I bought this game to play coop with my friends. As such my review is based on coop experience. I haven't tried single player and I have no interest in trying it, as I don't like to play these kind of games alone. I have listed my opinion of the game below.

1. The graphics look really good. The world is really beautiful. There are a lot of interesting places to visit, puzzles to solve in some places etc. However the fps tanks even with a good gpu (4060 mobile). I think I have set the settings to medium after finding out the high graphics setting gives me below 30 fps. It takes a few mins for the shader to compile when you start the game for the first time. But even then the fps is bad.
2. The game was started with normal difficulty with default settings. There are 4 of us in the game. We are in different continents and there was no network issues (unless you have bad internet).
3. The crafting materials required for some things are atrocious. I have a friend in the group who like building stuff. We have also played Valheim together. In that game too, the amount of materials required is too much. But he never complained there. In this he did. We had to tone down the crafting requirements after a few hours since we are all busy people and can only play a few hours on weekends.
4. There are like 10 or so play styles that are available in the game. You don't have classes as such, so you can mix the play styles. However standard class names (such as Wizard, Assassin, Ranger, Berserker etc) do apply to these play styles. I opted for a Wizard play style since I like to play as a caster in fantasy games. In my 7 hours of play through I have used swords more than magic. Wizard play style is not really feasible in early game. Only the wand (standard equipment for Wizard style) is used for basic attack. Rest of the spells require consumable items. For example, Firebolt, a standard Wizard spell is cast with a special wand with consumable items. As such it is necessary to stock up on such items if you want to fight as a Wizard. Such consumables are found as loots in chests or enemy drops (mostly bosses) or can be farmed.
5. Enemy balance and XP gain is not thought about in this game. For the first 1 or 2 hours we were doing fine. We were level one. We could fight level 3 enemies if we took them seriously. Then after a few hours we were level 3 and the enemies were level 9 and then level 12 with us being stuck at level 3. Granted we explored a lot even in our early game so we have tumbled upon higher level areas. Since we had already cleared level 3 enemies it makes sense our characters should have leveled up more. But we were still stuck at level 3. Then we tested with a level 9 enemy. After dying a lot to it and then killing it, we found out the XP we got was very negligible. Since this is a game with more crafting focus, it did make sense that the developers wanted us to slowly progress. But this seems like a bad way to do it. Large amount of material requirements for crafting and building and pitiful XP gain from these activities give no incentives to do this even if its possible to craft better equipment.
6. NPCs can be recruited. They teach you new recipes. However these NPC were found in these high level areas, which cannot be reasonable traversed without better equipment and higher levels. But to do that we need NPCs to teach us recipes for better equipment.
7. Combat is not good. You as a playable character have low range for ranged attacks (i only tested Wizard) but enemies have higher range (only encountered rangers as ranged enemies). Enemy sword attacks connect even with a well timed dodge. Swords attacks don't feel that good or impact full. So if you are thinking of playing it for combat, don't. The enemy ai is very simple. They just swarm and attack you if there are a lot of enemies. But this is not a typical arpg like Diablo where you don't have stamina and can cast aoe spells easily with mana. The developers maybe wanted to have difficult combat but the way this is implemented is just frustrating.
8. You have the stamina of a weak old man. Scratch that, even the old man would have better stamina. You will fight with your stamina more than you will fight the enemies.
9. Loot is shared. It would have been better if everyone got separate loot. Also loot looked very underwhelming.


I cannot recommend this game in this state. I saw a post saying the game will be out of early access late this year. The road map lists out a few new features, locations as well as changes to balancing. If you want to buy this, I recommend waiting until full release and then check this out.

NieR: Automata is a game that you should play when you are having everything going well in your life, so that you can get some existential dread along with a healthy dose of depression to bring you back to reality.

This is game with a very depressing story contrary to what the character models you play as look like. 2B, 9S and A2 are the characters you control depending on the chapters. No gamer would not know who these characters are and how they look like. But their looks are just a distraction to the underlying complexity of the story being narrated. The combat is fine but nothing to rave about. Boss fights are good too but some of them can be frustrating. The voice acting is pretty is good. The soundtracks are absolutely phenomenal. The world is a post apocalyptic Earth and I cannot say anything else without some how giving away spoilers to the absolute masterpiece of the story this game tells you. This is a good game that I would recommend everybody to try out.

Kiryu returns as the protagonist. Majima is not controllable now but he appears in the game frequently whether you are exploring the town, playing some minigames etc. You have to fight in some of them or he will challenge you to whatever mini game you were playing at that time. Combat is similar to Yakuza 0 but the camera is still not good enough (playing with mouse and keyboard). Sub stories are well done like the first game. Main story is also good but not as good as the first game. Overall a decent recommendation.

Highlight of the series which introduced me to the Yakuza series. The sub stories are very well done, which are funny and have a lot of variety. The main story is heart breaking. There are two protagonists, Kiryu and Majima whom you can control depending on the story chapter. They have their own story and side quests, and the way the two characters connect is very well done. Combat is alright when playing with mouse and keyboard (no controller at hand) since camera is not that good. There are lots of side activities to do too. Game is pretty amazing just for the story.

Kiryu returns as a protagonist in this game. The sub stories (side quests) are well done and are varied and really funny. The main story evokes sadness as typical Yakuza game. Still the story is a step down when compared to the first two games. There is ragdoll physics now and i feel that its a bit overtuned. Kiryu falls so easily like a malnourished old man. The camera is horrendous. I played the game with mouse and keyboard (i know the game recommends a controller. not everybody has one of them) and honestly i regret that. It turned me away from future Yakuza games. The least they could do was make the lock on work but no, the devs couldn't do that. Some of the boss fights are really bad with this camera and ragdoll physics. As much as i liked the previous two games (not for their combat), i have to give this a no simply because the story wasn't that interesting to to sit through the horrible combat. Only good thing about this is the sub stories.