Recent reviews by Aeterna Sol

I've been playing this game on and off for *years,* and probably have at least five hundred hours total, including 28 hours and 22 minutes on just the Remastered version on EA Play. Admittedly, no idea how to check the hours with the original game, but the vast majority of it was on the original through Origin, when that was still a thing. I've also lost many save files, requiring me to redo everything. And I did. I've gotten the Elite license at least six times, and reached 100% at least twice. I had never cheated in my progress until recently, when I lost my save yet again because of EA Play jank, which is why I'm not counting that one. Every other time, I did it completely from scratch, with no save file replacing or editing. However, I've never truly completed the game, and I plan to finally get around to doing that now. I've played this game a lot over the course of the last decade, if not longer, and I want to finally finish my journey to mastering this game, and joining the 500 Club. Wish me luck.

Needlessly grindy, really hard to have fun because of spawncampers, and botted playercounts during a strike, and it all means I'm never playing this game again. Don't give these devs the time of day. Not only are they corrupt, but the game isn't even that good in terms of gameplay, primarily because of the completely insane grind and lack of punishment for obviously harmful ways of playing.

Grinding for and min-maxing parts is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ stupid. RNG shouldn't be such a big part of it. I'm honestly shocked that I've put up with it for this long.

The game is great. Amazing, even. Best shooter I’ve ever played, and I’ve played Doom Eternal and Deep Rock Galactic. Unfortunately, I don't really know how to properly describe why I like it so much. Maybe it's the style meter, or all the cool weapons and lore, or the fact that... wait, no, you go to hell in Doom Eternal, too. And fight angels, I think. Are they angels? I think they're angels.

ANYWAY, could also just be the graphics. So many games nowadays have modern graphics, so it's interesting to see a game with "inferior" graphics, and even moreso for it to be such a good game and so fun. Old graphics in the age of realistic graphics is an artform that's hard to get right, much less master. Goes to show that looks don't make the game, gameplay does. In other words, if you think the game looks bad, shut the ♥♥♥♥ up and try playing it, because you should never judge a book by its cover, or in this case, a game by its graphics.

Also I'm ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ garbage at this game, and considering my disability, that probably won't change anytime soon (if ever), but dammit, I'm gonna try my best! That's what this game tells you. To keep going. You WILL get better with practice. Just keep trying, and before you know it, you'll have gotten much better! Just as an example, I can finally hit coins somewhat consistently as of today! :D

Besides, the game has plenty of accessibility options for people like me. I don't use 'em because I don't wanna rely on them too much, but if you need them, they're there.

I'm an ancient player that hasn't played in probably a decade. Just tried to log in out of curiosity, turns out I forgot my password. I tried to reset it, and... the email never came. Either they're using ♥♥♥♥♥♥ ancient tech for their automated support emails or the guys running this game are incompetent. Don't bother with this game. Even if their stuff worked, the monetization is scummy as ♥♥♥♥ from what I remember, and judging by other reviews and the info on the store page, that hasn't changed.

Not enough Razer Chroma. Still a great skin, though.

Speed. Maximum speed. All of the speed. Hyperspeed, even.

This game has a good foundation. The cars look incredible, and the detail is astonishing. There's a few errors here and there, though, like details that are absent or changed compared to the source material, as well as some minor visual bugs with decals and such when a car changes modes. The driving is super fun. Challenging, but not unfair, just takes some getting used to. The AI isn't great, though, but it's not like this game has much singleplayer content to begin with. The multiplayer is dead most days of the week, but I've managed to find a few people. They're really good at the game, though, I simply couldn't compete.

However, there's two things that seriously bother me, and one of which is where DREI Plus has an advantage. The previous game has a huge leg up regarding the game's speed. And I mean its *actual* speed, not the speed shown on the speedometer (which is supposed to be in km/h). It's not even close to accurate, the cars are far too slow.

Now, I realize that doesn't sound like much of a problem, but consider what Cyber Formula is. It's not just weird Japanese Formula 1. It's the most extreme auto racing competition on the planet, with machines capable of going 700+ KMH. This is very poorly reflected in the speeds the cars are actually going, which my guess is around 300-400 KMH at most. Oh, and the tracks are quite literally scaled down from DREI Plus to accommodate the slower speeds. Doesn't look great when smaller, I'll be honest.

There are Cyber Formula games out there that properly replicate the real speeds, like most of the Road to the Infinity games for PS2, so I know it's possible, and has been for a long time already. Hell, DREI Plus was the game made directly before this one, and by the same people as this game! If you can do it once, I'm sure you can do it again!

The other thing is how the grip cars handle. There's only a few drift cars in the game, those being the AKF-0/G, the AN-21, and the red 00-X3/II if I remember correctly. The rest are grip cars (including the purple Z/A-11, surprisingly), and the way they turn... well, let's just say there's no point in using an analog stick. It's either full steering or straight ahead. If you're precise enough, you could potentially use the analog stick properly, but it's insanely difficult and not viable for serious racing. I could barely achieve partial steering myself, and that's when I'm putting all my focus into it!

Honestly, I prefer DREI Plus over VIER, despite how much better this game looks graphically, because the effects are more faithful to the source material, and the speeds are more accurate to the speedometer. I also just kinda wish it wasn't so dead...

Lemme get something straight. This game is fun. Truly. But the progression WILL grind to a halt eventually and become unfun. I think the main source of this is the incredibly low drop rate of Orbs of Alchemy. The Missions also don't give you enough Orbs to upgrade all the equipment you've been getting over the course of said missions. I've been stuck at 3 stars for forever, and to my recollection, I've NEVER gotten an Orb to drop. Not once. Not even after taking a break for several years. Yes, I'm a long time player.

They need to either increase the drop rate of Orbs of Alchemy or remove them entirely. Otherwise, it's highly unlikely I'll ever return.

Edit: I ended up going back. Turns out, the orbs aren't as rare as I thought, but they're still unacceptable. You HAVE to play on Elite difficulty just to have a decent chance at getting them during a full run of a tier, and even then, they're still very rare.