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Starfield
Not Recommended
6
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Cyberpunk 2077
Recommended
9
Cyberpunk is an experience. It’s a game where nearly every activity has genuine effort put into it, a rarity for open world. It’s a game of remarkable scale, with a tremendous production value, interesting story, and a lot of jank.
The main plot of cyberpunk is captivating, but told in a structure that doesn’t come together as well as I would have liked. The main plot boils down to little more than a series of quest lines, rather than one cohesive plot. This results in the main story feeling similar to the side stories. While this is a flaw, it’s also a tribute to just how good the side stories are.
Every quest in Cyberpunk feels fleshed out. Major side quests have interesting characters, set pieces, gameplay, and writing -often to the same degree as the main quest. Minor side quests still have interesting dungeons and lore tidbits with the occasional moral conundrum, particularly in the DLC. The most low effort content is probably the NCPD scanner hustles. These are quick and simple content challenges with the only plot being lore shards (which often connect in interesting ways). While these could be better, I still found them worth engaging with.
A big part of that is the combat, which is great throughout the experience. The weapons feel punchy and, especially with update 2.0, the builds are varied. However, the difficulty scaling is off. On hard, the game becomes a cake walk around a quarter of the way through, earlier with side content. However, very hard feels unfair, with a full stealth build struggling to one shot. This is exacerbated by the jank in the combat. Weapons, while fun when functional, would often refuse to let me shoot when activating an ability, forcing me to waste the ability just to engage in combat. Enemy AI is often glitchy as well, especially in stealth.
Despite having a layer of jank, cyberpunk is a game of a quality that is, in many ways, unparalleled. While not perfect, it’s worth taking a few bugs to experience Night City.
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Super Mario Odyssey
Recommended
8
Mario Odyssey is one of the best feeling games ever made. Mario controls in a manner that’s responsive and, more importantly, works harmoniously with the level design.
Speaking of, the level design is great. Every level is built with Mario’s abilities in mind and comes up with countless ways to test them. Unfortunately, the level theming is more of a mixed bag. Some level themes perfectly capture the same wondrous spirit as Mario himself, such as one that is set in a world made entirely of good. However, many worlds struggle with an odd, clashing art-style.
Beyond this, the challenges Mario faces are wildly inconsistent. Some are incredibly clever and satisfying, with well created platforming and engaging gimmicks. Others are repetitive and bland filler, likely included due to the portable nature of the switch requiring a feeling of accomplishment in even the shortest of play sessions. For example, one challenge is literally just to look at a cab in the sky. Wait, I misspoke. It’s not just one challenge. This challenge is copy and pasted all throughout the game, appearing at least three times. This devalues every other challenge and makes the game ******eaply engaging, even when it has some of the richest and most refined content ever made.
The best example of these pros and cons is the level New Donk City. The level is a spectacular platforming playground, with stunning level design that’s engaging even with basically no enemies. However, it takes place in a… realistic city? With humans and everything. It’s such a blatant clash with the design of Mario and the collectibles that it feels wrong. And the challenges, while brilliant, also include riveting experiences like… sitting on a bench. That’s it.
Mario Odyssey is similar to Breath of the Wild. It is one of the best games ever made hampered by a need to be constantly giving a Lyle stream of dopamine, resulting in nothing particularly standing out. This is a 10/10 game padded out with 5/10 filler content.
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Elden Ring
Recommended
10
This game is a masterpiece. There is no other way to put it. It has a truly insane scope, with so much to see and do. Elden Ring features what may be the best open world ever made, with every corner hiding a secret, expansive dungeons, giant bosses, and interesting stories. Elden Ring has flaws that I’ve critiqued other games for, such as copy and paste, poor balancing, crappy performance, and terribly handled side quests but manages to be better than the sum of its parts.
Elden Ring isn’t defined by the dropped frames or by the umpteenth time you encounter the same boss in front of the same tree. It’s defined by the feeling you get when the map doubles in size after being warped by a random chest. It’s defined not by generic tombs, but by massive cities and castles.
Elden Ring is one of the only games I’ve ever played that capture the feeling of exploration. It never feels like it’s letting you somewhere, or holding your hand. For example, there was one point where I discovered a hidden area, which lead to another hidden area, which lead to yet another, which lead to a massive boss battle!
Elden Ring is also helped by its remarkable combat. It’s essentially the same as dark souls three, but with expanded weapon variety and a new jump button. This is enough to make an incredible combat system feel fresh for me, though I understand it may not be enough for everyone. The enemy design has received some controversy, with even minor enemies engaging in fake outs and massive combos. This may be grating for some players, but it never stood out as a problem to me (maybe in the last area a little).
Similarly, there has been controversy around spirit ashes and magic being overpowered. I completely disagree. They help players get through the game if they’re struggling, provide an interesting playstyle, and are completely optional. I didn’t even touch them during my playthrough.
Elden Ring is brilliant in a way that is hard to describe, but I can’t recommend it enough.
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The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Recommended
8
Super solid game, but it struggles to differentiate itself from breath of the wild, and is sometimes weaker.
The expanded abilities in comparison to the previous game are mostly great. Recall, ascend, and fuse are all brilliant, easy to use, and fun. However, building is not as good as it could have been. It controls smoothly and works exactly as expected, but it effects the core of the games design in a negative way. Most puzzles can be cheesed with it, and’s going from place to place is made far too easy.
It has an expansive and enjoyable open world, but most of the activities are copy and paste. There’s around a thousand korok seeds and maybe twenty challenge type, as an example. However, the simple act of exploring is a joy, with smooth controls and scenic vistas.
The main thing you’ll be searching for is shrines, which are a mixed bag. There are a lot of awesome shrines, and a lot that are basically tutorials. There are also new ’blessing’ shrines, which have literally no challenge…
There are also several new parts of the open world, notably caves, the depths, and the sky. The depths are the largest addition, but get repetitive quick. However, the atmosphere is impeccable, and the first five or so hours exploring it are truly magical. The sky and the caves are both smaller additions, but much more fun. They both feature interesting puzzles and exploration, but also copy and paste, yet again.
Dungeons seemingly make a return, but they are essentially just divine beasts with a much appreciated coat of paint. They also fall prey to ultra hand, with most of them being easily broken, making actually doing the puzzles the intended way feel like a self imposed limitation. However, the build up to all of them is incredible.
Tears of the kingdom is a game that feels like it has enough truly masterful content to be a game the size of BOTW, but is hampered by the overly ambitious decision to be over twice the size without the content to match.