Recent reviews by Swift3D

So even though i don't like the gameplay and have chosen not recommend it, it's still seems like a good game.

Now the reason i don't like it, is because i expected a souls game, and though it is "souls-like", it seems have chosen some of the worst things to copy.

-confusing map - not like a secret spot everywhere and explore to find items kind of way. More like the map seems giant because it is forgetable and almost impossible to navigate as everything looks the same. plus there is no items scattered around like most souls game so why waste time exploring except to continue the game.

-No fast travel from the beginning - Now i dont mind it isn't there from the beginning, if it had been something you got after a certain point (like dark souls 1) it might have been better. but you have to fully unlock you shell (hello hours of grinding) to be able to BUY IT.

-No proper rpg element - there are 4 shells and 4 melee weapon (and a ranged weapon you can unlock). 3 of the shells need to be found via cryptic "visions" found in your main base (the tower) as you get one of them in the beginning. They range from heavy (max health, low stamina) to light (low health, max stamina) and nothing else is different. the 3 other weapons except your heavy starter sword needs to be unlocked by finding and killing the boss who has it. yes... you have to find the guy who has the weapon (again through cryptic visions) and kill him to get to use another weapon than the starter. The only other rpg element that is left is that you can upgrade some of their (shells) moves or something, i lost interest because i never got enough points to do so.

-No reason to fight enemies - the game seems to incourage you to just run. You can literally run through everything because you have no reason to fight. all souls like games i have tried, you fight to level up to increase your health, stamina, strength etc. etc. or because you want to explore the area safely to find items. But mortal shells has no level system and nothing to gain other than the mentioned abilites. so i ran straight to the bosses because i didn't want to waste my time.

-to heal you need to grind - You don't start with a healing potion that only resets once you hit a safe spot. you have to run around and grind mushrooms that only spawn certain places to be able to heal yourself. they of course have a timer, so better optimize your route so the grind doesnt take too long.

-No story - With dark souls i got a nice intro that explained some of the lore. I have no idea what was going on in mortal shell, so i had no real incensitive to fix its problems and fight.


-save point before a boss fight - I got to what seemed to a main boss fight and a sester (save point) was positioned right next to it. so a big plus among the negatives is that you don't have to run the levels as the bosses seem hard. though with Tiel (light shell max stamina) it literally only takes time and wasn't that hard.

so in conclusion: the game seemed to have a lot of potentiel but took a lot of the wrong things in my opinion from the souls genre. if they make a sequel i'm going to be checking gameplay before seeing if i want to buy it.

A fantastic end to the reboot trilogy of Tomb Raider.

i'm normally not for games where you have to start over from the beginning again and again.
BUT, Hades manages to remove that problem by continuing the story ever after you die and get sent back home. sometimes i was even annoyed that i had gotten better because i wanted to talk to people back at the house but had to die to get back there. The game in general has a lot of replayable hours and even after 58 hours i still don't feel tired of it because the story continues and more challenges await.

i don't know what i expected of this game, but sadly im severely dissapointed. i thought me and my Girlfriend was going to have a blast playing co-op, hunting giant monsters together and the story seemed promising from the start.

Cons:
-Complicated and convoluted to join coop.
We had to look up several guides to figure out how to join each other. we finally made it work in the "gathering hub" area and could see each other. ohh but if you leave the area to go to the smithy for example you can't see each other anymore. only in that little hub area. the guides mentioned a "squad manager" in the gathering hub but ours wasn't named that so we couldn't make a squad (yet?).

-some quests are SOLO ONLY.
We gave up after we couldn't play together for the 3rd story mission in a row. Had to find out from online guides that apparently some story missions (the game doesn't tell you this) are solo only. Going hunting alone is boring and not what we wanted.

-steep learning curve regarding how to play.
perhaps this is just what we felt, but the first i held in LB on the controller i was overwhelmed with a "quick" menu/overlay. everything from premade shortcuts, changing ammo, switching between potions and more popped on the screen while the game continued. I know its so you can change on the go but it seemed like it was going to take a good while before you learned how to use it properly.

-TIMER
my nemesis for any game ever is when you add a timer. hunts have a maximum amount of time you can spend on them. I don't know if that will be a problem later when figting huge monsters, but adding a 50min time cap OR 3 times getting downed and you fail the mission was a major turn off to see.

Pros
-the game seems beautiful.
from what i've seen the game is beautifully made and the monsters are incredible to look at.


my conclusion seems to be that the game is for those who love to sink A LOT of hours into a game. To grind the same monsters over and over again to get some equipment so you can hunt the next monster that you have to grind so you can get to the next monster and so on. and i don't have the time nor interest in grinding.

This game is incredible. The studio behind has definitely been listening to fans regarding this sequel!

This sequel has been improved on all aspects of the first.
-open world exploration like the first, but with what feels like multiple story lines at the same time.
-more hints about where to go than the first game. i't doesn't give you any rushed feeling or linear gameplay. I spend a lot of time simply diving around and gathering materials, before going for PDA locations.
-improved base building and new items. posters and more can be used to create a homely feeling. bed and chairs are now interactable.
-Added 2 ingame maps that has to be found to be able to be used. They can help with navigating and are really useful if used together with beacons. However they only show it like satelite photos of the surface without a "you are here"-icon. So it doesn't ruin the game in any way and just helps out a bit with navigating when on the surface.


So far i have nothing bad to say about this game and my girlfriend loves to watch while we build and discover.

love borderlands. great coop with my girlfriend. awesome achievements that are neither too hard nor too grindy to get (looking at you BL2 all level 1 challenges).

RIP & TEAR

Great game to spend some time on. I think it is fun and love the achievements.

yeah the game is fine, played a couple of hours with my gf.

A mix of WoW and TES: Skyrim with the best from both in my opinion.

Beautiful game that told the story very excellently but only through visual hints.
puzzle parts were to my liking: not too easy but still easy enough not to get frustrated.
the platforming and controls were perfect. Any jumps i didn't reach were my fault and not the games.