Ruben Williams

First of all, the game isnt anywhere near as bad as people say it is. They like to talk about all these crazy game breaking bugs. Many of them are fabricated and most of them do not happen to 99% of players. The only things you're likely to encounter/notice are 1. framerate drops (which only happen in a few heavily populated spots. Ya know, like most games do on weaker hardware) and 2. If you intentionally move your camera against a wall and make it move towards your character your face MIGHT disappear, leaving your eyes floating in the air. I guess genz kids aren't aware this has been a thing since the very first 3D game. And 3. there are awkward moments where your pokemon might run off, or something might fall off a cliff, etc. Your pokemon immediately returns to its ball if it does this, so it doesnt matter at all, and if you happen to miss out on catching a pokemon you wanted because of this, guess what? Theres literally hundreds of them all over the place. Nothing is hard to find. People are doing what they always do: overreacting to nothing. That being said, I personally find the game to be a disappointment in terms of design. 1. The aesthetic is terrible. It does not LOOK like Pokemon. I'll never understand why they thought we wanted to look like a 6 year old on their way to daycare. 2. The open world is poorly designed. Its massive, but its EMPTY. The ONLY two things to see in the world are 1. massive hordes of Pokemon (which makes them all feel generic and its not exciting at all to find a rare one because theres a thousand of them all over the place) and 2. the raid battle nodes. No puzzles. No side paths to explore. Just wide open empty fields as far as the eye can see. 3. The freedom of exploration ruins the game BECAUSE areas have set levels. So if you go too far on one side of the map then go back to the other, then the wild pokemon and the GYM LEADERS will be vastly lower level than your team. It further removes any challenge that could have been. But thats the trend these days, I guess. "Gamers" no longer want to challenge themselves. Its sad. 4. The models suck. Most Pokemon look like balloon animals. Or like they're made from pool float foam. Its not a good look. Also, most Pokemon are TINNNYYY. It's almost impossible to move from point A to B without stepping on a hundred 1 inch tall creatures. 5. Tera Forms. While I do like that they add a defensive mechanic to the game, the hats just look stupid. Also you can only do it ONCE per battle (not that it matters since everything dies in one hit anyway) and it literally ONLY changes your type. It was a good idea, but it could be much better. Overall, I dont recommend the game if you're an old school fan. It does not feel rewarding to play. Exploration is boring. Environments are bland and unimaginative. Towns all feel exactly the same (oh, you cant walk into building either). Its just not POKEMON. It feels like a Mii game. If you just want to play the newest game and you dont care about those things listed, you'll probably enjoy it. Otherwise I'd say just skip it or grab a used copy somewhere for 50% off.

The GAME is fantastic. Its the perfect RPG/Looter/Shooter hybrid. The only issue (and the reason all the children are giving negative reviews) is the server stability has been rough. Plenty of skills to choose from with tons of customization. Your 6 armor piece can have up to 2 skill upgrade slots each to change/add effects to your skills: meaning 12 total slots for customizing skills alone. You can freely change one of the slots anytime for a small amount of resources, which makes finding the "perfect" item far less cumbersome. Weapons similarly have 2 slots on them, but their effects trigger when shooting. For example: your shots can cause lightning to strike your target, or apply burning, or ricochet, or create explosions, or blow up enemies when killed, or freeze them. Theres a TON of options available. Which brings us to crafting: the thing Outriders does better than any other game. No item is ever useless. Using the vast supply of resources you will get just by playing normally, you can level up gear, increase its rarity, and increase its stats. So if you get an item you really like at level 1 you can level it up and use it at end game too. And it will be just as good as other end game items. This makes it so that Legendaries are not the be-all end-all. Legendaries come with one unique skill (then a random skill that can drop on any weapon). And just like all other skills in the game, you can dismantle the weapon and permanently unlock its skill and freely put it on any other weapon you want. The gameplay can be challenging. Which is a welcome change. Games have been becoming mindlessly easy over the years. I've been thrilled to die repeatedly on some fights, forcing me to rethink my tactics to overcome them. If you arent up for a challenge you can change the difficulty at anytime (referred to as World Tiers - similar to Diable 3's system). Probably the weakest aspect of the game 30 hours in is the story/dialogue. This could be due to the fast pace of the game. You're not stopping much, which can also be a good thing, but it makes it feel like there isnt much really going on. The characters you meet all do have very vivid personalities, however, albeit dialogue could be better at times. Overall, People Can Fly have outdone themselves. This is a superb title deserving of a long future. I have high hopes they decide to continue releasing content in the future. P.S. Do yourself a favor: ignore the negative reviews. Most are kids raging because of server stability on launch week. The game has very few problems, most of which (from what I've gathered) stem from people playing on lower end PCs - or simply not exploring Settings.