This game for real.... I expected it to be good after watching all the gameplays, but not THIS good. It is one of those very rare titles that make me forger about eating, drinking, sleeping etc., it totally sucked me in.
The gameplay is top notch, basically Diablo with guns, a.k.a. something I always dreamed about, there's mayhem everywhere, the weapons and skills feel fantastic, everything as that "punch" added to it, and Neon Giant really meant it when they said that if there was a place they could put an explosion in it, that's exactly what they did. I'm especially loving the red barrels, the moment they explode is simply awesome, seems like a trivial thing but I haven't enjoyed explosive barrels this much since KZ2 in 2009. But if you're gonna play it as an ordinary twin-stick shooter it won;t take you very far, because after that initial tutorial part using the environment to your advantage becomes crucial for survival.
I'm surprised how much of an RPG is actually in this game other than the "shooty-shooty" part, the HUB is HUGE, I've spend like 2h just initially exploring it, it's like CP2077 with all its tall, multi-storey buildings, except you actually do get to reach all those places, very often you see a place like 5 storeys below where you just had been there 10-15min ago, it's an amazing sight to behold.
Speaking of visuals, my lord, the game is absolutely gorgeous, I'm a sucker for high-res textures and they are everywhere, every object is very detailed, the lightning is amazing, so is the PBR implementation, I take a screenshot literally every 3-5s because I am amazed how every square inch looks like. And the way everything is animated is as well top class and the cherry on top, whether it's the world itself, the guns, the characters, everything moves/reacts just right.
One of the things that pleases me the most if how alive the world feels, everything around you is moving, drones are flying every now and then, etc., and again, I haven't seen such busy background since KZ2. Ton of stuff is interactive, destructible, and stays like that instead of immediately disappearing, this is the aspect due to which I consider The Acent to be the first real next-gen game, none of the games released so far brings anything new to the table other than pretty graphics and fast loadings. There's an early side quest where after leaving a building there's
waiting for you, and he literally runs after you around the city, destroying everything at its path while people are running scared or dying, I can't remember when was the last time a boss fight was so intense and so immersive, just the fact that the whole world reacts to this duel puts it above all those 100M AAA games where you can't even kick a rock.
That being said, the game isn't perfect, the absolutely most annoying thing is the squeaky noises the NPCs make, I just skip all the dialogues because of that and read later on what's the whole side quest is all about. The UI is a bit of clunky, but then again, after FS2020 everything feels like it's super user-friendly. And the map isn't very helpful to say the least, it should've IMO been 2D instead, showing just a single level with marked stairs/elevators/entrances. But then again, I don't even use it at all but enjoy walking around in this amazing world, so even if I get lost or need to backtrack, it's a non-issue.
Those are my initial impressions after first 5-6h with the game, but man, I already know I'll put countless hours into it, it just ticks all the checkboxes of my presonal taste.
