Recent reviews by KingIzek

I dont know much about Aion 1 and I have generally little experience with P2W gaming practices.

Aion 2 looks amazing, like it looks Really good. But in my opinion thats all it has going for it.

Leveling to cap is quite easy and straight forward. But after hitting cap, it's weird, the game basically deters you from playing the game. I guess this is the P2W aspect - you are severely limited from any meaningful progression unless you pay up. I would estimate as a free player, you can get about 2-3 hours of meaningful progression per week. I suppose you can argue with alts and you can probably argue that I'm being too harsh on the amount of time. But not only are you gated by time per week, you are also completely at the mercy of RNG - which so I'm told is par for the course for a game like this. This is why I say "meaningful progression".

Gameplay is mediocre, stuff looks great but the loop is mediocre. The "freestyle action" basically just makes everything a massive HP pool punching bag.

Story is, I'll be honest I couldn't boher to pay attention to it.

Nothing really stands out about the music, but I suppose what's there does fit the game's atmosphere well.

Lastly, prices for anything in this game is absurd. Like genuinely absolutely bonkers. Maybe this is just cause this is my first experience with this kind of game, but ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥...

I bought this with little knowledge of what this was going to be. I also bought this on sale with "enhanced 2.0" came out.

I gave this game an earnest chance, but simply this game is not good. Although it does look absolutely stunning.
The gameplay is repeatative with very little to offer.
The game does a horrendous job explaining concepts and features to you. There's also just FAR too many mechanics, it gets to the point you look at a potential puzzle and have to go through a checklist of available mechs to see what is relevant. They really wanted everything from Witcher, BoTW, Monster Hunter, to survival craft. And it's just plainly worse than all of them.
Theres also really strange character swapping that makes no sense or has any details on why it exists.
The game also flat out disrespects your time - the fast travel nodes are placed in locations that make no sense or are overly abundant. Quest and thier follow up force you to basically traverse from one side of the region to another side of the region.
The single most worst aspect of this game is actually the controls. Terribly key mapping and poor gamepad assignments aside, your character controls are so heavy and tedious. General traversing is just a miserable experience - it's hard to explain other than it's just heavy. Walking and jumping are just so unresponsive; a small pebble forces your character to walk in weird ways; my god, turning is a chore - in fairness it's very realistic, but you're like a truck trying to make a 360 turn rather than a swivel.
For some reason this game also force you to fight hordes, almost like a musou game, but there's virtually no AoE so you get gangbang'd pretty easily. Another aspect that just flat out disrespects your time cause it just inflates quest times with hordes of mobs.
Lastly, I still have no idea about anything thats going on. You get ambushed in the beginning, then you go find your friends and random stuff happens - after 15 hours thats all I got.

The only good thing I can truly say about this game is that it looks fantastic.

Unless you REALLY need to scratch that Witcher itch with a massive open world and dont care for any cohesiveness or plot, I do not recommend this game. Or get it on a massive sale.

REVISION AFTER ANOTHER 33 HOURS
I have a sunk cost fallacy here since I've purchased the game and decided to stick it out more despite what I said above.
My opinion still has not changed. This is not a good game, but there are glimmers of a good game behind this mess.
As a I play more, I realize more this game really really REALLY disrespects your time to bloat it. Why is everything is a cutscene. Why do I need to open an item, have to look at it, then read it/drop it/use it? This might sound nitpicky, but it's literally everything! Even the non-loading screens where you have to slow walk to load something in the world is just tedious - the "lore" dump it's tries to give you during these part are always nothing burgers so it's not even interesting.
As mentioned, there's just too many mechanics and I think that's the core theme of this game that separates it from being a good game. They tried to do add so much into this game, but what you're left with is mediocracy at best on all fronts.

I take back my Witcher itch comment. It's more like BoTW. So unless you really need that BoTW itch and don't care for any reason, cohesiveness, plot, or purpose, I still do not recommend this game. Or get it on a massive sale.

If you love Persona or Metaphor or the old style turn-based RPGs you will enjoy this game.

However, that's selling this game short. The art, atmosphere, music, world-building is par none. It's been a such a long time that I've been so engrossed in a story (well that's a half lie, BG3 did the same). But this game is simply gorgeous. And then the music, my god, I think this game has the best soundtrack I've ever heard - everything is so fitting and perfect

While I can go on and on about the wonders of this game, what's truly insane is that this game is not priced at a AAA price yet being better than the vast majority of AAA games.

I will, however, note some unfortunate points about this game, just because it's been absolutely sublime does not mean there are critical elements to scrutinise.
First is the QTEs, while the combat does feel good and rewarding, and there is a depth in how you play your characters, simply put you can brute force your way if you figure out the QTEs. Also defence is effectively centred around QTEs - I don't think it's on purpose but the power of hitting the QTE is undeniable and game-breaking. If you successfully parry in this game, you take no damage, immediately counterattack, and gain resources for your abilities.
Furthermore, the QTEs i feel like take away from the art and animation of the game, I'm so focused on watching the and hitting the QTEs, I can't enjoy just whats there. This is a small personal gripe, but this is really to emphasize the art in this game.

Also in the PC version I have been experiencing random crashes. It's hard to attribute to what but I hope they get resolved.

But all being said, I absolutely recommend this game based on what I've experienced so far.

TL;DR
Very enjoyable roguelite with a really wonky difficulty curve. I can sincerely say I enjoyed my ~25 hours with this game - a very rare gem these days. I hope they continue to add more content; and frankly I wouldn't mind paying for it.

The game plays like any other strategy RPG like: XCOM, Divinity Original Sin, Final Fantasy Tactics, etc...
It's a turned based game where you have a certain amount of Action Points per turn to accomplish something.
This games unique edge is their "timeline system." Nothing bleeding edge, but essentially a order of events too occur - player turns, enemy turns, specific actions. Once you learn how to abuse it, things become very easy.

The Good
I really liked the aesthetics and music. The characters, the bosses, the units, were all designed very well and fitting for the style of game.
I very much enjoyed the game play. Personally I love the aforementioned games above, so this was easy for me. Again though, it's nothing really new, it's still a good implementation.
I liked the different classes and the way they played (but see caveat below in "The Bad").
The length is just about right and just feels like a nice game to spend a few hours on.

The Bad
The classes are pretty skewed. It's very possible that I could be playing wrong, but I tend to min/max things. And it was very easy, clear, and wide what was min and what was max.
The difficulty curve is very weird. Starting from very easy, to fairly challenging, to hard, to downright wtf. Some of the bosses, felt like it was scaled specifically for multiple repeats - I get this is the roguelike archetype, but it felt very forced. From my perspective, I enjoyed being challenged, but I hate artificial challenges like invulnerability phases, one-shot kills or other unavoidable cheese mechanics. It can certainly be argued those are valid gameplay challenges, but I just don't like them.

The Whatever
The roguelite aspect I think goes a little too far. It marginalizes a significant portion of the game - most which can be achieved via 1 run.
The game has a trait system that allows your units to gain peculiar bonuses, but it's semi-random and not always good. I like the idea but the randomness too it just doesn't feel good. This is hard to explain without spoiling anything but it also actively dissuades playing units in a particular fashion when there is nothing to force the opposite or appropriate fashion.
There are some abilities that absolutely trump the alternative for some units.

The Verdict
I very much enjoy the game. If you like a simple roguelite similar the games mentioned above I think it's an easy decision. Though I did get this on sale for 50% off. I would probably pay full price for it though, but would just recommend watching a video or two to see if it interests you.

If you're like a 90/2000s kid like me and you watched Dragon ball Z. This is absolutely the game for you. Full stop. If you want to learn about the Dragon Balls series. This is the game for you. This is just an overall great game that lets you re-imagine the Dragon Balls series. Obviously I'm biased cause I grew up with the Series, but this has done more than to scratch my itch. Well worth full price

If you're a fan of the looter shooter genre you really can't go wrong with Destiny 2. Yes it has it's problem, but over all I really enjoy the game.

I started as a new light player in late Nov, 2019. From the sounds of things, Bungie simplified a few things. But you kinda thrown into a hot mess of things. Many things aren't explained very well. But getting over that initial hurdle isn't a monumental task. Once you've understood the flow of things and how this game operates it starts to flow and feel very nice.

The only really bad thing I can say (and it's really not that bad at all) is that this game strives on playing with others. While you can certainly get by fine on your own, if you really want to push the end content, you really need to look for a clan.

Pros:
1) Enjoyed the combat system - The new Armiger accessory makes it awesome. But you need all the royal weaps first.
2) Art and visuals are absolutely stunning.
3) Music is very well done. It certainly works overtime to keep you immersed.

Cons:
1) Story - it feels like bits of good ideas from many different story boards sewn together. Basically you end up with a few really cool and thought out chapters, but there's literally nothing inbetween to hold it together. The only saving grace (imo) is the bad guy, who actually fits very, very well once you learn their story.
I'm also pretty peeved that I need to watch a movie and read a bunch of mangas to understand a 3/4ths of what is actually happening in the game's setting. I get that there's always a rich history arround a given game, but the ones that are the best (again imo) is ones you learn through playing the game. FFXV flat out does a terrible job narrating to you.
Further I'm annoyed that you need DLCs to fill in plot holes. That's just awful commoditization - I earnest hope this isn't the road we go down.

2) Day/Night system. This is just overall super inconvenient and annoying.

3) Regalia - Cool to drive but just the absolute worst to travel and quick travel. If you want a manual on how to build something that's supposed to be convenient, but then making the complete opposite, it's the Regalia. The flying regalia (while super, super cool) is the epitome of the above.

4) Lack of immersion - This one is pretty subjective, but I literally feel nothing for these characters. You're thrown into the middle of it and expected to care. You meet characters for maybe a minute or two, and suddenly thier supposed to be important somehow.

Seems to me they tried to too bake too many things into the game and overall failed at all of them:
They wanted the BotW travel and exploration feel - it doesn't.
They wanted the Monster hunter essence of tackling large foreboding monsters - it doesn't.
They wanted the epicness of a typical FF game but you literally only get it once at the end of the game... so it doesn't.
Overall it just doesn't do alot of the things you'd expect from a FF game. But given the latest additions to the name, maybe it does.

Generally speaking, I wouldn't (and didn't) pay full price for this game.