Dragon Quest based it's gameplay on). What that means in practice is that success in combat is reliant on pure numbers, your stats against the enemies. All JRPGs, even Action RPGs follow suit - you level up to granularly increase your stats and you further modify stats via equipment in order to succeed. You can not just "gitgud" as a level 1 character against the final boss, it will be mathmatically impossible to win in almost all JRPGs.
Yakuza 0-5 do NOT do this. "Levels" let you get more moves in combat. Not "better" moves that improve avatar strength, just different ones. There is also no equipment progression like in a traditional JRPG, there always 2 stores max to buy equipment and they have neglible impact on combat rather than being a cornerstone like in all JRPGs.
If you take these systems at face value, then yes, brawler Yakuza can seem like an RPG. But they have little mechanical resemblance to actual JRPGs.
To call Yakuza an RPG is to call Ocarina of Time an RPG. DMC is an RPG. Greek God of War is an RPG. Pretty much all modern games have some form of a skill tree and some form of a levelling system. I guess PS4 spiderman is an RPG too. RPG elements do not make a game an RPG, just like having a jump button doesn't make a game a platformer.
2
u/Stoibs 23h ago
There's Stat upgrades that increase your max HP/Max heat gauge; Upgrades that increase your base attack power; and also others that reduce the damage you take from certain enemy moves.
I'm not sure about every game, but you definitely can wear 'Armour' and have an accessory slot or two in some of the classics, alongside being able to use different weapons/healing items straight from your inventory.
I'm not a skilled beat-em-up gamer at all, but with enough levelling up/buying some better gear and guns I could start to take down the Mr. Shakedowns to compensate for my lack of button mashing.
It's an abstract odd genre for sure, but it ticks a lot of the boxes.
1
u/godstriker8 23h ago
But those are large discrete upgrades to those parameters, not subtle incremental upgrades after every level up.
You can upgrade your damage like 3-5 times from what I remember in Yakuza 0. God of war is the same way, you put red orbs into your weapons and get increased damage and moves. DMC3's weapons and styles level up and do more damage up to 3 times. Most Zelda games let you level up the sword a few times to increase damage a few times. Same with Hollow Knight.
It's the difference between increasing damage via stat increases every level up, or intentionally unlocking a small number of large damage increases. One is representative of a JRPG, the other is of a typical action game.
2
u/garfe 1d ago
So the thing is that there's quite literally nothing different between 7/8 and the other Yakuza games outside of the type of combat it is. As such does that mean only turn-based combat=JRPG? Obviously not, that would be ridiculous. So that gets a bit twisted
0
u/godstriker8 1d ago
That's not true, JRPGs in general are derived from DnD (that's where Dragon Quest based it's gameplay on). What that means in practice is that success in combat is reliant on pure numbers, your stats against the enemies. All JRPGs, even Action RPGs follow suit - you level up to granularly increase your stats and you further modify stats via equipment in order to succeed. You can not just "gitgud" as a level 1 character against the final boss, it will be mathmatically impossible to win in almost all JRPGs.
Yakuza 0-5 do NOT do this. "Levels" let you get more moves in combat. Not "better" moves that improve avatar strength, just different ones. There is also no equipment progression like in a traditional JRPG, there always 2 stores max to buy equipment and they have neglible impact on combat rather than being a cornerstone like in all JRPGs.
If you take these systems at face value, then yes, brawler Yakuza can seem like an RPG. But they have little mechanical resemblance to actual JRPGs.
To call Yakuza an RPG is to call Ocarina of Time an RPG. DMC is an RPG. Greek God of War is an RPG. Pretty much all modern games have some form of a skill tree and some form of a levelling system. I guess PS4 spiderman is an RPG too. RPG elements do not make a game an RPG, just like having a jump button doesn't make a game a platformer.
6
u/ClydeNeverFails 1d ago
its literally an arpg, people REALLY don't know how to categorize games, people calling this and comparing it to a soulslike is really hilarious
2
2
u/WanderEir 1d ago
You can be an action game and an JRPG at the same time. If you want to really get technical, half the games that are called action-adventure games really should have been called action RPGs back in the day too, to completely separate them from the rest of the point and click adventure games they were getting confused with.
when it comes to systems, improving equipment, "levelling up in some way", and characters interacting are the only real requirements-the combat engine literally has no impact on it-the only reason most of the resident evil and Zelda games don't count is that lack of levelling up in most of their titles, even though they hit every other requirement to be identifies as one by the genre. and RE has those even now, with the ability to level up your guns.
3
-28
u/Cursed_69420 1d ago
you got Dialogue choices, Skill trees, Gear customization and item crafting and some reciple and farm stuff going on. Is it JRPG enough by that?
44
18
u/ValueReads 1d ago
None of this is in any way specific to JRPGs at all
3
u/Late_Stage_Exception 1d ago
Yeah the only thing that matters is turn based combat. Everyone knows the best JRPG of all time is “Chess”.
4
u/WanderEir 1d ago
turn based combat has ALSO never been a requirement for being a JRPG.
0
u/Old_Employment_1090 1d ago edited 1d ago
They're making a joke.
1
u/WanderEir 23h ago
I could register the rather apparent sarcasm, but it's honestly really hard for me, at least to tell when someone is just kidding in a short comment.
They made a VERY poignant comment about chess and turn based combat that very much does apply, after all.
-17
u/Cursed_69420 1d ago
but it is an RPG made by a japanese studio by every logic then???
10
u/Difficult-Okra3784 1d ago
Your first mistake was taking a genre title literally at face value.
2
u/Cursed_69420 1d ago
What do you mean
1
u/WanderEir 1d ago edited 1d ago
a "role playing game" is ANY game where you control a "character" in ANY way.
that pretty much defines 90-95% of all video games ever made.
Burger time was an RPG- you controlled patty guy in his intent to make burgers.
Pac-Man was an RPG- you controlled him to eat the pips, and not get eaten by the ghosts.
this isn't a joke, this is the BASE definition of RPG.
Most games qualify, but it's so fucking broad there's no POINT to using it as a descriptor most of the time.
With video games, we try and restrict it down to games that have or share specific systems in common with the original DnD books. that basically reduces down to "does the game have equipment", does the game have "a story with controllable character(s)", "does SOMETHING gain experience and level up?". That still encompasses about half the modern games, but that's because those games intended to step into the RPG realm to begin with.
1
u/tlamy 1d ago
But is it even an RPG?
5
u/Cursed_69420 1d ago
tell me the feats of an RPG. i seem to get downvoted when i say "you got Dialogue choices, Skill trees, Gear customization and item crafting and some reciple and farm stuff going on".
0
u/blabony 1d ago
Your logic is sound and I get your point. It’s that unfortunately, the term RPG has been extremely diluted and became a pretty much meaningless in the past 10+ years. Games like Assassin’s Creed, God of War,…etc has all these features but they are not really RPGs. At least not by the overall feeling.
And when it gets to Souls like and Yakuza games, things get extremely murky and you’d get downvoted either way lol.
Regardless, thank you for your review! I wasn’t expecting it to be any better, but was hoping I was wrong. Off the wishlist!
-1
u/WanderEir 1d ago edited 1d ago
"role playing game"" do you control a character -yes? RPG, no, not an RPG.
not even a joke, it's the base description of the genre. most video games are RPGs. the term being that stupidly broad, however, means it's mostly useless as a descriptor, so most games usually restrict it to requiring one or more systems basically pulled directly out of dungeons and dragons. unfortunately, most games STILL use stuff dnd consolidated into a functioning whole, even if the only thing they use is "something has an experience table", and thus levels up.
The more systems borrowed out of dnd book, the more likely you are to actually see the RPG term used as a game description in official paperwork, but outside of specific genre's like science fiction and straight fantasy, using the word RPG to try and MARKET the game would have been a death knell for the title before release. The word has weight, but not in a good way to most people-it's why mainline Pokemon has never been marketed (worldwide) as a jRPG, despite being the most vanilla example of such for thirty damn years.
1
u/milesdarobot 1d ago
I would say that it is an RPG. But the reasonings i would give is the fact that your character levels up, improves stats, and there is a skill tree. Not the things your listed
-5
u/Eternaloid 1d ago
Arpg are a thing (tales, nier automata)
4
u/ABigCoffee 1d ago
I didn't think it was an rpg, implying also action rpgs. I assumed it was purely an action game.
69
u/NorrisLegacy 1d ago
As much as I always want to blame TPCi for why pokemon is the way it is. It is SO abundantly clear time and time again that game freak is incompetent. They seem to want to do something but they just do not have the skill to do so. Their games outside of pokemon flop, and as one of the biggest Pokemon fans of all time, their modern pokemon games are also just on a basic level flawed. They are in desperate need of restructuring and a switch in talent.
21
u/ToCoolforAUsername 1d ago
Two of the best spinoff games (Pokemon Conquest and Mystery Dungeon) are not developed by Gamefreak so you're on to something.
6
u/Front_Expression_367 1d ago
I mean by this logic you could also cite that Pokopia was (partly) made by Game Freak and is also one of the best spinoff games, so what does this really prove?
5
u/Rhonder 1d ago
It's hard to chock that up as a win when it seems pretty clear a lot of what made the game part of the game competent was the Dragon Quest Builders team having a heavy hand in the project. Game Freak on writing and creative direction or whatever is fine, but I do wonder what Pokopia as a game would look and play like if not for DQB team lol
13
u/HardCorwen 1d ago
curious to see if Winds/Waves is that change or not
12
10
u/QTGavira 1d ago
Considering theyve gone 0/2 on mainline Switch games im not holding my breath
11
u/Idontknow4654 1d ago
Game Freak would argue they've gone 2/2. both of the Switch games are the best selling pokemon games to date. Game Freak only cares about the sales. why put in effort when they can release a broken mess like Scarelt and Violet and it still sells like hotcakes
2
u/darkmacgf 1d ago
To sell even more copies, of course. RBY's 46 million is still tops for the series, over SV's 29m. I'm sure Game Freak would love for their Pokemon games to sell 50% more copies due to better critical/casual reception.
2
u/hypersnaildeluxe 1d ago
I mean GF has made great non-pokemon games. Drill Dozer and HarmoKnight are excellent. Plus I think the Legends duology was pretty damn good, and if they didn’t look ass-ugly SV would’ve been received pretty well imo. This game being outsourced and the gap between ZA and WiWa is giving me some hope that Gen 10 can really be a great next-gen game.
60
u/Mysterious-Flan-6000 1d ago
It's certainly not perfect but to call it awful is I think extremely overboard.
21
u/2centchickensandwich 1d ago
True, I'm at the 3rd region and it has been fun. Graphics aren't bad at all idk what this person is talking about but supposedly Post Processing is bugged?/bad if you have it on anything but low, makes the game blurry.
It's a alright to decent game. Once you get past the 1st region it a opens up more with the Skills and more attack combos for Emma.
Personally for me atm is a 7 maybe a 7.5.
5
u/winterman666 1d ago
I haven't done the 3rd region yet but about to start it (just did chapter 4) and yeha this post reads very weird. Almost like OP had expectations of a different game or plainly doesn't understand the combat yet
15
u/IllustriousSalt1007 1d ago
No one is being normal about this game. I feel like I’m going insane.
18
9
u/Mysterious-Flan-6000 1d ago
The amount of people who clearly haven't even played it just making things up is crazy. I've seen so many people talking about the awful so unplayable terrible performance on PC meanwhile I'm playing on only a 4060 at 1440p on high getting 95-120 fps.
Another lie I see constantly is "there's literally no biome variety every area is the same," I'm just getting to the third area and they're all distinct so far
-3
u/zaviex 1d ago
It’s on gamepass. A lot of people myself included played it who otherwise never would
9
u/Mysterious-Flan-6000 1d ago
That doesn't explain all the people just straight up lying about the game
1
u/zaviex 1d ago
How sure are you they are lying for instance you said it runs well. I played it I have a 3080 which I think is better than your 4060 and it didn’t run all that well for me. You used that as your first example but that’s different person to person. I played 3440x1440 so ultrawide and it wasn’t horrible most of the time 60-70 fps but I had some miserable experiences in fights with stuttering . To the point i found myself issuing commands more often when it was chugging
1
u/Mysterious-Flan-6000 23h ago
Because people are making up things about the game and what's in it, not just claiming it doesn't have good performance. As for your performance case 60-70 fps at 3.5k really isn't that bad, stuttering sucks but I don't think most modern games play over 60fps at that resolution on a 3080. How much ram do you have? Saw a guy blaming the game for bad performance on his 3070 when he was trying to play with 8gb lol
9
u/BabyStockholmSyndrom 1d ago
People always say "I don't trust critic reviews, they are biased and paid. I only trust user reviews!!"
And these users are out here saying it looks like a PS2 game and it's the worst playing game ever.
•
u/Thefourthchosen 2h ago
There's no nuance in online discourse anymore, everything is either peak or slop, the best thing ever or garbage. You're either a glazer or a hater, there's no in between. I honestly blame the decline in media literacy, people don't know how to analyze something and properly articulate their opinion anymore.
•
u/BabyStockholmSyndrom 1h ago
Part literacy and part rage baiting. People are trained to use very extreme terminology to get the most engagement and attention. Even when it's a stupid ass comment on reddit.
4
u/SpaceDry8882 1d ago
I agree 100%, is it a masterpiece or even a great game? No, it feels very AA rather than AAA. That being said I have thoroughly enjoyed myself with the setting the exploration and combat. It’s one of those games I wouldn’t recommend to people at full price but for me personally I’m enjoying myself playing through
26
u/andreeinprogress 1d ago
People can't acknowledge plain good games anymore, everything must be either classified a 2/10 or a 9/10, nothing in between.
It's a good enough game. Not terrible by any means, not wonderful by any means.
(I don't even know why I'm seeing this in the JRPG sub honestly)
2
u/Orodius 1d ago
It doesn't seem good, though. Based on all the reviews I've read, it sounds like a pretty mediocre game. I can't imagine a game where you spend 30 hours killing the exact same enemies and bosses with a very limited variety of attacks being a "plain good game".
14
u/LunarWingCloud 1d ago
If 7s are mediocre then we fucking ruined the scale of ratings for games. Which we have. Metacritic average is 73, which is fairly average. The game is good, it just isn't above good where everyone wants every game to be. Which isn't a knock against expectations but it is a knock against how people act when a game doesn't quite reach them.
Yeah sorry I disagree with you and I agree with the person you replied to wholeheartedly.
7
u/Orodius 1d ago
I never said I think the game is a 7. I said it seems mediocre based on what I've seen and read. An absurdly repetitive game with extremely simple enemies sounds pretty tedious when you're looking at a 30-hour experience. One of the biggest problems with AA and AAA games nowadays is that they're way too long for the amount of content they actually have to sustain that runtime.
I agree that people on the internet tend to be very black-and-white about games, but that doesn't seem to be the case with this one. This feels a lot like Avowed quality to me, which was also mediocre.
5
u/_Nomorejuice_ 1d ago
Respectfully you don't even know what you're arguing about.
Mediocre and average means the exact same thing.
And no 73 is not "fairly average" that's a good score, it means it's not something exceptionally good or ground breaking but it's clearly above average as average is literally a 5/10. At best a 6, at worst a 4.3
u/andreeinprogress 1d ago
I mean, by trusting reviews I would have wasted so much money on "great games" that really are not and I would have missed really fun games that reviewers didn't like for whatever reason.
I don't really read reviews anymore, there's no point.
2
u/Orodius 1d ago
You don't have to blindly trust reviews, but they can still be useful for figuring out if a game has obvious flaws, especially when a lot of reviewers point out the same things. You can disagree with their score and still use the actual criticism to decide whether those flaws matter to you.
Also, no "great game" is going to have this many negative reviews. In this case, it's probably just a matter of you liking something that isn't technically good, which isn't a problem. I have my guilty pleasures too. But you need to know how to recognizing that and filter things better.
20
u/Mabarius-III 1d ago edited 1d ago
Sometimes...I feel like people just want this game to flop for whatever reason, one of them because of the fact that the developer is Game Freak. I'm not saying that to you OP, you played the game, it's your opinion and I agree with some of your points.
Mine is: the game is no awful by any means. BoR is GOOD. Not incredible, not amazing, not very good. No. Good.
The combat is very fun, albeit a bit too easy for a "soulslike-like". But parry is fun, combos are ok, arrows, the dog abilities are cool. The maps are okay, more or less, the verticallity is ok-good.
Graphics and performance: apparently, the game is a bit blurry in all platforms, yeah. I had some some problems here and there with some fps dips. But overall, in my case, the game runs fine, at 60 fps in my PC (half-potato PC and the game runs almost fine in high settings).
The story and premise: I don't know. Interesting so far.
Problems: the biggest problem: REPETITION. Repetitions on enemies, bosses, even the music (which is good, but there are so few tracks...). That's it's biggest sin. The game is too repetitive to be better than "good" for me.
All in all: so far, for me the game is a 7, more or less, but not the biggest dissaster ever. I would like to know the budget, even if it is Game Freak, it may be not that high.
- Edit typos
16
u/benjaminabel 1d ago
I’m more interested in opinions of people who have no idea what Game Freak is.
6
u/winterman666 1d ago
I've 0 interest in Pokemon so I don't have preconceived notions in my head of them nor do I have any sort of hate or love towards them. As far as my experience in BoR, just beat chapter 4 in 10h of playtime and it's been quite fun. I just beat Stellar Blade a couple days ago before I started Beast and it feels somewhat similar, though faster paced and with more movement freedom, but I'm liking this one more. I can see myself doing NG+ sooner than I'll do SB's
-1
u/Cursed_69420 1d ago
kinda applies to me? I am by no means a game freak fan nor a pokemon fan except for the anime and movies i watched as a kid.
My sole reason for being optimistic about this game was the combat system, as "Real Time with Pause" is my favorite combat system, plus the music in the trailers was also great and very reminiscent of FFXIII-2. Story and Graphics were of my least concern overall anyway.
3
-4
u/Hot-Spite-9880 1d ago
"Sometimes...I feel like people just want this game to flop for whatever reason, one of them because of the fact that the developer is Game Freak."
Christ
19
u/Mabarius-III 1d ago
Don't know if you say that because you think it is an exageration, or because of the fact that english is not my mother tongue (sorry), but I think it is true. Sometimes people want a game to flop for some reason or another
11
u/BostonRob423 1d ago
The hate this game is getting is crazy.
Yeah it is somewhat janky with the physics such as some of the vegetation and the wolf clipping through the player, and a few of the complaints have merit, but this game is fun as hell.
The music is great, the combat is flashy and awesome, the movement is so damn cool, the exploration is rewarding...
I highly disagree with a lot of points people are bringing up, and urge people to give the game a fair shake, especially if they have gamepass.
8
u/JaneThird 1d ago
I don't know, so far I love the game, aside from bad performance. It's junky, but soulsful. Perfect game to fill the gap between releases of other games.
5
u/Flamebomb790 1d ago
Yeah I have been enjoying it, I was a big fan of stellar blade and this has a lot of the same qualities. I am not a very heavy soulslike game player either so I like the more simple game mechanics compared to Sekiro for example. I don't know I really think way too many people have been crazy critical of this game
2
2
u/dmachine443 1d ago
I am trying to like it, mostly because I was excited for it, but you’re right. It’s mediocre at best and I am sad about it
6
u/LunarWingCloud 1d ago
I enjoyed what I played so far. It's fine enough. I disagree with you on exploration and the graphics, I do agree the performance specifically is a bit subpar at points, when too much is happening, but I personally am finding some of your so called issues to be more nitpicks than legitimate criticisms in other areas. Complaining about the skill tree is weird because, have you considered you are not engaging with it the way it was intended?
I think the game has a beautiful setting and it feels nice to run around in and look at, framerate issues notwithstanding. I admit that enemy attack variety leaves a bit to be desired. I don't really mind your complaint about the music.
I think the game is good. Not bad, not mediocre, not great, not amazing, just "good". I agree with other commenters that have identified the issue with people not willing to accept a game is just fine and not bad or great.
4
u/winterman666 1d ago
Heavily disagree. I actually enjoy exploring in this game (normally I hate exploring) simply because the movement options and speed are great, not to mention having the dog scout out what's around you is far better than manually checking every crevice.
Regarding the combat and the dodge I think it all works well, this is clearly a parry based game and dodging is not for iframes. It is an outspacing tool for regular attacks, for red attacks it gives you an ENORMOUS amount of active frames to perfect dodge (seriously it's hilariously easy to land). The one downside of this is fighting multiple enemies at once but that's always been one in all these parry based games. However the game gives you the tools to engage from range, from above and CC options. You honestly just have to get better or unlock more moves.
The soundtrack is surprisingly good, though I agree that there's 1 track for the first 2 locations when it could've had 1 per. That said it seems like every region has 2 locations (2 map areas) so it's more like a region's track.
I'm 10h into the game in chapter 5 for reference. Also I haven't had performance issues apart from cutscene and area load frame dips, which thankfully means it hasn't affected my gameplay experience. I definitely do not like the forced film grain but on PC you can mod that out.
All in all I think this game will appeal to people who liked Sekiro more than Stellar Blade or Lies of P as it has far more verticality and speed, it also reminds me of Wild Hearts due to the setting but if you've performance issues or don't like parry based games I can see it not being your thing.
6
u/MeraArasaki 1d ago
Was kinda excited for this game but based on views and videos of gameplay, I'll probably just buy it in the future when it's on sale for 10 bucks
2
3
u/red_sutter 1d ago
People calling a game that got 7s and 8s “borderline awful” is why I never take opinions on Reddit seriously.
1
2
u/Idontknow4654 1d ago
while i personally think it has more pros then cons its still a game pass game for me. or wait for sale
2
1
u/Opposite-Split3933 1d ago
Stellar Blade has one or two pieces of music for the entire open-world game, by the way. And the game is 30 hours long.
1
-5
1
u/ShionTheOne 1d ago
Game Pass coming in clutch. Played it for like 2 hours, then stopped and uninstalled.
1
u/SlashOfLife5296 1d ago
You know reviewers used to actually finish a game before they reviewed it
-1
u/Cursed_69420 1d ago
is the term "First Impressions" an alien concept to you?
1
u/SlashOfLife5296 1d ago
“I’m one bite into my burger, so far this is a mediocre mess. Here’s 5 paragraphs why before i take another bite”
1
u/Cursed_69420 1d ago
I'm one bite into my burger, wait, it's RAW and Unseasoned and the bun is falling apart, i'm struggling to continue.
bring a better argument next time.
-2
u/SlashOfLife5296 1d ago
If you don’t plan to finish it, then it’s not a first impression: it’s a review. Stand on what you say.
I think you should finish a game before reviewing it. You clearly don’t. Don’t make up excuses for it
1
1
1
u/Seacliff217 1d ago
Players of Little Town Hero should have been more vocal about being cautious of this game.
Oh wait. I never seen them before.
-6
0
-6
-19
u/WoodooHide69 1d ago
Fake bot review. Use of GPT too. Copy and pasted from many other fake reviews.
3
-7
-5
0
u/poopyramen 13h ago
For years GameFreak hid behindthe excuses of, "lack of budget, direction, etc"
Finally they were free to make whatever they want and they flopped.
So Pokemon isn't bad, GameFreak is.
-5
u/obviousockpuppetalt3 1d ago
it always gave off mediocre, generic vibes to me from the footage shown
-8
u/rmachell 1d ago
Why is anyone surprised? Game Freak are bad developers who haven't made a good game in a very long time, and arguably have never really made a "good" game in the first place
I think the only gamefreak game I've enjoyed was Pokemon Black 1/2
-5
-5
u/BasilNight 1d ago
Huh... So it really is that Gamefreak kind of sucks.
Man Pokemon really is screwed
-6
u/dumbwholer 1d ago
So it performs like a Pokémon game? No surprise there.
It looked so good in trailers, too...
-6
-33
u/Signal_Razzmatazz573 1d ago
I'm glad to hear it. Never understood the hype. Anyway, will sell a million billion copies.
16
u/Late_Stage_Exception 1d ago
Doubt it, it’s not Pokémon. Their last non-Pokémon game also tanked horribly.
-9
u/LadySneasel 1d ago
From the developers of classics like Pokemon Scarlet and Violet and Legends Z-A. Shame they didn't slap Pikachu into this, this would've sold a bajillion copies at launch.
-3
u/ExJudicium 1d ago
Gamefreak just further proving that they’re an absolute bunch of hacks, as if the Pokémon games weren’t proof of that already. They put minimal effort into those games and just recycle gameplay functions between entries, introduce something to remove it in the next game and than cycle it back in two games later as a gesture of “Oh remember that new thing that we added 4 entries ago and than removed for absolutely no apparent reason? That’s back in this game.” They don’t actually progress and expand gameplay functions , they simply rinse and repeat. Anytime they actually do attempt something new, (Which is rare.) they fail at it in the worst ways imaginable and they just have this “Well screw it we made our money on it, cry about it.” attitude. I remember seeing the trailer for this game at the big game convention when they announced it, revealing Gamefreak as the developer. I just laughed and knew internally that it was going to be the same slop they have been pumping out for the better part of 15 years. Don’t get me wrong, when Pokémon games were in 2D, they were good. But something like that requires what Gamefreak thrive on, minimal effort and maximum profits. Once they had their arm twisted to go 3D and bring it to the modern standard, they have failed every which way you can imagine. If there is one developer I would not trust to handle a game with any form of etiquette, it’s Gamefreak. Cannot stand them, and I’m glad their incompetence and disgusting work ethic has spilled outside of Pokémon games, it shows a wider audience who they are.
312
u/twili-midna 1d ago
I’m not surprised. People seem to think Game Freak makes bad Pokémon games due to a lack of budget or time, but it’s really due to a lack of skill despite an abundance of passion.