Kevin He
This author account hasn't been claimed yet. To claim this account, please contact the outlet owner to request access.
Writing For
Press StartLatest Reviews
The day/night cycle, widely touted by Techland to be a game changer isn’t quite what it’s hyped to be but it’s still a lot of fun. Night only lasts 7 minutes, but during early levels 7 minutes feels like an eternity, as the game turns into a pseudo-stealth genre. Volatiles come out at night, and they are possibly the toughest enemies in the game, able to sprint indefinitely after you and capable of killing you with a few swipes. Avoiding them is essential during early levels, and even in max levels they require a tremendous amount of effort and strategy to bring down. Playing at night was something I avoided at the start, as I wasn’t strong enough to last more than a couple of minutes, but soon enough it became less terrifying and very fun. Skill points are doubled at night, and when you hit high levels you need those extra points to level up. Starting a pursuit, luring volatiles and infected to a trap and setting it off nets thousands of points, and it’s very satisfying to survive a full night.
The majority of this takes place in Toki Toki City; the main hub on which you depart on Time Patrols (main quests), online/offline battles (up to 3v3) or Parallel Quests (side quests). There a lot of quests to partake in, and every now and then you can participate in quests involving bad guys. What if you fought with Raditz when he fought Kakarot or Piccolo? These delicious slices of ‘what if’ scenarios are an absolute joy to play and see as a DBZ fan, it’s just a shame that combat is frustrating.
[divider]CONCLUSION[/divider]As a huge Deus Ex fan, with Human Revolution being one of my personal favourites for the previous generation, it’s easy to look at Mankind Divided as a bit of a disappointment, as it falters in many aspects and lacks substantial improvements in other areas that previous games failed in. However, Mankind Divided is still an interesting exploration in sci-fi themes, with a solid narrative and some incredibly refined gameplay mechanics backing it up.
<img decoding="async" data-attachment-id="23670" data-permalink="https://press-start.com.au/reviews/2016/02/12/naruto-shippuden-ultimate-ninja-storm-4-review/attachment/b_story-11/" data-orig-file="https://press-start.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/B_STORY1.jpg" data-orig-size="2000,160" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="B_STORY" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://press-start.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/B_STORY1-300x24.jpg" data-large-file="https://press-start.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/B_STORY1-600x48.jpg" class="size-full wp-image-23670 aligncenter" src="https://press-start.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/B_STORY1.jpg" alt="B_STORY" width="2000" height="160" srcset="https://press-start.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/B_STORY1.jpg 2000w, https://press-start.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/B_STORY1-300x24.jpg 300w, https://press-start.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/B_STORY1-600x48.jpg 600w, https://press-start.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/B_STORY1-560x45.jpg 560w" sizes="(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px" />Having never played the previous Ninja Storm games, Number 4 tells an abridged version of the manga (and anime). For people who have never followed Naruto before, this is a quick and dirty way of catching up to the entire series, but the story given in the main mode is highly pruned and streamlined to the bare essentials. There are a lot of gorgeous cutscenes that carry the story well enough, and the well acted English AND Japanese voices add to the story. However, if you are a casual fan or one who barely dabbles in the series, this game isn’t necessarily the best starting point for you.<img decoding="async" data-attachment-id="23676" data-permalink="https://press-start.com.au/reviews/2016/02/12/naruto-shippuden-ultimate-ninja-storm-4-review/attachment/screenshot_0004_layer-1/" data-orig-file="https://press-start.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/SCREENSHOT_0004_Layer-1.jpg" data-orig-size="1500,400" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="SCREENSHOT_0004_Layer 1" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://press-start.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/SCREENSHOT_0004_Layer-1-300x80.jpg" data-large-file="https://press-start.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/SCREENSHOT_0004_Layer-1-600x160.jpg" class="size-full wp-image-23676 aligncenter" src="https://press-start.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/SCREENSHOT_0004_Layer-1.jpg" alt="SCREENSHOT_0004_Layer 1" width="1500" height="400" srcset="https://press-start.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/SCREENSHOT_0004_Layer-1.jpg 1500w, https://press-start.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/SCREENSHOT_0004_Layer-1-300x80.jpg 300w, https://press-start.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/SCREENSHOT_0004_Layer-1-600x160.jpg 600w, https://press-start.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/SCREENSHOT_0004_Layer-1-560x149.jpg 560w" sizes="(max-width: 1500px) 100vw, 1500px" />Bare essentials means, well, bare essentials. There’s a lot of back and forth and a lot of lost side plots as the game attempts to be the...
On a purely technical scale it’s impressive, watching thousands of units battle it out in what are mostly gorgeous backdrops. It’s something the Total War series always excelled in, and it’s especially fun to watch in the fantasy nature of Warhammer. In terms of pure graphical fidelity, it’s less impressive. While there have been an array of improvements in terms of environments and animations, it’s still quite repetitive in terms of assets used.
Adding a sweet cherry on an amazing cake, Platinum have put Nintendo costumes into the port, letting you play as Princess Peach, Daisy, Link or Samus. Not only are these cosmetic changes, but they actually have gameplay effects. You can actually use Samus’s arm cannon, Link can block attacks with her shield and halos are rupees instead, and the two princesses can summon monsters instead of wicked weaves. I can’t think of any developer that would go to this much effort, and it’s just a genuine delight to see how much work has gone behind the port, and that absolutely zero percent of it is locked behind paywalls.
Some puzzles are genuinely interesting and require some actual thought, for the most part they’re quite straightforward. What’s more remarkable is the two brothers’ interactions with the world. Dozens of events happen in this world, and like the naive younger brother, the gamer would be naturally drawn to attempt to interact with other characters, animals and objects in the world. Simply sitting on a bench to admire the view is in itself breathtaking.
Do you convince your rockstar friend to take drugs again? Do you shoo away his crazy ex? Do you agree to buy drugs for a random girl, buy cheap pills and pocket the change, possibly resulting in her death? I’m literally scratching the surface here on the sheer amount of choices you have in this nine hour adventure. The journey is exhausting, and not many people will strive to play it again especially if they got an ending that utterly sucks the joy out of them. Coupled with the tedious activities you could choose to partake in and Always Sometimes Monsters is a journey that is very, very hard to resubmit to.
Perks have been streamlined as well into two paths of 16 skills each and most are just taken from 3. Some are locked behind sidequests and unlockables (smart) but a lot are locked behind story missions (not smart). There’s nothing spectacular about them, except it’s a shame they’ve streamlined them so much.
The AI remains as dumb as a brick. While usually this wouldn’t be a problem seeing as this is Dynasty Warriors, 8 decided to add some objectives that DON’T revolve around simply killing an officer or….killing more officers. Having to escort an ally to a designated location is infuriating especially if the ally is running into a brick wall half the time. Having to backtrack to move a catapult or to rescue burning peasants is just tedious at best and brutally boring at worst.