Released:22 March 2021
Platform:PS5,PC,X/S,X ONE,PS4
Developer: SOFTSTAR
Now I am going to start off with a bit of ranting before I get to the good stuff. Based on the above I am disappointed and here is why:
Graphics
Now I obviously did take comments I saw on steam and there is more on reddit and before I say why and how I got to them I had to block the peoples gamer tags because I do not know them but if they happen to read this review or if you are their friend, I want all credit to be given to them. I did this because some may take offense if you just unveil their names to the public but if you are one of them and read this review and want to be on the spotlight just feel free to drop a comment below, I have their actual names by the way so don't try to finesse.
Now here is why: I have been playing this game on my pc but wondering why I do not have certain Nvidia based settings. Trust time I checked and tried renowned channels on YouTube but none of them seemed to cover the issue that there is a difference in the versions of this game depending on where you are launching (Game Pass, Steam etc) it from. As you can see from above the PC Game Pass version is DX11 instead of DX12 so obviously you are not going to get the DX12 features which are primarily predominant in modern gpus. Now please checkout the steam version requirements:
As you can see there is DX12 support denoting a difference is versions there.
The Steam version is complete for PC Nvidia gpus but Game Pass has been throttled for reasons unknown. My guess at the moment is perhaps Game Pass is more AMD centric since Xbox consoles are AMD based hardware, its just my random guess nothing official. So based on this and at the time I am typing this avoid the PC Game Pass version. There could even be more games having these issues and sadly you may not get an explanation online unless you search for the needle in the haystack. So all the clips you will see here are the PC Game Pass version and it shouldn't take you time to see its a watered down version according to Nvidia gpu RTX standards.
Sigh with that out of the way the graphics are promising I cant say they are good because Game Pass spoiled it for me however you can easily check online how good the graphics are with all Nvidia settings enabled. Its sad I experienced most of this game without this. Unfortunately if I want to enjoy the game on steam at the moment I have to buy it. Despite all the negativity I am feeling about the Game Pass PC version this game is pretty and one of the best looking games you can come across.
Cutscenes and character model polish is also great but seems to be 30fps during cutscenes weird but yes. Overall good looking game but as for the Game Pass PC version run away from it at the moment.
Gameplay
Clearly really good and enjoyable, to give you to understand its more like you are playing Final Fantasy 15 or Final Fantasy. I mentioned 15 because 15 and 7 are the only recent Final Fantasy games i have played.
I am not really into Final Fantasy games however its the nearest synonymous video game rendition I can think of. If you are also a God of War fan you are going to find some hack and slash similarities here so overall its a great experience.
Another thing I like is the proper 3rd person experience immersion you get from this game. As you can see above how the camera just pans accross and around your character giving you the chance to absorb the beautiful environment this game has to offer.
The menu setup is also very pretty but another crazy thing happened while I was in the Game Pass version wherein my gpu utilization was full, my vram was not but for some crazy reason as you go around tweaking your character properties in the menu there is this great stutter you come across and I had to turn down my settings to customized ones.Trust me this has nothing to do with the PC but how badly optimized the gamepass version is.
Sorry Final Fantasy fans but I think the gameplay is better than the Final Fantasies i have played because its simple and straight forward you have your combos, powers and can switch between characters with ease each with their own distinct abilities. Final Fantasy tends to give sub menus within a fight and it slows down the pace for me and bores me, it just makes things even more complicated that they should me.
Story
It is definitely something very intriguing and and exceptional hindered by one great barrier "language". You have to read there is no English audio here and this can easily turn you off however if you don't mind you may find yourself really hooked because the story has so much depth. The only challenge with this approach is that it makes it hard to keep up with the story pacing as you always have to read.
Trying to not be long winded but to conclude this game easily falls into my category of one of the best surprises I have ever come across and played. The main reason why I reviewed it like this is not to shame it and just find faults but I really hope to raise awareness of how bad the Game Pass PC version is. I find it ridiculous that such practices happen to put incomplete versions of games or rather badly optimized on paid subscription services. While on this those who have played the Steam version report that AMD cards don't even support RT. So what does this mean if you are Nvidia get the Steam version if you are AMD take this with a jar of salt maybe PC Gamepass with embrace you with open arms. The definitive way to experience this product is on PC and not console however sad to note of the missing features.
In closing you maybe asking yourself dude should I buy this game, my answer is a big yes, my experience as mentioned has been hampered by the missing features because I want a complete game. I kept busting my head as to where people online are having dlss,rtx on and so forth and my game had none of those options. Besides all this its a great game and underrated. I sincerely hope that somebody from SoftStar will catch wind of this and do a fix soon.
Cheers
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