Recent reviews by Ashes

Amazing game with meaningful choices and intricately crafted characters. Really puts to shame all the Telltale and Life is Strange games in comparison, with both writing, characters, story and most importantly, choices. This is one of the few games where I've felt that my choices actually mattered, neither Telltale nor Don't Nod have accomplished this level of storytelling nor freedom.

The game is both cinematic and well written, giving you an experience which I feel like, as mentioned before, is unmatched in any of the other so called "choices matter" games. It dances around social, interpersonal and political themes without feeling preachy or going into woke territory.

I can only imagine how much dev time had to go into making all the different paths and choices that you are presented with as a player, it really feels like there is a ton of things you can influence, much more than a side character surviving or dying or an alternative dialogue tree.

Graphically I would say it still holds up very well while running perfectly for 99% of it, the few hiccups that I encountered were in one specific scene, but thankfully nowhere else in the game. In terms of bugs I only found one bug which prevented me from doing an action displayed on screen, but I managed to find a workaround using a keyboard and mouse easily and after restarting a couple of times, it allowed me to do it with controller as well.

My only criticisms are that the ending felt a little bit too short. The game could've really used an epilogue. I reached what I think is one of the good endings, but I felt like it was a bit too sudden. The other thing is that sometimes the game won't really let you walk around a specific obstacle, or walk through a path that you'd think would be able to take, but aside from some awkward movement, walking around most of the time it isn't a problem.

I sincerely recommend this even for people who don't generally play games, it's easy to pick up, doesn't include complicated mechanics and tells one of the best stories I've seen in a game. It felt like a 13-14 hour movie where I was the one telling the characters what to do and influencing all the important decisions.

If you decide to buy this, I must warn you that it's not centered around gameplay, puzzles are usually easy to solve, chapters consist mostly of finding and analyzing things and action scenes are solely quick time events. So if you're looking for a mechanically challenging or complex game, you won't find it here. Either way I found my first playthrough to be a joy and couldn't wait to see what happens in the story and what choices I'm going to be faced with next.

The acting is superb and all three main characters really resonated with me, music is fantastic and the story is like a genuinely well produced Hollywood film. The face capture and animations are miles ahead of what was present in Heavy Rain, the studio's first attempt at a game like this. I felt very immersed for the entirety of my playthrough.

The last thing I want to say is that I came into this game with no expectation and I hoped to like it at least as much as Heavy Rain and I came out loving it a lot more. Definitely play it for yourself and don't watch playthroughs or spoil it for yourself, just try to stick with your choices and see where it takes you. It was a fantastic experience I couldn't wait to get back into every time I had to step away.

This is a huge DLC that adds a lot to the base game, actually worth being called an expansion. It's big, beautiful, dense with content and layered. There is one big downside and that's why you see a lot of negative reviews, now first of all I finished it, I wouldn't say it was unfair by any means, but there is one frustrating and annoying mechanic - power levels.

Let me explain, in the DLC there are these little fragments scattered across the entire map, found in all kinds of different locations. They are called scadu tree fragments. Gathering them allows you to increase your "Power Level". Which in turn increases your defenses and damage. This is why so many people say they that bosses/enemies are tanky or that they kill them in one hit. If you gather enough that's usually not the case. In fact I found the bosses of this DLC to be amazing.

Either way, it's unfortunate that this mechanic made it into the DLC, but nevertheless, the DLC it's still a great addition to the game, but what would have been a 10/10 is more like an 8/10 simply because of this. The same also applies to your spirit ashes, they are also upgraded in a similar way with another item you find scattered across the map.

Anyway, I still enjoyed a lot and think it's probably the best DLC that From Soft has made for a game, just kinda don't dig the whole power level thing.

Beautiful, lore rich world. Tons upon tons of content, some of the best gameplay I have ever experienced. Fantastic selection of weapons, spells, armors and so on. Just as skill-based as any previous From Soft game.

I sincerely recommend picking this up because it's an unforgettable gaming experience filled to brim with things to fight, find and conquer. And best of all, it has multiplayer, so you and your friends can choose to fight or cooperate with each other.

I have to warn you, it's a huge and often confusing game, with too much happening to keep track of, but that's how it's supposed to be, be prepared to be overwhelmed, be prepared to die a lot, things will take a while to learn and master. Another thing worth mentioning is that the game is stunning, while not having the best pure graphical fidelity, the artstyle is phenomenal and often will leave you breathless with it's varied and beautiful scenery.

Of the few games I think are actually worth the full price too, I recommend getting it with DLC because that too is really good and honestly you save quite a bit if you buy them bundled.

10/10 It's not perfect, but it's damn close.

Great gameplay, an immersive open world, mechanical depth and an awesome story. Puts other open world games to shame.

Really good game held back by greed. You're essentially paying 40 euros/dollars to have a free-to-play economy with constant warbonds (Battle passes) being dropped for 10 bucks each, but the kicker is that they include guns and armor among virtually every other gameplay changing thing in the game. I do have to mention that they don't expire, so you're free to progress them at your own pace and you could always choose to buy older ones.

Now we also have a FOMO shop which sells guns among other things which aren't in the warbonds you already paid for and are ridiculously priced. Each warbond costs 10 bucks and you have to essentially buy 4 to get 1 free from the credits you gain back from the bond itself. This would have been easier to swallow if there were enough credits in each to buy the next one. Anyway enjoy having your progression locked behind a paywall.

Also there is a way of earning credits in-game to buy them in the form of doing side objectives which drop between 10 to 100 super credits the latter being extremely rare. If you check some sites or do the math yourself that comes out to a measly 400 credits per 8ish hours of playtime IF you're strictly farming them. Which is insanely grindy, one way or another most people will end up paying extra to unlock guns, armors, beacons, granade types etc.,

Now the game itself is really fun and brutally difficult, it has a lot of positive going for it. One of the positives is that the devs are funneling out updates all the time. Do those updates add enough content to justify the in-game premium economy, I don't think so, but they're doing enough to keep it fresh.

My personal suggestion to fix this is to make old warbonds free when new ones come out, that would be fair while also still making the devs money. Or every two new warbonds one becomes free. The in-game shop needs to be completely removed or offer the same items you can find in warbonds. Another option is to significantly buff the supercredit drops in-game. From the regular 10 to 100 to shorten the tedious and quite unfun grind. Either way with the current economy, you're basically paying for what should be a free-to-play game. I will not be recommending this for the time being until they do something about it.

Good game, but held back by frustrating mechanics.

I'll list what I find to be incredibly unnecessary:
- 20 minute cooldown for boss powers
- Incredibly spongey bosses which take forever to kill, not to mention they kill you in 2/3 hits
- General slowing down of gameplay due to time to smelt/brew/grow things
- Extremely aggressive mobs which constantly interrupt you and never stop chasing you (seriously Iron Gate, tone it down)
- Too many hostile mob spawns, it seems like every 2 seconds while you're doing something a mob just has to spawn
- Overall clunky combat and for some reason you have to press two buttons to dodge
- Boats are clunky
- Performance could be more consistent although it's by no means bad

The good:
- Base building is really engaging and fun with plenty of panels/materials to choose from
- Biomes are diverse and interesting, always unlocking new recipes for crafting or building
- Having bosses for each biome gives the game overall structure and purpose beyond just surviving, you make actual progress
- Plenty of armors, weapons, tools and interesting things to craft including brewing potions
- Portals are an amazing addition once you're able to craft them
- Farming and fishing although crops take waaay too long to grow

Overall I recommend the game, but it would seriously benefit if they tweaked some stuff and made some things take way less time than they do

Car Pass does not include all cars for whatever reason.

Bought this game, played for 30 minutes (with friends, of course) and I sincerely fail to see all the hype generated. The gameplay consists of going through dark corridors, collecting scrap and going back to the ship, you got some tools you can purchase and a monster chasing you.

Maybe it's just me, but I found the experience bare-bones and lacking in gameplay, it's really not as fun as the reviews make it out to be. It maybe just isn't my cup of tea, but there are much better games to play with friends out there in my opinion.

Game of the year 2023

This is how you make a game and treat consumers right. Bless Bay 12 and Kitfox Games, sincerely hope you guys get filthy rich.