Recent reviews by TheSlider

I'd recomend this game to people thirsty for an third person shooter game with lot's of platforming.
Play on easy to enjoy the story or normal to train your aiming and hand to hand coordination.
Playing with a mouse makes hacking a breeze as you can just "draw" the paths like drawing runes in Arx Fatalis, I use a mouse with additional side buttons but the recomend way is to use a controller,
Performance wise, it's good enough run surprisingly well on the Steam Deck.

Anyway, this is an old school style game with a straightforward level design made of square rooms interconected in convoluted ways. I don't really like this approach that smells like it's a remake of a 30 years old DOS game. I mean, invisible walls, unclimbable junk blocking side corridors, doors/elevators locked behind multiple switches or control pannels or only taking you to very specific locations, etc...
I was hoping the levels at least made sense as in they had purpose and were practical to navigate in when the scientists and astronauts were living there but you never really get that impression, it's only rooms after rooms of semi random assets. It kinda suggests the devs intended to make a roguelite with randomly generated levels but failed bacause of the way the RE engine works ? This seems more true since the map is quite generic looking with no precise positionning in 3D or 2D space.

Story wise, it's ... dark and cute ... but centered around a generic plot "man's kid/wife died and he seeks revenge" It amused me that there were some paralels with Sega's Sonic universe with Maria's character but that can be attributed to some probable uncouncious inspiration ?
In any case I loved the setting but disliked the Japanese acting, I mean, they clearly portray Americans but dialogue and motion capture is peek Japanese teritory making this quite weird at times. Maybe they should have made the characters Asian instead, I mean, JAXA is a thing, why cant there be Japanese moon bases in the far future ? It's silly that they show so much American stereotypical crap, but shy away from Asian stuff except in some costumes, a couple of hologram NPC's and minor references to Japanese culture and such...
But the thing that bothers me the most is how the designers decided to use space magic to make things visually interesting instead of leaning more into hard science. I get the appeal of having Diana cast a digital spell but displaying rings of garbage holograms and having the Station's AI pop a screen in front of them from time to time is just silly, the worst offender being that critical moment where you see an array of Diana's memories from the perspective of the player showing around her for Hugh to see and comment on ... weird and takes out of the emotional moment it's supposed to be.

Anyway, I also have a few nitpicks that ruin any atempt at replaying it. So if you intend to play once and hope for a hard mode, downlaod a completed normal mode save file before starting because the devs did not trust their game enough and decided to lock fun content behind late game currency farming and or multiple playthroughs including some cosmetics.
The higher difficulty mode for instance is unlocked with a separate NG+ including it's hard mode achievement meaning completionists have to replay the game at least twice which already includes repeat boss fights. The difficulty of hard mode is offset by early access to some equipment that you still have to grind for the upgrades.

Then again, I do recomend the game. I find it charming, I love the interactions ( as a father, it hits right home) and the game loop is generally fun and rewarding once you get stuff upgraded. I'm just not the kind to look for collectibles AGAIN and repeat side VR missions AGAIN since that's the best way to upgrade gear.

This is probably the best in the series mixing large maps to roam around collecting stuff and platforming, often requiring good timing but mostly permissive in it's maneuvrability, without making it too annoying or giving the impression that some content is just boring filler. The unlockable skills and tools make for a neat metroidvania style gameplay where you revisit old locations to access different caches and hidden passageways.
But trully what makes it replayable after 100% is the side content (not necessarily the DLCs) but the challenge levels and modifier cards.

While i first disliked playing through RE5 in solo, i ended up enjoying the more recent co-op run with the auto-QTE option enabled as those were admitely the worst part of the game with the one boring giant ogre boss battle. every part of the game was designed to favour replayability and proper co-operation and i'd recomend anyone looking for a co-op RE game to play that one instead.

Here, although the game was also built around co-op and you have a ton of content to play through ( 4 entire campaigns with a large cast of characters). It all goes to trash the moment you notice the stupid inventory system where nothing they did well or learned from RE5 was taken into consideration. You cannot share consumables and all loot is duplicated while inventory slots are used up by new types of ammo the more you progress making it a chore to navigate through to destroy an item just so you can pick up another one like an herb that you then have to combine and "break up" into tablets that are stored separately for quick heals. It's annoying and not very well though off.
Here, co-op is just about shooting stuff together and occasionaly giving a lif up to a ledge or healing eachother. It has some asymetrical moments where one character does something and the other has to do something else but those moments are just as rare as in RE5 and not worth mentionning really.
No, the worst offenders here are a massive amount of QTE's although they are easy, horrendous vehicle driving sections, escape sequences where you have to quickly and perfectly execute maneuvers to reach a checkpoint and frustrating bugs that prevent your friend whom you invited on , say, professional difficulty, to actually play in said difficulty and instead be on normal and not receive the completion for the harder playthrough. The only solution for that it to NOT invite but have your friend SEARCH for your lobby as by doing so he/she has to select it's own difficulty level that maches yours...
Also the last chapters almost never register as completed for them meaning they have to start it and invite you instead ... Add to that that the ONE great feature of this game has you intersect campaigns with other characters and sometimes that means other players might be there instead of bots which is a cool idea. The problem is the friend you are playing with will get thrown away in their own instance for no reason and you will have to restart the chapter for them to join you again... WTF ?

Frankly speaking, we only found a proper RE experience while playing Leon's campaign. The others are way too focussed on run and gunning or hand to hand combat and let's not even mention the bolted on sidekick for Ada's campaign that is unable to participate in any action. Really, it's as if they had 4 studios work independently on each campaign, one of them though this was going to be a solo game with ADA and another wanted a follow up to RE4 with Leon's, and the last two said fk it we're doing a sequel to RE5 but let's not mention it or Sheva as we got too much heat about the south African locale...

Now, content wise, you can argue this is packed with a ton of neat features like player invasion in the form of players joining your game midway as special monsters that you can defeat for some bonus points or a variety of multiplayer game modes that seem fun.
But then again at this point in time, not having bots to be able to fill in the slots makes this useless.
While speaking about points, they hold no real value contrary to what you would expect as you can only equip 3 perks and nobody will want anything else than those increasing damage. I don't get the game design choices made here... It's so backwards.
I feel like they completely forgot that RE5 existed for some odd reason... Yeah, must be it. The reinvented the wheel by going from 4 to 6, a half baked one.

In any case, you won't be 100% this game. Look, you need to get an S for each chapter in every difficulty level... Who is mad enough to do that in such a louse broken mess of a game ? Who has a nice and patient friend that is willing to bear with you on such monstrous and silly task ?
Just don't.
If you already have the game and want the achievements, use cheats... but then you will be sending a message to the devs saying that you enjoyed your play enough for that and i dont think it's the right thing to do.
I do want more co-op in RE but RE5 or even Revelations 2 should be the templates. Not this.

TLDR : I LOVE the ambiance, the music and the looks and i'd say the game is worth it. And I do recomend the game despite some flaws that i will go through in detail down there. But all in all if you do get into it and want a classic JRPG game, switch to story mode ! Especially if you don't like the parry/dodge mechanics as story mode makes them optional rather than required in normal and hard without some micro management and perfect builds or luck. Know that there are NO achievments for completing the game in higher difficulty as far as I know so don't feel bad about it, enjoy the game and switch difficulty to whatever suits you.

Now for the nitpicks.

The game looks FINE although the prologue makes it look like an early indie PS3 title with copy pasted assets, weird dialogue, including one in front of a pile of such assets and poor storytelling that supposes you know everything about the setting and history of Lumière than you actually do.
If there are documents to collect, signs to read or conversations to overhear that provide any background to the game in this prologue, then they are not provided in way that makes sense to someone playing the game for the first time and some dialogues just sound weird anyway.
For instance, you have to guess things like what the Gommage is, why things float in the sky or what this magic is about or figure out the quiz mini game answers when the controlled protagonist should know them. It's weird, there is also no recap to read in the menu. Sandfall probably didn't have time to flesh this part out from the perspective of a newcommer who hasn't read or seen anything about the game before starting it and as such it makes for a weird intro.
How to fix ?
There is a newspaper guy, let us read a cople of journals, maybe there is an article recapping the "most notable" expeditions out there or some backstory about all the "magical" stuff. There is a sculptor and kids talking about some of the creature we will probably meet, add more fluff text to explain how and what we know about them. Some creatures seem legendary in the universe and the way the characters talk about them makes it feel odd that we, as players, know nothing, we're outside of the loop or don't get why the characters are excited about them until we are face to face which can lead to underwhelming moments.

The gameplay is fine despite traversal jank and invisible walls and the main focus, combat, resembles any modern turn based JRPG BUT requires more player involvement and technique than expected and this will not sit well with passive turn based JRPG players unless they are willing to try story mode, which is a lot to ask as it probably hurts the ego to go to story mode when you've played dozens of JRPG's before and that is mainly because of the difficulty naming scheme and descriptions. Let me explain.

Combat is the main gameplay mechanic of this game, and here, it mostly focuses on making combos or "synergies" with party members as each one can provide bonuses to the next in turn or to itself with follow up skills.
But more importantly, combat is also about dodging, parying or jumping over enemy attacks on their turn and with good or perfect timing in normal/hard modes. This is critical and probably the most important thing to learn to do, especially parrying. I've been playing in normal mode and despite the description saying this is ENCOURAGED, i didn't find many fights past the first couple of levels where i felt it was not, in fact, necessary to survive without chugging weak potions and healing skills, especially with the way a successful dodge/parry feeds the AP system or makes HP sponge enemies more manageable. Some fights even do REQUIRE perfect parrying or multiple successful dodges to survive the blows. So if you don't learn to use those pary/dodge moves or focus on defense/HP builds, combat WILL drag on for too long which will most likely result in a game over. Also healing feels almost half baked into the game and is not something you will often do in the middle of a fight unless playing on Story mode and not using dodges/parries unlike classic JRPG's where you almost always have a healer role in the team. This is more emphasised since the update where they made story mode even "easier" but fights might still be just as long if not longer if you don't use those.
Even defensive luminas and skills barely help as emenies can sometimes one-hit-kill any party member, especially the first time you meet them ( I also i didn't put much points into health and defense while favoring criticals and speed so your mileage may vary, feel free to experiment using recoats once you hit level 10 or so ).
You do quickly learn when to time your moves though, because enemies have two or 3 attack patterns at most so, once you figure it out and you do parry an attack, especially one targetting the entire group, it feels almost like you cheated as then YOU are the one to one-hit-kill the enemy or at least deal massive damage.

All in all, combat feels good when you've learned the timings but to get there, you have to miss a few times or retry a combat until you figure things out, it gets frustrating fast but when you get it, it's awesome. I do feel that the parry and dodge windows are a bit too tight in normal mode for my taste though especially given the difficulty description which is where i'm getting at. I don't want to switch to story mode as i like the thrill of it as it is and i feel story modes are for people who want to focus on the narrative rather than the number crunching. I think there is room for some tweaking here and there. Maybe make it so that parying the last combo hit gives you the pary attack instead of having to parry every single hit, just like when enemies hit the team in sequence. Increase the parry window a bit more by default and lower enemy damage a bit ? Have passives increase the parry window ? I don't know, it seems they updated the game with an even easier Story mode so why not do the same here if only to make it true that parries are indeed encouraged but not necessary to have a good time ? Then again, maybe with more points allocated to health and defense i would manage better ? Feel free to comment about your experience in Normal mode.



There you go. I hope this helps

This is as close as we can get to turning the Metroid Prime franchise into an mature themed rogue lite game with challenging bullet hell bosses.
You have unique traversal abilities, you have varied weapons and modifiers, you have enemies with unique attack patterns, some requiring getting up close to, and levels that despite being randomly generated, are a pleasure to navigate through.

As said, this is a rogue lite game where, in case of death, you start over while keeping any permanent unlocked ability, weapon traits and some items that cary over, so far it hasn't been frustrating to restart the same levels and it takes about 30 minutes to reach the first boss, maybe 45 if you explore a bit and optimize your gear.

The game is a bit on the hard side with the bullet hell mini bosses and main bosses that require you learn their patterns and restart a few times in order to unlock permanent upgrades and items that will give you some more chances to succeed.
And then if it's still too hard, you can invite someone to accompany you in a co-op session and let them take all the aggro. On that note, the co-op system is not well though out. You spend long minutes waiting for anyone to join you and finding a game to join can be just as long. It's anoying. There are lots of people playing but the game is just not made to be online first making it a chore to find anyone unlike the old Resident Evil 5 and 6 where people try to join you all the time and those games came out a decade ago.

The soundscape and sound design are also phenomenal, every step you make gives place to environmental responses. Little creatures chirping and squeeking, the wind blowing through the leaves, the sky rumbling or the occasional thunder storm.
Once your headset is on, you're basicaly sucked into the world and it's hard to get out. My tea gets cold all the time. This goes hand in hand with the visuals where the environment reacts to your presence and feels alive.
The ambiance is just on point, I've been into other biomes and they feel just as gigger-esque while being lifeless in contrast to the jungle type first level.

And then story wise, I was invested at first, finding audio logs scattered around and visiting the old house for some flashbacks, the spooky astraunaut appearances and other weird events where it's hard to tell if it's real or a dream. I was starting to piece things together but then the game decided to spoil it with hamfisted explanations and dreamlike sequences that pretty much ruined it for me. What a shame.

In any case, the gameplay is fun and the expansion with the tower of Sisyphus was cool but after completing act 3 and picking up a few flowers, i feel like i'm done and pursuing would just be pushing it a bit too much.

Only one issue,
The option to switch menu language is hidden in the sound settings by pressing the alt key which makes no sense and the game thinks i'm using an AZERTY keyboard just because Windows is in French despite it having the Swiss QWERTZ layout and refuses to let me change keybindings for menu navigation ( ZQSD instead of WASD to navigate the map for instance).

Having played this game on PC/GFWL and PS3 way back then, i can tell this game is still a pleasure to play on normal/hard difficulty with a friend in co-op or on easy with the AI companion (Feel free to try other combinations if you wish). Also it's a hotseat enabled meaning a friend can join at a checkpoint and leave at any moment, the AI will take over either in split screen or online.
Even better for this version, they added and enabled by default an option to get rid of most of the infuriating QTE's.

Each player profile carries his/her own inventory meaning when someone joins your game, they use their own stuff but you can still send/receive things if you wish. When they leave, the AI takes over with your items. Also, your inventory is saved meaning you can change difficulty or game modes and cary your stuff around without fear of loosing anything or any progress.
The levels are organised in chapters of variable lengths each also providing intermediary progress checkpoints where you can reorganize your inventory but you can leave mid game and still have your inventory saved if you choose so even if your progress is not.

The story is your boring and average Resident Evil flick taken to the African continent where you progress through urban areas, crocodile filled swamps, industrial environments and a bunch of caves and ruins. In a sense, it's almost like they took RE4 and swapped the location to a more hotter and sunnier environment. Though, the brown/yellow screen filter does not give justice to the game and i recomend any mod that removes it.


I havent had any issues playing with and without mods on Windows 11 and an NVIDIA card. I also tried on the Steam Deck and it's just as buttery smooth with everything maxed out as expected.

Edit :
So we've been playing RE 6 with a friend as a follow up to this game but frankly speaking. I don't understand what happened between these two games. Capcom had a solid base for co-op play and they threw it all out.
RE 6 is probably the worst experience i've had playing a co-op game. It has it's classic and nostalgic RE moments but it bolted in so much action flic jank that it almost turned into a tactical shooter game.
It made me appreciate RE5 more than i had and regret their decisions to move away from the African region and Sheva as a potential "partner" returning for duty.

Please Capcom. Don't forget this gamedesign. if anything, dig it back out and reimplement it in a new game.

Honestly. It's fun to play with friends over Discord from time to time but it's also quite a repetitive game with boring maps that look alike. There is not much going on and you will be spamming the "stratagems" as soon as they are available to deal with enemies as fast as possible so the battlefield will likely be constant explosions and fire in your ears from start to end. Quite taxing after an hour.

The global map's borders shifting as the community engaged with the game was fun, especially during COVID lockdown when it had the most activity, nowadays you can't notice any meaningfull impact, it's not helped by the fact you ever only see your 4 player sqadron at all times where there are hundreds of others pushing the frontlines just like you, often on the same sector or even planet.

Je me suis bien amusé les premières 20 heures malgré les scènettes de discussion longues au point de mettre le PC en veille ou déconnecter la manette. Faut dire, les sujets abordés sont matures, originaux et intéréssants culturellement parlant.
Puis arrivé aux 40 heures, j'ai trouvé le contenu secondaire rébarbatif et requérant beaucoup de patience et de grind (gestion d'entreprise, collectes d'objets, etc... ) malgré les situations parfois rocambolesques et les PNJ ou adversaires justes, drôles, puis je me suis heurté à deux murs, le premier étant les missions secondaires limités par la progression dans l'histoire, et le second un combat de boss impossible, ou presque, à surmonter. Je check des guides et, autant pour le premier je veux bien que l'avancée dans l'histoire donne accès à plus de contenu, mais c'est pas du tout clair en jeu et on à l'impréssion qu'il s'agit d'un souci technique juste avant d'aller battre un boss qui semble être de "fin", autant pour le second, il me faut grind une douzaine de niveaux et suivre une stratégie précise alors que jusque la, je roulais sur les ennemis et leurs boss...
Bref. Heureusement que son charme et son humour sont toujours présents pour que j'y consacre 40 heures de plus a juste faire des trucs secondaires et grind les persos pour enfin voir les chapitres finaux...

Je ne peux pas recommander si vous cherchez une expérience vidéoludique aux petits oignons, ce jeu n'est clairement pas peaufiné et son game design pèche de par des mécaniques de RPG mal foutues et sans réelle stratégie contrairement à ce qu'on pourrait croire en voyant le nom SEGA à l'écran.
Par contre si vous cherchez un premier jeu dans un univers de mafieux Japonais avec une intrigue originale et des personnages attachants. allez y. Souvenez vous juste que les mécaniques de jeu sont autant en ♥♥♥♥♥♥ sur leur temps que le héros en sortant de prison. Mais, si le grind vous fait chier, regardez plutôt la version film du jeu sur youtube.

Interesting game mechanics that are able to generrate impressive and exciting battles but then you're left with an unfortunate micromanagement of meaningless robot upgrades and boring overworld activities.

A meh game with though provoking scenes that make you feel in control while actually not. It has no replay value despite the feeling of having meaningful choices and is best played on easy or normal difficulty to avoid too much frustration. There are a few endings that don't seem to take your previous choices into account but rely on your own role play.
That being said, It's a pretty game that relies on the complementarity between orange and blue. A popular choice that does give it striking and memorable visuals.
I wish a sequel was made that went even deeper into the madness depicted here. Kinda like if Hellblade was a cover shooter set in modern times. Too bad the IP is lost and the game removed from the shop. Look out for a copy on PS3/Xbox if you can and with some luck GOG will pick this up in a dozen more years... X)