Jeffrey Rhoten

The filler and padding in this game makes the pacing unbearably slow. Movement feels slow and sluggish in a misguided attempt to make things look more realistic. Traversing between world areas also feels clunky because they typically force you to basically crawl through narrow gaps. Is progressive loading really so hard? Breath of the Wild figured it out on a less powerful system like 5 years ago. Not to mention they neglected to add fast travel, which is a necessity for maps of this size. I think I'm up to about 5 different ways this game is WAY more boring than it needs to be. And it's really a shame because the world is beautiful. They really stepped up their game on the visuals and the audio with everything from character models to music to voice acting. And the worst part is slapping the Final Fantasy 7 name on the game, because the comparisons only hurt here. The original actually moved - important story events would follow one after the other keeping you at the edge of your seat the whole time. But this? This is like the worst parts of Dragon Ball Z or Naruto where 6 hours can pass and nothing of consequence has happened. I want to find whoever made the decision to 1: turn this into multiple games, and 2: stretch this particular one out to 30+ hours long and slap him upside the head. I am honestly disheartened reading many of the positive reviews because so many of them are blinded by Disney-esque nostalgia, rather than an actual commentary on the strengths and weaknesses of the game. At best this is a mixed bag. Combat System: it has some great ideas, but feels so clunky at times that it's really stuck in B- to B+ territory. Writing: The interpretations of the main characters are solid, save for a few moments of cringe. However some of the newly added material absolutely tanks this, like the HIGH OCTANE, PETAL TO THE METAL biker moron you fight for...way too long. C+ Pacing: About as bad as it gets. D- Visuals: From a texturing and modeling standpoint this game is a masterpiece. It looks really, really good. That said, there are some strange decisions made with the lighting engine that cause transitions from outside-to-in to go pitch black for a moment. I'm guessing they're trying to simulate your eyes taking a second to adjust, but it just feels weird and unnatural. A-

This is a remarkable game, and a shining example of what crowd sourced games should aspire to. Fell Seal is a turn-based tactical RPG modeled after Final Fantasy Tactics, a game which was itself inspired by Dungeons and Dragons. There's a variety of different characters, job classes, and different play styles to make the gameplay very deep and satisfying. Pros - great music, deep gameplay, and tons of customization. And you have so much control over difficulty that repeated playthroughs never get stale. Hell I actually preferred my second time through the game. Graphically it's not amazing by modern PC standards, but if this were released on 3ds it would be absolutely top tier. All told I'd say it looks pretty good. Cons - the story isn't amazing. Speaking of DnD, most home brewed stories are probably about on par with this. And it doesn't help that it's a spiritual successor to FFT which has an amazing story by 1990's standards. Obviously as an indie developer they have limited resources, and most of that seems to have gone into gameplay. And I'm glad it did because it's a joy to play - I've logged over 200 hours on steam. In all honesty though these cons are nit picks; they nailed it where it counts. And from reading through the update history, it's obvious that this developer is smart enough to make the game good, and cares enough to follow through on it. Ultimately this is a solid game. I could recommend it to anyone enjoys games with a little complexity. If you like other tactical RPGs, this is a must have.