The review score is totally unfair

[Netsa]

Most people didn't even play the original game, it was on a dead system nobody bought. What's with all the complaints about how lazy the remaster is? Did ONLY Vita veterans buy this game or something?

It would be one thing if the complaints were mainly about the jank controls, but a surprising number of complaints are just "they didn't change enough!" IT'S ON PC! It's free from the third-world, land-locked nation of handheld, can't we be at least a LITTLE bit happy?

I swear, if all they did was remove the word "Remastered" from the title, this game would get an instant +20% bump in review scores. What the heck, guys.

Game plays slightly better than the Vita version, but somehow has a noticeably worse score than the original on Metacritic. What did you think was going to happen, like this game was going to be on Unreal Engine 5 and compete with Monster Hunter Wilds?

(Disclaimer: I'm running the game on Steam Deck, and it's ran flawlessly for me so far.)

[SCamp]

The 66% score is more than fair. I personally see it within the 55%-60% range. I would go as far as to give the Vita version 45%-50% score just because of how it was designed for microtransactions.

I like Freedom Wars, but I can admit that it isn't good game.

[Netsa]

Originally posted by SCamp:

The 66% score is more than fair. I personally see it within the 55%-60% range. I would go as far as to give the Vita version 45%-50% score just because of how it was designed for microtransactions.

I like Freedom Wars, but I can admit that it isn't good game.

Except it is a good game by any metric (and the Vita version wasn't designed for microtransactions). But hey, as long as you rate the Steam version above the Vita version, we got no beef.

[SCamp]

Originally posted by Netsa:

Originally posted by SCamp:

The 66% score is more than fair. I personally see it within the 55%-60% range. I would go as far as to give the Vita version 45%-50% score just because of how it was designed for microtransactions.

I like Freedom Wars, but I can admit that it isn't good game.

Except it is a good game by any metric (and the Vita version wasn't designed for microtransactions). But hey, as long as you rate the Steam version above the Vita version, we got no beef.

The Vita game was designed with microtransactions in mind. That was the entire factory system with the timegating and weapon stat breeding gacha was the microtransaction pipeline.

The Remaster doesn't touch the core essence of Freedom Wars and removed the worst aspect of it, but by being on Steam (and modern consoles) it's now it's competing in an actual games market. Back when it was on Vita? It was competing with essentially nothing given Vita's roster of garbage. Now that Freedom Wars is on Steam? It can be easily played, compared, and ranked against thousands of games within the same genre or adjacent.

It's not a good game, especially in comparison to basically anything else you can find today. Saying FW is good is a rose-tinted lie at best. Good Vita game? Sure. Good game in comparison to other experiences? ♥♥♥♥ no.

[Netsa]

Originally posted by SCamp:

The Vita game was designed with microtransactions in mind. That was the entire factory system with the timegating and weapon stat breeding gacha was the microtransaction pipeline.

The Remaster doesn't touch the core essence of Freedom Wars and removed the worst aspect of it, but by being on Steam (and modern consoles) it's now it's competing in an actual games market. Back when it was on Vita? It was competing with essentially nothing given Vita's roster of garbage. Now that Freedom Wars is on Steam? It can be easily played, compared, and ranked against thousands of games within the same genre or adjacent.

It's not a good game, especially in comparison to basically anything else you can find today. Saying FW is good is a rose-tinted lie at best. Good Vita game? Sure. Good game in comparison to other experiences? ♥♥♥♥ no.

Real gacha games were already around during the time of the Vita. Freedom Wars was doing a little bit of that with the time gating, but it was obviously half-assed. None of it was ever necessary, nor did it even waste much time. There is no "microtransaction pipeline" when no one's buying any and there's never any pressure to.

It's not good compared to WHAT, dude? I'm literally playing it right now, there is no rose-tinted anything. You already said you like the game, have you thought about why you like it? You're not that unique, this just isn't a bad game.

Freedom Wars offers an experience that isn't seen very often: modular monsters, infinite grappling hook, and guns in a MonHun-style game. It's basically a better version of God Eater, mainly only held back by the inclusion of PvP (which, to be fair, is also largely unseen in this genre). Be specific. What's actually wrong with it that qualifies it as "not good"?

Because I swear, I get the feeling you're just going to point at Monster Hunter.

[Shun]

Originally posted by SCamp:

It's not a good game, especially in comparison to basically anything else you can find today. Saying FW is good is a rose-tinted lie at best. Good Vita game? Sure. Good game in comparison to other experiences? ♥♥♥♥ no.

I have never played the game before, never had a vita, there's a bunch of other games i could be playing rn but im having fun with this. A lot of fun actually.

Game bad tho so i should stop having fun i guess.

[Temuthril]

Fun is different from objective ratings. You can have fun even while acknowledging things are flawed.

The story of the game is cut short, not much monster diversity and the PC version launch was marred by technical issues and not being able to change accessory & Percy voice language, among other things.

Freedom Wars was probably my favourite game on Vita, but there's no getting around it being flawed.

[SCamp]

Compared to Freedom Wars... there's Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet. Which is more complete and a better experience overall. And SAO:FB was most likely conceived as a Freedom Wars sequel given all the shared features and aesthetics of the two games.

I really like SAO:FB, but would still rate it at ~70%.

[Shun]

Originally posted by Temuthril:

Fun is different from objective ratings. You can have fun even while acknowledging things are flawed.

The story of the game is cut short, not much monster diversity and the PC version launch was marred by technical issues and not being able to change accessory & Percy voice language, among other things.

Freedom Wars was probably my favourite game on Vita, but there's no getting around it being flawed.

The technical parts i can definitely get behind, i had to switch some files around to get japanese voices from the start. Hopefull they can patch this later as i noticed the game is still getting updates.

Better than God Eater 2 having 0 japanese voice support though, the community had to make an undub mod for the game. I wasn't able to play the game the way i wanted for years.

As for the story i can't rell rn as im a fresh noob, gonna have to see how satisfied i am with it.

[Shun]

Originally posted by SCamp:

Compared to Freedom Wars... there's Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet. Which is more complete and a better experience overall. And SAO:FB was most likely conceived as a Freedom Wars sequel given all the shared features and aesthetics of the two games.

I really like SAO:FB, but would still rate it at ~70%.

If FB is 70 than FW has to be more, the ai in FB is so much worse. whenever you die your allies just run around your body for 2 minutes while trying to dodge every single bullet around them. Meanwhile in FW i die, im getting revived not even 2 seconds after.

Allies in FW will also help me bind enemies and heal me without me having to do anything. In FB you have to give them the command to heal for them to actually do it but then they barely attack, and even when they have healing as a command they can't revive you because they are too stupid to.

If i have to rate my overall experience with both games gameplays having over 100 hours in Fatal Bullet i can say without a doubt that im having a lot more fun in Freedom Wars because the ai is that much better.

Edit: Another big gripe i have with FB, i loved the game and i was so disappointed with the maps, you watch SAO's Gun Gale arc or Fatal Bullet's anime itself and you can see all these huge cities and suburbs, really cool map designs.

Then you get the game's first map, small field with 5 buildings. 2nd map is a huge beach. 3rd map, finally a city! Oh wait, it's a huge field of nothing and a small weirdly square shaped city in the middle that looks nothing like what i saw in the animes at all. I get bored of the map pretty fast and suddenly im in a forest and the game is ending. Felt like i explored barely anything and the game was already over, then i get stuck in those small maps and im forced to grind and grind the same exact enemy encounters as i did in my first hours of gameplay if i want to see the dlcs.

I could write an essay about FB and all that disappoints me about it.

[Temuthril]

Originally posted by Shun:

The technical parts i can definitely get behind, i had to switch some files around to get japanese voices from the start. Hopefull they can patch this later as i noticed the game is still getting updates.

That has been fixed in the latest patch, you can now change them as well on the window in your cell.

[Netsa]

Originally posted by Temuthril:

Fun is different from objective ratings. You can have fun even while acknowledging things are flawed.

The story of the game is cut short, not much monster diversity and the PC version launch was marred by technical issues and not being able to change accessory & Percy voice language, among other things.

Freedom Wars was probably my favourite game on Vita, but there's no getting around it being flawed.

No, it literally isn't. Video games are an entertainment source, the only objective rating *is* how fun the game is. There are no really boring games that are "objectively" good, same as there's no super fun games that are "objectively" bad. Yes, it's a flawed game, but flaws aren't objective, either.

The monster diversity is fine for a one-off MonHun clone. "Not enough monsters" is a complaint I think I've seen levied at every single game in this genre (before they get sequels), because unlike Capcom, they can't pull models from previous games.

The rest is technical issues, which seems like mostly minor stuff or issues Windows 11 users are running into.

Originally posted by SCamp:

Compared to Freedom Wars... there's Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet. Which is more complete and a better experience overall. And SAO:FB was most likely conceived as a Freedom Wars sequel given all the shared features and aesthetics of the two games.

I really like SAO:FB, but would still rate it at ~70%.

I'm not a SAO fan so I never heard of it. Wishlisted, thanks for the game suggestion, though the dude below you just absolutely ripped it to shreds (and he seems credible since the review scores for that game aren't great, either).

[Shun]

Originally posted by Netsa:

I'm not a SAO fan so I never heard of it. Wishlisted, thanks for the game suggestion, though the dude below you just absolutely ripped it to shreds (and he seems credible since the review scores for that game aren't great, either).

I say give Fatal Bullet a try if it's on sale, i definitely had fun with the game. The reason i have so many gripes with it is because i liked it and i wanted it to be a lot better than it is.

[Shun]

Originally posted by Temuthril:

That has been fixed in the latest patch, you can now change them as well on the window in your cell.

I bought the game after the last patch and didn't have an option to change language before the first cutscene so i just quit the game there and searched for a fix. I read the game would force me to play a few missions until i can change the language so i just resorted to renaming the japanese voice files to the english file names and everything works fine.

I'm currently at a point in the game where i can see auditory refit in the window, it lets me change the voice for my characters individually so i'm not even sure if it undubs the whole game.

Gonna keep to my modded files, if it ain't broke i don't see a need to fix it rn.

[DankWestern]

Originally posted by Netsa:

Most people didn't even play the original game, it was on a dead system nobody bought. What's with all the complaints about how lazy the remaster is? Did ONLY Vita veterans buy this game or something?

If the Vita was a dead system that nobody bought, this remaster would not exist. You are objectively incorrect in that take.

[Netsa]

Originally posted by DankWestern:

Originally posted by Netsa:

Most people didn't even play the original game, it was on a dead system nobody bought. What's with all the complaints about how lazy the remaster is? Did ONLY Vita veterans buy this game or something?

If the Vita was a dead system that nobody bought, this remaster would not exist. You are objectively incorrect in that take.

That's not necessarily true. The remaster could have been made just because Namco wanted to get back into the Monster Hunter game. There hasn't been a new God Eater in a while, and this IP is new to PC players, so it's easy to spruce it up and present it as a new game.

We probably would have seen Soul Sacrifice instead if Namco owned it.