Recent reviews by Mo McThinky

READ TO END FOR EDITS AND UPDATES

My first entry into the MMORPG genre. The animation, story, set pieces and combat kept me going long enough to learn the systems, and I'm basically hooked.

If I recommend this game for anything, it's the set pieces. Holy crap. I've never had a moment where I'm impressed with my character for not running away from an army during a cutscene, but when you get to the festival of madness scene, you'll see what I mean. Those moments are fairly few and far between, but that means when they come up they never feel anything less than epic and hype. The combat and animations feels great and beautiful, and there is something so cathartic about blasting 7 enemies apart with a single punch or whatever. AOE for days, and it is satisfying. The story has some good beats too, some wholesome moments, some shockingly brutal stuff, a good bit of funny moments. I finish a continent story and now I'm watching a musical and wtf I don't even know anymore. and then you finally make it to the endgame where you've played every continent and now you have to get strong enough to fight the massive legion raids and there is so much you can do.

as for negatives, I think the biggest one is that the tutorials don't do a very good job of helping you figure out what you should be doing. what things give what resources? how do I get stronger? why do I feel so weak? what tasks should I do next? Is this island quest worth doing? the only way to really handle it all is to use third party articles and guides right now. It's not impossible to learn it but it is a bit of work. again, for me the combat and set pieces and beauty of the game kept me going long enough to learn most of it.

EDIT: The endgame is grindy af. Once you finish the last continent available for NA you're dumped into a horrible grindfest. Now, when you attempt to level up there is a significant chance you just waste the resources you spent so much time building up. Personally, I love the combat and animation and story, but holy crap I cannot with the grinding. we'll see if I stick around or comeback.

Is the game dead? No.
Lost Ark, like every game that comes out, had a massive release of players trying it out and then the ones that moved one, moved on. At this point, the core player base has now been formed and from what I can tell it is holding steady, so don't be afraid to jump in on account of player count worries, because plenty of people play this game.

I'm putting it at a minimum of 9/10 for me.

EDIT2: I burned out just entering into the final tier of endgame. I spent way too long trying to decide my class and deleting characters to try new classes. I recently came back and am happy to say that the massive grind that lost ark is known for is actively being reduced. This allows better access to more of the content, and as with many things in the mmo genre, the best stuff is at the end. Easily the biggest problem now is the fact that new players ABSOLUTELY MUST watch guide videos because you will waste so much time and resources if you don't. I just learned some things about raid culture i didn't know before, 400+ hours into the game.

I think the best way to describe my impressions is that it's a SEGA game, complete with everything that entails. I enjoyed it, but I'm not hooked. Though, I have hidden a very fun secret towards the bottom of this review.

You can tell that the menus and UI were made by the same company that makes the newer Sonic games, they carry the same sort of vibe. Play something like Sonic Riders or Spectrobes and then play this, it's strangely nostalgic. Even the way the story, characters, world and enemies interact with each other and how things play out just feels... very SEGA-y? the way your character runs around and the way the physics feel seems reminiscent of the Sonic games from like the 20-teens, idk. I'll call it unique and let you decide whether that's bad or not, but I definitely would have had a much worse time if I did not have my gamer intuition to understand what things did.

The story was good enough for me. you have the standard kind-hearted person with PTSD from the first mission, the quiet highly competent and socially awkward companion, a protagonist who's silent during cutscenes but talks trash and grunts when you're playing, big scary faceless alien bad guys that reminded me of werehog sonic from sonic unleashed with the stretchy arms, an entire government that basically gives you specifically a free pass on everything and lets you do whatever you want as long as your power level is high enough, standard stuff. Hit me as nostalgic and fun, for some I can see it being a put off.

I'm mainly familiar with Lost Ark in terms of MMORPGs, and the UI and quality of life choices definitely were lacking. The combat was cool, took a bit of a learning curve to get used to attacking with mouse and using shift to switch ability palettes (holding shift when you click launches different attacks). Once I got that down things were pretty smooth and enjoyable.

I found the progression hard to track and the tutorial stuff could probably be better. there were multiple times I attempted to upgrade my item with a new system I unlocked using my intuition as a gamer to guide me and ended up wasting resources because I hadn't completed the tutorial quest for it yet. It took me a while to find where my battle power level was shown and other clunky ui stuff, often because I was skipping the reading so much.

Character Creation is really good and I think I spent more time in this game's character creator than any other. it's probably personal taste or other developments in my personal life, but I actually cared about how my character looks for the first time, and there's a period of time after you start playing where you can change your look for free, so that was really nice. Plus, the aforementioned fun secret is that you can make the english VA for Rin Tohsaka from Fate your character's voice. as soon as I saw that you know what I clicked lol.

Overall I'd give it a solid 7/10. clunky UI was clunky but tolerable. combat was pretty fun once you got used to it, but I wouldn't call it mindblowing. Story and characters were good enough for me, I never cried but I never really cringed that bad either. Pretty good, not bad.

This is a very fun game. I just started getting into afps's, and I am very glad I got this game. Despite the stomping from veterans, the INCREDIBLY complicated and skill-needy movement system, and the overall high skill floor, which essentially starts on the third story, and even higher skill ceiling, which pretty much goes into space, I still enjoy playing this game. This game, in its current state, has arguably the nicest and most supportive community I have ever met. I am sure that I would have left the genre before I even got serious into it because of a hard community, had I not chosen this game over Quake. Without the community of this game, I would have uninstalled the game and wish I never wasted the money. The incredibly nice community of this game should be enough to buy reflex, in and of itself.

PROS:
-smooth game play, despite my ping of at least 50 on almost every server, I have experienced very little lag on servers with ping from 50-150.
-GREAT modablility. There is a literal tab in the options dedicated to changing the HUD. This game BEATS TEAM FORTRESS 2 IN HOW EASY TO MOD. I download a HUD, but I am not limited to that HUD when I install. I can use parts of different huds to make a HUD that I want. Team fortress 2 makes you use one HUD package at a time, with the settings the creator made, with the layout the creator made; the creator determines your HUD in its entirety. but Reflex throws that idea out the window, you don't download a HUD, you download a package of widgets for you to put together into your own combination for the HUD YOU want.
-INSANELY NICE COMMUNITY. I don't think I said it enough. This is arguably the best community I have ever met, and I can't get over it. So much support, so much help. INCREDIBLE.
-AND MORE!! I just cannot say enough about this game. I can only say for now, GET IT. If you like first person shooters, and you need the fastest game you can get your hyperactive hands on, look no further than Reflex. You will not be disappointed.

CONS:
- no tutorial at this point. I have heard that it is in the works, and there are community maps designed to help, but the movement system alone NEEDS a detailed tutorial and plenty of practice time. 99% of the time you see on my account in reflex is spent on learning the movement system. I have barely done any combat because I know I will get crushed.
-highest skill floor I have ever played. Team fortress 2 is easy to get into, all you have to do is shoot ppl of the other color, and stand on the objective. Reflex, however, requires so much more. You have to move very fast, and aim at things going just as fast, and control the pick ups as much as possible, and keep track of when each major pick up will spawn, and at the same time, your opponent(s) are doing the same, so you have to predict them because most of the guns in the game are projectile weapons. The matchmaking in the making will help quite a bit, but at this point, most everyone who plays the game are very good at it. HOWEVER, they will be willing to help you learn. Just put out a request for help, and it will get accepted.

VERDICT:
ABSOLUTELY GET THIS GAME. If you like first person shooters, and are looking for a challenge, this game will not disappoint.

By far my favorite game. the characters have such good personalities. the weapons are quite well balanced (compared to some games) and constantly updated. I personally am not a cosmetic person unless they actually help me in some way, but there are many, many, many hats, bells, whistles, and other hats. i have been playing quite a bit, and got two friends wanting to play it too. probably the best part is that the people who play it are so diverse. you can have one server with a ton of jerks, and another with the nicest people in the world, and another with people who just want to have fun.

I won't deny, i do (sometimes) rage. the game can be hard, a walk in the park, an equal challenge, and everything in between!

But if you are looking at playing it, I mainly have 2 things to say/write: why haven't you gotten it already (it has been out for seven years((I think))and it is FREE) and also, just know you will not be playing cod or anything close to it.

and for the aspiring child who is looking to get their parents on board, just a few minor warnnings: first, there is blood, however that can be turned off, just look for a "sillygibs" tutorial. second, there are mean people out there. I think that can be fixed too by turning off the ingame chat in options. third, there is a little cussing, no f-bomb, or poop-replacement (unless someone says it in the chat) but things like "damn" and "moron", etc. do occur in the scripting for the characters. maybe the worst is "wanker," kind of a staple of the sniper to say that. there may be a fix for that too that i don't know about. finally, if you are really young, you may be labeled as a "squeaker." it's a bullying term making fun of the fairly high pitched voice of a child.

my final thing to say is this: it is my favorite game, and I have not met a fps gamer who tried tf2 and did not like it. I absolutely LOVE IT!!