Now before anyone gets butthurt about what I am about to say I just want to remind people that my criteria for judging all of the games I am playing in the PS-Plus catalogue is based on one very important idea. I base my opinion of the game SOLELY on my experience in the first hour and most importantly how well the developers were able to capture your attention and keep it. I don't think it is a lot to ask for a game manufacturer to make something entertaining for a full hour.
I realize that by limiting myself to just one hour is not by any means going to make me someone who knows everything about a game but I do feel as though this first hour is likely the most important hour as far as making a game good is concerned. Some developers are able to get the controls and story across in a very quick time-frame and others drag the process out entirely too long. While I am certain that there are plenty of games that I have thrown out because they didn't leap out at me in the first 60 minutes, I would imagine that most of the games that I decided to walk away from were not actually going to get much better, they were just going to get more complicated.
I hope that makes sense. Now I am going to rip Bound by Flame a new one because this game has performed about as bad as any game I have ever played as far as getting and keeping my interest in the first hour is concerned.
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I gotta say that I do like the above image which is what is on the splash screen and is also the box art but who gets boxes anymore?
BBF is an adventure RPG open world something or other or at least that was what it seemed to be in the one and only hour I spent playing the game. We started off on a bad foot because there is one thing that I hate about all games and that is a long and drawn out unskippable intro. In Bound this happens before you even get to the character creation screen and I'll go ahead and say that I am also not very big on character creation especially in a single player game... Who TF cares about this?
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I'll stop whinging about this pretty fast because I guess there are a lot of people out there that enjoy this sort of thing and I can at least understand why it exists in multiplayer games but single player games? That just seems odd to me.
Moving on.
When you first start the game you have already been forced to sit through a cinematic sequence that explains the plot... this is fair enough but it was entirely too long. I would have much rather not known much about what was going on than be forced to sit through this. If you want to have it at least make it skippable because I could tell just from the screenshots that this was going to be a Witcher wannabe title anyway so if I don't really care about the story I should be allowed to skip it. This is just poor programming if you ask me.
Anyway, the cinematic "fun" isn't done at this point because now that you have created a character you have yet another unskippable cinematic that you are forced to sit through at which point when it finally ends you are involved in combat but not really, you don't get to control it and after you win without touching a single button you are now allowed to walk... this is the first time you have been given control of the character. 30 seconds later you arrive at at base of some sort and guess what happens? Another fucking unskippable cinematic.
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At this point I don't even care what the story is and I am no longer even listening. I am getting angry and actually shouting in my living room "CAN I PLAY THE GAME?"
When they do finally give you control you are 20 minutes into your playtime and then they slowly introduce you to combat.... which is stupid. The combat mechanics are absurdly slow and while I get that they are taking it easy on you early in the game the waves of enemies are just trivial and tiresome. When a giant bastard jumps up on the platform and everyone retreats to the interior of the temple you are kind of relieved. That relief is short lived because guess what? There's another friggin cinematic. At this point I was going to rage quit but then I realized that you, for some magical reason, are now allowed to skip portions of this horrible "movie" that has been 90% of your gaming experience up to this point. Why start now?
It was shortly after that where I stopped even trying to not get hit because I realized that the enemies have zero chance of killing you and by dodging and muscling for position you are simply making a very mundane combat scenario take 4x as long.
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I would imagine that the game gets significantly better as time goes on and that very well may be true. I'm never going to find out because I was so frustrated about basically everything about this game up to that point that I was quite excited when my obligatory 1 hour was up. I learned nothing, I didn't care about the totally recycled "world getting overrun by demons" storyline, and the combat was much worse than most games similar to this one that I have played in the past 6 years or so.
When games are slated as being a "slow burn" or something that gets a lot better in late game play I already know that they are not for me. I'm not looking for a "Life of Pi" type experience. I want to be entertained right from the start and I don't think that this is an unreasonable request from a paying gamer.
I strongly believe that this game was lumped in with the "free" games on PS-Plus simply because there is no chance that anyone is going to actually pay money for it anymore - which I guess makes sense because it was first released on PS3 and is quite old.
Seeing as how action RPG's are a dime a dozen and you have tons of choices in that genre, I would give this one a hard pass and play almost any of the other ones instead.
Not recommended
Games I have tried in my journey to play every PS-Plus Extra game for at least an hour
- Windbound (survival game with rogue-like elements - not recommended)
- Magicka 2 (top-down humorous multiplayer hack and slash-sort with immense spell system - maybe recommended)
- Tearaway: Unfolded (charming casual 3D platformer with inventive graphics and gameplay designed for all ages - recommended for casual players)
- Spiritfarer (casual simulation / resource-management style game with an extremely good story - recommended for all)
- Observation (point and click survival sort of... interactive game of sorts set in space - found it very boring after just one hour and do not recommend)
- Gabbuchi (simplistic puzzle game that I feel is better suited to mobile devices. Not recommended on consoles)
- The Messenger (8-bit style action/platformer that is a throwback to original Ninja Gaiden. It's simplistic fun. Recommended)
- Megadimension Neptunia VII (typical JRPG with some adjustments made to combat for uniqueness. Could be fun and I lukewarmly recommend for someone willing to dedicate 50 hours to a turn-based RPG)
- Monster Jam: Steel Titans 2 (monster truck racing game that will appeal only to people who are already fans of the sport - not recommended for any other people)
- Entwined (Visually appealing rhythm pace game that is very easy to pick up but gets repetitive after 30 minutes or so - recommended for anyone that can get it for free.)
- 2Dark (8-bit graphic survival horror/stealth hybrid. The game becomes extremely difficult really fast and therefore failed to hold my attention - not recommended)
- Virginia (interactive-cinema...not really a game and it is over in a couple of hours. Not recommended)
- Trials of Mana (simplistic action RPG that will definitely appeal to the casual gamer that is a fan of old-school RPG combat mechanics - recommended)
- Journey to the Savage Planet (FPS exploration game in a semi-open-world environment. The game is intentionally silly and I loved it - recommended)
- Resogun (arcade-style single-screen SHMUP that will get boring to most people after an hour or so. Not recommended)
- The Book of Unwritten Tales 2 (point and click adventure game that doesn't work on consoles and is just irritating to play - not recommended)
- Mighty No. 9 (it's Mega Man but terrible. Definitely not recommended)
- Moving Out (delightfully funny moving company simulator. It gets boring and repetitive pretty quickly. Recommended for a short laugh)
- Last Day of June (a sad story done in 3rd person perspective that while an interesting story and/or life lesson, quickly becomes repetitive and dull. Not recommended)
- Shiness: The Lightning Kingdom (action adventure RPG with an inventive combat system that unfortunately becomes very boring very fast. Filled with bugs and invisible walls, I lost interest within the first hour. Not recommended)
- Hue (inventive puzzle-platformer that whose basic controls are the reason why it is fun. This is also the reason why it gets old after a couple of hours)
- Dragon Quest Builders (simple building game similar to Minecraft with a quest and story system built it. A lot more fun than I thought it would be and highly recommended)
- Bound: Shattered Kingdom (artistic 3D platformer with an unusual graphical style that has an amazing story. It's only 2 hours long but still very good. Recommended)
- Hohokum (an artistic and relaxing experience but ultimately it isn't really a game because there are no clear objectives. Not recommended.)
- Bound by Flame (basically a budget Witcher but fails in almost every way. This game was frustrating to endure for an hour. Not recommended )