Recent reviews by Батьківщин UA ✙

This game is the literal definition of the word "masterpiece", it's one of the best, if not the best games I have played so far. Completing such game hits your soul like a truck. Everything in this game is at top level of implementation - gameplay, world design, graphics, sound design, UI, story, voice casting, motion capture... The OST by itself is just a separate instance of art, I have no idea how Lorien Testard just came out of nowhere and composed one of the best yet so diverse soundtracks of all time. Aside from very, very minor non-critical bugs, I just can't find any bad points about it.

If you are a living person - this game is a must-play, a must-have experience. Total banger, 10/10.

Amazing game and I think the best one of the original Dark Souls trilogy from gameplay perspective.

It has breathtaking views and scenery that is almost the same level as Elden Ring, I made countless screenshots from views in Anor Londo, Lothric Castle, Archdragon Peak and Irtythill Valley. The artististic implementation of each level is good, and level design is also decent, without unlogical locations like in DS2.

I liked every boss in the game, they are all balanced and very fair in terms of hitboxes, timings - their attack intentions are very clear and even small puzzle bosses like Ancient Wyvern are easy to understand. There were some issues with the camera with some large bosses, but they are neglible and FromSoftware seems to explicitly make camera your second enemy, as we see from Elden Ring DLC.

Most importantly for me - it does not make previous games mistakes, fixing really dumb mechanics, present in previous games that annoyed me there, like placing bonfires really generously, and placing them near bosses or providing shortcuts that really make any boss runback take not more than a minute, which is not the case for DS1 and DS2. Enemies are diverse and placed really well, without hordes attacking and breaking your camera as in DS2. You can really see how FromSoftware, little by little, improves game experience with each new release, how Sekiro and Elden Ring improved such utility tasks even more (with Statues of Marika or even more generous checkpoint placement).

As with all other games of that developer, the music and sound design are also very well made, they never disappoint in that regard.

The things I didn't like are minor and opinionated:
- Overuse of fog walls to hide secret passages, sometimes multiple in a row. There are a lot them in this game, some leading to really rich or lore-improtant locations. Without messages from other players, I would miss 90% of them. I do consider this to be a partially lazy game-design mechanic, as usually there is little clue that a fog wall is present somewhere. I bought the game to enjoy full content of it, but if it's hidden that way, I am not liking that much.
- Very cryptic lore and story communication. I do understand this is FromSoftware style and such lore messaging was one of the core principles of Dark Souls series, still I did not understand most of it in the game, even by reading item descriptions. I watched the credits roll without significant emotional impact, which I had for example in Sekiro or Elden Ring, because I just do not understand if what I did is good, bad or something in between. For that reason I focused mostly on enjoying gameplay and locations. omitting the plot or storyline mostly.

In summary, it's for me the perfect and most finished true Dark Souls game, that I really enjoyed, and definetely recommended to play.

Maybe because I didn't play Far Cry series back in old days, and played FC3 for the first time 13 years after it's release, I can't say unfortunately that I really enjoyed this game. Let's go through good points first:
1. Shooting and action gameplay. Indeed, I have enjoyed all firefights in the game, especially the main storyline quests where you either have to fire from a turret on a chopper or a car, or when you need to fight your way through whole groups of enemies. Guns have a good variety, possibility to upgrade them and they "feel" well when shooting.
2. Movement. It's fast and there are many ways to do it - on foot, by car (which are freely available, flooded on the map), with a wingsuit, with a glider or just fast-travel. The movement, sprinting, jumping animations really "feel" and immerse you enough into the game.
3. Unique design of enemy outposts. I enjoyed most of the game capturing enemy outposts, by analyzing enemy positions, looking through the layout of them, planning the stealth way to capture some of them, sometimes using the explosives or animal cages to distract enemies. This was really nice and simple tactical "minigame" for me each time I was capturing an enemy base.
4. Music during action scenes. It had good rhythm as well. Also liked the inclusion of "Ride of Valkyries" in some of the game quests.

Now the bad points:
1. Presence of custom launcher. I did not have many problems with it as others are writing in reviews, however forcing player to not only download another launcher, but also create an account with absurd password requirements that will be re-asked each game launch is stupid. We already have Steam, stop adding these.
2. Crashes. With all respect, you had 13 years to fix most of the crash issues with the game, yet it still crashed for me when I just wanted to take a screenshot or, more critically, during main missions, forcing me to replay them after restart.
3. Repetitiveness. Well, I understand it's a Ubisoft game but still. Whole map full of same-type side quests that I quickly became bored of. The main quests are surely more interesting, but half of other game content is the same copy-paste.
4. Weak character design, despite of relatively good acting and motion-capture. Nobody except probably Vaas, Doctor Earnhardt, Sam and Buck really interested or surprised me as characters. Liza portrayed as silly hysterical partner, not doing anything really useful; Hoyt is a typical movie-level cliche villain, being represented in game as "root of evil", while Vaas being far more insane than him. It's portrayed that Citra is in love with the main character, but I couldn't care less about her death in one of the endings. Jason came for combat support, not for love, being seduced or joining a cult. I had zero feelings for her as a character.
5. Plot holes. Either it's lazy story-writing, or it was just rushed, or maybe even there is some hidden deep meaning that I am not seeing - but explaining how did Jason survive certainly fatal encounters with key antagonists using "drugs" or "hallucinations" is not right. How did he single-handendly unarmed take out multiple Hoyt's guards during the poker game? Why everyone ties so easy to release knots when capturing Jason, so he can just break them with his arms? How did Vaas fail to kill Jason so many times while having good opportunities? I can write many more....
6. Terrible UI. The inventory is accessed through a pause (?) menu, same as the skill tree. UI buttons are disproportional in sizes, sometimes hard to click, the inventory management is a mess, the save system sometimes works sometimes not and other minor issues.
7. Unimmersive artificial game limits or unexplained events. Again, I understand it's a Ubisoft game and it was 2012, but forbidding me to use a boat to travel from North to South island just because I am "out of bounds" is lazy game design - make me run out of fuel then, or be shot by some patrol boats, etc. instead of just putting a hardstop timer. Also, after I capture an outpost, the Rakyat arrive almost immediately after the flag is risen. Where they were when I was fighting 5 pirates at once at this outpost seconds ago? Make them arrive a minute later at least, maybe?, it's not difficult anyway.
8. Other minor problems like same-repeating green-grass terrain, unbalanced economy and upgrades, enemy AI bugs, empty points-of-interest on the map, etc...

In summary, I am putting thumbs up as I would still say that good points outweigh the bad ones, also as an expression of respect, considering that it's a 13 year old game in a very famous franchise. However, even compared to games of the same time, there are plenty of outdated and archaic mechanics in the game, and many things that could've been done better, in a way that would allow calling FarCry3 a "masterpiece", which is not fair to do today.

This review should've been a thumbs up, but unfortunately the last boss changed it for me.

Despite Studio MDHR absolutely nailing the visual style, doing incredible and outstanding job of making interesting characters and levels, fitting music and just in general, polishing the game so well that it's visually indistinguishable from early XXth century cartoons, some of the mechanics or bosses are too unfair for the player.

I guess I would apply the same criticism as other negative reviews have regarding RNG, invisible attacks, etc... I enjoyed mostly every single boss in this game, except for the last one. The RNG impact on it is far too strong - as an example, the Devil can spawn rotating flames, a running "imp" and start a "Goat Hands Clap" attack at once, giving you almost a guaranteed damage to HP as there is no place to hide on the level. The Goat Slap itself has variable timing and I am not sure it would be practically possible to consistently dodge it without using the invincible dash. Oh, and all these hundreds attempts I had a rubber band attached to my controller RT button to shoot constantly, otherwise my fingers would die eventually - this could've been an setting at all in the game - forcing player to hold one button for minutes is not a difficulty enchancement, it's a stupid mechanic.

I have spent more time and attempts beating the damn Devil in Cuphead than I spent beating Malenia from Elden Ring and Isshin from Sekiro combined. And in that case I did not feel the joy of victory of achievement after defeating him, I was just happy that finally I am done with it...

Otherwise, the game is beatuiful and funny experience, if not a masterpiece, at least in terms of capturing the target style.

P.S. "skill issue" comments are welcomed.

Another masterpiece by Fromsoft - 10/10. I have previously played Elden Ring only, and was worried this game would be too difficult. But it wasn't - instead it was an unforgettable rewarding challenge, followed with extraordinary level, sound and visual artistic design.

Fromsoft somehow managed to find a very simple formula at it's core (3 buttons: deflect, attack, dodge), yet made it so diverse and interesting to learn with all additional combat arts, prostetic arm upgrades, stealth and enemies variety. The cinematic design for each deathblow, each enemy dying is so satisfying, that I was never bored of completing the same level again and again.

Bosses of course are also another great thing in this game. Each of them giving you a completely different skill check, a different mechanic to learn, sometimes combining multiple of them. Some bosses are like "gateways" or "examiners", testing your absorbed knowledge about discovered combat mechanics so far and preventing you from progressing further if you haven't mastered them yet.

Music, sound design and as mentioned before, visual design are also top-level and immersive.

The only problems with the game I found are:
- Although it's common for Fromsoft games to have a confusing and hidden plot, it was okay for Sekiro, but there are too many opportunities to miss a lot of content in the game, and I had to consult guides in order to enjoy all of it.
- After completing the game, I'd expected a change in the core characters dialogues to somehow react to the ending I have chosen, but this didn't happen. Probably I am spoiled by Baldur's Gate 3 interactiveness.
- Some minor bugs and glitches, usually related to my character getting stuck between enemies and some obstacle, or camera being totally unplayable.
- In my opinion, a bit abuse of using the same bosses multiple times, without specific plot reasoning, which looks like a cut corner from game design perspective. I don't see any reasonable plot explanations for using 2x Guardian Ape, 2x Sichimen Warrior, 2x Blazing Bull, many times purple shadow ninjas and similiar throughout the game

Totally recommended.

9.5/10

Amazing experience for over a hundred hours.
-0.5 for unbalanced weapons system, where there is no much point of upgrading new weapons received after mid-game, due to having one really upped favorite weapon in inventory - therefore you complete 90% of the game with the same weapon.

Nevertheless:
- diverse boss fights and combat mechanics
- breathtaking scenery and visuals
- banger soundtrack
- complex and convoluted plot

Gameplay - 10/10
Soundtrack - 10/10
Lore Concept and Visual Implementation - Amazing
Storytelling / plot - 4/10
Jokes - Good

The Harry Potter game we dreamed of.

Aside from minor bugs, it's excellent - plot, quests, combat, items, dialogues, atmosphere - all done on a high level.

Worth playing for sure

Amazing game. DLC or sequel/prequel are a must

One of the best rouguelikes out there, the design and art of Greek Gods is just fantastic