izigame.me

SCORE 4 / 7
a rad high-octane vertical shooter tampered by ill-formed looter-system, enormous bugs & glitches, and lethargically unfun script
⠀✅⠀RATING

⌛ time to beat:⠀ 15-25h⠀⠀ 🔥 difficulty:⠀ 3 / 7
✨ presentation:⠀ 6 / 7⠀⠀ ⠀ 📙 narrative:⠀ 2 / 7
💵 money value:⠀ 5 / 7⠀⠀ ⠀🍫 fun-factor:⠀ 5 / 7

⠀↗️⠀MY PLAYTHROUGH
⠀► started the game on difficulty (3/4)...
⠀► ...about 30% switched to Insanity (4/4)
⠀► completed all quests, collected all weapons, level 120+
⠀► started NewGame+ on Insanity-2 difficulty (5/10)
⠀► during playthrough progressively switched to higher difficulties and finished on Insanity-7 (10/10)
⠀► I haven't played coop

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2819838593 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2819838496 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2819838404
⠀⚠️⠀NOTES
⠀► 🧱 number of crashes: x4
⠀► if you stuck in walls/scenery, press ctrl + ` and type-in "s_fly_mode 1" to activate noclip. it doesn't block achievements

⠀🏆⠀ACHIEVEMENTS

💯 time to 100%:⠀⠀ 45-60h⠀⠀🔥 difficulty: 3 / 7
📈 diff-specific:⠀ ❌⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ 💨 missable:⠀⠀-
🌎 multiplayer:⠀ - ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⛔ broken:⠀ -
🔐 DLC:⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ - ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ 📅 date/time:⠀-
💎 collectathon: ⠀❌ ⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⚙️ grindy:⠀ ❌


⠀► the best way to grind "The Way of Masamune" achievement is to repeat "Heisenberg, part 3" mission. Twins + Lord of War give 171 orbs per run on max difficulty.
⠀► difficulty achievements do stuck
⠀► you may replay any mission and as far as know there is no missable "kill X" achievements


shooting vs everything else
you know what? I love the "shooting" part of this game and don't like much else: looting is redundant and one-dimensional, premium resources are terribly grindy, crafting is tedious, shops are useless, too many weapons with too little variety, plot is cringy and not in a campy way, plethora of bugs and clipping issues, randomized levels are getting boring fast, low difficulty spike and pathetic boss fights
but damn I like the combat. it is messy yes, but satisfying. double-jumping above demon's head and putting a lethal dose of lead at his ugly face while dashing backward to avoid ratdog's teeth and slashing it with katana - is sweet. sure, game has its own fun too, like spawning six kamis around and giving 0.25s to react (yeah, F-me indeed), or when enemies suddenly stunlock me in some gruel melee attack and drain my health as this *finger snaps*, or when they unexpectedly noclip through the ground, or hit from a mile away and outside of their hitbox. but I didn't care much because I overly enjoyed FPS loop:
I like playing an agile character with lots of vertical maneuverability
I like not having a stamina meter and dash as anime ninja
I like that a shotgun blast covers 80% of screen
I like to cut enemies in half with a chainsaw and swim in their meaty gushy guts
...but the thing is that having a good FPS isn't enough. DOOM2016 was released five months ago and had equally satisfying shooting and a whole-a-lot less other issues
why looting doesn't work
it seems many players didn't like the fact that the second game had loot (the first installment hadn't) - for those picky lads-n-gals I can say one thing: 'go play the first game then'. or better yet, the original Painkiller. that game is still a blast
for everyone else - yes, that game has loot and crafting. but both systems are nothing to preach about
you have ~80 weapons. each has three slots. you kill enemies and get gems (four qualities, differ in levels). gems go into the slots. three gems of the same quality can be crafted into one of higher quality. you get money for killing enemies and doing chores. money is spent on shops (gems, new weapons) and on crafting. plus there is a premium currency - orbs, used to upgrade default weapon stats or unlock a fourth gem socket
that's it. nothing fancy. a typical looter ordeal. we didn't get far away from Hellgate: London and even made few steps back
now, the problem. looters work like this: you play them once to get a basic grasp - then you play the higher difficulties where your management is put into a real test. to simplify, your success in Diablo's 'Normal' is worth nothing in 'Hell' difficulty. player must constantly adapt your setup and distro to the new encounters; enemies should constantly be the hazard and looting shall never become a secondary thing
it doesn't work like this in SW2 - I have used the same weapon-gem combo for 50h+ and had no reasons to try something else (because I was raised in Quake's mindset school stating 'if something works well use until you hit a breakwall'). about an hour in, I found a DOOM-styled double-barreled shotgun, and used it until the mission "Stop the Ooze". why did stop using it? because a reward for that mission was a triple-barreled shotgun which practically says "same thing only deals 33% more damage". about a middle in I also snapped a M-79 GL (I love M-79 since Syphon Filter)
...and I finished the whole game like that. both Hard difficulty and the max possible difficulty, Insanity-7. I never thought of changing my weapons or trying the different gems. nope
but putting my fabulous setup aside, I still cannot see much of valid options for surviving on higher difficulties. crit is mandatory, as well as HP leech and damage-resist. that alone gives players little room to experiment with the options and approaches. yeah, sure I can use Nobitsura Kage that procs 50% resist for 10s on crit-hit - or I can just blast shotgun at demon's face and call it a day without being fancy
the game littered the whole screen with dozens of gems but I cared little. it tried to stop me with crafting randomness by artificially giving me less money than I need to craft a right gem but I outwit it with savescumming (developers of looter-games, provide an option to un-randomize the results with money, don't treat us like monkeys who love farming)
and crafting/managing is tedious too. to craft three gems into a more powerful one you have to click on needed gems and then click "OK". again and again. it is redundant. thankfully, I can write AHK scripts. you also cannot sell gems in a bunch: if one wants to sell all common trash gems then he must click on EACH AND EVERY of them. that is inappropriate. again, AHK to the rescue
d1ck jokes and story
I have no idea who in his right mind is playing shooters for plot - and I guessed we all agreed that lack of story in DOOM2016 was the best thing ever since fun-size Twix - bit people complained about the story, or exactly what a downgrade it is compared to the first game. oh, yeah, because the first game was such a cherished national treasure and had 89 d1ck jokes - but now developers ruined it by including 247 of d1ck jokes. indeed what a travesty!
humor aside, the story is complete bananaz. it makes no sense, full of plotholes, random cuts and shorts, characters change their motivations and attitude every few seconds and their dialogs is abysmal. and I don't care and had a good laugh at it. like when Cortanna-wannabe hated protagonist for a good 95% of the story but then suddenly became BFF without any arc. or when character tells us that the world is going to die and our hero goes like ’my name is slang for d1ck'. or when our wacky protagonist jokes about impregnating an old woman just to piss off her granddaughter - a truthly family fun and good christian values!
but, surprisingly, developers found time to put ~140 text documents to discover and read. however, our hero jokes about his ding-a-ling, so the rich text-lore doesn't bother me at all