Recent reviews by ploopploop

It's fun and free, definitely room for improvement so far on a lot of fronts, but I do understand that it is early access.
So far it looks like a fun concept.

I am up-to-date with SAO and rewatched the seasons plenty of times. As far as story goes this game is pretty much on point about SAO and the characters involved. This is my first SAO game though so I can't compare it to the other SAO games, but it feels honestly really good. The combat is fluid with plenty of variaty in builds and skills. Things encountered in the anime such as skill names, looks etc are the same in the game with plenty of extra's.

Dialogues are in japanese style for rpg's. Images of characters with moving mouths and the voice actor reading the text. So now and then there will be an animted cutscene, but those are extremely rare. Some people don't like it so be wary of it. Talking about japanese, the entire game is japanese dubbed. You can have english sub, but that's about it. The voice actors are the same ones that did the series, so you might hear familiar voices, which in my opinion makes it a better experience.

They did good where they should and cut at parts where they could. This delivers a great story with a fluid combat system in a huge environment where models are pretty much of low quality. Given the pace of the game you will at best admire the islands as a whole and not specific places. The characters on the other hand have great detail so it's okay.

Multiplayer is pretty much dead. It might be lack of players or different timezones, but apart from forums I couldn't find anyone randomly in game to play with. But it is still very enjoyable as a single player game. I haven't finished the game yet, but given the price I paid for it I am satisfied about it.

If you like SAO and the storyline it is definitely worth it. Not sure if it is enjoyable if you are new to the series since it has plenty of references to SAO, so you might not understand some pieces. But other than that in games like these I just enjoy the fast paced combat fights and grinds to unlock new abilities/skills.

On a sidenote; I play this game at 1080p maxed out. I am constantly at 144 fps. Haven't had a single lag/freeze or anything. The video cutscenes are at 25fps. So yeah.. there's that. Other than that it runs great.

Get it during a sale, absolutely worth it to have a controller with which I can not only play games but also control my pc.
Since my pc is in my bedroom it is really relaxing to sometimes just sit back, watch a movie or something and sometimes just select something else through it without getting up.

Yes I am lazy.

Hey guys we know you paid a full price for an AAA title, but buy our season pass as well since it contains an iconic gamemode. It costs 24,99. - Bandai 2017

Hey guys season passes aren't about lifetimes they are about seasons. To unlock the more enjoyable characters buy our second season pass for only 29,99. Your previous one doesn't matter. - Bandai 2018

Hey guys who cares about seasons and numbers buy this new limited edition season pass for only 39,99 - Bandai 2019.

Bandai is the new EA. Just calculate by yourself how much the full game costs at this point.

The game is great.

The way they work around DLC's isn't great. This game has not only 1 but 2! (yes you read that right) 2 whopping season passes. While I do love Tekken and every Tekken game so far (been playing since 3 was released on ps1) I do hate the way they go around the money you have to pay for the full game, because right now this game costs in euros 39,99 + 24,99 + 29,99.

The base game itself is great though, the story is interesting and the characters are superb <3

It is a fun game with loads of building options. Up to a certain level of items everything is pretty much grindable except for relic and legendary. A legit grind to one those would take you 100s if not 1000s of hours. Then you have rare and epic items which are a bit "easier" to craft or buy from aquired funds.

If you want to perform decent in game you will be aiming for rare items as they are average on their given stats. With a good vehicle build you might even have a shot at getting mvp while having some kills.

The way I experienced it this game has a few barriers. The first is the rookie league. This is for builds that have below 1000 power. Power is the name of the number they use in this game that indicates how strong your vehicle is. Here you will have a fair chance at demolishing other players while you learn the mechanics. You will be flooded with common crafting materials etc. Here you will most likely get your very first blue item (rare). This will boost you to the next barrier where you would stand no chance without blue weapons or high power builds. Here it is either quantity or quality. So you have weak guns? Make sure to have a lot of them then.
In my opinion this second barrier goes up to 2000 power. You will be able to actually experience what this game is and will have no issues making up builds. You won't run low on the grey crafting materials. Here you will most likely try a lot different gameplay methods. Ranging from melee to drones to sniping. This will also be when you will advance a lot levels in the first crafting tree.
Up to 3000 you will most likely either buy or craft your first purple item. However a lot skilled players with legendary weapons smurf in here just for the fun. A legendary weapon is like a +1400 power on your vehicle so they will be at the bare minimum 2k+. The issue here is that they will most likely destroy you in a few bullets if not 1.
This zone here is a massive barrier towards progression since a lot players have purple items. You will hardly win a battle. Here you will encounter players who payed some cash for good guns/credits/vehicles. Since this is a pay-to-win game once you reach the high power levels, it is impossible to stand a chance. So what I and most other players did was, stick with cars around ~1800 power and improve the parts over time. Slapping all your items on it might boost it to 2.8k, but those items are trash. Your weapons are trash. It is like attending to a meeting about your paycheck and performance in torn clothes. So you wait patiently and grind patiently for a few blues or just a purple weapon. Crafting will take quite some time as it has a timer. You can't craft something instantly. It has a waiting time, which is okay in my opinion.

So as time goes by and you know your way around building you finally have a car with pretty much only blue items (for important parts) and a mixture of blue/purple weapons. You feel satisfied and you should if you did this without paying. Most people reach this tier after paying some cash.

Full of pride you enter the 3k-5k barrier and boy will your soul be crushed. Here you will need quality. Quantity doesn't work here anymore. You want guns that deal a lot damage in a single shot. Most people go with long range weapons, since they are pretty cheap per build compared to close range builds.

So now you have made your way up to 5k+ where opponents with legendary weapons are normal. Here it will be quality in combination with quantity. For example you got 1 reaper? That won't cut it. Get 2 reapers. You still have 2 energy left? Add ammo pack and cooldown reduction items. No need for car jack anymore, energy is important here. That means you will need a purple chassis. And most are pretty expensive. On average blues cost 30 coins. Purple on average go for 280 coins and legendaries around 2500. Keep in mind that grinding up to a blue can take several hours and to purple quite some days. Making that first purple will devour 2 of your blue items. That is kinda why and making that legendary will devour even more of your purples.

So at this moment you are already too much into the game so chances are low of dropping it. Getting a legendary is impossible. All together you probably have collected 300-500 coins legitimately from grinding. So you spend like 15 bucks and suddenly a legendary doesn't seem that impossible anymore. Now the game gets a lot more fun, you actually defeat players without luck. But would you be able to have it this easy without paying? Oh you will also have unlocked quite an increasement in amount of items you can use per build, since this is capped.

All in all this looks like a negative review, but it isn't. I am telling you the wrong in this game, because the pay-to-win scheme is the only wrong in this game. The crafting is actually fairly good. Material gathering is what you'd expect. Gameplay is superb and the audio will give you eargasms. Demolishing builds is extremely satisfying. You have a lot freedom for building your own build apart from the items used cap. If you aren't much of a builder, just use one of those made by others. There are plenty of great ones.

While I am highly against MTX, pay-to-win schematics and whatnot. It is kinda hard to argue since it is a free game (although, all dlc's for this game are at a total of 450 euros....). Playing this game for free (considering you are into these type of games) will easily give you 30+ hours of solid entertainment for free. After that you will be extremely tempted to do a purchase. The studio has to make a living too and with the given content they are doing a good job. For free this game will entertain you for 30+ hours and that's why I recommend it. After that you will pay like what? 10-20 bucks for an easy advancement and you will be good for probably your entire crossout career.

I have had and seen 60+ bucks AAA titles that wouldn't even last for 10 hours entertainment wise and 20 hours gameplay wise.

Oh also, since the playerbase isn't huge. The matchmaking isn't always fair. It places people with power close to each other in a team. But if you are the lowest with 750 power, the average is 1100 then the strongest might be 1400 power, which is about 2 times yours. Bear in mind that this range might just become larger if someone had been waiting for a long time. With a 2200 power car I was once placed against players where the highest power of their team had only 1500... the lowest was around 1000.

Issues are certainly existent in this game, ranging from bugs to minor features in the game that were either uncalled for or non logical or simply hateful such as a certain npc. But does that make this a bad game? No.

There is a nice story present. I am new to the franchise so having a simple story that builds up in a very minimal grind rpg makes it enjoyable for me. The gameplay is pretty good, but repetitive. It all comes down to go, kill, return. There are variations present though such as mission types and ways to destroy your enemies, those in combination with multiplayer makes it a nice experience. I'd personally love if there were classes rather than weapon based skill trees, but I can't complain. It works well.

Since this game wasn't originally english the lip sync is out of the place, but other than that it is quite an enjoyable journey in a beautiful world with devastating creatures where you will use the multiplayer functionality more than you will consider to play solo. The only big downside is that you can't skip cutscenes and that multiplayer is disabled until you've watched all cutscenes per mission. There is no disable feature for this.

All game breaking bugs have work arounds available. Do note that due to Denovu older gen cpu's aren't supported though.

I like the game, it isn't like a superb perfect 10/10 kind of game, but it is a refreshing not mainstream type of game. I'd honestly give it 72 points out of a full 100. It has a lot content so you will have plenty to do, whether it is worth the price is honestly debatable. I think it is.

Edit:
Do note that if this game was actually terrible it would be flooded with negative in depth reviews about the gameplay and wouldn't have such a high number of concurrent players for the first week. The voices of the people that hate it are only heard, most that enjoy the game rather spend more hours into it than writing reviews. Don't let the numbers of the review influence your choice. A lot (not all) negatives are simply about the game not having 21:9 support or that the latest drivers don't support it (yet). Watching a walkthrough of the first boss should give you a general idea about the gameplay in a minimal way. You can search for more of course if you enjoy getting spoilers.

Edit 2:
Reaching the 100 hour mark I can say that eventually the bosses become fairly easy. But do mind that this is after you've spend countless hours of joy. I have had AAA games where things were boring already after 5 hours. So it is good that endgame things are getting fairly easy as it feels rewarding since you as a player progressed a lot in order to reach that point. If you are into this kind of games and are new to the franchise you will easily get 100+ hours into this. If you are a veteran to the franchise then the bosses might be a little underwhelming.
Also do note that updates get released to tackle existing issues. For other issues some mods happen to fix loads of things, other than that I think it is still good for another couple of 10s-100s of hours for me.

Edit 3:
175+ hours in game and I can say I am starting to thoroughly enjoy this game. Aiming for 100% achievements. It is fun to do the arch tempered elders, although they do get repetitive and some things are just unfair rather than fun such as Nergigante bomb diving 5 times in a row. But other than that there is plenty of end game content and grinds. I enjoy grinding so its okay for me.

Specs and stats:
At 1080p (high settings preset) I get a constant 60 fps. Can be 80+ if I disabled the cap, but I'd rather have a stable fps. These were the stats during a boss fight.
Cpu: i7 4790k @ 4.5ghz - average of 62% load
Ram: 32gb ddr3 - average of 2.6gb used
Gpu: gtx 980ti - average of 87% used

This game has no exit button.

It was a mistake to buy this game.

I have smoked in my live plenty of years.
I had my fair share of alcohol.
I enjoyed drugs on plenty of occasions.

Never had I been addicted to something. I thought I would enter my grave remaining unaddicted to anything throughout my whole life. But factorio changed that. I dream about this game like it is a highschool crush.

Good bye free-time and not free-time.

This is everything that PUBG aspired to be, but a lot better.