Nioh 2 Review

With the many Soulslike games out there in the wild and many stick with the same formula that makes DarkSouls so great. One game took a different direction and meshed three games together to make an endless looting grind, fast paced over the top combat with the difficulty that Souls brings. 

Enter Nioh 2 a blend of Diablo 2 looting, ninja Gaiden fluid combat and the raging that you would expect from the souls like genre. Nioh 2 is one of if not the best Souls Like gaming experience you will ever have. From the deep complexity of builds, to the fun story set in the Sengoku Era of Japan in the early 1500s  that sets you asa half-yokai named hide who befriends many different characters along the way during the upheaval and warlodism in Japan. Nioh 2 takes real dates of the Sengoku Era and characters based on the real life historical figures like;  Kinoshita Toukichirou who later became Toyotomi Hideyoshi. 

The mixing of fiction and non-fiction is very neat to see and going through the civil war era of Japan and incorporating with Japanese folklore of Yokai (demons) is very fun and interesting spin on a real-life era.

With nearing 300 hours in a little over month we got some good topics.  I broke this review in many areas as this game is very complex, in depth very detailed and to just talk about random components  in this game does not give it justice so lets start why we all play Nioh, the combat.

I am making this review with out playing the DLC and on NG + but will put out another video covering DLC!  

Combat:

If you have played any Team Ninja (Ninja Gaiden, Nioh 1, Hyrule Warriors) then you know you are already in for a treat when it comes to combat. Like most dark souls the combat is unforgiving to those who don’t make time to learn the mechanics of the game. But very rewarding to those who put the time into learn the mechanics, the combos the ins outs of how the game functions during its combat and that’s about 90% of the game.

If you played Ninja Gaiden then you already know about the combos, the jutsu/magic and the over top slicing and dicig of your enemies. The combat is probbaly the best feature in Nioh and makes some of the other Soul like games look like a snore fest.

To say the combat is slow is like saying an airplane doesn’t break the sound barrier. It is extremely fast combat, the combos are brutal and coupling it with magic and ninjustu it can get pretty insane and once you get into New Game + collecting divine gear and start making you build it will get even faster. If done right you can drop big boys in a only a few hits. The combat is a huge step up from the normal souls play and tons of fun if you are into fast paced over the top in your face and melt bodies combos. (I wanted more descirptions but lost em)

With the Nioh Combat you have multiple weapons you can choose from all with their own animations, combos, look feel and play style

• Melee
  • Sword
  • Dual Swords
  • Spear
  • Split Staff
  • Axe & Hammer
  • Kusarigama
  • Odachi
  • Tonfa
  • Hatchets (My Fav)
  • Switchgliave
  • Fists

• Ranged (yes with the right build you can play fully ranged)
  • Bow
  • Rifle
  • Hand Cannon

Story:

Nioh 2 is a prequel to Nioh 1 and no you don’t need to play Nioh 1 to play Nioh 2. It all ties together and fills you in. While I payed somewhat attention to the story, it is actually decent. As you are a half human, half yokai AKA as a shiftling and as you go through you meet and befriend Kinoshita Toukichirou who wants to make his mark in the world by selling sprit stones(Amrita).

You meet many other interesting characters along the way while fighting back Yokai and evil warlords to gain control of the different regions. The story actually has some really good twists and leaves you with your jaw dropped as you don’t expect certain things to happen. For an Souls like ARPG with a story it’s a decent 7/10 and worth learning about and delving into the lore of the Japan era and the folk lore around the Yokai as it makes it pretty fun to slice Yokai in half knowing what the story around the Yokai are.

Over World Map:

Unlike Darksouls where the game is open and you can traverse the world in any direction (I do prefer this) Nioh 2 kind of does a “lobby” style. The lobby is the over map and you move from mission area to mission area from the over world map. While its cool and there are hidden items you can find on the map, I do prefer free roaming the world and exploring. The mission concept is cool and keeps the game moving and but at times can feel disconnected. An example of this is Warfame, your lobby is your ship, the mission ares are the planets you can select and you can too. But Team Ninja’s mission are blast and moving from mission to mission is painless and easy and really keeps the game flowing. Some missions are great for items while others are great for farming.

Leveling Up:

This is where Nioh and other Souls games differ and I kind of like it. In Nioh series you get Amrita (Souls) and gold for buying items, crafting, respeccing etc… Where Amrita is ONLY for leveling your character up. Like souls games, if you die you have chance to get your Amrita and if you die along the way you lose it for good. They do make it so you can find Summoner Candles and Summon your spirit Guardian back to you and all your Amirta. 

Like most soul games, each stat ties to armor and weapons’ as well as your magic and ninjutsu. Scaling and leveling up is a whole separate video, but I really like the way Team Ninja took the approach of separating Gold and XP to ensure you can have one resource for leveling up and another resource for crafting, buying items and components.

Crafting:

After you beat the mission The Beast Born of Smoke and Flames  you then unlock the black smith. From here you can buy, sell, forget equipment, soul forge (make your equipment stronger), you can use soul forging to over write inheritance or add new ones, you can also temper, change move specials effects from gear and armor to compliment your build as well as remodel which lets you change your equipment to scale off of familiarity, your main weapon stat or if you are using a sword which scales vial heart build dumping into dexterity for a ninjutsu build you can have your sword scale of a DEX instead.

The crafting system is fun unique, and you will spend a lot of your time here praying to RNGesus as you role for certain tempers or forging new weapons etc. As you use  the blacksmith services more you will get patronage points which can be used to reduce costs, increase rare finds, and use patronage points to soul forge instead of gold. Careful soul forging, its expensive and the way you need to upgrade divine gear, you’ll go broke fast! (more on crafting and upgrading divine gear at a later time)

To craft new weapons & armor you will be farming for smithing texts. These will come from missions rewards, boss drops and some enemies so you can craft that weapon you want and then role for the stats you want it to perfect your build.

Builds:

So I keep throwing the word “Builds” around so lets jump into these. Builds are the bread and butter of Nioh 2 and well usually the bread and butter of any ARPG that has stats, loots and an endless grind to obtain the ULTIMATE POWER OF THE GODS!

But to be real, builds are everything and almost anything is workable, ill be putting out my own build videos soon as I am working on a hatchet build I am in love with. But also build videos in a game like this are subjective and there are so many ways to make a sword or hatchet or fist build that one way is not better than the other.

 So don’t let a video that says OMG THE BEST 1MIL DMG SWORD BUILD EVERRRRRR! Sway you into playing that way, as some builds are cheesy and while its cool to fart (Tesso) and kill a boss, you lose a lot of what makes Nioh 2 great. That’s the combat and fun, maybe farting on a boss and killing them is your thing, who am I tell you how to play. All I am saying is look at different ways to play, and Nioh 2 when it comes to builds is all about experimenting, there are so any resources (I will leave them down below) to star your own build and play and see what you like instead of finding the OMG THE BEST 1MIL DMG SWORD BUILD EVERRRRRR!

Enjoy the game and experiments builds can be the best part of the game if you take time to understand the complex systems, and look for the synergy between the different stats, weapons, armors and items. You may find yourself building a Ice/Fire build where you saturate an enemy and load up fire dmg and fire dots to burn their health way. Either way just experiment, the game gives you many ways to respec. (Book of recantations from the BS tea house (didn’t cover here), missions and drops) do note that buying them from the tea house or BS does make the price go up A LOT! But you can get them from missions so don’t fret. Again all I can say is play with all the weapons on your first play through, keep a balanced stat sheet as you go to wear different armor, play different weapons, use magic and ninjutsu and see what matches to you.. Not – OMG THE BEST 1MIL DMG SWORD BUILD EVERRRRRR! 

Conclusion:

In my opinion Nioh 2 is the best souls like game even surpassing Nioh 1. Team Ninja came in swung and hit a grand slam. That’s not to say the game doesn’t have its issues, cause it does. Farming revenants for builds, RNG is a nightmare, but from the ground up Nioh 2 is something that the other clones can’t catch up with and while they are all great games, having played many of them. From Dark Souls to Code Vein (Dark Souls Light) it’s in a leauge of its own, so if you need to satisfy that Ninja Gaiden combat while waiting on the remaster of Ninja Gaiden Nioh is your game. Or maybe you need an endless loot grind or maybe you need a new game to make you  rage and snap some controllers and punch some monitors. Then Nioh 2 is for you, go check it you, won’t be disappointed its really the best souls like game out there and the builds are so much fun. If you grab it or have on PC add me on steam Ryven Brodragon and I will gladly run missions, help you out and answer as a many questions as I can. Make sure to comment down below with your thoughts on Nioh 2 and your favorite weapon and boss fight.

I appreciate you all thanks for reading and I will catch you next time, peace out Brodragons!

Outriders What We Know!

What is Outriders?

Outriders is a New Co-Op Looter Shooter. Think of Gears of War with Powers and abilities. Peoples Can Fly (devs of Pain Killer, Bullet Storm, Gears of War: Judgment) brings a looter shooter that is bloody, in your face, fast paced, with deep progression and character customization.

Now I know many other games have come and gone before this one. Anthem, The Division 2, Destiny 2, Godfall etc… The  biggest difference between majority of those games and Outriders is Outriders is NOT a Game For Service, Outriders on release will be 100% completed.

There is no DLC, No nonsense of only play the main story for 10 – 15 hours then have a mediocre endgame and wait 12 weeks for the 1st DLC to drop to give you the other part of the game. You are getting the full game up front, and I feel a little a safer with Outriders since it was scheduled for a 2020 release and it got pushed to February 2nd, 2021. Giving the DEVs more time to polish and make the game the best it can be.

Will there be DLC? That is yet to be seen, People Can Fly want to see how the game is received how well it does. I have a good feeling about this game and looking forward to launch.

Outriders Story:

Earth is all used up, its pretty much a wasteland and Humanity is now flying around looking for planets that are similar to earth to create a new home… Sounds familiar, its been done before but if executed right it could very much be a fun and intriguing story. Anyway, we hear a signal on one of the planets called Enoch and send the Outriders (that’s us) find out what’s down there.

We get down there to follow the signal and come across the anomaly… (queue ominous music).  The anomaly, effects everything it touches, it can kill or mutate others.  The outriders are attacked and overwhelmed and retreat to return to be put in cryo sleep for 30 years.

After 30 years we awake to find that the anomaly gave us kicking super powers. But we come to find that Enoch is fully changed, the outriders, plant and animal life are fully mutated and the plane has become extremely hostile. During the 30 years we slept, a war broke out, between whatever is left of the humans who formed the ECA or the insurgence. And to think we slept for 30 years of that war… that is still going on… sheesh! 

The colonist that came down with us were able to safely build in one little valley and with us leading the expedition and heading into war to we will restore peace and order.

Gameplay:

It’s a shooter… done end of section. Kidding … if you played Gears of War then you know the combat style, if you have not played its very fast faced bloody and requires you to take cover to stay a live. Though, I don’t see many game play footage where you take cover… its more in your face fast paced kind of like Anthem or Warframe, I mean you can take cover but from what I have seen you don’t really need too. But to be fair I have not really seen end game at the higher tiers, so taking cover could be something that really matters then.

Classes:

In outriders there are 4 different classes you can choose from:

Devastator – Close range tank in your face and smack things dead

Pyromancer – medium range summoner / mage type

Trickster – Nina Rouge move in and out of the shadows fast to slay your enemies.

Technomancer: All round class that can summon a variety of turrets, even heal your allies.

Each class has a skill tree that you can spec even further, for example you have the Devastator that spec in anomaly powers, fire arms or go full tank and be the damager eater of your team.

The game will have armor sets, exotic weapons and weapon mods. Synergizing your weapons, armor and spec will be crucial to solo and group play.

Game Modes:

PVE game, 25-40 hours of campaign gameplay (25 hours for 1 class, I plan on playing all 4)

After the campaign there will be expedition that are totally desinged separate from the campaign so they are not taking story missions and recycling like many other games did, TD2, Warframe, Godfall Etc… These kind of remind of strikes from Destiny, but seem more involved and rewarding to play. They are higher tiers in expeditions, the higher the level, the better the gear.

Progression:

Like most games you are going to level up to  get points to spend in your skill trees. What I love is that you are able to respec at any point, I totally dislike ARPGs that once you go down a path you cannot respec and or you are punished for doing so. ARPGs and shooter-looters are meant to be experimental and should be allowed to respec on the fly for the needs of the missions and your teams.

Customization looks amazing and huge and I can’t wait to dive in. On top of skills, you will unlock new powers as you play. Each class has 8 powers they can acquire and learn. The max level is 30, This will be hit quickly by many and end game will

begin and then the 1% will complain there will be nothing to do.

It sounds like there is crafting to a point, People Can Fly stated that you will be able to increase rarity and level of your gear. So get an awesome chest piece that’s level 28, and you can level it to level 30 and then increase the rarity to keep it longer and satisfy your build needs. So it sounds like you get mileage out of your gear and not have to can it as often as you do in other games.

As mentioned the player max level is 30, but end game kind of like how The Division 2 was prior to Warlords of NY you had world tier levels the higher the teir the better the drops and gear. Outriders has something similar, the higher you set your world tier to (15 levels) the better the drops with a max level of 45 item level.  You will be fine tuning your gear to ensure you can make it to the next world tier and keep getting stronger to get those gorgeous drops. I love me a grind!

DLC:

I mentioned DLC at the beginning of the video there is nothing planed ATM as Outriders is a 100% complete game and will not be adding new guns, levels, raids, dungeons etc.. However as mentioned if the game is received well they would love to make more content. I hope they do and we get to grind for more sweet loot.

My thoughts:

 I am excited about this one. The developer People Can Fly are amazing and I loved all their games and with SquareEnix backing them as the publisher I am really not worried about that either (I know avengers was a mess). But overall, I think this is a full right direction for shooter-looters, no more game for service nonsense and MTX and other areas that take away from the full game. We have a month away. Feb 2nd, 2021 and Outrider Drops. Looking forward to playing and linking up with many of you.

Control – Is Not An Illusion

From the start to the finish you are on the edge of your seat. The combat, the story, the abilities, the boss fights, the characters, all the lore, and the mind fuck inception level designs! 9.5/10 – Must Play.

Control is a game that was needed in this time of lack luster gaming and a million live service games. Remedy came out swinging and they hit a grand slam, this game going on to win 80 awards in 2019, this game has earned every single one.

Control started out as an Epic exclusive, if you know me I don’t buy into exclusivity nonsense, nor do I care about the Epic store. So I waited the year for it to drop on Steam, it was worth the 365 day wait. Everything about the game, from the start to the finish you are on the edge of your seat. The combat, the story, the abilities, the boss fights, the characters, all the lore, and the mind fuck inception level designs! This is honestly a game that should be buying ASAP.

Control is a third person action/adventure game with non-stop thrills and action. The story is dark set in a world where the day to day reality is being corrupted by other dimensional forces called the Hiss. As you start your journey, you very quickly and unwillingly become the new director of the FBC (Federal Bureau of Control) who’s job is now to stop the Hiss and end their invasion.

As you progress throughout the game you come across many different character’s who bring their own unique personalities, experiences and agendas in the world of Control. They will provide with many different tasks and missions to go on to help the right the FBC and put an end to the Hiss. As they send you on these missions fill of fights with telekinesis, shielded grenade launchers and floating hiss that explode as they get near you. You will be collecting source energy and abilities points from them, to enhance your weapons/mods and increase the effectiveness of your abilities.

The gun in the game is a pretty neat take, one gun that can take on many different forms, sniper, shotgun, pistol, machine gun, etc, all with varying pros and cons. Like most shooters these days you are able to have two types of guns equipped. The guns are pretty good and if leveled up and with the right mods you can be a gun slinging telekinesis bad ass. But the game really begins to shine when you start gaining your abilities, you do this by finding objects of power and cleansing them binding your self to them.

You get abilities like telekinesis, levitation, shields, mind controls and a few others. Being able to pick up a large objects or rip walls apart and hurl them at your enemies never felt so rewarding. This is were you finally start to feel in control, the combat can be hard in the first few areas with no abilities but as you level up and grow your powers you can decimate a battle in seconds with launching pick forks, and mind controlling weakened enemies to give you an edge.

The combat is a lot fun, the controls are pretty responsive, I didn’t have much issues with navigating on key board & mouse, though the controller probably would have made the game a little more easier. The button mappings are pretty tight, and you are never reaching far on the keyboard to activate an ability. Having a Roccat Tyon, i mapped my dash and telekinesis to some of buttons on the mouse, made launching concrete and propane tanks while getting out of danger pretty fluid. So deciding how you play, I don’t think you have much issues with the controls.

The frustration level of Control can be on the level with Dark Souls. This is also depending of the difficulty you play it on, the combat is fun, but if you don’t pay attention you can be over run easily and when you die you lose source energy and that is frustration. I got stuck on one missions and kept getting over ran, had 100k+ source energy, I died enough times to lose more than half. Mind your environment, and be patient when launching large items especially, explosives. Launching to early could give you a danger close situation and an unwanted death.

The performance of the Control was solid, I played on DX12 with high settings and medium RTX. I was able to keep 60-70FPS through many areas and intense fights. The game is beautiful and the physics are amazing when using your shield and telekinesis abilities just over all beautiful and solid game.

As I said everything about this game is amazing and really keeps you on your toes, with never know whats next and whats about to hit. The story is really deep and some interesting plot points and twists. So if you are looking for something with deep story, fun game play, solid physic abilities, look no further than control. This is one game you will keep coming back to play just to throw vending machines at your enemies.

Is Final Fantasy XIV Worth Playing?

At the time, Its 2020 and the MMORPG genre is kind of stale, while there are many titles to choose from and play. They are all kind of redundant and need more innovation then a copy and paste from other games. 

Save for one… Final Fantasy XIV, with an abysmal launch (I know Square Enix is never going to live that down) then after the servers being brought down and an amazing recovery with Final Fantasy: A Realm Reborn, years later is the #1 pay to play MMORPG om the market.

But is it worth playing? While there is a plethora of content to do, friends to be made is the game all the way from lvl 1-80 and hundreds of hours in story quests worth it?

Let’s find out!

The Story:

Final Fantasy XIV is probably one of if not the best MMORPG to fully immerse you into a story and make you character feel like they are the sole hero of Eorzea. With the Main Story Quest (MSQ) being a continuous story and each patch major or small along with the expansion builds on it. The story is never dull, it will have its slow boringish parts and fillers to build up other tensions  and talk about many different topics and events that are happening across Eorzea and beyond.

The story is done right and if you are a Final Fantasy fan, you won’t be disappointed. With ShadowBringers (ShB), this FFXIV story is one of the best in the series in a long time.  So if you are looking for an MMORPG with a consistent story that is engaging as it is memorable you are in the right place.

The Combat:

FFXIV has slower combat than most MMORPGs out there, the default GCD (Global Cool Down) is 2.50 seconds where games like WoW have 1.5 second GCD so the game in turn feels faster and more responsive.  (I know many will argue this changed with BFA because of the many added abilities to the 1.5 GCD slowing the game down in general, but it’s still faster overall then FFXIV).

But in FFXIV as you level up and get stronger you get many abilities at that are OGCD (Off The Global Cool Down) So while you wait for your next GCD to refresh you can cast other spells and abilities in between and the combat eventually balances out, feels fast and fun. If you are still not enjoying it, It may also depend on the battle class you are playing. I recommend playing all the basic classes/jobs to 30 and get a feel for what you like. Overall the combat is much slower than your other MMOs and that can be annoying but at the same time it makes it feel a little more strategic and lets you plan accordingly for your rotation then just face rolling your keyboard.

The Class System:

FFXIV is pretty unique when it comes to how it handles the class system. You can play every class all on one character, so instead of leveling ALT characters you are leveling ALT classes (jobs for the advanced classes, monk, bard, paladin etc..) while it’s the same thing you don’t need to log out and log back in. You make a gear set and you can go from Paladin to Dragoon as in a click of a button! (That was Easy!)

This is done by the weapons, the weapons choose who you will be, if you equip a sword you are a gladiator (GLA), if you equip a bow you are an archer (ARC), if you equip a rod you are a conjurer (CNJ). These classes can then be leveled to 30 and take on their respective Job. GLA becomes a Paladin (PLD), ARC becomes a Bard (BRD) and a CNJ becomes a White Mage (WHM). This just lets you move freely through the game, staying immersed and not having to make that 90 – 120 second log out / log in to swap classes. The classes and the jobs in the game all feel amazing and different from each other. They have been streamlined a little in ShadowBringers they still have great class fantasy to them and while they are some abilities that may be similar they do feel and act differently.  So if you are looking for a class system that is fully immersive and lets you swap from DPS to a Tank with a click of a button, then FFXIV is for you.

Crafting/Gathering:

I lost interest in crafting in MMOs over the years, as they always felt like they were an add-on to the game and not a part of the game itself. This is where FFXIV differs, if you are into crafting, whether it be cooking, making potions, selling armor, or gathering mats. FFXIV brings crafting like you never seen it before. It has its own story lines, the biggest con I have with it is that it’s a grind, but a rewarded grind if you know what you want to get out of it.

Crafting provides fun quests and systems and you can get some great items from farming scripts which are like tokens you would get if you were raiding on your main battle class. You can use these to buy master recipes or different gear for glamour etc..

As mentioned crafting is a grind, and it can be confusing as it can be rewarding. If you end up able to buy house or an apartment, you can be a carpenter or goldsmith to create and build different frames, couches etc for your home and furnish it. The crafting scene is its own game and is really standalone from the battle classes and has its own unique systems and abilities to learn / master. I recommend taking crafting classes to level 30 so you can gain wonderful cross-class skills. But overall if you are someone who enjoys crafting and felt like games have been lacking in this area, FFXIV does a pretty good job, while its not perfect and there is certainly remove for improvement, but it’s a fun system and one of the better ones out there.

If you are someone who enjoys feeding their crafting addiction you can pick up Fishing (FSH), Mining (MIN) and Botany (BTN). Fishing is very focused on RNG and is really annoying while trying to get X fish for a recipe or quest.. MIN is very grind heavy and will have you smacking the same rocks over and till you collect the 100 ore/rock you need. Botany is the least annoying of the 3 and is the most relaxing IMO, but definitely grab them as they too provide their own story lines and allows to explore Eorzea in different ways.

Dungeons/Raids/Trials:

The meat and potatoes of the battle classes. As you progress the MSQ you will come across BLUE quests with a plus sign next to them, DO THESE. Some will open extra features, others will be dungeons, raids and trials. They are not long quest lines but will allow extra dungeons to be ran, so do the blue.

Dungeons in FFXIV are very well designed, can be very mechanic heavy and really fun. So if you enjoy Dungeoneering FFXIV does this right. Each dungeon in the game has its own lore and quest lines, so if you are into that as well you will get even more story. On top of the normal mode dungeons you will be for the MSQ or side quests, as you progress you come across more blue quests, that will unlock hard modes for an extra challenge and better gear to increase your ilvl and get cool looking gear.  After you complete Dungeons you get tomestones, these can be used for certain gear, items and many other things you can buy at NPCs. Save em for something good!

Raiding in FFXIV are fun, not as trash heavy as other games, some parts of certain raids, will have puzzles or things you need to do while you fight some mobs and then move on to the boss. Raids are side quests (BLUE QUESTS) that tie into the MSQs. Usually to access some raids you have to complete certain parts of MSQs be a certain and be a certain ilvl. If you are using the Roulette it is recommended that you look over a guide before you blindly tank, DPS or heal if it is your first time. Check out MTQ, she makes amazing guides, they are extremely on point and high quality.  Raiding also provides items and tomestones that will be used to buy gear, weapons and other items. As you finish the normal modes you can do the blues to unlock savage content for harder fights and challenging rewards.

Alliance raids, these are the 24 man raids in FFXIV and usually tie directly into the MSQ some way or another it is recommended that you do the Crystal Tower Alliance raid because it ties into the ShadowBringers xpac, also do the StormBlood Ivalice as these raids tie into the new relic quest released in 5.2.5. In 5.3 the Crystal Tower Alliance raid will be mandatory because of how tightly it ties into the ShB expansion. These raids are fun, require coordination with your 3 groups of 8 and the mechanics are fun. These raids can provide some great gear whether for upgrades or just using it for looks. They are longer then your normal 8 player raids, but I find them much more fun and rewarding.

Trials are I think everyone’s favorites as you are fighting familiar summons from the FF series, like Ifrit, Gilgamesh, Bahumat etc…  This is a one boss fight type deal, and you unlock many of these in your journeys as you play through the MSQ and do the blues. Trials have a few modes Normal, Hard and Extreme. The newer expansions StromBlood and ShadowBringers did away with the hard mode and moved right to extreme, probably because making three versions of the same fight was the developers own raid boss in itself.  Extreme versions of the trials are where its at, from awesome weapon drops and mounts you to an amazing challenge to test how good you are at your class as well as coordinating with your team. At max level and decent gear you can solo older content to get weapons for glamour(Transmog) possibly minions and mounts.

Overall these areas of FFXIV provide fun and challenging content, having a group to go at this weekly and bring down some of the hardest content in the game is a lot of fun. I think raiding is the least impressive of the three, I enjoy the stories and the aesthetics of the non-alliance raids but feel like something is missing and could use some extra work to bring it up to par with the trials and alliance raids.

Glamour System:

If you have played World of Warcraft or Warframe then you know that the true end game is Transmogging and Fashion Framing. This is no different here with the Glamour systems in FFXIV. While it is not as intuitive as WoWs Transmogging system and glamouring really becomes inventory Tetris especially if you are playing multiple battle, crafting or gather classes on one character.  You get an Armiore you can store seasonal, Artifact and other special clothing in it. You also get a Glamour chest, where you can turn gear into a glamour piece and store it here and edit the glamour using the glamour plates. This is using prisms to glam the armor you want on to plates so every time you change your armor as long as you have prisms you can on the fly change back to your pretty glam.  This system is great, but needs some work and if they could work in the transmogging system that WoW has with the glamour plate system it would make this the almost perfect system.

Player Housing:

Housing is another area that is amazing,  you can rent buy an apartment, small, medium or large house (Good luck finding plots to build a house). You can also make a Free Company(guild) and have a FC house. The housing system is extensive and I have not really dabbled in it much, but this ties back to crafting where you can make outside items, indoor items and much, much more to make your dream house in game. Some of the best housing system I’ve seen in a MMO.

Social:

Final Fantasy XIV has a very big social aspect to the game. You can Join a Free Company that is purely social or crafting, join a link shell that focuses on high trials and raids, join a Cross-World Link shell that is part of the same data center (Aether / Fairie) and chat or make groups with your friends on Gilgamesh Server. You join a fellowship, that can be a mix of all everything mentioned. While I like the idea, I feel it’s a little much. You can join 8 link shell, 8 CWLS, 1 FC and 10 fellowships, each can have 500-1000+ members. I guess this is great if you got multiple things going and have many interested parties, or players are looking to get a little bit of everything. The Community in FFXIV is probably the nicest and most helpful I have ever had the pleasure to be a part of. There is something here for everyone.

Overall:

There is still so much to cover and I plan on doing a much bigger full FFXIV beginners guide to cover everything in much more detail. FFXIV is an MMORPG that really has almost something for everyone, there is no true end-game, FFXIV end-game is what you make the experience. If you want to be an expert crafter, or an expert Healer there is no wrong way to play and experience the game.  It’s not without its issues and needs some changes and fixes to better certain areas of the game. But in terms of pay to play, you will get the most bang for your buck.

So is FFXIV worth playing in 2020? Yes, whether you are in it for the social aspect, hard core grind or trying to find the best outfit for a Saturday night out at the Gold Saucer there is no lack of content and always something to be done, FFXIV is well worth the hundreds of hours of play.

 SquareEnix is so sure that you will love the game and want to play and have a free trial up to level 35. You can play all the base classes and then level to their advanced jobs and then get through a good amount of the MSQ and side quests. If that’s not a great a deal I don’t know it is.

Top 3 Underrated ARPGs

Whats Up everyone welcome back into MoarDotsGaming, I am kind of bored of the main stream games, because lately they are missing something. But that’s a different topic and today we are going to talk about what I think are the 3 MOST UNDER RATED ARPGS!

#1 Dragons Dogma

This game is a RPG masterpiece, its loved by all that played and game missed by many that didn’t get a chance or just didn’t think it would appeal to them.  If you enjoyed Skyrim or any kind of action RPG with character customization, fluid combat, gorgeous scenery and cross-skill systems, along with the odd bug here and there you will enjoy Dragons Dogma.

The game’s story is weak and it’s not really it’s strong point, something about a dragon who takes your heart, and now you are looking for stuff to figure out some other things to fight the dragon…. And…. I don’t know…. as you can tell I didn’t pay attention.  So if you are in it for the story you may be disappointed.

But besides the story, the RPG elements, character customization and the combat are fantastical, climbing up an ogres back to the top of its head to slash off its tusk never felt so rewarding!  All the bigger enemies you fight have some type of weak point or way to kill them. They Chimera for example kill the snake first, to get rid of the poison, also allows you to get in close for melee players, then kill the lion to get rid of the rage and then all that’s is the goat that becomes more defensive. This makes the fight A MILLION TIMES EAISER.

The game has 10 Classes more commonly known as Vocations, you start by picking one of the 4 of the Basic Vocations,

Fighter, your stick and board tank type

Strider an dual wielding bow user

mage, the vanilla spell caster.

Once you pick your class you cannot change it again until you make your way to the main city and change at the INN.

After you reach level 10 you can then choose an advanced vocation. These are Warrior 2H DPS in your face and break bones.

Ranger, focuses mainly on taking out enemies from afar with powerful long bows, snipes and deadly shots to the head.

Ahh the Sorcerer, if you thought magic in Skyrim was great, wait till you summon a tornado that towers the tree lines and sucks up enemies and throws out em out. Fun class to play.

And lastly for you hybrid players out there, you have the hybrid vocations. These are the mix of magic and melee 

Mystic Knight an OP paladin of sorts with the ability to enchant and cast homing spells, things cower over this vocation,

Assassin a poison dagger wielding with lots of explosives, you need someone disappeared you hire one of these guys, the last of the hybrid is

Magick Archer who wields a magic bow, so you don’t need to rely on arrows, just good gear, high magic and arrows that home in and explode !

To unlock all the vocations you need to farm and spend vocations points, I recommend unlocking a good amount because you can cross use different abilities that you unlock and give you an advantage while playing a sorcerer after playing a warrior. Tons of build and combinations to try, the class system is a lot of fun.

The game has so much to offer and it’s really one that should not be passed up, the combat alone is one of the games big drawing points and tops Skyrim in that area among others. If you can grab on steam while on sale it’s well worth the play though and subsequent playthroughs because there is a lot you can’t get done on your 1st playthrough. So New Game + is a welcomed treat, plus after you beat it you can go into speed run mode and see how well you do against others that beat it quickly.

So if it’s been on your digital shelf, check it out you won’t be disappointed.

#2 Kingdoms of Amular

Come on you didn’t see this coming? This game is criminally underrated, if you like Fable and Skyrim check off all your boxes because this has it all. Fun and interesting story, amazing combat, fun colorful graphics and a class system that hits home to the old days of WoW with endless more options to be the villain or hero you want to be.

The combat is tons of fun you can be a dual wielding rouge that stealth’s and backstabs or mix it with a mage, that blinks, drops some AOE and slashes their enemies to death. The customization and builds are fun and rewarding. Each weapon you use all has a different feel and the animations are pretty awesome to watch as you fight and dash around the screen.

Along with the neat combat system you will have something called the fate system that you can activate and use it tear your enemies a new one. You build this resource up over time from fighting and once unleashed can make even the most difficult of battles pretty easy. Definitely a power to keep in your back pocket for bosses and large groups of annoying enemies.

It’s been a while and I don’t really remember the story, but the gist, you were killed, you didn’t die and you are marked one of the ones that don’t have a fate. So now you are after some evil power to stop and thwart their plans from ending the world. Basic story but told very well with good voice acting and fun reading to keep you entertained. So if you are a story person, you should get some fun enjoyment.

Kingdoms is a vast game and promotes exploration, taking on the many side quests to level up and see all the nooks and crannies as you play, is a great way to enjoy the game. It can get repetitive and as you level and get better gear the challenge kind of falls to the way side, but the game itself is a gem that for most will stay unearthed and that’s sad.

The better news is, in August the remaster is releasing, its releasing for 39$ USD so if you have never played and started only hearing about it, I would wait out to August and get the revamped version with new combat, visuals and a few other treats. This game is highly underrated and really many others should check it out, so grab it on sale or wait for the remake, either way don’t pass this game up its another diamond in the rough.

# 3 Grim Dawn

The last on our list but one that needs to be covered. Grim Dawn is amazing as it is beautiful and complex, if you need your Diablo II fix and slower paced combat from games like PoE and Diablo III. Look no further, because Grim Dawn is another underrated game that many more people should check it out. It has in the last year or two started to gain more traction but it should be seeing a lot more, because it has tons to offer.

The combat is similar to many of your isometric systems that you play and that’s about where it ends, you get to choose 2 classes eventually and this makes the combinations endless. Want to be a battle mage or that poisons everything and withers things away, or a shaman that uses chain lighting to explode their enemies or how about a necromancer that summons dinosaurs (yeah, I know that last one got your attention).

The class system is amazing, very in depth with lots of complexities that can be quite confusing at times. But the community is awesome and reddit users and the main forums have tons of people willing to help and direct you to resources to help understand the game better so you can make your dino summoning bad ass.

The story is taking place in a dystopian future where humanity is on the brink of extinction and with you who almost died has nothing to lose is put up to the task to rid the world of if is many evils. The story will take you to deserts, mountains, forests and haunted mansions. I never feel like I am looking at the same scenery over and over again. The story is engaging and you feel for the areas that you are trying to help or eventually kill, depending on the choices you make as you play.

On top of the story you have a very fun and engaging loot system, where you feel very rewarded for taking down corrupted and monster totems, fighting rare enemies and beating story bosses. The grind is a lot of fun as you collect your class points and devotions you get from the corrupted totems to build out your dream class and tackle some of the hardest challenges in the game.

Grim Dawn like most ARPGs of its kind have different difficulties starting at normal, veteran, elite and ultimate. I highly recommend new players play on veteran because the difficulty from veteran to elite won’t be as a big a shock if you go straight from normal. On top of these modes it has a fun arena mode that you can play and for more rewards, higher difficulties and bragging rights that you  undead T-Rex can solo the bosses in there with no issues. There is also the shattered realms, which is a endless dungeon that gets progressively harder as you go and beat each floor. This is nice break from the other grinding that takes place and if you can get high up in the levels the rewards are very worth it.

Grim Dawn is usually on sale, and with the developers recently dropping the complete edition that has all the DLCs and main Xpacs you can get this usually for 50% off when it’s on sale, 30$ USD for 100+ hours of content is a steal if you ask me. It should be noted you can play with your friends, ONLY if you both have the same versions. So if you have the base game, but your friend has complete edition you can’t join up so be wary of that.

This is by far my favorite Isometric ARPG and it hits all the places when playing, and calls home to that Diablo II grind that DIII couldn’t quench, not to mention it was too colorful… there really was no cow level and that was sad. Grim Dawn doesn’t have one either but it gets everything else right.

Well folks there are the top 3 underrated ARPGs, there are more out there but I really wanted to cover these, because I keep going back to them and enjoying them. So if you never played, never heard of it, or having it sitting on a shelf, I hope this encourages you to give these master pieces a go! If you do end up trying any of these games or have played them, please leave a comment below, I would love to hear your thoughts and experiences about them.

Top 10 Reason to Play Grim Dawn

I’ve been playing Grim Dawn a ARPG (Action RPG) and it’s been an absolute blast. I beat the last expansion, hit level 64 (Max 100) and playing around with many different masteries/builds, Grim Dawn in my opinion is the best ARPG on the market right now. So here the top 10 reasons to grab this game today!

1) The atmosphere: If you remember playing games back in the 90s like Diablo you will love the look and fee ofl Grim Dawn. The game really presents a world in dystopian timeline showing that the suffering is real, the evil is deep rooted and you a person who just escaped death with nothing to lose but tons to gain is out to see that this is evil is brought down.

The Grim Dawn story is interesting and fun to go through. A great feature in the story are the journals and notes you will find throughout the world. These give great detail of an area, group or person(s), in addition these notes also give a good amount of XP and is a great way to push you to the next level.

2) The pace and Difficulty: Most ARPGs today are very fast paced, take PoE for example. In PoE you are moving so fast and attacking even faster that monsters and never really have a chance to react because they are already dead. While it’s not a bad thing, it does take away the difficulty from the game itself.

In Grim Dawn the pace is slower, which increases the difficulty and while you gear up and get stronger, monsters will destroy you so be wary of running in and expecting to mop the floor. I feel this makes the game more challenging and not so run and loot, as it really makes you focus on cool downs and strategize your attacks, as well as when to disengage and re-engage in combat.

3) The Endgame: This is asked by many players, because once you beat the game what is there to keep you coming back. I feel Grim Dawn provides the most versatile end game content out of the many ARPGs.

We have Nemesis system, this is party of the reputation system, so not only are you gaining rep helping the good guys. You are also gaining bad rep by defeating the evil faction’s. Once your reach nemesis rank for a specific faction, then these enemies will start spawning in the world to give a unique challenge.

In addition to Nemesis, there are Super Bosses. These bosses are hardest in the game and will require your build and gear to be at its best to beat them and will drop interesting and good gear.

Next is the crucible(DLC). This can be used on a brand new character to boost some levels, get devotion points and grab some gear before you start the main game. But the crucible is really a horde mood, and at high level you go through 10 rounds to try to get to level 150+. Once you beat each round you can end the crucible to earn your rewards.

Last is the Shattered Realm(DLC) this is an endless dungeon. This dungeon has 3 zones and in the third zone you fight a boss. Once you beat the boss, you you talk the NPC to collect rewards and leave. The higher the levels you reach the better the rewards.

4) The Loot: Ahh yes, The main reason we play games like this. Grim Dawn as something that many looters are missing these days and that’s loot tables aka “Targeted Farming”. Many ARPGs these days rely heavily on casino based loot mechanics to do things a little differently and keep players engaged rerunning content over and over again to get the loot with the exact stats they need, or they will allow to reroll stats a certain amount tries.

Grim Dawn does this as well with certain gear it will drop and give you different stats to put towards your gear and keep the items interesting and engaging. However, the game also offers targeted farming, this means certain bosses will have a loot table of specific gear that has a percentage to drop. This will allow to farm bosses to get the exact item you need for your build, without having to worry about reroll on stats.

5) Complexity: Grim Dawn is a deep game when it comes to build and gear. And is deeper than many of the ARPGs today. From a dual class system, devotion points, gear, components, and augments, and resistances, you’ll need to learn how to scale your character correctly to beat some of the hardest content. With resistances not only do you need to be correctly scaled for fights, you can also play as any of the resistances which makes the game interesting with the many different builds. Many of the different abilities have Damage Over Time (DOT) which can also scale with the rest of your build.

6) Diversity: In Grim Dawn you are able to choose two classes or as know in Grim Dawn masteries. You choose your first mastery at level two and the next at level ten. There are eight masteries to choose from and mix them to build the class you like and want to play since there is no wrong way to play Grim Dawn. In addition to having a character level, you also have mastery levels, yes the two masteries must be leveled up.

Once you reach a certain level in the mastey you can then choose your skill, which also have x amount of levels. Masteries will also increase stats, and damage so it’s important to level these up. There’s a total of 248 points you can spend in game. 237 from leveling 11 from quests. You will also receive one stat point per level to increase physique, cunning and spirit. If you are not happy with your build, you can speak to an NPC to respec for minor currency. Check out grim tools in the comments to use this site to plan your builds.

7) Devotion Tree: This is probably the best skill tree I have ever seen and used in any ARPG. This skill tree will help customize your build even more. You will be able to gain 55 points in the game. To get there points, you will need to cleanse corrupted shrines throughout the world. Once you interact with the shrine, you will need to either fight a wave of enemies or provide an item to the shrine. These as well can be respeced for minor currency if you are not happy with your choices.

8) Community: The community is very active, friendly and the staff is very engaged in their forums. If you’re into trading and need help crafting high end items the Grim Dawn forums is a great place to go and engage with the community.

9) Mod Support: Grim Dawn’s dev team allows mods. Mainly because Grim Dawn is more of a single player experience then it is region based like PoE or DIII. The mods I will leave in the comments are the three Grim Dawn mods anyone playing should use. They really add QoL and make the UI cleaner.

Mods to use:
Grim Internals (UI changer and awesome utilities)
Grim Item Assistant (unlimited item storage)
Rainbow Filter (Makes spotting loot easy)

10) It’s about the Journey not the Destination: Grim Dawn is all about enjoying the game and the Journey it sets you on. You can all feel this in the difficulty and as you grow and get stronger the game gets better and better. With so many different areas to visit, enemies to fight, items to loot. The game is not meant to be rushed. Sit back and enjoy.

Thanks for reading! All links can be found in the comments. If you have any questions about the game, leave a comment and I’ll answer. I’ll also be making a video on this as well. Stay tuned!

If you enjoyed, will you please like and share and get this out to help others who may be thinking about grabbing this masterpiece of a game?

9/10