Recent reviews by BlindReflections

Note: I played on Uplay before downloading the Steam version in order to be able to write this, so please don't pay too much attention to my Steam play time.



I'm seeing a lot of mixed impressions on this beta so far, so I'm gonna throw my own thoughts in the mix and try to be as objective as I can and hope to be useful.

So let's get started!
First things first:


UI is,um, fairly intuitive for both controller and mouse+keyboard. Nothing much to complain about here, other than still not being quite sure what deploying my heroes on the map actually does. I haven't seen any change at all in the updates on conquered territories so far.

Text chat could be explained better, after 2 days I had to google how to access the general text chat 'cos I was getting frustrated. The channel is set to Team by default and the key mapping only indicated "T" to access chat; turns out Tab changes channel once you're in chat.


It runs surprisingly well maxed out on a 1070 at 1440p. I get 60fps with Vsync on 95% of the time, but there are terrifying drops to the 20s or 30s occasionally that last a second or 2, typically in the thick of battle. Not sure what they are caused by, will need to monitor resource usage.
Graphics options are abundant, you have quite a bit of control over pretty much everything from textures to ambient occlusion, to three! separate sets of anti-aliasing.


When you play for the first time, the game puts you through a tutorial to show you all the basic techniques: you can lock onto targets when facing heroes for a better understanding of their movements, or run around freely swashbuckling your way through AI pawns. Attacks can be light or heavy and can be performed in 3 directions by moving the mouse around, parrying requires positioning your weapon in the same direction as the enemy's attack, and blocking requires the right positioning *plus* a perfect timing of the blocking command. My one gripe with this was initially that the command for blocking is also used for heavy attacks: hit it a nanosecond off the perfect timing you'll be hit. This makes the simple parry somewhat more appealing in combat, especially when facing multiple enemies. There is also a dodge mechanic a la Witcher and a grapple/guard break technique, that changes from hero to hero. It can be used to, obviously, break the enemies' guard and follow up with a chained attack or to push them. There are high places on the battlefield, my very first death came from two people throwing me off a wall.

To conclude on this, every hero a set of moves and combos which can be viewed in the menu and 4 abilities that can be triggered by earning respect on the battlefield (kills, etc) , and it's actually quite fun to experiment with the different factions and classes.


There are three factions: Samurai, Knights and Vikings.
Each faction has three different heroes, each with their different playstyles, of which only one per faction is available at the start.
Every battle played, be it lost or won, rewards you with coins and/or equipment parts to improve/change your hero's stats.
Coins can also be used to unlock "crates" with random equipment, and to unlock heroes. Each class costs 500 coins, and every battle rewards on average 40 to 80 coins, so it takes very little to unlock all heroes, which is a nice touch to give everyone access to the full roster rather quickly.
It is also noteworthy to point out that the tutorial alone will reward you 2000 coins on completion, which should you want to, means 4 new heroes!
You can also customize your hero's appearance with color patterns and symbols.


The beta currently features three multiplayer game modes, all playable online or vs AI.

• Duel/Brawl: 1v1 or 2v2 mode.
  
  
• Deathmatch: Your typical DM, 4v4 with respawns.
  
  
• Dominion: 4v4 with area conquest, when a team reaches 1000 points it disables the enemies' respawn.

All these game modes are all part of a bigger picture, the Faction Wars, that as I understand it, reset once a week and reward the faction that won most game modes on most areas of the map.
My question is...why is my Samurai fighting Vikings alongside Vikings in the Knight's citadel..? A more coherent implementation of factions would be nice.

The maps currently available on Dominion and Deathmatch are 3, one per faction, with changing weather/time of day. They are fairly small, but in my opinion they fit the 4v4 combat.
There are separate, smaller maps for the Duel/Brawl modes. One in particular seems to hate my PC, and my fps drop to 30.

Also a little note on matchmaking. As of now, it works oddly. A game can start with 6 out 8 players available, but every time that has happened, it put the two bots in the same team rather than 1 in each. Can be annoying.


It has been mentioned in most negative reviews that there are no dedicated servers yet - that is indeed the case. Connection is peer-to-peer, meaning that if the host leaves, you have to wait for a replacement and that it can be a pain to even find a match.
In my experience so far, it hasnt been particularly annoying as hosts are almost immediately replaced by bots (like in Rocket League), but don't dismiss those who write that their own experieces have been hell - I may have just been lucky. It is concerning that Ubisoft haven't at least stated whether or not dedicated servers would be available at launch. A more transparent attitude towards players would go a long way, especially considering the already widespread hate for the company.


For a game called "For Honor", there seems to be very little honor to be found among the community and you'll more often than not end up ganged up on even when it means the rest of your team are free to capture everything else.


There are exceptions and I did have some really enjoyable moments: meeting a single opponent in the thick of battle in Dominion and circling, studying eachother felt pretty epic. Another in Brawl last night. Me and one of the enemies just ended up watching and cheering our teammates on from the sidelines, and as the duel ended we greeted eachother and fought in peace while the teammate watched and waited. This, I think, is what makes this game feel good.

We players expect to be taken to new places, to feel what it would have been like to meet enemies on the battlefield and in that era, combat was intimate: you had to get close to your opponent to fight him. With that in mind, this game really shines in Duel and Brawl, assuming you dont find people that run behind your back to stab you while you fight their teammate, that is.


Overall, I've been pleasantly surprised, considering I wasn't even looking forward to the game and just jumped in to give it a try. Ended up playing most of my available time on it. I'll most likely be playing 'til the beta ends, but won't be buying the game just yet. Perhaps on sale at the price of 30-35 euros, and when im certain Ubisoft has fixed what needs fixing.

I hope to have given a decent overview of the game in its current state, and to those who are unsure my advice is..try it. This is what betas are for, no? Don't get thrown off by the initial difficulties, invest a little time in training, perhaps try out different classes and who knows, you might just enjoy yourself.

A short, but action packed journey in a unique world.

You are on the run, hunted by your own family for the murder of your own father - or better - Father-Mother, aided only by the young woman by your side.
The story is split in two parallel storylines: your present and your past, which will unfold via flashbacks, as you narrate your past and motives to your only remaining friend, and will take you to the very end of the world, before you decide to return home to settle your past once and for all.

Gameplay-wise, the combat in this game is praised as one of the best melee combat experiences in gaming, and while I don't fully agree, I certainly see how it may be so for many people.
You will find an immersive first person combat system, where every punch and every block counts, and mostly, FEELS right.

In the end, it is a short story of ideals and revelations that may even manage to make you think of society as we see it.

Hard to recommend to everyone, although it is so short (I completed it in 5h and I'm sure it can be completed in a little less) that even those who simply seek an alternative adventure won't be too weighed down.

I do recommend it, however, to first person brawlers' fans, you will be given every tool to test your fighting skills.

In short: short, first person brawler with excellent, fleshed out combat and a story with a morale set in a bizarre world.

Before I say anything else, I'd like to apologise for my English as it's not my native language.
With that out of the way, let's get to the game..thank you in advance for your patience!

Imagine a future where your memories can be digitised, stored, erased, shared with those you care for: this is the future Remember Me takes you to.
Sounds inviting, doesn't it? But I'm sure you can see the risk in this.

With access granted to the last remaining haven for personal privacy, corporations gain absolute power over the individual; the abuse of memory trading taints and fades identities.

But not all submit.
A group forms to fight the corporations: they are known as the Errorists, and this is where your journey begins.

Captured and stripped of your memories, you are freed by an unexpected ally and persuaded to rejoin the cause you once fought for, determined to regain your memories and identity.


Now to the gameplay: Remember Me plays as a third person action adventure with some minor platforming, and a melee combat system that borrows from the Batman: Arkham series, not without adding its own taste to it.

It all flows well and never gets overly repetitive, as combos can be customised in order to regain health, deal heavier damage or power special attacks.
Enemy types are sufficiently diverse and can provide a decent challenge in the higher difficulty settings, as you will often adapt your combos to the situation.
Only minor hiccup is the camera, that at times follows at angles that make it hard to have a good visual of the fight.

Platforming is linear, ledges and ladders you can (and must) use are highlighted.
There are collectibles scattered across levels that will grant health or energy improvements, but overall the game is linear; I don't consider this a particular flaw, as the game is story-centered and linearity keeps the plot flowing at a good pace.

The level design is beautiful: Neo Paris is created with meticulous attention to details, and I often found myself stopping to take it all in, or just listen to NPCs discuss about their daily trials and tribulations.

The story is obviously the strong point of the game: if you were intrigued by the premise, moving forward will never feel like a chore and will not fail to catch you off guard more than once. You are in for a treat.

There is one more feature I haven't brought up yet: at set points in the story, a unique power of Nilin will be revealed - you have the ability to enter people's memories. Cool? Very.
Not only that: you also have the power to change them, affecting the present! This is done by interacting with different, set objects in the memory, affecting the end result. This is a great mechanic that I felt should have been fleshed out further. Imagine not having limitations on the remix, with any result you achieve having effect on the story!
Still, it is a very interesting trait that already works well in the state it is given to the player in.

TL,DR: a gripping story, a thought provoking thematic, a setting as beautiful as it is tainted, fun combat and a unique mechanic. If any of it appeals to you, do not hesitate to immerse yourself in the not so distant future Neo Paris.

And if you read this in 2084..
Remember Me.

More than a review, this simply aims to be a collection of thoughts on my experience with the game.
I was honestly very excited when I first heard of this title. Sadly, it didn't really live up to expectations.
Not that it's a BAD game, it's just not consistent and often breaks the immersion and atmosphere. Which is a shame: this game would otherwise really do a great job in creating a haunting experience.

One example: roughly a few minutes into the game, after the impact, you find your oxygen levels are dropping dramatically due to a leak. After running to an oxygen tank, you will be able to fill up (and magically fix the leak) and be left with an autonomy of approx 8 hours.

Shortly after that you will find your way to the Russian town where, among other things, you'll find another oxygen tank. Remember where it is, because you are likely going to use it more than once, as oxygen will run out within minutes and you'll have to track your steps back to it quite often until you unlock the next zone - which is where the game just resets its own rules: for most of the time your oxygen will last you days, with the exception of a few areas. You can argue that, as the game has cutscenes, you will have filled up in the period of time we weren't in control of him for - but there are plenty of areas you'll be roaming for a relatively long time without a worry.
This may sound like a really minor thing to complain about, but it's one of many the immersion suffers from.

Another aspect that feels often unnatural is that of puzzles: more often than not, the puzzles will feel completely irrelevant - you can safely pick up the green stones with your hands, but you NEED the robotic arm to place them in a slot roughly at the same height as your head, triggering a mini game. When you feel you might actually have found a use for the arm it won't be available for use, as it's only triggered when close to an object it is designed to interact with.

The puzzles overall are never overly challenging, with the game mainly focusing on jumping, and simply feel out of place - situations that require you to interact with objects to actually clear a path are scarce, and when you do come up with a clever idea, the game just won't cooperate with you.
It's not a bad design choice in itself, it just feels like the dev threw any potential the game had out the window.

As for the story, it is obviously the aspect that should keep you playing the game until the end - but again, it starts with an intriguing premise and loses it's strength in the later chapters.

What the game does achieve though, is in creating its atmosphere through haunting sound effects and a well placed soundtrack, which alone manages to keep the player on edge.

Overall, I'd still recommend this if you can overlook it's flaws - the story is not without surprises, and the atmosphere it creates tries hard to make up for most of what the game lacks in mechanics.

Revisit Middle Earth with the added charm and humour Lego has accustomed so many to. The gameplay and camera can be a bit awkward at times (and I strongly suggest playing with a controller), but it doesn't spoil the general fun. Many games have tried their luck with LotR, few have succeded - this is one of them. The 20€ price tag feels a bit high, considering it's a relatively old title..but if you're a Tolkien fan, you'll have no excuse not to pick it up when it's on sale!