Recent reviews by n9ne_x

I love souls and soulslike games, have played most of them that have come out, this is one of the better soulslikes I've played, up there with Lies of P/Nioh. This game feels like Nioh in a lot of ways, with the whole mission format and select weapons that you can use with skill trees that you can unlock and upgrade.

The combat is fluid, responsive and impactful. Unlike most souls games where you get in a couple hits, roll and repeat, this game really shines when you learn combos with your basic light/heavy attacks and also skills that you can learn, they all chain together very well, and can make some bosses an absolute joke when you stagger them and deplete half their health bar with a massive combo.

The bosses are also amazing, there are a good few human bosses which I usually dislike but in this game they are quite unique, with a ton of different movesets that they will use to keep it fresh, often split between mage types and melee types, with some using both... Plenty of bosses with multiple phases too, very cool transitions and story elements surrounding them.

You get the choice between 3 weapons, the classic Guts HUGE 2handed great sword, which is slower at first (faster later with more skills), more methodical, and more defensive with some huge damage output, a spear which is kind of the balanced option between the 3 weapons, it has a good amount of damage and is quite fast, focusing more on combos and draining the enemies stamina so you can pull of a brutal attack (like Deathblows in Sekiro or backstabs in DS) dealing huge damage and good reach, and finally the dual blades, which are shortest reach out of the three, so need to get in close, but they are the fastest weapon and probably the hardest to master, can pull off some insane DPS and when you master them, you'll be pulling off some insane combinations taking half the bosses HP bar.

You get armour sets in the game which usually combine with a specific weapon, giving you set bonuses depending how many pieces of the set you have equipped, usually giving unique bonuses for a certain weapon type or even giving you a new skill.

The good:

• Amazing boss design
  
• Fluid, fast and methodical combat
  
• Amazing artstyle, looks berserk inspired
  
• Good voice acting (surprisingly)
  
• Decent length of the game, around 30-50hrs
  
• Graphics
  
• Characters

The bad:

• Linear, this isn't really a negative as some linear games are amazing, but I like exploration and the linear mission style restricts this
  
• Some bosses have INSANE HP bars making them stupidly tanky... like the 3rd main boss.
  
• Game doesn't explain some CRUCIAL features to you, meaning you could be under-powered or handicapping yourself without even knowing, examples being: the phantoms, Khazan memories which increase your dmg, health and stamina, attacking enemies from behind, bonus training for certain mobs giving you unique items and sets, and a few other things.
  
• Limited number of weapons (3), I wish there was more variety but this is their first soulslike game, and the 3 you do have are really fleshed out in there skill trees.
  
• Lack of dialogue and side character development. There was a lot they could have done with some of the side characters to flesh out their character more, they have a few bonus missions for some of them but these are essentially fetch quests with a mini boss.
  
• Not being able to fast-travel between nodes (bonfires). You have to travel back to the games hub, and then select the region, then the node, with not all nodes available.
  
• Running outside of combat consuming stamina. Not sure why they kept this in, when running outside of combat, you run out of stamina which makes no sense.
  
• Certain bosses or one in particular... Giant dragon have horrible camera angles and targeting points or opportunities to attack
  
• The game includes pre-order and deluxe ediiton items which are quite useful and strong at the start of the game, so a bit P2W in that sense... never a good look.

Score ?/10:
8/10

Graphics
Play with your eyes closed ☐
Awful ☐
Bad ☐
Decent ☐
Good ☐
Beautiful ☑
Better than real life ☐

Game-play
Rather watch paint dry ☐
Bad ☐
Decent ☐
Good ☐
Very good ☑

Audio
Ear-rape ☐
Awful ☐
Bad ☐
Decent ☐
Good ☑
Very good ☐
Ear-porn ☐

Audience
Kids ☐
Teens ☐
Adults ☑
Everyone ☐

PC Requirements
Potato ☐
Budget PC ☐
Mid-end PC ☑
High-end PC ☐
Super-computer ☐

Difficulty
Insult to my intelligence ☐
Easy ☐
20% Brain usage ☐
50% Brain usage ☐
Hard to master ☐
Hard ☐
Dark Souls ☑

Grind
No Grind ☐
Cosmetics|Collectables ☑
Isn't needed to progress ☐
Average ☐
Too much ☐
It's a job ☐

Story
No story ☐
20% story 80% gameplay ☐
Average ☐
Good ☑
Very good ☐
Flawless ☐

Game time
Blink to roll credits ☐
Short ☐
Average ☑
Long ☐
Unlimited ☐

Price
Free ☐
Cheap ☐
Worth it ☑
Only on sale ☐
Expensive ☐
Deep pockets ☐

Bugs
None ☐
Minor bugs ☑
Annoying ☐
50% bugs 50% game ☐
Game breaking ☐

Ultra-wide support
Yes, natively ☑
Yes, with mods ☐
No ☐

good game :)

I want to be able to recommend this game, it is an improvement in every way over the first game, except the performance is ABYSMAL. They made a genuinely very good game, but the performance and bugs just make the experience trashy and make you want to stop playing at times, so I can't recommend getting this game. I wouldn't buy it at full price, only massively discounted and only if you are running latest hardware.

I am running a very new high end system, 5950x CPU, 32GB DDR4 RAM, 3080 Ti GPU, at 3440x1440p, and this game goes from 20-80fps, and it stutters/drops A LOT. I have tried the default settings, I have tried Nvidia recommended settings, I have tried several custom configurations myself, both high and low end graphic wise, and the game still runs and looks horrible. The funny thing is the game looks bad even on the highest setting, the textures are washed out and blurry.

We are now almost a year on from the release of this game and it still runs like this, with the developer seemingly focusing on non-issues instead of the glaringly bad performance issues. It is very annoying as this is probably the best Star Wars game we have seen in recent times.

Date: 12/01/2024

The good:

• Story - although linear and very Star Wars "generic" the story is decently good and I enjoyed it for what it was
  
• Characters from the first game get fleshed out a bit more, and the game continues to progress some of the relationships from the first game. such as Cal and Merrin
  
• Lightsaber stances - I remember in the first game I was annoyed that you were kind of locked into playing just single sword, whereas in this game you have SEVERAL lightsaber stances, crossguard, saber and pistol, dual-wield, double sided blade (longboy), and single, a lot more variety, each with their own skill tree
  
• Exploration - Exploring in this game is more enjoyable than the 1st, in the 1st game it was tedious, but less so in this game. It still has that annoying thing of being soft-locked out of areas/items due to not having an ability from story progression, but the exploration itself is enhanced due to mounts and feels more fluid/natural
  
• Enemy types - Although many of them play the same, it's nice to see different factions, animals and types of enemies in the lore
  
• Moral ambiguity - something I always disliked about Star Wars was that it seems the good always win, light always perseveres over dark, even in situations where it's very unbelievable, and no matter what, the main character sticks to the good side, so I was shocked that in this game Cal learns a bit into the grey area between light and dark, and I hope it opens up more nuisances to his character development in the 3rd game

The bad:

• Performance - jesus is it bad. It's the MAIN reason I can't recommend this game, this game runs like ABSOLUTE trash and it is unplayable at times due to stuttering, FPS drops, crashes and other issues even on a HIGH END RIG
  
• Customisation - I wish we weren't Cal Kestis. I don't like his hair, his face, I don't like ANY of the clothing options available to him, even after unlocking them all, I don't like the hairstyles, his facial hairstyles, the colour of his hair, the customisation is bad to put it nicely, and I wouldn't mind the hair and Cal as we are playing a character already made, but the clothing is just subpar and I expected more, you should be able to feel cool as Jedi, Cal looks like he works at McDonalds and just grabbed whatever clothes from lost and found
  
• Player choice - They tried to add in some choice, in the whole game, you can pick between 2 lines of dialogue to a question, probably a total of 10 times... and the options you pick have no consequences anyway so no point. They could have and should have fully embraced this system, especially when Jedi have mind control abilities, it would have made for some interesting skills in the force skill tree, and interesting dialogue options
  
• Soft-locked out of areas - I HATE this in games, and it was a big issue in the first game. When I play an open world game, or one that allows exploring, I want to be able to explore the whole world, or most of it, soon as I have access. I don't want to visit a world, only to find that I can't access an area or unlock something because I have to complete 90% of the games story first and THEN backtrack all the areas to unlock, it isn't fun, because by the time I've unlocked the abilities, I'm not interested in GOING BACK to unlock things in areas I already explored

Score ?/10:
7.5/10

Graphics
Play with your eyes closed ☐
Awful ☐
Bad ☐
Decent ☑
Good ☐
Beautiful ☐
Better than real life ☐

Game-play
Rather watch paint dry ☐
Bad ☐
Decent ☐
Good ☑
Very good ☐

Audio
Ear-rape ☐
Awful ☐
Bad ☐
Decent ☐
Good ☑
Very good ☐
Ear-porn ☐

Audience
Kids ☐
Teens ☑
Adults ☐
Everyone ☐

PC Requirements
Potato ☐
Budget PC ☐
Mid-end PC ☐
High-end PC ☑
Super-computer ☐

Difficulty
Insult to my intelligence ☐
Easy ☐
20% Brain usage ☑
50% Brain usage ☐
Hard to master ☐
Hard ☐
Dark Souls ☐

Grind
No Grind ☐
Cosmetics|Collectables ☑
Isn't needed to progress ☐
Average ☐
Too much ☐
It's a job ☐

Story
No story ☐
20% story 80% gameplay ☐
Average ☐
Good ☑
Very good ☐
Flawless ☐

Game time
Blink to roll credits ☐
Short ☐
Average ☑
Long ☐
Unlimited ☐

Price
Free ☐
Cheap ☐
Worth it ☐
Only on sale ☑
Expensive ☐
Deep pockets ☐

Bugs
None ☐
Minor bugs ☐
Annoying ☑
50% bugs 50% game ☐
Game breaking ☐

Ultra-wide support
Yes, natively ☑
Yes, with mods ☐
No ☐

Lords of the Fallen, feels and plays like Dark Souls 3.5 (takes a lot of inspiration from Dark Souls 1 though IMO), overall the game is great and if you are a lover of soulslikes and FromSoftware's soul series, then this is a must play. It has many things going for it, including some unique ideas such as the two worlds joined together, explorable via the lamp mechanic, and how it does things better such as ranged weapons/ammo.

It isn't without flaws though, and I will list them in the negatives part of the review. Anyone on the fence, I recommend if you already intended on buying it, buy it, play it for a bit, if you like it great, if not, then just refund, however look to some reviewers on YouTube that play majority soulslike games, instead of something like IGN. Some examples: Iron Pineapple, VaatiVidya, FightinCowboy, Ymfah, FextraLife, etc.

The good:

• Dual world - you have the world of the living, and the world of the dead, both you are able to access whenever you want, either by bringing up the lamp for a moment to glimpse into the other world, but remaining in the living, or you can traverse completely to the other world, however it is much more difficult and to get out you need to rest at a checkpoint or find a totem. This offers a lot of opportunity for exploration, as secrets, items, bosses, and different routes are often hidden in the Umbral (dead world).
  
• Graphics - The game does look very good, not too surprising as it is running in UE5
  
• Ranged combat - the game, IMO, does ranged combat better than any of the other souls games I've played. In this game, you can slot in throwable weapons or a ranged weapon, diverse options for which attribute you are leveling, and then depending on your endurance, you get a set amount of ammo. There are different types of projectiles, which take a different amount of your ammo, some take 1, some 2, and some 3, which is shown by a yellow bar. The good thing about this is, unlike other games, you don't have to buy hundreds of arrows or bolts at a vendor all the time because you're using a bow, or a crossbow, instead they reset for free when you rest at a bonfire or you can use a consumable ammo pouch, to add some ammo inbetween checkpoints.
  
• Interconnected world - the game I think takes a lot of inspiration from DS1, like the interconnected world that loops back onto itself, which is something I always liked about DS1. You will find many shortcuts, and hidden routes that weave the areas into one another.
  
• Main hub - feels just like a dark souls main hub, has everything you need, and is also quite cool theme wise.
  
• Combat - debatable as it has good and bad, but overall I find it similar to DS, you aren't locked into having to perfect parry like Sekiro or Lies of P, you can roll and dodge with generous i-frames to your hearts content.
  
• Artstyle - I got the feeling they took a lot of inspiration from Berserk with this, soon as you start you can glance up into the sky to see a giant hand, like the god hand from Berserk, with a huge red ring... love this style though personally

The bad:

• NG+ has no checkpoints - I've no idea how this idea managed to worm its way into the finished game, it's terrible. NG+ is essentially not worth playing at all due to this, you would essentially have to run from the main hub to each new area in the game.
  
• Enemy variety is lacking - you will encounter the bulk of the enemy variety within the first 2-3 zones, and then from there, you will just be fighting them again but with a different affix, fire, ice, poison, which makes fighting them boring in late game.
  
• Bosses - whilst some of them are great, I very much get the vibe of DS2, where you are fighting mostly another guy in armour. There are many human enemies, which unfortunately run into the issue of playing the same.
  
• Vestigates/Checkpoints - there just aren't enough of them to be honest, the game has a temporary vestige system, which allows you to use a limited resource to place your own checkpoint at designated areas, but they disappear when you plant another. This means you will do a lot of running and backtracking if you return to previous areas.
  
• Mob density - mostly in Umbral world, the enemies sometimes are just TOO much. You have them just spawning out of your a**. Can be very annoying when you're fighting an elite, even worse when they spawn in an Umbral Elite whilst you're fighting an elite from the real world...
  
• Ambushes - being ambushed has always been a part of soulslikes, but this game takes ambushing to an absurd level. If there is a corner, there is a 90% chance around that corner is an attack dog, a flamethrower, some guy with axes, etc. It is so predictable but also very annoying at times. You can also always count on a dirty sniper/ranged person just out of reach, shooting you constantly whilst you fight an ambush.

Score ?/10:
7.5/10

Graphics
Play with your eyes closed ☐
Awful ☐
Bad ☐
Decent ☐
Good ☑
Beautiful ☐
Better than real life ☐

Game-play
Rather watch paint dry ☐
Bad ☐
Decent ☐
Good ☑
Very good ☐

Audio
Ear-rape ☐
Awful ☐
Bad ☐
Decent ☑
Good ☐
Very good ☐
Ear-porn ☐

Audience
Kids ☐
Teens ☐
Adults ☑
Everyone ☐

PC Requirements
Potato ☐
Budget PC ☐
Mid-end PC ☐
High-end PC ☑
Super-computer ☐

Difficulty
Insult to my intelligence ☐
Easy ☐
20% Brain usage ☐
50% Brain usage ☐
Hard to master ☐
Hard ☑
Dark Souls ☐

Grind
No Grind ☐
Cosmetics|Collectables ☑
Isn't needed to progress ☐
Average ☐
Too much ☐
It's a job ☐

Story
No story ☐
20% story 80% gameplay ☑
Average ☐
Good ☐
Very good ☐
Flawless ☐

Game time
Blink to roll credits ☐
Short ☐
Average ☑
Long ☐
Unlimited ☐

Price
Free ☐
Cheap ☐
Worth it ☑
Only on sale ☐
Expensive ☐
Deep pockets ☐

Bugs
None ☐
Minor bugs ☑
Annoying ☐
50% bugs 50% game ☐
Game breaking ☐

Ultra-wide support
Yes, natively ☑
Yes, with mods ☐
No ☐

The good:

• Shipbuilding
  
• A lot of planets to "explore"
  
• Factions to join
  
• Some decent side quests
  
• New game plus is done very well

The bad:

• Graphics are dated
  
• Character animations are horrible, no emotion whatsoever
  
• Story is short, no depth, and to be honest, kind of boring
  
• Characters, they are all the same, same morality, same boring faces, they are all goody-two-shoes that will complain at everything you do that isn't "good", despite saying they don't care how you do things
  
• Character development, they try to do some character development but it's really lacking, they remain much the same person after you complete their side quests, no depth to them
  
• LOADING SCREENS. Jesus the amount of loading screens you need to do in this game for simple tasks.
  
• Space combat is lackluster, and definitely isn't a skill based activity, bigger badder ship = win
  
• Space exploration is a joke
  
• Bugs - had a few game breaking bugs during my playthrough
  
• Lack of choices, the game is supposed to be a deep RPG with an abundance of choices and consequences, but this game is very linear as all the choices are just an illusion of choice

Score ?/10:
6.5/10

Graphics
Play with your eyes closed ☐
Awful ☐
Bad ☐
Decent ☑
Good ☐
Beautiful ☐
Better than real life ☐

Game-play
Rather watch paint dry ☐
Bad ☐
Decent ☑
Good ☐
Very good ☐

Audio
Ear-rape ☐
Awful ☐
Bad ☐
Decent ☑
Good ☐
Very good ☐
Ear-porn ☐

Audience
Kids ☐
Teens ☑
Adults ☐
Everyone ☐

PC Requirements
Potato ☐
Budget PC ☐
Mid-end PC ☐
High-end PC ☑
Super-computer ☐

Difficulty
Insult to my intelligence ☐
Easy ☑
20% Brain usage ☐
50% Brain usage ☐
Hard to master ☐
Hard ☐
Dark Souls ☐

Grind
No Grind ☐
Cosmetics|Collectables ☐
Isn't needed to progress ☑
Average ☐
Too much ☐
It's a job ☐

Story
No story ☐
20% story 80% gameplay ☐
Average ☑
Good ☐
Very good ☐
Flawless ☐

Game time
Blink to roll credits ☐
Short ☐
Average ☐
Long ☐
Unlimited ☑

Price
Free ☐
Cheap ☐
Worth it ☐
Only on sale ☑
Expensive ☐
Deep pockets ☐

Bugs
None ☐
Minor bugs ☐
Annoying ☑
50% bugs 50% game ☐
Game breaking ☐

Ultra-wide support
Yes, natively ☑
Yes, with mods ☐
No ☐

The good:

• Flying - makes exploration easy and offers unique brooms to pick from
  
• All dialogue in the game is voice acted
  
• You can tame animals and breed them
  
• Combat is actually really fluid and fun, although easy
  
• You feel like a student at Hogwarts. The castle is done very well, I am not a potter head but the castle was my favourite area in the game, a lot of detail
  
• Transmog on the fly, so no going around looking ugly asf in mismatched gear like many games have you doing.
  
• A lot of trivia for fans scattered throughout the game, especially in the form of Revelo pages
  
• The game looks pretty, running on Unreal Engine 4

The bad:

• The story is very linear although advertised as a dialogue, open world RPG. You will find many of the missions feeling very "samey", for example trials 1 and 2 are essentially the same dungeon setting with the exact same enemies and bosses
  
• Side quests are pretty soulless. I just came off of 100% completing Witcher 3 and DLCs, so perhaps I was a bit spoilt in quality side quests there, but Hogwarts side quests feel like I am just doing fetch or kill quests on an offline MMO
  
• Characters. Personally I found that most of the characters in this game are bland, they lack depth. They are all the stereotypical goody goodys or annoying. Sebastian comes across as whiny, I hoped he would be a morally grey character that goes down a dark path becoming an anti-hero, however he becomes a poorly written whiny character. Natty is just annoying, she is trying to single handedly stop a criminal organisation at 15 years old with no experience and her reasoning is pretty cookie cutter. Sweetie is probably the most enjoyable side character but maybe that's just because I enjoyed capturing the beasts.
  
• Illusion of choice. I picked Slyverthin, because I wanted to become an evil wizard/warlock, using this ancient power to do evil deeds, however the game forces you into the boring linear goody approach. Nothing you pick in any dialogue, be that main quest or side quests has any impact. This is a linear game.
  
• The world is empty. The best comparison for this would be a Ubisoft game, where they have a big open world, but full of nothing except puzzles and collectables. After 100%ing this game, I almost quit a few times because the whole map is just littered with collectables. 95 merlin trials, 150 invisible pages that don't appear on the map (in Hogwarts or Hogsmeade), and 100s of other useless things.
  
• Lack of RPG elements. You can't create a build, your wand doesn't change nor does it offer any stat boost, everyone in Hogwarts has access to the same spells with seemingly the same power. You would think in a magical world full of wizards, witches and magical beasts, you would be able to find unique relics or magical wands/gear to increase your stats.
  
• Flying. I listed it as a pro only because you CAN fly, however how it is implemented is a con. The broom is decent, but still feels a little awkward at times. The flying beasts though is another matter entirely. I was excited to fly the Griffon, however it is like trying to fly an 18 wheeler truck, that's how clunky it feels.
  
• Lack of enemy types. Throughout this game you will spend maybe 25-70hours fighting: spiders, basic humans, goblins and the occasional construct or mongrel. I think it's pretty bad that in a world with such a wealth of fantasy characters and beasts to pick from, they couldn't add more variety.
  
• PC Performance is pretty abysmal. You can see my PC specs in this review, my PC is pretty much top of the line from last year. I was getting anything from 3fps to 100fps, even after drastically changing quality settings. The stutters and FPS drops at times are unplaybale and feel VERY JANKY.

Score 6.5/10:

Graphics
Play with your eyes closed ☐
Awful ☐
Bad ☐
Decent ☐
Good ☑
Beautiful ☐
Better than real life ☐

Game-play
Rather watch paint dry ☐
Bad ☐
Decent ☐
Good ☑
Very good ☐

Audio
Ear-rape ☐
Awful ☐
Bad ☐
Decent ☐
Good ☑
Very good ☐
Ear-porn ☐

Audience
Kids ☐
Teens ☐
Adults ☐
Everyone ☑

PC Requirements
Potato ☐
Budget PC ☐
Mid-end PC ☐
High-end PC ☑
Super-computer ☐

Difficulty
Insult to my intelligence ☐
Easy ☑
20% Brain usage ☐
50% Brain usage ☐
Hard to master ☐
Hard ☐
Dark Souls ☐

Grind
No Grind ☐
Cosmetics|Collectables ☑
Isn't needed to progress ☐
Average ☐
Too much ☐
It's a job ☐

Story
No story ☐
20% story 80% gameplay ☐
Average ☑
Good ☐
Very good ☐
Flawless ☐

Game time
Blink to roll credits ☐
Short ☐
Average ☐
Long ☑
Unlimited ☐

Price
Free ☐
Cheap ☐
Worth it ☐
Only on sale ☐
Expensive ☑
Deep pockets ☐

Bugs
None ☐
Minor bugs ☑
Annoying ☐
50% bugs 50% game ☐
Game breaking ☐

Ultra-wide support
Yes, natively ☐
Yes, with mods ☑
No ☐

Overrated boring game.

Nothing hooks me, the exploration just seems empty, the flight controls are ♥♥♥♥, story has no hook, just seems like subnautica in space.

The reviews for this game baffle me, everyone talking about this game in story like reviews, paragraphs upon paragraphs but don't actually say anything. Like this: "ah this game is so amazing, beautiful, life changing wow, but I can't say why hehe spoilers". What's the spoiler? That this game is fking barren and boring?

Is it related to the case?

Yes... Yes Kim, it is.

This game is probably the best game I've played in the past decade, and I think it has set the standard for games to follow in the future. If you are a fan of Dark Souls, exploring open worlds packed of meaningful things to do, a challenge, beautiful artstyle, and combat, then you'll love this game.

I probably spent around 25-30hours just in the first area exploring all the hidden caves and dungeons scattered around before I actually found and killed my first boss. This approach is also very good for people new to Souls games, as they can explore and level up more if they are stuck on a story boss, and then just come back later more powerful.

In terms of difficulty, I've played and completed all bosses in Sekiro, Dark Souls 1, 2 and 3, and also played but not completed Bloodborne. I'd rate them like this, hardest being first: Sekiro, Bloodborne, Dark Souls 3, Elden Ring, Dark Souls 2, and Dark Souls 1. There are certainly some challenging bosses in this game, like Malenia, but the others aren't so hard once you are geared and leveled, also you have the added benefit of plenty of summons which make the fights a cake walk, because of this, I'd definitely recommend Elden Ring to a new player of Souls games.

The game is full of things to do, I think my first playthrough took 75-80hours to complete, and I had actually still missed whole areas and bosses at this point, so still a lot to do.

The good:

• The graphics are very good in my opinion, not sure why people hate on them
  
• Artstyle, artstyle always beats graphics anyway in my opinion but this game has both that are very pleasing to the eye
  
• Combat, imagine combining aspects from all FromSoftware games and putting the finished product into a game, that's Elden Ring. I think it has the best combat out of all the FromSoftware games, possibly rivaled by Sekiro, but it has more variety than Sekiro, whereas Sekiro is pure skill based.
  
• Unique boss encounters
  
• Unique NPCs and sidequests, I met an NPC out in the world whilst exploring, she had a very long questline which I completed and actually ended up giving me a secret different ending to the normal one.
  
• Open world. Open world isn't a new thing by any means, but usually open world games are full of busywork that's boring, like collecting things. Elden Ring has an open world that is fully fleshed out with things to do.
  
• Powerstancing. This is basically dual-wielding weapons. In Elden Ring, if you have two weapons of the same class, for example two katana's or two great-swords, then you unlock a two-handed moveset for those weapons, including jump attacks, roll attacks, backstep attacks and also unique abilities.
  
• The story and lore is much better than previous Souls games, it feels more fleshed out, and easier to follow. Most likely thanks to George RR Martin helping with the narrative.

The bad:

• PC performance issues, I am running a 5950x, 32gb RAM and a 3080 Ti, and even I get stutters, freezes and massive FPS drops, and although it has improved with some tweaks and fixes, it is still an issue and can make the game unplayable in some circumstances, especially in boss fights where every second and frame counts.
  
• No utrawide. This one probably annoys me the most because the game actually is capable of running native ultrawide, but the game imposes black bars over your gameplay to enforce a 16:9 ratio. Luckily the community were able to come out with a fix, but without the fix I don't think I could have played the game. Very poor PC support from FromSoftware.
  
• 60FPS cap. Again, poor PC support, however the FPS cap can be removed by using the ultrawide fix/mod I mentioned above.
  
• EAC (Easy anti-cheat). This one links to the two previous points, because it prevents any modding of the game files, essentially making it hard or impossible to implement some fixes/mods to the game. If you mod the game, then go online, you will get banned. So for example, me enabling a quality of life feature so that I can play the game in my native resolution and aspect ratio, would reward me with a ban, even though I'm not hacking or cheating.
  
• Double boss fights. If there was ever a feature I hoped not to see from Dark Souls 2 implemented into further games, it's the amount of bosses you have to fight in duo, making an artificial difficulty.

Score ?/10:
10/10

Graphics
Play with your eyes closed ☐
Awful ☐
Bad ☐
Decent ☐
Good ☐
Beautiful ☑
Better than real life ☐

Game-play
Rather watch paint dry ☐
Bad ☐
Decent ☐
Good ☐
Very good ☑

Audio
Ear-rape ☐
Awful ☐
Bad ☐
Decent ☐
Good ☐
Very good ☑
Ear-porn ☐

Audience
Kids ☐
Teens ☐
Adults ☑
Everyone ☐

PC Requirements
Potato ☐
Budget PC ☐
Mid-end PC ☑
High-end PC ☐
Super-computer ☐

Difficulty
Insult to my intelligence ☐
Easy ☐
20% Brain usage ☐
50% Brain usage ☐
Hard to master ☐
Hard ☐
Dark Souls ☑

Grind
No Grind ☑
Cosmetics|Collectables ☐
Isn't needed to progress ☐
Average ☐
Too much ☐
It's a job ☐

Story
No story ☐
20% story 80% gameplay ☐
Average ☐
Good ☐
Very good ☑
Flawless ☐

Game time
Blink to roll credits ☐
Short ☐
Average ☐
Long ☐
Unlimited ☑

Price
Free ☐
Cheap ☐
Worth it ☑
Only on sale ☐
Expensive ☐
Deep pockets ☐

Bugs
None ☐
Minor bugs ☐
Annoying ☑
50% bugs 50% game ☐
Game breaking ☐

Ultra-wide support
Yes, natively ☐
Yes, with mods ☑
No ☐

Was originally hyped for this game seeing all the reviews and videos online circulating about how it's so amazing, however it doesn't feel amazing, and has many issues.

For background, I've played WoW, FF14, GW2, ESO, BDO and also now Lost Ark, so I've played all the big MMOs.

This game honestly feels like a mobile game, along with all the micro-transactions you'd expect from a mobile game. I would prefer a subscription fee or buy to play instead of this method, which is ultimately P2W.

Some issues I have from the start, is in EU, the servers don't list what language is spoken. So, I picked a random one, this server turns out to be like 70% German speakers. Okay, no problem right? I'll just change server and start again. No. I already redeemed my founders package on this German server, and also have a store mount, which for some stupid reason aren't account-wide, they are locked to the German server. So essentially, if you ever want to change server, I hope you enjoy starting with nothing, even things you have bought. I contacted their support which was useless, basically said "We can't do this, but we will take this feedback and assess".

Why the developers decided to gender-lock the classes I have no idea. I wanted to play as a mage, but it's only a female class. So unless you want to play as an anime looking sterotyped asian girl, stick with the macho classes like boring warrior. People argue that they are working on other classes that are the opposite gender equal to a class, but it's always weaker. An example of this would be the Gunner class, which has a female sub-class called "Gunslinger" which is probably the coolest and strongest in the class, and the male "counter-part" is a Deadeye, which is weaker in every aspect. WHY NOT JUST ADD A MALE AND FEMALE VERSION OF ALL EXISTING CLASSES????
The good:

• Graphics are decent for an MMO
  
• Combat is somewhat satisfying
  
• Dungeons are fun
  
• A large player-base (at the moment), so the world feels alive

The bad:

• Gender locked classes. If you want to play a Mage, you can only play as female. If you want to play as a warrior? Only as male. Gunner? Well, only the female option is viable, and better than the male counter-parts. Absolutely no idea why they didn't just add in a male/female version of all classes.
  
• Story is a joke. Every quest that I've done is boring busy-work, and the dialogue is really bad. I talk to someone "Ah, the ark? I don't know, go talk to X and Y". So you go talk to them, "Ah the Ark? maybe X or Y will know, go talk to them after killing these monsters". Felt bored and on the verge of falling asleep.
  
• Locked servers. They had the brilliant idea to lock the most popular servers. This is stupid for many reasons, you can't play if your friends if you were already playing early and they are now free, if you joined a server which doesn't speak your language, well chances are the ones that do are now locked so you have to play isolated.
  
• Servers have NO INDICATION as to the main language spoken. I had to go look on an un-official ranking to see my server was mostly German speaking, no mention of this, even after I redeemed my purchases (which aren't account-wide)
  
• Purchases made on the game, aren't account-wide. They only exist on the server you redeemed on. If for some reason you want to move server but you've already bought a ton of things, well, I hope you enjoy buying it all over again, because... money I guess?
  
• Micro-transactions. The game is jam-packed full of micro-transactions. I was under the belief that it was only cosmetics or skins that would be sold. It isn't. There are many things that make the game easier and more convenient, even pay to win in some circumstances.
  
• The weapon models and armour models, rarely ever change, and outside of shop items, look trash. I leveled up 20 levels, and my weapon and armour looked the same at level 20 as it did at level 1, how is that enjoyable?

Score ?/10:
4/10

Graphics
Play with your eyes closed ☐
Awful ☐
Bad ☐
Decent ☑
Good ☐
Beautiful ☐
Better than real life ☐

Game-play
Rather watch paint dry ☐
Bad ☐
Decent ☐
Good ☑
Very good ☐

Audio
Ear-rape ☐
Awful ☐
Bad ☐
Decent ☑
Good ☐
Very good ☐
Ear-porn ☐

Audience
Kids ☐
Teens ☐
Adults ☑
Everyone ☐

PC Requirements
Potato ☐
Budget PC ☑
Mid-end PC ☐
High-end PC ☐
Super-computer ☐

Difficulty
Insult to my intelligence ☐
Easy ☑
20% Brain usage ☐
50% Brain usage ☐
Hard to master ☐
Hard ☐
Dark Souls ☐

Grind
No Grind ☐
Cosmetics|Collectables ☐
Isn't needed to progress ☐
Average ☐
Too much ☐
It's a job ☑

Story
No story ☑
20% story 80% gameplay ☐
Average ☐
Good ☐
Very good ☐
Flawless ☐

Game time
Blink to roll credits ☐
Short ☐
Average ☐
Long ☐
Unlimited ☑

Price
Free ☑
Cheap ☐
Worth it ☐
Only on sale ☐
Expensive ☐
Deep pockets ☐

Bugs
None ☐
Minor bugs ☑
Annoying ☐
50% bugs 50% game ☐
Game breaking ☐

Ultra-wide support
Yes, natively ☑
Yes, with mods ☐
No ☐