Recent reviews by Toadoda

World is interesting, game looks good. Gameplay wise, it feels like if DOOM 2016 was sped up and expanded upon. Instead of glory kills, there's core ripping which feels more snappy and useful with how cores can be used to do more other than just restoring health. Movement feels fluid, and with the upgrades the game provides, you can quickly start zooming around the arena like a crack fiend. Performance wise, I ran into a few hiccups with the game stuttering on me, and mouse acceleration being REALLY out of wack. The game has a lot of potential, and I am really excited to see the full release.

The game is absolutely amazing as a Bleach game, easily the best we've ever had so far. That being said...

On PC, the game performs rather poorly, even on high end machines. As of release, I've had a few crashes, and few UI bugs. I also have a few complaints about general game design decisions. Lobbies need to be able to have more than 2 players, the games tank movement is odd (but you get used to it), and Kikon moves are REALLY cool when you first see them, but I wish we got shortened versions of them after the first time you see one; as they can really drag out the match and start feeling repetitive.

Other than that? The gameplay is deceptively simple as there is a lot of depth, and a lot of ways to express your skills with the characters you play, and how you play them (I main Bankai Ichigo, Haribel, and Gin). Sound design is top notch, the soundtrack is incredible with a surprising amount of vocal tracks backing combat (though, some tracks are a little generic. Chad and Base Ichigo's themes come to mind), the game visually is gorgeous, voice acting is good, and the story is a respectable retelling of Bleach's story in a more abridged version. The cutscenes at times can feel a little off with characters awkwardly turning to face eachother, and some animations looking awkward, and a fair amount of cutscenes are very basic.

I do HIGHLY recommend the game in spite of the performance issues on PC, as Tamsoft has acknowledged them as of the writing of this review, and are already working on fixing the problems.

somewhere beyond the citadel... they're waiting

Everyone has thrown their hats in the ring regarding Dawntrail, and I will too. I will largely try to keep things spoiler free, but still be warned.

I normally just post very short joke-reviews, but I want to give my thoughts based on this expansion. My overall experience was good, but I'd be lying if there wasn't any sour spots. Raids, extremes, dungeons, jobs, gear, everything is absolutely fantastic... except for the MSQ this go around. Really, that is my only negative experience with the expansion, and that's usually the big draw of every new expansion.

While some may think the more ARR style storytelling is a refreshing turn to form, I don't think it was intentional. I, myself, find the slower pacing a step back from how the games story pacing has evolved over the years. Hot take, but I think Stormblood and Endwalker have exceedingly better pacing, despite the missteps those expansions make. The actual story itself doesn't really have much to go off in terms of building and expanding things past its main MSQ with how self-contained the story is, which is evident with Crossroads, the MSQ update that came out post-7.0. While it gives me a little more hope, as far as the ideas it brings up, I still can't deny that it largely reiterates things we already know, and gives development to characters that DESPERATELY needed it during main MSQ.

Main MSQ focuses heavily on Wuk Lamat. I thought she was endearing when she was first introduced, but the longer and longer the story went on, the more I got fed up with her. She could've been the best character ever put to fiction, and I would still find her super annoying due to how much screen time we get with her and how she just won't leave you alone. On top of that, she is the literal definition of a Mary Sue, a character who can do no wrong, is never wrong, the bestest most perfect character, and robs everyone around her of their agency. Seriously, try and count the number of genuine mistakes Wuk Lamat makes, count how many times she's praised, and count how many times where she steals the spotlight from someone else who should've had their turn with the talking stick. Hell, here's another game. Count how many times she doubles back on her own ideals when it personally suits her.

Seriously, her first act as Dawn Servant is to abandon the capital and pursue a revenge quest, and when seeing a rival character, her first instinct is to jump to violence despite the rules of the contest prohibiting it, yet when dozens of lives are at stake in the very next scene, she chooses diplomacy and wastes valuable time trying to avert a crisis, or tells the WoL to stand back while she handles a hostage situation by herself for an incredibly shallow reason to make her appear as if she's strong willed/developing as a character. Keep in mind, that is all from a character who preaches about being peaceful, and those are just two examples I can list off the top of my head.

It comes across less like she has genuine flaws, and more like her character was written very inconsistently. And I know these aren't character flaws, because they're portrayed as her being cool, and never are they brought up in universe as something she needs to work on. On top of that, if you thought Stormblood was dense with Lyse content, Wuk Lamat makes that look like a joke. She is a nothing-burger character who harms the main cast, especially with Krile.

Post-story stuff is okay, as I said. It's a little filler, except for the end. They reign in Wuk Lamat a bit, but I still wish she wasn't stuck up my ass constantly, and the story stuff regarding Koana was nice. The most meme'd on scene with Wuk Lamat was redubbed, but I need to be honest. Every character in the cast was good, except for the Scion's and Wuk Lamat. Most of the scions have very wooden performances, and Y'shtola's voice quality sounds noticeably lower quality than the rest of the cast, and Wuk Lamat's performance is genuinely one of the most laughably bad performances that wasn't intentionally trying to be bad. Seriously, nothing against the voice actress, but she's still a white woman putting on a very terrible sounding Brazilian accent, while every other character around her has more authentic sounding accents. It gives me mental whiplash hearing how cool Gulool Ja Ja sounds, only to hear Wuk Lamat speak and be instantly be yanked out of the experience.

The story also goes on about 60% of the story without a proper main antagonist, and the expansion has three, all of which lack proper development, and only one of these three characters comes close, and their boss fight at the end is cool... until Wuk Lamat interrupts it, and will (last time I tested), LB3 and kill the boss instantly if you take too long to beat them. It feels less like a cool earned moment, and more like me as a player is getting robbed of any sort of accomplishment in the story-- oh yeah, that's another issue with Wuk Lamat. She basically sits back while you, the player, does all of the work, and she takes credit for it.

These are just my big issues with the story, there are still tons of problems I have regarding individual scenes, but didn't touch on for the sake of keeping the spoilers relatively light. Like one of the contest participants turning face and the other turns heel, both for very stupid reasons/reasons that needed further buildup that doesn't happen in the span of one to two cutscenes, the filler that is fixing up a railway station, this tonally horrid scene where a character dies, and in the next scene Wuk Lamat gives a speech that cheers the people up instantly and plays this corny sounding Disney movie sounding track, the fact that G'raha never gets to eat his taco (Give the cat his taco already, man.), the fact that Krile's big character arc is resolved in one cutscene and sees no real buildup over the course of the story, and how the story poses an interesting moral dilemma, and gives one of the worst possible answers/solutions to it with mass genocide.

Overall, the expansion is just good. The MSQ is a complete cluster ♥♥♥♥ with a confused direction, like the writers didn't know what to do as far as making a new story was concerned, and wanted to make something more personal without knowing what to make a personal story about. It has no direction, most of its new cast is shallow, how it treats the old cast is upsetting at worst, and dismal at best. It's story has interesting ideas, but fumbles every single one to service a character who is forced down our throats.

tl:dr, MSQ is very poorly written, paced, and inconsistently voiced, while everything else that has nothing to do with MSQ regarding gameplay is the best I've ever seen. Seriously, the combat encounters are genuinely impressive.

a game to end all gooning

i played 2B and ruined all of my friendships

When my ship still answered to the Pfhor, they called it Sfiera after their goddess of lighting and passion. When you helped us take control on Tau Ceti, the S'pht rechristened it Narhl'Lar, "Freedom and Vengeance."

I call it Boomer.

striker coochie got me actin' up

this shotgun makes my ♥♥♥♥ hard enough to cut glass

i like my demon girls like i like my candy. sour