First Impressions Matter!

By now, I've probably clocked in over 15 hours with For Honor, so I thought blogging my first impressions were in order.

Let me just start right off the bat by saying that this is a solid game. Never have I felt this much rush in a 1 v 1 battle before, and the themes related to this type of gameplay just highten the brutality within these battles. The swordplay mechanics are inspired and handles extremely well. You can taunt your enemy before commencing your fight. Guarding, dodging and counter-attacking is quite the intense reactive puzzle itself, let alone trying to get past your opponent's defense. But the executions are where the fight pays off, as it feels like a sadistic reward for finally overwhelming your enemy.

The amount of times I've overcame overwhelming situations myself is just a satisfying thought.

What happens after you win a battle? Well, you can level up, which unlocks new perks or "feats" for your hero. You can recieve loot, which are usually armour and weapon pieces, which are upgradable and can boost certain stats. You earn coins which can buy certain cosmetic items, mostly for appearance.

Overall, I really like the new combat system, and right now its the most fun I had with a Ubisoft game since Assassin's Creed Syndicate. However, that's where it kind of drops off.

Although I love the new mechanics, one thing I often rage at is the servers and matchmaking systems. Seriously. It takes its time searching for new players, despite apparently over 130,000 people being online. Really? The maximum amount of players in a game mode is 8, and we're still getting matches with game bots to even out teams? If that doesn't somewhat rustle your jimmies, expect to experience connection problems, where a server will just boot everyone randomly, leaving you to join another waiting room for another game. These problems aren't occassional, they're as frequent as I turn start my car up every day, which grinds my gears.

The campaign is nothing special either. They seem like the type of chapters that were on Rainbow Six Seige, but just tuned into a mediocre story. Mainly just to introduce players to the different factions and different classes of heros. I've only completed the Knight's chapter which had no heart, no emotional grip, and the cutscenes did not look like something expected in a 2017 game.

TL;DR: Damn, 2017... This game has a LOT of issues Ubisoft needs to patch up. The main attraction, as it stands, is showing off the new combat mechanics. If Ubisoft don't fix these issues soon, this game is going in my trade-in pile.

I'd rate the game 6.5/10

I'm outie