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The First Descendant Review: An Exciting Shooter Held Back By its Localization and Monetization | MM
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The First Descendant Review: An Exciting Shooter Held Back By its Localization and Monetization | MMORPG.com
The First Descendent is finally out now on PC, but was Nexon's shooter worth the wait? Our full review has the details.
Comments
Nowhere near as good as Warframe. Not even as good as Warframe at the start of its beta.
Not as good as the Division.
Not even as good as Destiny.
Not even as good as Anthem.
Maybe as good as the Suicide Squad if you squint a little.
If I, as a shameless fan of this genre, tell you it is not good, it is not good.
8.5/10 so far.
Game itself it's ok. A bit too much on the grind side (Asians love grinding for the shake of grinding), story is bland and generic, and has several things to polish. Mainly in performance.
I would say at lauch its a 7.5/10 but can easily become a great game. Way better than Destiny, The division (who the hell said Anthem... omg paid 60$ and played less than 20 hours). But worse than Warframe.
Here's the steam reviews filtered to only show negative sorted by most helpful. I don't see any mentions about people not getting items they paid for. All sound like legit complaints rather than just review bombing for the sake of hurting the studio.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/2074920/negativereviews/?browsefilter=toprated&snr=1_5_100010_
As for the play itself, it's fine. I blast things and they die while I traverse the environment like discount Spider-Man. It's decent enough for a mandatory cost of $0.
'READING'
I don't mean to sound mean, but it's aggravating when the game spells out so simply what the player needs to do for each void intercept battle, and often, almost every time, i see players not having the right module setups on their weapons and descendant for each fight.
People i think have gone into this game believing there is this thing known as a 'descendant meta' which is sadly the fault of online game guides, and content creators and it's artificially created this situation with this game where players are going into content very ill-prepared.
For things like Colossal battles, which is the main way we progress in this game, as in how we get higher level gear, modules make such a huge difference, it's night and day.
And yes, there are descendants that are better at something then others, like for example:
Enzo has a passive that makes opening vaults SO MUCH easier, so investing in a Enzo is something every player should strive for at some point.
Bunny and Vulby have great mob grinding skills, so they make great item grinders.
Ajax has extremely high defensive skills that make him pretty vital in harder group-play content.
I could go on, but all the Descendants rely heavily on builds, and that's modules, the thing so many players seem to be letting fall to the waist side because there is a system in place that automatically recommends a suggestive set of modules with a click of a button, and while it might be quicker and easier to do, it is also absolutely the WRONG thing to do.
I cannot stress enough how important modules are, and having the right modules for the right situation is the difference between progressing normally, to hitting a roadblock in this game.
I know i'm repeating myself, but that roadblock for the majority of people are the colossal fights; each colossal fight needs a different module setup -irregardless of the descendant, if a fight says it is weak to a certain element, then pile on as much of that element from modules as possible onto all 3 weapons slotted; take off the needless moules that are used for fighting a lot of enemies, and pile on the HP, DEF, and whatever the resistance element it suggests, ... but mostly HP and Defense, as those two can go a much longer way in Colossal fights then something like shield.
There are other things that can make things easier, but much requires farming currency like Kuiper, which is what you need to rank up modules, which is... the single thing that will change the difficulty of a Colossal fight, because just having the right modules is one part of what's needed, ranking them up is the 2nd part that's needed. And it's a lot of Kuiper, like ALOT alot.
This is where content creators shine, because instead of watching videos that tell people what descendants to use, pay attention to the ones that talk about currency farming; they can give away a lot of information that most folk aren't talking about in places like online game guides.
Sorry, i need to stop typing about this because i can keep going on and on, but i have a lot of hope for this game, because the devs seem to give a shit, and have a very promising roadmap laid out for the future already, like Clans, more game modes, quality of life improvements, more Descendants, etc.
Also if there is something i could stress, just like Warframe, Destiny, The Division: the cashshop can be ignored, completely, everything is farmable, even the Ultimate Descendants; and Warframe does everything this game does with it's monetization; and there was a time people acted like Warframe was the second coming of jesus, i know because i've played that game since it's founders alpha test, and DE pushed that game hard in the press media back in it's Plains of Eidolon iteration.
One thing i would like to see personally, is player trading and a marketable ecosystem, but i don't think the devs want to do that as they are likely trying to avoid what player trading ends up doing in games like this; 'creating a black/gray market' and 'scammers' - which plagues Warframe still to this day.
I'd like to end with (and again, sorry) that i love Warframe, alot, but The First Descendant is the Warframe game i always wanted, and it's just beginning it's life cycle.
Fishing on Gilgamesh since 2013
Fishing on Bronzebeard since 2005
Fishing in RL since 1992
Born with a fishing rod in my hand in 1979
The Stranger: It's what people know about themselves inside that makes 'em afraid.
I have not encountered any issue with translation or not being able to understand the story, that said you have to listen to the cut scenes AND the vocal chat in mission and between them when checking in albion periodically.
Really looking forward to more story in future updates as clearly the story is not done and just starting.
Btw Bunny's personal story/quest is quite good.
It doesn't get a higher score from me cause there is some performance issues and the shop prices are frankly stupid...30$ for what is essentially a forma...just one...lol
The game play itself is just great be it the gunplay or descendant skills.
If it matters I have 126.1 hours of playtime in the game according to steam.
Brenics ~ Just to point out I do believe Chris Roberts is going down as the man who cheated backers and took down crowdfunding for gaming.
Clearly Nexon did pretty much bugger all as far as UE's poor networking design is concerned. Pathetic show by this company, as far as an online shooter goes.
Similarly, in dungeons, if you fall behind your group, the game will teleport you to them, ensuring you stay in the action.
Have you ever thought, some of the reviews here are fake reviews?