Recent reviews by Dihy

I finally finished this game in 2024. It took me forever.

Story: 5/5, it is very good and intriguing even though many people disliked the latter half of the plot. It would be a spoiler to say why, however it is from this type of plot that the rest of the games were produced (and kinda mimicked tbh).

Gameplay: 3/5, the early game was very diverse, where you use a mix of physical and magical attacks. The last 20% of the game I used the same attacks the entire time without switching it up. Items were kinda useless, and there are a lot of useless items that you can pick up.

Music: 5/5, even in 2024 it still sounds great, the workshop also has mods to use upgraded remixes of the old OST.

Graphics: 5/5, it is still quite varied, and looks great even in 2024. I've played games with less diverse sprites.

Overall: 18/20. Lives up to the hype, though gameplay gets stale.

Other notes: There's a fan translation which works with the 98 version (activatable at the launcher).

One other note, this game is like 80% maze navigation, I recommend getting a walkthrough/map if you get stuck beyond 15 minutes because there's a lot of dead ends and backtracking.

I've not tried the remake.

Tried hard to enjoy this game, I'm on a 5900x with a RTX 3090 and the game stutters during the reactor scenes. It's very unoptimized and the controls are rather janky.

AI for your teammates is terrible (as is enemy AI), however you and your teammates are squishier than the enemy.

Tried multiple times to get into this, the controls are very clunky and not responsive. Dialogue is unskippable, the game feels artificially long.

Alright.

I finally finished this game.

Don't recommend it.

It's extremely grindy, there's a lot of RNG, I used the disable random encounter option a lot because it was a slog going through the mazes.

The story is pretty decent for a FF but you have to play through extra content to get to the "true ending"; the extra content is extremely grindy.

Protip: get Gravity from Nightmare or Death Eyes. They will save a lot of time on boss fights since they take 25% HP off each time.

I didn't really bother with any specific build, Gravity did most of the work, then I just chose whatever highest attack spell I had.

This game has a lot of comedy written in, it's not as serious though towards the end the plot takes a serious tone. The chibi art style also detours from the traditional FF art style.

Overall, I give it a 3/5. It takes as much time to beat as FF8 and 9, but doesn't have as good a payoff.

Alright.

Like an idiot I pre-ordered this because I'm an idiot who played Syberia 1 and 2, and thought they would be able to re-create some of the magic.

Syberia 3 was terrible and ended on a cliffhanger that The World Before was supposed to continue.

This game has 10/10 music, and probably 10/10 graphics, however... the writing and gameplay are all over the place. The automaton based gameplay/puzzles in S1/2 is minimalized in TWB. The game ultimately becomes a lengthy cinematic viewer/walking simulator, which isn't a bad thing, however this game's story isn't strong enough to get the viewer to want to deal with it.

The camera is also extremely problematic, they seem to have used some janky camera and tank controls in configuration so entering rooms often places you at random sides of the view port, which makes certain hot spots unreachable... which means you can't complete the "bonus investigation".

None of the puzzles are particularly hard, this game is actually kind of puzzle-light, majority of the game is in dialogue and walking to locations.

I hope Benoit Sokal had the last laugh, Syberia 3 and TWB are both not very good games that I'm sure got him a bag.

Music/Sound: 10/10
Graphics: 9/10
Gameplay: 1/10 (it's that bad).
Plot: 3/10

Total: 5/10.

I don't recommend this game even if it was on sale, it's barely connected to the prequels, kind of blows its automaton load in the first 15 minutes, and drags on with its plot for the next 5 hours.

The demo is kind of a bamboozle, I loved the demo, the majority of the game is absolutely not like the demo.

Alright I've tried to beat this multiple times (general playthrough) and I gave up this final time.

It's still pretty buggy, I had to revert to a checkpoint multiple times because the "exit out of menu" button randomly disappears so you can't leave the vendor.

The game is basically basketball with magic, and it's very awkward to control. You can only control/move one character at a time so passing leads you to toss the ball backwards. The only strat is to grab the ball with a fast hero and run straight into the fire, which is pretty silly.

Likely Supergiant's worst game.

I have 100% completions in 1 and 2, 3 was too much of a chore to get everything.

There's a bit too much RNG involved with the side quests, whereas in 1 and 2 they were guaranteed to spawn, in 3 you have some really random RNG requirements to clear side quests for spawns. The spawns have rare spawn rates which you need to use keys to increase upon, and thus you have to farm keys. To farm keys you have to farm jewels, to farm jewels you have to farm overpowered crafted items.


I was able to craft overpowered weapons about 10 hours into the game that I basically kept for the remainder. Bosses and monsters are very easy, the only limit is how long it takes to get across the map and traversal is very tedious and slow. There are a few jump-sequences required and the platforming in this game is just plain awful. The UI also has some weird inconsistencies, (the forums have lots of complaints about this). I'm running this off a nvme SSD, RTX 3090, 5900x, and loading the map takes a decent amount of time for whatever reason.

The good: crafting is great, Ryza is back, very large world to explore.

The bad: much more of a grind compared to previous titles. If you like grinding side quests (fetch 10 of this... etc)., you'll enjoy the side quests and side stories. Feels artificially long due to distances between quest markers.

I just started in this genre, putting 30-40 hours in VS. I'm an old die hard Diablo 2 fan (D1, D2, D2r, D3, D4, etc) and liked the atmosphere.

However I generally suck at VS, and I can't progress in HoT because I suck.

Unlike VS, HoT requires constant moving which is a bit more "active playing" vs the VS "passive playing, afk farm" common builds.

HoT also is much more difficult, I'm at 10 hours and have barely any unlocks, dying often before 20 minutes. My average run is about 15 minutes. There's a bit of RNG involved, while in VS the RNG is generally "fair", where you can play and win with most spell combinations, HoT is a bit different because of the item system (and many of the items you get via RNG are useless or useless for your character).

From the reviews the game had an easier early game prior to the recent patch, hopefully something about that gets fixed because for me, I haven't been able to progress at all as a new player.

I gave up, there's trigger issues so I can't even get through the first scene. Clicked every interactable and the first person you're supposed to meet (Mrs. Dalton the housekeeper) never shows up.

This game was rough. Feels built like a mobile game with unskippable dialogue, laggy transitions, forced full screen, and mouse only controls.

The "grey cells" concept in the game is also weirdly done, again feels like a mobile game puzzle. The question/answer links don't really make sense.

Music is pretty good, art style is good, but the overall mobile-esque UI kills the joy.