Aaron Robertson

Interesting concept that absolutely flopped on execution. This show encourages passivity and punishes contestants for being aggressive. The beginning was actually pretty exciting until you realize the next 90% of the show is a slog. People who own large pieces of the floor do so largely by luck. They then go back to their spot in hopes of bagging 20k so long as 'the randomizer' doesn't land on someone who inevitably will 'go big or go home' on a 50/50 shot to re-steal that portion. If there was even a strategy to this horrible show, it was to stay on the floor as long as possible, in a random corner, and wait to snipe the $250k on basically another 50/50 matchup (OH WAIT DID THAT ACTUALLY HAPPEN). This show has no hope unless it removes the $20k and adds something to reward skill and aggressive gameplay. I want to see the best contestants at the end, not some goon that sits in a corner, refuses to play, and then swoops in to take $250k off of sheer luck. This is the part that infuriates me and completely destroyed the show for me, hands down. You could have literally rolled a dice and had two people go head-to-head for $250k and instead they dragged it out over 10 episodes. I will never get this time back so the best I can do is warn you to not waste yours.

It's tough to give this one a lower rating but the grind is just too much. Map runs can take you 2-3 hours with a high chance of failure if you're very new to these types of games. Not reaching the objective after a certain number of years completely resets your progress. This will be a game killer for a lot of people. When you finish that long run, you get some minor upgrades on a reward tree. Rinse and repeat at 20+ different difficulties and voila, you have Against the Storm... The treadmill is steep and the carrot is small in this game. I'd stick to just trying it on Gamepass or avoiding this one altogether.

1 extra star for graphics and on-field battles Otherwise, this game is a soulless train wreck of broken promises. I will not support this behavior of early access sales, promised features, and "full release," only to realize that we've been given a half baked Warband 2.0 graphical update. This game does not compare to Warband because they stripped all the amazing features out of the game. If you're reading any of these 4-5 star reviews, they are either 1.) Review bots or 2.) people who did not play Warband, and are simply in the honeymoon phase of the M&B franchise. Just wait till the honeymoon phase is over cause "yea she looks hot but she's got the personality of a bag of rocks"

Great Sim game but not perfect. Some of the worlds and themes were spot on and enjoyable, though, some missed the mark. You get to a new world and you start realizing it gets really repetitive. Yea the theme is amazing but it's the same 'build dorm, build bathroom, build lecture, etc.' About halfway through it starts dragging and by the time you get to the stage where you can "build the campus of your dreams," you're absolutely burned out. My advice is to not worry about getting the 3 stars (maybe even the 2 star) unless you're going for completion. There are some phases that literally take hours of you just putting it on full speed and staring at the screen. Get 1 star, move on, and get this game on the Xbox Game Pass.

Fantastic, rewarding experience. Yes, it took me over 7 1/2 hours to best the final boss but wow, what a feeling once you see that deathblow circle. If you're looking for some entertainment, go read the 1-star comments, they're hilarious. Most people just don't want to dedicate the time for this demanding game. I don't think it's fair to bash it on difficulty alone, I mean, you're playing a souls-like genre; do your research before you buy. Gameplay: 4/5 - when you get the timing down, you feel like a master bladesman. Controls can be wonky and you will input a dodge or deflect and it doesn't register right away. Another issue is the camera lock when it cycles to a different target and you wanted to stay locked on (sensitivity seems off) Graphics: 5/5 - absolutely gorgeous, especially Fountainhead Palace and Senpou Temple areas (jaw drops). FromSoftware has a specific art style, so you're going to get a similar feel here Music: 5/5 - also stunning and one of my favorite elements of the game - you'll likely be so focused on the fight at hand to appreciate it, so I recommend pulling up the album on YouTube and listening to it without the gameplay distraction Value: 5/5 - this is extremely biased because it is highly dependent on your level of skill and/or dedication to learning the game - there is a lot of content in this game for the price and it's well worth it if you take the time to master it - I believe it goes up to NG+ 7 (new game +) and there are gauntlets where you can fight a series of bosses back to back - you can re-live (re-fight) all of the bosses too - I feel that this gives the game A LOT of content, but if the base difficulty level was Mt. Everest to you, I can see why you wouldn't see this of any value All-in-all this game is going to stretch your patience and skills to the limit, but it does so while giving you obvious clues (boss weaknesses, certain items/skills right before a fight/area) as to how to keep pushing on. You also lose xp and gold upon death, but this can also be mitigated by playing safe right before your next level up (you cant drop below your current level), and buying coin pouches to protect your gold from being lost (store it to consume these later when you find a merchant). I think the biggest learning curve, is the un-learning curve of previous games like Bloodborne and Dark Souls. You really need to learn the block/deflect system in this game. You wont use the dodge mechanic nearly as much. Killing bosses by wearing down their posture and then deathblowing them is quite literally the most efficient way in a lot of cases. It takes some getting used to, but if you're aggressive and good at timing your deflects, you will beat this game. To anyone severely struggling, put this game aside and go purchase Ghost of Tsushima. The game is an absolute masterpiece and will perfectly transition you into Sekiro's demanding combat style

I'm on the wagon with the many people that wanted to love this game but something was just missing. I honestly cannot understand how this got such great reviews. I was about 1/3 of the way through and couldn't wait for this game to be over. Gameplay: probably the worst part since it's very linear and funnels you right into where you need to go/what you need to do. It's kill or sneak, and you'll find that there's much more variation if you do more killing than sneaking. Yet, unlike the fantastic series, Dishonored, there is no penalty for being more stealthy vs. being all out kill mode Music: actually quite beautiful, but, poorly executed in my opinion. Scenes that demanded intensity and emotion were not emphasized with the music at hand Voice acting: similar to the music. It wasn't all that bad, but it sure as heck was not that great either. Similar scenes that demanded emotion, just did not hit the nail on the head. I'm watching an intense scene and not really really feeling any emotion Characters: honestly, pretty forgettable. Even the antagonist didn't pull any anger or feelings of revenge towards him. This goes hand-in-hand with the voice acting section in that, the voice acting was just missing something, and it left you feeling a little empty Story: very unique story actually, but what ruined it for me was that they took a very historically accurate era and combined it with 'magic' rats/alchemy. You could have just went historically accurate, or full on magic rats and it would have been so much better. Predictable storyline as well Graphics: one of the better parts of this game. Beautiful scenery, armor, outfits, and buildings. The cathedral was stunning My recommendation: find a video on YouTube that strings together the cutscenes into a game 'movie' and watch that. If you truly need to buy this game because you got sucked into the good reviews like I did, buy it on a big sale and do not pay more than like 10-15 bucks for it. Thankfully, I played this as part of the Microsoft Game Pass. Even then, I wish I just watched the story through YouTube.