Results of My Xbox PC Pass Experiments
Feb. 12th, 2021 08:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alias_sqbrI still have a week or two left of my trial but am inclined to leave it here, because all the games I've tried divide into "I want to buy it" (and will have to replay anything I do now because I'm not buying it via Microsoft) and "that was fun for ten minutes but I'm done".
Game reviews: Spiritfarer, No Man's Sky, Tetris Effect, Yakuza Zero, Slay the Spire
I want to buy it:
Spiritfarer: A really lovely base builder/platformer about being a psychopomp spiriting souls to the afterlife. I was worried it would be too sad but it has a cheery fairytale vibe. The platforming seems doable, and even if not I am pretty sure I'll get my money's worth if I wait til the game is on special.
No Man's Sky: A space-based exploration/gathering/crafting game. This was a little janky and ugly but moderately enjoyable and I can see it filling in a bunch of time once I get going.
Good but not for me:
Tetris Effect: it's a fancy tetris game and I'm just not that into tetris.
Yakuza Zero: beat-em-up about gangsters in 80s Japan, with dramatic storylines and fun side quests. Well made for what it is, and an interesting experience, but a bit skeezy about women and not my sort of gameplay. There's like 20 minutes of game before the first save point, it's mostly cut-scenes and easy tutorials but have a chunk of time free! Also the instructions usually worked fine for keyboard but at one point assumed I was using an XBox controller. On the plus side this was for a karaoke minigame and the game and NPCs reacted amusingly to me getting literally zero notes correct, and I'm sure I could look up or remap the buttons if I cared enough.
Slay the Spire: A deck-builder RPG. Fight monsters with turn-based combat using battle cards, and see how far you can get. Very good for what it is, I've bounced off every other deck-based combat I've tried and this was actually sorta fun. But still not really my jam.
So all in all the trial was a success for me and a failure for Microsoft getting more than $1 out of me.
Game reviews: Spiritfarer, No Man's Sky, Tetris Effect, Yakuza Zero, Slay the Spire
I want to buy it:
Spiritfarer: A really lovely base builder/platformer about being a psychopomp spiriting souls to the afterlife. I was worried it would be too sad but it has a cheery fairytale vibe. The platforming seems doable, and even if not I am pretty sure I'll get my money's worth if I wait til the game is on special.
No Man's Sky: A space-based exploration/gathering/crafting game. This was a little janky and ugly but moderately enjoyable and I can see it filling in a bunch of time once I get going.
Good but not for me:
Tetris Effect: it's a fancy tetris game and I'm just not that into tetris.
Yakuza Zero: beat-em-up about gangsters in 80s Japan, with dramatic storylines and fun side quests. Well made for what it is, and an interesting experience, but a bit skeezy about women and not my sort of gameplay. There's like 20 minutes of game before the first save point, it's mostly cut-scenes and easy tutorials but have a chunk of time free! Also the instructions usually worked fine for keyboard but at one point assumed I was using an XBox controller. On the plus side this was for a karaoke minigame and the game and NPCs reacted amusingly to me getting literally zero notes correct, and I'm sure I could look up or remap the buttons if I cared enough.
Slay the Spire: A deck-builder RPG. Fight monsters with turn-based combat using battle cards, and see how far you can get. Very good for what it is, I've bounced off every other deck-based combat I've tried and this was actually sorta fun. But still not really my jam.
So all in all the trial was a success for me and a failure for Microsoft getting more than $1 out of me.
