Recent reviews by Knocks (I BUY MICS)

Couldn't bother to finish. Beginning of the game is actually pretty decent, very reminiscent of RE1/2 and the survival felt challenging. LOTS of jank, broken hitboxes, broken pathfinding, etc, but I could look past it.

Clearly the developer is a beginner (overuse of bloom that can't be disabled, no weapon FOV scaling with the FOV, needing to use .ini tweaks to fix FOV, keybinds reset every time you close the game, etc).

It's a better game than I can make, and if the game would have ended at the half-way mark (there are two characters, play as one for the first half) I may have even given it a cautionary thumbs up at a 6/10. But the second character's playthrough is just frustrating. All outdoors, going through forests and towns, no suspense... game has lost it's charm and the plot is fairly dull. Gonna drop it about 2/3 through. Not impossible to enjoy if you have the right mindset, but I'm not gonna ask my friends to play it.

Given a few more years and a few people to help the guy out and Honor games might make some cool stuff in the future.

Bohemia doesn't understand that Arma Reforger was better than Squad because it WASN'T Squad. Now, they're trying to make it like Squad and force aggressive levels of team play in a non-competitive game by removing tons of player freedom and forcing classes and roles on players they don't even get to choose half the time. And the film grain filter at night? Whoever had that idea should be fired immediately.

Bohemia had something good here, but with every update the game has gotten worse and it seems they won't stop ruining their game until it is exactly like Squad and only the hardcore milsim people remain. It would have been extremely easy to leave Conflict as it's own game mode exactly how it was, and also introduce Conflict HQ as it's own mode for people who wanted the extra teamwork and structure. But that would give players agency, and that goes against Bohemia's goal of making this game like Squad.

Most people hate this patch. For the sake of your wallets and reputation, you should roll back this patch, Bohemia.

Gunplay is great. Classes are designed around actually needing each other (could still use some tweaks but I think it's in the right direction). Weapon customization is great. Graphics are fantastic. Destruction is awesome.... but between the Beta and a few hours last night, I'm already starting to get bored. Why?

The maps. The maps are just absolutely bad. They clearly designed this game to rival call of duty and I really wish they hadn't. IMO, they heard people didn't like 2042, so they over-corrected as much as possible into what we have today. Believe it or not, BF2042, for all it's shortcomings, felt more like a Battlefield game than this does; the maps, although sometimes too big and very empty, still had some thought and soul put into them.

Past BF maps: Large collapsing skyscraper, nighttime attack under a giant bridge, hills and valleys with train cars, tropical jungles and shack villages, snowy mountains with snow storms, island with storms that appear and blur our vision,.. diving off a cliff hundreds of meters above you to attack the next point!

Current BF6 maps:This game has none of the awesome set pieces above. It's random city, random city in a desert, random location in a different desert, etc. Just buildings and lanes everywhere. Lane maps are for CoD... There is no heart put into these maps whatsoever, no unique identity. BF6 maps literally seem like something that would be randomly generated in a game engine addon. No Levolution, no map events. It's maps are sterile and lifeless and the game immediately becomes one of the worst BF games because of it. I'm gonna play it because it's still some fun with friends and I'm hopeful the player-created maps in Portal, or maybe some future DLC, will bring back some old maps or make actual BF maps instead if the uninspired AI maps we have at launch.

You were so close, DICE. Hopefully you can take the overwhelming map criticism to heart and release real BF maps over the coming year. If the game can deliver some cool maps, I will change my review to a thumbs up because at that point, it will be a great game. Without Levolution and map events, BF4 will still reign king, however.

Side Note: The games color pallete could really use 20% more saturation. It is way too washed out. Just a nitpick but it's boring to look at to me. It's more washed out than real life, Arma Reforger has more color.

Almost done with Act 2. Initially a positive review but changed to negative. This is effectively "HK but worse in almost every way". Now, before you rage at me for saying that... Dark Souls II is just Dark Souls I, but worse in almost every way. Still, Dark Souls II is a fantastic game. In the same way, a bad Hollow Knight game is still a great game, it's just not as good as the first one. Most of this stems from design decisions that will not be changed with patches.

- Art and sound are still peak
- Hornet moves very quickly and traversing the map after the first few upgrades generally feels fantastic, much better than spamming "dash" from HK. Great upgrade there.
- Level design is still very, very good! Fun to unlock new routes to old areas, etc.
- Combat is dramatically improved from HK. Not only are there some different move sets you can unlock (more on this later) but different attack, such as attacking while sprinting, set you up for other types of attacks and allow you to actually do some comboing. Paired with the new tools you get, and combat is easily 3X better than in HK. Tools themselves are awesome and I love their addition to the game. They make combat so much more dynamic, it's hard to overstate how useful they are. The game is so challenging in fact, and the tools are so strong, that it seems the game is balanced around them. I'll describe how this causes an issue in a minute...
- Enemy design, boss design, and the vast move sets of those enemies/bosses are all fantastic!

- Quite a bit more linear than the first game. Feels less "Metroidvania" because of it, but it's ok.
- Personal preference but I think the tone and atmosphere of HK are superior to this game. I just don't find its world as interesting and it's so dreary at practically all times. Some of the areas in HK had lots of color and high saturation to contrast the dark, depressing areas. Here, everything just feels kinda dreary.
- The drip feed of new charms and upgrades is not tuned properly, it is too slow and makes the game feel like a slog.
- They have put a Quest system into this game, which offer a bunch of generally mundane tasks (go kill 10 of this enemy, go find a big version of X enemy and kill it, etc). This quest system is not only kinda boring, but they have put some of the rewards you would normally get from exploring (mask shards, charms, etc) as quest rewards. Doesn't feel organic most of the time and feels really outdated and tedious for the sake of padding playtime.
- Difficulty feels overtuned big time. Basic crawling enemies like the spiky guys from Metroid are doing double damage in early areas? Bosses doing double damage on contact, even when they are stunned? I'm pretty good at these games so I'm working through it but man, lots of players are struggling big time and more will struggle as time goes on. Needs huge balancing.
- Over-reliance on enemy gauntlet rooms. They are absolutely everywhere with usually no reward.


Exploration Rewards - BAD
This is a huge one. I find exploration to be much less rewarding this time around. Don't get me wrong, there is still some cool stuff to find, but far too much of the Tools, Charms, etc are either quest rewards, or are simply purchasable. It's like Team Cherry forgot this was a Metroidvania. More often than not, exploring leads to beads (money), which can be lost on death. I'd much rather find a mask shard, a tool, a charm, anything... to reward my exploration and drip feed me the dopamine rush that keeps players locked in too a Metroidvania. There's a lot of people not "feeling" this game and I think this is one of the biggest reasons why.

Boss Rewards - BAD
Bosses rarely drop things! Most Metroidvanias give you strong powerups when defeating a boss. Most of the time in Silksong, bosses are just a progress block and don't drop any tools, charms, or other unique item. Makes bosses feel very unrewarding.

The Crest System - BAD
- The Crest system, which is a replacement for the Charm system from HK, is to me, objectively worse. By color coding the "charms" in this game red, blue, and yellow and only allowing a few charms of each type at a time, the build variety is immediately and dramatically reduced. They tried to make the game more focused on dramatically different playstyles, and although that sounds cool on paper, in practice you're just gonna pick one you like, stick with it, and have limited "charm" options for the entire game.
- To piggy back off the Crest system, some seriously questionable design decision were made here. I appreciate totally different attack types and playstyles, but one of the Crest types replaces your downward pogo move with a half-circle arcing slam that is quite literally not designed at all around traversal. The environments were specifically designed around the other two pogo types, so this pogo variant being linked with the Crest means you will never use the crest outside of boss fights, because if you run into a pogo section (and there are a TON of them), you will bang your head against the wall. They should have made the Crests change just your attacks and combos, not changed the pogo in a way that breaks most of their platforming.

Tool Use Cost: - TEDIOUS
You have to grind a separate currency that is spent every time you use a tool! What an unbelievably outdated and tedious design decision. Every time a game does this, it is objectively bad, and no one likes it. This is Team Cherry saying "Well, people love Bloodborne, so they must love the part where you have to waste time farming for healing items". No, Team Cherry. We loved Bloodborne but everyone hated that part of it. Tools already have a limited number of uses per life for balance, so to also make them use up a currency that must be farmed for means you will quickly run out of this currency if you get stuck on boss, then you're just out of luck or you must stop and go farm.

Beads: - BAD/TEDIOUS
Beads are one of two currencies, this one allows you to buy things like normal (items, trinkets, etc)... but also you must pay a fairly significant amount of them to UNLOCK BENCHES and open up fast travel spots. Considering benches are how you rest and heal/save the game, this is a brain-dead design choice. To make matters worse, only some enemies drop this currency, and they can be pretty scarce. So it's a special currency that can also be kinda rare to find, it is lost on death, and without it you can't rest at benches, let alone buy things or fast travel. This is another example of padding and tedium for no reason at all.

Cheap deaths: BAD/TEDIOUS
- Benches that look normal but when you sit, actually hurt you.
- Areas with spike traps all over that you cannot see that stunlock you into death.
- Visible explosive traps that trigger hidden explosive traps that stunlock you into death.

To me, Silksong needed a LOT more playtesting from the fans and because so much of these problems are baked in to its core design, it is destined to always be a worse game than the original. Many players are mad because of the difficulty, the boss runbacks, etc... For me, it's too many tedious elements and design decisions that are limiting to your playstyle or are overly punishing just to be "hard". Too many features designed simply to waste your time and make you farm, which is boring. Too many restrictions. Not enough rewards. Team Cherry decided that padding, grinding, tedium, cheap deaths, and brutal punishments were the leading game design philosophies here.

OG HK fans should know that these things may take their toll on your enjoyment of the game. Not sure this is worth playing tbh.

Queue the low IQ "git gud" kiddos lol

"Welcome our newest Operator, Jumbo.

Jumbo are an african american-identifying white trans man with bottom surgery. They love to dance at drag shows for kids, but they also love to shoot terrorists in the face! Their unique abilities include pedophilia and an incessant need to look as ugly as possible while shooting SWAT for deporting illegal rapists! Press Q to sit in the middle of the road and protest while blocking hard working people from getting to work. While too heavy to rappel, they excel at dramatic accusations and can usually get other players banned for saying quite literally anything in the in-game chat."

Sorry, I'm just trying to guess the next Operator they're gonna add. I bet I'll be pretty spot on considering the way this game has been going. Gay for gay's sake, overbearing chat filters, ludicrous skins and art direction. Not Tom Clancy, not Rainbow Six.

I love this game, and if you're on the fence due to some bad reviews, I'd urge you to reconsider. I give it a 9/10. 3 minute read below. Here's what you're getting...

PROS:
- An isometric CRPG with turn-based combat that is very similar to XCOM and Divinity OS1/2, but with a bit less depth (still good enough for me and I quite enjoyed the combat).

- No randomized loot, meaning no needless +2% changes on weapons that have you constantly swapping weapons. Everything being unique means you will use the same weapon for many hours till you find a better one, and many weapons are completely hidden or missable, same with armor. This is a huge plus to me.

- To me, it has great writing. Yes, it can be a bit absurd at times, but the main story especially sees you forced with moral dilemmas over and over. This to me is the game's strongest point: this is "moral grey area, the game", and nothing is ever easy. Many decisions you make are a matter of life and death, and this isn't like most RPGs where you have "good" and "evil" paths that are both extreme. Playing games where you either rescue puppies or burn an orphanage to show if you're good or evil are boring. Wasteland presents you with tough choices and forces you to own them. This is more like "Do you obey orders and secure supplies for people back in town, or do you ignore the supplies and help a random family being attacked by bandits?". Either way, someone suffers. These decisions have a pretty large sway on the outcome of the story/plot/characters, and it feels fantastic to experience the consequence of your choices across several possible endings.

- Awesome nuclear winter-esque atmosphere and theme. I think they really nailed it!

- The pace of drip feeding you new story bits or new powerful gear is finely tuned to keep you engaged at all
times, very well done.

- Not overly long, can beat the game with a decent challenge on Ranger difficulty and do every major and minor quest in 40 ish hours. This is a huge PRO to me. I get burned out on the Divinity games for example because after 75 hours in, with 50 hours more to go, I get burned out. This game knows what it wants to be, sticks with it's visions, and sees it through. For example, you will most likely finish the game around level 23-26. Not hundreds of levels. This makes character development that much more important.

- Multiple ways to accomplish almost every goal, whether it's lockpicking, bypassing the gate mechanically, or using a conversation skill to convince someone to give you the key. It's not quite as in-depth as some other games, because the game allows you to have 6 characters that can pretty much max out most skills in the game by the end, but it does allow you to experience everything this game has to offer mechanically in one go, which I really appreciate.

CONS:
- Game UI has a bit of console accommodations to it, making it sometimes feel clunky because it was obviously designed with controllers in mind as well.

- I encountered a small handful of bugs: maybe once every 10 hours, I'd click on an enemy to shoot them and my character would turn around and shoot one of my friendly characters, no apparent reason... Twice enemy turns got stuck and I had to reload the save before the fight (save often and have many saves just in case), once a friendly turn got stuck and I had to reload, a few other times the turns seemed stuck but clicking on a character or selecting another character made the turn complete, game doesn't load saves if my VPN is on (wtf?). That's all the bugs I can think of. Definitely annoying, but not a common enough occurrence or game breaking.

- First few hours of the game seems a little slow as you don't have many options in combat and the plot hasn't opened up a lot. Don't worry, just push through it, it isn't long before it picks up.

- I am docking a point due to the infrequent bugs and the UI.

NOTE ---- I played the Steeltown DLC and although the story is cool, the mechanics are annoying, and the game literally showers you with so much gear that it kills the game difficulty, allowing you to buy everything you want by the end with so much money. Many complain about the DLC being crazy hard, I did it at level 23 and found it to be slightly challenging. Lots of FPS drops in the DLC area for some reason. Honestly, not worth it to me and like many others said, I'd shy away from the DLC. I have not played Holy Detonation.

All in all, this game has good combat (not the best, but very good to me), excellent writing (if a bit absurd at times), a very engaging plot with multiple choices and endings with the player having great consequence over the world and plot, has a great atmosphere, and has a very reasonable run time that tells a complete and engaging story in ~40-50 hours, some people beating it in 35.

To me, it's about all you can ask for in a post-apocalyptic RPG, and I genuinely enjoyed this game more than Divinity OS1/2 or any of the fallout games (except maybe a fully modded New Vegas, because the writing in that game is great). Fantastic game. I'm greatly anticipating a Wasteland 4!

Unironically some of the most fun I've had in any game in the past 10 years. Crazy scenarios and endless silliness doesn't take away from the expertly designed quests, well hidden secrets, and levels that are a joy to traverse and discover. Played co-op with my daughter and loved every second of it. Pure FUN at it's best. You'll be laughing and having a good time for a solid 10-15 hours and there's nothing else quite like it. If you're on the fence, I whole-heartedly recommend you buy this game!

Fantastic puzzle game with unique ideas, beautiful art, and a story that is left intentionally ambiguous that some may or may not appreciate. The first game I bought on Xbox Live Arcade and one that left a lasting impression on me and kickstarted my appreciation of indie games. I'd personally put it on the same level as Bastion, Super Meat Boy, and Castle Crashers as one of the games that popularized the indie genre, especially on console.
Puzzles aren't ridiculously hard (haven't played the new levels only present in this remaster, so I can't speak to those), but you will appreciate the cleverness that goes into them and you will definitely have some "Ah Ha!" moments. Expertly crafted game, does not overstay it's welcome and each world is wholly unique in it's ideas and presentation.

If you've already played through Braid before, I highly recommend turning on the developer commentary (the "Playthrough" commentary will give curated bits of commentary throughout the entire game).

This is a pretty solid, if not particularly unique, metroidvania that is best described as a mix of Super Metroid and Hollow Knight mixed. Visuals, sound track and enemy variety is very reminiscent of Super Metroid, and the move set, combat and upgrade system are basically straight from Hollow Knight. Map is actually really well designed most of the time, and only a couple times was I annoyed by the level design. Lots of decently challenging platforming sections as well, which I like but some may not. Be warned that the game has a good amount of challenge to the platforming and general traversal. Bosses are not that difficult for the most part, but you will die quite a bit during general traversal.
What this makes is a good game that doesn't stand above either above mentioned games, but is still a good time and worth the price of admission. I got 15 hours out of it and finished the game at 77%, so I know there's quite a bit of side stuff I missed but didn't care to go back and finish. If you've played the above mentioned games, you will know exactly what to expect.

A few things that keep it in the "good" category and not "great":
- Main weapon having knockback whenever you're on the ground, but not while in the air, makes for an inconsistent feeling combat and platforming sections that end up being more frustrating than they should be due to all the knock back going on.
- Many of the augments (charms from HK) feel obviously better than others. For example, the Triple shot augment is literally useless and bad, especially when you could just equip the one that makes your shots faster.
- The flow in the first half of the game seems a bit odd. I don't know how to explain it. Normally I don't get lost in metroidvanias very often, but there was a few times that I was like "Where the heck do I go? I've checked everywhere!"... only to find out that some small corner of the map that doesn't show well on the map screen is literally the only location I can go next. Kinda linear in some sections and not much guidance can lead to a lot of mindless wandering (I know that's kind of a thing in metroidvanias, I'm just saying it happened here more times than in other games for me). In some cases, the game does not relay the proper information or even give hints as to what a new mechanic can interact with, so many people get stuck in the same locations (community hub will confirm this).
- I feel like the first 5 hours of the game you don't get enough abilities. If the dev makes another game, I would highly recommend making fun movement mechanics, such as wall jumping, an earlier upgrade. This makes back-tracking less painful and more fun, since movement is inherently fun. Movement was not fun for at least 2/3 of the game IMO.

I would definitely be interested in playing the developer's next game, and I hope this one is successful enough to warrant another game. Many people are echoing the same sentiment about this game, pretty good but not great due to some small design decisions. I have confidence that if the dev takes what he learned form this game and also adopts some of the feedback, the next game could be a solid 9/10. As it stands, I'm gonna give this one a 7.5, but it's honestly a close 8 simply due to how well the levels are designed.

Fantastic first effort and if you're on the fence, you should give it a try and support the dev so you get more high-quality MV's int he future!

Genuinely one of the greatest game packages ever released and one of my favorite games of all time. Note that I never played a Hitman game before this trilogy.
The amount of content here is staggering, and I would normally pan that as a bad thing. I'm not one to get excited over 100 hour RPGs; those kinds of games are filled to the brim with boring filler and drag out. In this game, it's the first time I can recall dumping this many hours into a single player game in my entire life, and never once was I bored. The quality of the content here is superb, each map is handcrafted to be a wholly unique experience and no two levels feel the same. I played this game every day for hours a day until about 150 hours, and I never was grinding things I thought to be silly or a waste of my time. The drip of unlocks and challenges is fine tuned to almost perfection. Once it hooks you, it doesn't let go. Phenomenal. The gameplay loop is addicting as hell.

DO NOT BUY THE "PART ONE" EDITION". It's only part of the content.
IO's practice of confusing the customers on what they're actually buying is complete BS though. Just buy the World of Assassination or WoA Deluxe and be done with it. I personally loved New York and Haven Island Maps, though the deluxe escalations are kinda meh. You can always upgrade to deluxe edition later to get the extra two maps.