Recent reviews by soba

Haven't had it for long but I spent entire nights the last few days just driving and chilling. Really fun physics sandbox/sim with tons of mods, but also it's really nice to listen to music and just relax, driving around the different areas with different cars. 100% recommend for both chaos and chill times. Also smashing cars is fun :p

Everything I've ever wanted in a rhythm game! Great music and an extremely fun new spin on rhythm games, highly recommend! Only downside is that it's a tad short, hoping the developers add more content or another story in the future! Absolutely love this game, you won't be disappointed! :)

10/10 Best Dating Sim and Relaxing Dog Petting Sim

But really though it's an incredible game with even more incredible lore. Probably now my all-time favorite game as well. Yes it is as difficult as many people mention, but always try to learn from every encounter or rethink your strategy. There are plenty of guides, walk-throughs, and builds out there to lend you a hand, and if you ever need more help the community is great as well. As someone that's played and beaten every souls-game on PC and console this one is relatively similar despite the open world, but is just as, if not, more rewarding than the prior games due to the relative step-up in difficulty, especially in the late game boss fights.

Biggest cons for me were the stingy upgrade system that doesn't really let you try things out first, you just kind of have to do your research and decide for yourself what you'd like to upgrade and run because resources are a tad hard to come by especially early game, and even more so if you play blind. And my hot take is that I don't love the open world.. While it does add more to explore, it pads space out quite a bit and adds a further vagueness to an already vague game. For me, the best part of the game are the legacy dungeons which play like traditional souls dungeons, but having the vast open space between dungeons with no real direction of where to go and what to do overall felt very overwhelming, especially if you struggle in an area only to find a weapon or skill you can't even use and that you haven't made any progress after spending that time. Once you get to late game that tapers off and the game really earns it's score. All endings both good and evil are incredibly done, gameplay is superb, and again, the lore of the lands between is SPECTACULAR.

Real talk TLDR: if you have not played any Dark Souls games, this might be a bit of a reach for you, but you can conquer it. If you are new to soulsborne, I'd say pick up Dark Souls 1 or 3 (pref 3) first. It will teach you the fundamentals of gameplay and mechanics all the while immerse you in a world nearly as rich in lore as this one. Either way, you're getting an incredible game.

For me though, it lived up to all the hype, and I agree with every rave review. This is, in my opinion, without a doubt, game of the year 2022.

As someone that's been a fan of Forza games since Forza Motorsport 2 and has purchased every single Forza game to date, this is yet another Forza Horizon in a different locale that's just as fine-tuned and beautiful as previous games. If you enjoyed the other horizon games, you will certainly enjoy this one. Right off the bat you'll have a great time, money is also plentiful so your dream cars (or cars you own IRL can be pretty much bought right off the bat except for cars hidden in wheelspins or are forzathon exclusive like the AE86 Sprinter Trueno, sadly). Also love the new wheel view that really puts you in the driver's seat if you have a sim setup, looks incredible. Also the welcome pack cars are fantastic and don't need to be modded or tuned at all for extremely competitive fun right out the gate, the welcome pack is definitely worth it.

The Pros: Fun, enjoyable racing gameplay identical to Forza Horizon 4 with improvements. Massive catalog of cars. Awesome diversity of music with lovingly crafted gameplay. Great options for accessibility and inclusiveness. Lots of diversity for car modification and advanced tuning setups as well as incredible custom paintjobs available from the online community (also if you're into Japanese itasha cars, you'll love this). Great support for all driving styles and happily meets whatever you're looking to get out of this game: want a fun arcade racer with sim elements? Want sim-style steering and damage with very punishing ai? Want to just chill in free roam, listen to the music, and enjoy your favorite cars? FH5's got you covered. Weather events are also amazing, and the sandstorms are breathtaking. You can tell that this game was crafted with love. Also engine sounds are incredible (although enhanced, wish my Toyota 86 was as loud as it is in the game) and the attention to detail for car interiors are exactly spot on to the point it's mind-blowing, as expected from a Forza game.

The Cons: Online can be buggy (should be fixed in a few months hopefully). Forzathon events rarely have other players in them (however it does adjust it so you can complete the events solo, which is a nice change from previous games). I personally dislike the forza drops feature which allows random people to send you cars. Slightly reduced customization from FH4, (bye, bye rocketbunny FT86 kits). Auto-upgrade is garbo, you should always custom upgrade to squeeze the full potential out of your cars to suit your personal driving style. Racing AI can be strange at times and is uniquely punishing on blue racing events but extremely easy on all other types (cross-country, rally, and street racing). I have to sweat bullets against Pro AI on blue racing events to the point all of your turns and actions need to be flawless throughout the race, meanwhile street racing (pink events) Pro/Unbeatable AI are pushovers. The story cutscenes also lack facial animation later in the game, which is mega awkward, eventually swaps to camera angles that intentionally don't show faces especially for the late game cutscenes which to me feels rushed.. Lastly I honestly prefer the UK map (FH4) to Mexico (FH5), courses are well designed but for some reason I feel like Forza Horizon 4's courses were better overall. Also I'm very sad they decided to retire the Forza Hub rewards system with this game as well. The game runs decently well, however has worse performance for me personally than FH4, which I could run flawlessly on my 1070. This game on the other hand is really pushing my hardware to it's limits. I had to upgrade to 16GB of RAM to accommodate this game as well, kept getting not enough memory warnings with random freezes. Also every single time a race event is done or I leave my home or auto show the game freezes briefly as it saves, which gets more and more annoying over time...

Verdict: Great Forza Horizon game with a ton of improvements over Forza Horizon 4. Lots to do and enjoy. I personally do still enjoy Horizon 4 a tad more (miss the UK), but you will not be disappointed with Horizon 5. Great game that's visually beautiful with hours of fun and lots to keep you engaged. If you're on an older setup or prefer the UK as a locale go for FH4, still has lots of support, runs better, and also in my opinion has better courses. HOWEVER you won't be disappointed with the locale of this game, incredibly beautiful with lots to enjoy. If you don't have FH4 or this is your first Forza Horizon, I would possibly consider Horizon 4 for now until more bugs are worked out, but either way you'll have a ton of fun. Definitely recommend, great game, best driving franchise hands down that continues to improve.

If you bow at the Fire Keeper, she bows back.
10/10 best dating sim.

Honestly though, a genuine masterpiece of a game. Beautiful, dark, and tragic on so many levels. The first souls game I've beaten, but made me crave the challenges that lie ahead in the other games in the franchise. I can't remember a game I've played through that's made me feel such genuine curiosity and wonder about the terrifyingly beautiful world within.

Venture forth, ashen one.

Cute artwork, touching relatable story, challenging yet rewarding gameplay, and a wonderfully composed soundtrack. Genuinely incredible game.

The more I delve into it, the more I love the extremely relatable characters and their meaningful stories as well as the amazing level design. This game is packed with tons of great content, from the main story (Chapter 1-7) to the B-Sides, even to Core and Farewell. This game is always ready for those of you looking to discover yourselves venturing up the treacherous Celeste mountain.

Without a doubt, Celeste has become one of, if not, my favorite games of all time. I really do think it stands shoulder to shoulder with the all-time greats of the platforming world, even standing out among them with its incredibly fluid gameplay and remarkable story. So much replay value as well, a genuine masterpiece.

Absolutely beautiful experience in every single way.

My favorite car from my favorite movie? Welp. Won't be using any other cars now.
Best DLC ever. 10/10 would buy again.

I really like this game and I think it's a fantastic survival game, however the Mac client doesn't run smoothly, similar to that of a badly winewrapped game (and I'm on a fairly beefy Mac).

Tbh I really miss the old legacy version, but in any version at all, if you try to join any server, you'll immediately be killed so it's almost impossible to progress if you roll solo. Even then, it's very hard to do anything because when you log out, you fall asleep, which allows you to be killed and looted even on a non-pvp server. Also with every new update, the servers are wiped and you have to start all over again. IF Facepunch would just give this game single player or a legitimate way to solely play with friends then I'd say that this is probably the best survival game on Steam, but untl then, not recommended.

Please add singleplayer! Please!