So. I caved and ended up getting the remaster sooner than anticipated and I've sunk a few solid days worth of hours into it before coming up with my impression.
Of course, I loved the enhanced graphics, right out of the gate. Many reviewers have touted this with far better vocabulary and technical terms than I could. It's gorgeous and my main reason for wanting it. That being said, let's get a little technical.
My friend Joe warned me that crashes were still a thing on the PS4 version. I started to notice this from the onset. It wasn't terribly frequent but I do notice that repeatedly putting games into rest mode seems to encourage what might be best described as accumulative errors. Crashing issues seem to be avoidable as long as I close out of the game app and restarted from time to time. No biggie, but a little annoying. (Let me add that on the latest patch, I haven't had a crash since, so I am guessing their stability fixes took care of this. Hooray!)
The save system, of course, had to take on a slightly different approach and seeing as this was one of the original issues with the initial game, I expected that. You can now quicksave (which was also frequently utilized until they fixed the crashing) and a hard save isn't necessary in that case. I still log a hard save after so many hours of play time and I do actually allow the autosave feature to stay on. I don't often do that. In any case, instead of it showing up directly on the game menu, it always says "New Save" but opens into the PS4 menu where your saves actually are. No big deal.
Quests are still glitched, if not more so. While these problems still existed on the PS3 version, I managed to avoid most of them although it appears I am managing to not avoid them on this one. I have about 4-5 quests that I did finish but didn't go away or just hang without any prompt on what to do. In those cases, I already know how to finish them, but still... they don't always go away. For a completionist, this is a little irritating, but not game breaking.
I regret to say I haven't yet gotten to the mods, which was never an incentive for me anyway. You can't earn trophies with them turned on and I am a trophy whore. I intend to platinum this bitch all over again and when I do, I will be happy to add my review. Even better because I have heard some complaints on PS4's mods and chances are, some of these issues might be fixed by the time I sink in the months worth of time it will take me to be rid of every nook and cranny again.
This game just doesn't get old for me. Like Dragon Age Inquisition, I can easily sink a lot of replay value from it. So many ways you can approach it and STILL find something you thought you did waiting to be found. People can say it is overhyped, but it is perfect for someone like me who had a short attention span and isn't terribly pressed on the beaten path. I still enjoy the glitches that surface with absolute glee. And let's be honest, I abuse the shit out of the Share button when I strike gold on one.
After all this time, it is still good and if games copy it at all, good on them. I still stand by my belief that this game SHOULD be a model for the direction of open world action RPGs for a good long while. It has created a solid base plus more for the genre. You'd have to hate this genre to not see the value of, not just this one, but even the dated Oblivion. Sorry, fans, but Morrowind was a clunky bit of hell by the time I got my hands on it, so I won't have the same sentimental attachment to it that it might have once been capable of. That being said, if you're a fan of lore and fantasy and exploration, this is a slice of heaven. You will be able to forgive its flaws-- I was perhaps even more forgiving because apparently I had the golden PS3 that never experienced the same game-breaking flaws that had flooded Bethesda's forums. The PS4 didn't magically remedy all of them, but it was a valiant effort and definitely modernized it for another handful of years. It is still being patched and it is still being modded. I think it has more life off of the shelf yet and it will be a trophy in my collection beyond that.
No, it's not for everyone. Don't be absurd. I still loved the fuck out of it.
No comments:
Post a Comment