Resident Evil 4 PS5 Review

 

Resident Evil 4 is a survival-horror game was released in 2023 for PS5, PS4, XSX/S, and PC. It was both developed and published by Capcom, and it is a full remake of 2005's original game of the same name.   

Before I get into the review, I wanted to talk about the good old horror masterpiece that was released back in the year of 2005 for the Gamecube. 

I remember the days when I bought one of the Nintendo's related gaming magazines which bundled with the bonus DVD disc that included the teaser trailer of the upcoming games, so I've discovered the game that caught my excitement as the long-time fan of the Capcom's greatest horror franchise, so that is Resident Evil 4.

I was blowned away with the trailer that I've watched on my DVD player, so what I've seen on the teaser trailer is that I'm really amazed with the incredible graphic design showcasing the Gamecube's hardware, the new style of presentation mixed with the elements of both horror and action combined, and mostly the most important part of the game is the new gameplay changes which makes the huge departure of the previous fixed-angle style like the first threes RE games are being replaced with the modern-take over-the-shoulder perspective, so it delivers the new different type of experience that Capcom wanted to create a new direction to the series.

After I've watched the trailer, I begged my siblings to get me a copy of the Resident Evil 4 for Gamecube during my summer off from the high school, but they struggle to get one from online retail like Amazon and eBay due to limited availability or some others are quite pricy which unfortunately which is why it took so long to get one just completely wasted my whole two months of summer holidays until I got it at the end of the summer months which I finally had a chance to play the game that I'm definitely looking forward for the biggest RE's sequel.

I'm been playing for hours of campaign which I am incredibly impressed with the whole game that took the horror genres to its new level, so it has multiples of crazy villagers and monsters to encounter, solving the puzzles in each areas, confronting the villains before the boss battles begins, it has solid overall story and likable cast of characters, the combat gameplay with strong precision aiming controls and additional QTE for close melee and other events, and of course the settings of the horror and action delivers a new approach to the series which is why I consider the game as one of my all-time favourite RE games in the series.        

The game was universally acclaimed at the release praised by the critics calling it the best horror game ever created and has won multiple game of the year awards in 2005.

The success of the game was ported to numerous formats, and became a cross-platform hit which sold over 12.3 million copies. 

It's redefining the evolution of the survival horror and 3rd-person shooter genres which popularizing the 3rd-person view terms over-the-shoulder perspective are used in later games such as Epic Games's Gears of War, EA's Dead Space, and Naughty Dog's The Last of Us.

As the Resident Evil 4 are clearly the best in the franchise, the game was later been remade it in 2023 as I learned the success of the other RE remakes that Capcom did it so well with the 2019's title like Resident Evil 2 as an main example of how to create the best quality remake as possible, which is why I see Capcom had decided to remake the 4th title that I am so excited to play it is because I wanted to see if the 2023's remake actually captures a same magic as the 2005's original game, so the answer is yes absolutely which I had a reason to enjoy the 2023's remake.

I will covering all the goods and some bads that I wanted to deliver the things that made the game quite fun to play and some that needs to be addressed.

So without go further do, let's start the review.

Presentation

The opening intro explains the outbreak incident took place in year 1998 when the whole town of Raccoon City was infested with the deadly viruses created by Umbrella Corporation. After the following destruction that wiped out the entire Raccoon City to end Umbrella's ongoing bioterrorism weapon, the former Raccoon Police Officer Leon Scott Kennedy, who survived the 1998 outbreak event, has been transferred to work with the US Government as an agent and undergoes combat training with Major Jack Krauser.

In 6 years later set in 2004, he is sent in mission to rescue president's daughter named Ashley Graham who was held captured by villagers in Spain. 

So far, the story in the game is incredibly great starting with the small backstory at the opening scenes which explains how did Leon had survived the event of the 1998's outbreak incident and then later joining with the US Government to become the undercover agent, so right after the combat training program had finished then it skips to the next scene set in 6 years later where he is sent by US Government to search and rescue president's daughter which is likely she was captured by the cult groups known as Los Illuminatos led by Osmund Saddler.

Yeah I believe these are the same cult groups does a weird satanic rituals going on where they practicing on something really dangerous performing like removing human organs and chopping their heads off to drain amount of bloods on the ritual stones which is quite disturbing especially like in every horror movies does a same scene of these satanic shit with multiples human sacrifices are sure does look nasty to watch.

I really liked the new idea of going on different direction in RE4 because it makes the game quite interesting to play, so instead of the traditional zombie horror approach like from the previous threes games it goes for a new style of horror that involving these mentally-sick villagers are being plagued by these parasites that controlling their minds, so I find that part is batshit insane which I had a reason to like the game.

Aside the opening story is really good, I also wanted to praise the cast of characters in the game like Leon Scott Kennedy which I really liked him from the original and remake of RE 2 and he is incredibly badass in this game, as he has the intelligent, makes really good one-liner, and of course putting up really cool gun fight against the villagers and bosses is what I liked about him.

He has the assistant Ingrid Hunnigan aiding him with the locations and infos through the radio call during the mission.

He then meets with the Spanish dude named Luis Sera, an former researcher who worked once with Umbrella, must work together to escape from the village while Leon still went for searching Ashley whereabouts.

I consider Luis Sera seems to be a nice guy when he's kindly helping Leon throughout the village especially he's giving out supplies of ammos to Leon during the shootout against the villagers and also he has a cool sense of humour which you can't go wrong with him...yeah, he's good.

Then you have Ashley Graham who introduce herself to Leon, so as I really hated her from the 2005's original game was worst known for it's annoying voice and acting overly-dramatic throughout the game especially I can't stand her catchphrase (LEON HELLLLLLP!!!) when she's screaming at Leon for help...god damnit my ears is aching so bad make it stooooop!!!

But in this remake, they have reduced her silly characterization to avoid annoyance of her dramatic voice and of course making her true competence than she was in the 2005's original game, so does it make it better? well it's a little bit better than was before as an character but she still kinda has the flaw for some part in the game which I will explain her problems in the gameplay for later.                              There are a returning character called Ada Wong in which you may know her as the mysterious Asian female agent in both the original and remake of RE 2. 

She then sometime meeting with Leon at short amount of screen time, till then off she's goes on her own adventure...yeah that's Ada for you guys.

To be frankly honest with Ada Wong is that I rather much preferred her appearance from the 2005's original game over the remake version is because I finding her in the remake is kinda flat with her new default outfit like the woolly jumper and leather harness doesn't seem to be quite appealing in comparison with the 2005's original game which she used to have a really nice long side-split dress and her choker that made her quite recognisable throughout the campaign. 

Not only her new default outfit that bothered me the most, it's mostly the voice performance aren't nearly good as the previous VA from the 2005's original game which I will explain it for later on this review...man I really miss the real Ada Wong aren't the same anymore.  

I got to like the Merchant guy with purple mask who carries his arsenals on his long-ass big coat, and he uses his likable catchphrase in every sentence by calling the player stranger, as well as making a really cool dialogue in any part of conversation with the player.  

I got to say the game does have the best selection of villains like you have tall-bearded village chief Bitores Mendez seems to be looking quite terrifying and shows off his incredible strength. 

Then you have Ramon Salazar who is an ally to cult member group was responsible for spreading the parasites across the local area ordered by Saddler.

There are one villainous soldier called Jack Krauser who was once US Army Major and Leon's former mentor and instructor but now joining the cult group led by Saddler, as he was responsible for kidnapping U.S president's daughter and brought her to the village as an act of revenge against the U.S government for their handling of his mission under Operation Javier that he survived 2 years prior that resulted losing his entire unit members. 

Lastly, you have a sadistic cult leader Osmund Saddler who are plotting to infecting not only just the U.S president's daughter, but also in hope that she will return home and infect high-ranking members of the U.S government, then attempts to control them, and of course seize control of the country and the world.

I say that I really liked the overall presentation of the game is because unlike the previous entries like RE 1, 2, 3, and CV which are heavily focused on the outbreak crisis sort of horror stuffs which has zombies and bio-monsters experiment from the most corrupted corporation facility, I find the RE4 is going in different direction which involves the evil cult leader and his groups of occultist involving mind-controlling, performing disturbing rituals, spreading plagues of diseases, does horrible kidnapping, and of course plotting to destroy the world which I really liked the changes that beings the new concept to the RE main series.

There are several of locations that are incredibly great in the game like you have places such as the village area are filled with many abandoned houses, old churches, filthy farmhouse, the valley, and lake caverns.

The castle area which as creepy looking outdoors, medieval-style rooms, deserted halls and libraries, and the clock tower.

The Island has grim looking underground area, medical facility, laboratory, freezer room, and the ritual area. 

Overall, it has remarkable story, likable cast of characters, and stunning presentation settings.

Gameplay

In single-player campaign, you take control of Leon Scott Kennedy in 3rd-person perspective as your main goal is to rescue and protect Ashley Graham from bunch of villagers and the occult groups.

You move around the player by pushing the left-stick controls, while tapping the left thumbstick or right shoulder button to sprint.

Pushing the right-stick controls will rotate the camera around which are also used for aiming as well.

You can crouch down your player by pressing the circle button which are useful for stealth play in some areas, and you can also interact the stuff and picking-up the objects by pressing the cross button.

You can access to your inventory screen by pressing the triangle button which allowing you to re-organise, sorting out, and equipping your weapons and items, and you can also highlight your weapons as the quick short-cut which is the quickest way of switching your weapons by pressing the d-pad button during the combat. 

In combat gameplay, You hold the left trigger button to ready-aim then press the right trigger button to shoot at the enemies, and you can also use your knife as the melee weapon by pressing the right trigger button, when not holding the left trigger button, to use it as slash attack or hold the left shoulder button then press the right trigger button to use it as quick stab attack, so it works mostly on close-combat range against the enemies. 

When the enemies are grabbing you, you can perform one of the QTE action such as tapping the cross button to push them away or press the right trigger button to use instant stab attack when the right shoulder button icon appears on the screen, and when you're properly stunned the enemies down you can also perform finishing kill in close-range when the cross button icon appears on the screen.

You can parry your enemy's attack by pressing the left shoulder button to deflect their melee weapon projectiles, so when they about to attack you make sure you do it in right timing then their weapon is near close to you. 

You can quickly reload your weapon by pressing the square button when you're out of the ammo, so do it wisely before you take the shot at your enemies.

You have Ashley in later chapter where in order to protect her from the stuff that endangered her, you had to give her three ways commands by pressing the right thumbstick button, so stuff like telling her to wait which she will not move around while staying on the spot, where as telling her to follow only if you see the areas are fully cleared or maybe you'll see the enemies came to close at her, and of course you had to give her order by interacting with stuffs such as hitting the switch or holding the crank for longer till you've reached at the point of the area. 

While out for exploring around the areas, you can also access to map screen by pressing the touchpad button to display maps which shows the location that you're on, so this will display the name of locations, the icons such as items, currencies, save point and etc. 

This will make an easier for players to know where they are and where they are heading to, so this is really helps you to find your destination in some whereabouts in the area. 

To keep you in mind that defeating various of enemies will drop the items like the herbs which each of these will have a different effect such as green herb which increases amount of your health, but combing with red herbs will increases higher amount of your health, the yellow herbs with green or red herbs combined will expand your health meter makes your player's health last longer.

Then they also dropped ammo items such as bullets, shells, and bolts, and then of course the most importantly the currencies which you can able to save those for one of the merchant's shop for buying and selling stuffs, but if you want to gain more currencies then you can able to find a valuable items which can be found inside the treasure boxes in any areas, so that you can able to sell it for the higher price.  

I also wanted to discuss the combat in this game because there each of weapons, accessories, and upgrades that has an advantages, so you have a pistol that are well-balanced are very good for the beginners does a decent amount of firing damage, where as the shotguns performs a strong close-range firing damage, the sub-machine guns has weaker firing damage but performs much faster firing rate and are quite effective for mid-range firing shot, the assault rifle is a stronger version of machine guns delivering a powerful firing damage shot, the sniper rifle has very powerful firing shot in one shot kills and really effective for long-distance shot, the bolt thrower uses the bolt like arrow as the ammunition, the handcannon is a big revolver delivers a instant firing damage shot works effectively against bigger and strong enemies, and of course the rocket launcher does a explosive damage instantly kills the enemies or bosses.

You can use the throwing weapon item such as hand grenades which you will throw it at the enemies and does a explosive damage impact, where as the flash grenades uses to temporarily blind your enemies for 5 seconds.

What made the game quite so amazing is that you can meet up with the merchant for shopping which he's sells you a various of weapons, upgrades, and accessories, as well as you can also sell your valuable stuffs or stuff that you don't really need to earn many currencies making it easier to afford available things.   

You will have the lists of various weapons like pistols, shotguns, machine-guns, rifles, launchers, boltgun, and etc, so you can able to compare your current weapon that you're using before purchasing the new ones that are really better and effective. 

The upgrades will improve upon your firing power making it a stronger firing damage, the firing rate will make the weapon targeting system much precise and easier to fire, the reloading speed will make you reload your weapon much faster, and of course the capacity will increase your ammunition spaces.  

You can buy the accessories became a useful tool for your weapons like the scope are useful for toggling zoom-ins at long-distance, the attachable mines that detonate upon proximity, the recoil attachments which reduces the firing discharge with perfect firing target, the laser sight is much easier to point at the enemies with targeting red dot.  

      

I say the controls is very good indeed is because you have an options to customise your control configuration to suit your playability such as your camera sensitivity and acceleration, suitable aiming precision, has 4 presets control layouts, toggle or hold sprint options, parrying with the right-trigger button instead of the left-shoulder button, and of course the auto-reloading function which makes the entire control schemes a lot easier to play.

I also liked the haptic feedback on the triggers depending on which weapons you're equipping with, so I really liked the heavy precision on the left trigger button when equipping with shotgun, and I also can feel and pushing the right-trigger button when using the pistol feels like I'm pushing the real trigger of handgun just makes the game playing realistic. 

Aside with the controls, the combat in this game is fantastic because I find most of these weapons works really well for its balanced and responsiveness knowing some of these light weapons are worked effectively on several of small enemies where as the bigger and powerful ones worked effectively against the bigger enemies and bosses, and I wanted to praise the upgrades that keeps the firing power, reload speed, and firing rate enhanced that makes your weapons becoming even more stronger and easier to battle against the later enemies that takes a longer to kill them, and you can't go wrong with the accessories that comes in very handy for some weapons that needs additional support like zoom-ins scopes, recoil attachment, and laser pointing devices seems to work nicely for combat gameplay.

I also wanted to say that I really liked exploring around the locations because not only you can do a main mission, but you can participate some side quests like shooting down blue medallions, shooting down rats and snakes, haunting for golden chicken egg, catch a big fish, and other requests, so if you're completed these side quest will give you sort of an reward which is why it keeps me playing the game.

The best part of the whole game is got to be an action segments which had the best moments in every chapters like the Leon and Luis fighting against the incoming foes at the minecart ride, there are a shootout mayhem where Leon was assisted by the person in the helicopter, the knife duel between Leon and Krauser is quite entertaining to watch and play at the same time, and then of course it has to be a boss battles which is epically amazing because it has several of the best bosses in any of RE games, so you have a gigantic sea monster on the large sized lake where you had to throw the harpoon at them while riding on the boat, there are one or two big ugly f***ing ogre can able to charge, throw, stomp and swing at you, there are tall-man father mendez will change his form into a long-spinal creature in burning farmhouse, there are fat guy with helmet welds with large two-claws blade that are stupidly long will violently slash you in pieces, there are a monster with big-hands and deadly long-tail in the freezing corridor area, there a Jack Krauser has impressive but deadly mutated arm-blade, and of course Ramon Salazar and Osmund Saddler has incredible powerful form are looking quite gruesome to fight.

I wanted to praise the puzzle aspects that leads you to the next area, so there are segments like gather the emblem pieces or finding the id card that unlocks the door, solving the symbol puzzle like hitting the 8 correct coordinate buttons and re-assign the colored church-glass, find the right combination time on clock, re-arranging the lithographic stones, figuring out the clues on dining table, switching the treasury swords around, and there's many more puzzles in the game that are not really hard to solve it.

As I've enjoyed the whole game, I wanted to point out one of the thing that kinda drove me insane is like I've mentioned about Ashley earlier ago, I find her A.I tends to be quite tedious in gameplay parts where she gets in your way when you're trying to shoot down the enemies and sometimes when she gets incapacitated by the enemy's projectiles she sat on the floor which forcing you to make her stand up on her feet, so if you don't save her while she was still on the floor for while then she'll receive a second hit from the enemies and dies...yeah it's still can be pain in the ass most of the time which is why her A.I system is not that perfect to be honest with it.

As the whole main campaign is still outstanding, I had a gold edition which comes with the 1 additional campaign called Separate Ways where you take control of Ada Wong, as it sets in the same event as the main campaign but mainly focused on her uncovered story scenario where she went on her mission to retrieve the most wanted sample, so the campaign is shorter than the main ones but still really good to play with additional story.

The game has 2 free DLCs to download such as the mercenaries mode where you take control of playable characters in each bonus stages, as your main goal is to gain enough hi-scores as possible by shooting many hordes of enemies for multiples combo before the timer runs out which I find this game mode really fun to play just like a good old 2005's original game, and then you'll have VR mode is basically a whole single-player game but requires PSVR 2 headset to play a VR mode which is an interesting thing because I never actually own the PSVR 2 headset, but I been heard many good things from those who have played it with the VR headset said really positive things about the VR mode just delivers an immersive horror experience they ever had...so that's really good to hear from these people.

Overall, it has very good controls, fantastic combat, epic boss battles, and great single-player campaign with fun puzzles and entertaining action segments. 

Graphics

You can't go wrong with the use of RE Engine providing the best overall graphics for the 9th-gen system that runs really well throughout the single-player action.

The environmental settings in many areas are considered as rich and detailed delivering a very good textures mapping and surfacing that are perfectly sharp, and I also praise the use of ray-tracing support for its cleaner reflection on the sea is quite amazing to look and you'll see the shiny looking objects are sure nice and glossy, and then the use of special effects such as the flames, rains, ices, and dust is also quite impressive in some areas.

The level design has the great mix of small and large portion of the areas that are surprisingly well designed making the exploration a straight-forward to browse around the locations.

I also loved the look of the draw-distance that are not stupidly blurry and cloudy which I am amazed by seeing such a clear details on longer ranged backgrounds.

The character's animation is very well done indeed which doesn't feel look clunky and dull at all because their movement is quite smooth and their facial features has a perfect lip-syncing that are not out of place and keeping it well intact during the dialogue conversation.

We all know RE series was the best for its gruesomely gorefest level makes the blood pouring around the ground, their limbs and particles of bodies gets mutilated in pieces, and of course the enemy and bosses violently changes their body form is absurdly gross to watch...holy shit, that's is looking quite extremely awesome. 

I wanted to discuss the game's performance for each platforms, so before I begin comparing with other system, the game has 4 graphical options such as performance mode, performance RT, fidelity mode, fidelity RT.

The performance mode is just an simple full-on 60fps resulting smooth gameplay but has low quality visuals, the performance RT which is like the performance mode but had ray-tracing turned on providing a good balance of frame-rate and visuals are slightly bit crisper, the fidelity mode is basically runs on full 4k resolution resulting a cleaner visual but makes performance dropped down between 45-60fps, and finally the fidelity RT which is like the fidelity mode but with ray-tracing turned on does make the visuals slight better but it ran quite slow in between 35-60fps.

I say I highly recommended to run it on the performance RT mode over the other 3 settings because I just mostly preferred to play it on a decent frame-rate and good amount of visuals, where as the fidelity mode stuffs are looking better for its cleaner resolution but has a rough edge on frame-rate performance in some areas.

That being said, the graphics is still fantastic especially on PS5 and XSX/S (X model) are the perfect pick for console owners to play this game, where as the XSX/S (S model) which is kinda mere below-average at best due to frame-rate dips in some areas but ran better than the PS4 version which is way worse running on low resolution and has sluggish performance makes it unplayable, so stick it to PS5 and XSX/S (X model) for the best option.

I also heard the PC version is way much better for its customisable visuals and performance options making it a best way to play RE games for PC gaming for suitable playthrough. 

Overall, it has rich and detailed environmental settings, great size of level-design, well-made character's animation, and gruesomely gorefest level.

Music and Sounds

As much as I loved the original soundtrack from the 2005's original game of the same name, the new soundtrack in this game is just sounds magnificent in which you can't go wrong with the RE series was known for its having the greatest video game soundtrack of all-times.

It has a perfect creepyness of ambient music as well as the epicness of orchestral music throughout the campaign, as it was composed by Misao Senbogi, who had previously worked on his score for the original RE 4 game, did involve participating of making a score on the remake along with others like Kota Suzuki and Nozomi Ohmoto did a wonderful job of creating the most finest music that fits the whole action of survival horror game.

The sound effects are incredibly fascinating is because I really liked the sounds that surrounding around the speakers just feels perfection with the gaming chairs or 3D headsets just delivers a impressive background noises and thumping sounds, but hey I also loved the radio conversation which you can clearly hear it from the built-in speakers of the game controller just absolutely amazing to hear. 

I say the voice casting for Leon in the remake is pretty sounds great in the game are just about good as the original VA from 2005's original game what makes the lead character so likable in the RE franchise, and I'm happy to say that the Ashley's VA in the remake is sounded less aggravating than the ones in 2005's original game which is an fair improvement since then...thank god for that, and unfortunately the Ada's VA in the remake is sounds kinda bad which didn't quite fit the performance of the character, so why's does Ada's new VA sounded like an very bored grandma is just beyond me, but in comparison with the previous VA from the 2005's original game are miles way better in my opinion.    

Overall, it has wonderful soundtrack and excellent sound design. 

Special Features

The best things about the gold edition is that I did mentioned about the additional campaign such as Separate Ways which is really good scenario, and it is also comes with extra DLCs Pack which includes costumes for Leon and Ashley, deluxe weapons such as Sentinel Nine and Skull Shaker, treasure map expansion, Leon accessory and of course the original RE 4 soundtrack.

The game also came with free downloadable DLCs such as the mercenaries mode and VR mode as well.

Overall, an astonishing features.

Advantages

Remarkable story and likable characters

Stunning presentation settings

Fantastic gameplay

Great single-player campaign

Superb overall visuals

Wonderful soundtrack

Extra content including additional campaign, mercenaries, and VR mode.

 

Disadvantages

Ashley's A.I needs an improvement.

Ada's appearance and VA's performance in the remake aren't good as the original counterpart.

 

Final Verdict

Presentation 9/10 -  remarkable story, likable cast of characters, and stunning presentation settings.

Gameplay 9/10 - very good controls, fantastic combat, epic boss battles, and great single-player campaign with fun puzzles and entertaining action segments.

Graphics 9/10 - rich and detailed environmental settings, great size of level-design, well-made character's animation, and gruesomely gorefest level.

Music and Sounds 9/10 - wonderful soundtrack and excellent sound design.

Special Features 9/10 - has additional campaign, mercenaries, and VR mode.    

Overall 9/10 - As much as I've loved the 2005's original game of the same name, the RE4 remake is a solid perfection horror title that you can't go wrong with the Resident Evil franchise which provides the best libraries of the remakes like RE1 (2002) and RE2 (2019) which I consider these twos such legendary masterpiece, so this game deserves to be on the same list which makes RE4 still being my number 1 favourite RE games...yes both the original and remake, so why not. 

I'm still satisfied with the well-written story and characters, as well as the overall presentation keeps the horror design intact.

The combat, the puzzles, the segments, the boss fights, and list so many goes on in the campaign that keeps me entertained with the game for the hours of fun.

The physical copy for PS5, PS4, and XSX/S has two different editions such as the standard edition are slightly cheaper about £20 to £25 where as the gold edition comes with extra content that I've mentioned before just cost around £35, but be warned to make sure you don't accidently buy the wrong version of the game which happens to be mistaken with the original game, so pay really close attention to the front cover stranger just to be sure it is a remake of the game should have an initials letter of R and E in red colour before making the purchase online.

The digital storefront including PS Store, Xbox Store, and Steam has standard edition just for £35 where as the gold edition bundle should cost between £40 and £45, but then again be sure to double check it before buying the right version to pick, hey stranger.    

         

Is it the recommendation for the horror gaming fans? absolutely because I'm sure the fans of the original RE4 will likely to appreciate the remake that does a job done amazing by the Capcom's development team, so this is a must play title for 9th-gen consoles and modern PCs. 

I am hoping they will consider remaking Code Veronica in the future perfect when their time is right to start developing someday...maybe just maybe someday I say, so that being said please go check out Resident Evil 4 remake I can guarantee that you will love this title as being the greatest horror game of all-time.   

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Demon's Souls PS5 Review

 

Demon's Souls is a Action-RPGs game was released in 2020 as a launch title for PS5. It was developed by Japan Studio and Bluepoint Games, and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment, and it is also a remake of the 2009's game of the same name originally developed by From Software for PS3. 

What I've learned about the PS3 original game is that it's one of the Action-RPGs title that became quite successful back in year 2009 which was hailed for its not just the realistic combat gameplay and dark medieval presentation, but also the core element of the whole game that created the genre known as Soulslike genre which was really known for being the hard as nails difficulty making it the hardest video game ever, which is why it gained critically acclaimed reception at the release and had won several of awards as well as being cited as one of the greatest game of all-time.

The success had led to spawn with numerous of later From Software titles such as Dark Souls which is meant to be a spiritual successor to the 2009's original game are also gained critically acclaim reception, as well as other well-received titles like Bloodborne, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, and Elden Ring.

Soulslike genre are also inspired various of different game's developers to create their own Soulslike games like Nioh, The Surge, Lords of the Fallen, Lies of P, Remnant, Code Vain, and the list goes on.

I remember the day in around between year 2013 and 2014 when the PS Plus subscription had offered a monthly free games which they adds games in each month that you can able to download and play on your PS3, so I've discovered Demon's Souls.

I had a go with the 2009's original game on my PS3 just to see how hard the game really is? the answer is yes it's really dead f***ing hard as f**k because it's the game design itself that requires you to keep building up your skill levels, obtaining better weapons, armours, and magics to benefit your attack and defense system, and of course just like everyone else says that you really need to learn how to get good at the game by simply learning all the trials and errors and come up with better strategies are the only way to fight better at the skilled enemies and bosses without getting ass-handed by them, so I've decided to give up playing the original PS3 game which I know that I'm never able to beat the game entirely and decided to skip most of the Soulslike games after my failed attempt on 2009's original game, but not until I played other Soulslike games such as The Surge which is a hella good game that I did managed to beat it, where as others like Nioh is kinda decent but never managed to beat it after being halfway done.

To tell you the truth is that I've nothing to against the game's design choices which I totally respect the whole concept of the Soulslike genre are designed to be a challenging to play, so in around 10 years later I decided to take the risk by picking up the PS5 copy of Demon's Souls...yes guys I just want to give the game a second try to see if I can able to beat the game properly?       

The result is hell f***ing yes at last because I've been waiting for very long time to beat the whole campaign which took me a week and the half to finish the game entirely, so thank god for it.

Let's tell you the truth is that I'm playing the PS5 remake which is fully designed for PS5 hardware to improve upon the original PS3 game are the main reason for me to buy one...yep that is me being silly.

So I'm gonna stick back to the review for now because I'm about to say is that this game is actually worth to play which is why I am here to deliver the pros and cons about this masterpiece that I consider this as must play title.

So without go further do, let's start the review.

Presentation

The game takes place in the kingdom of Boletaria ruled by King Allant who misusing the magic power called Soul Arts causes to awakening a dark being known as the Old One and the army of demons began to consume the whole kingdom with dark powers which led onto a war conflict where human army groups are fighting to protect their kingdom against the army of demons, but unfortunately the army of demons had claimed the men's souls turning them into a hideous monsters causing to build up the rise of the demon's army had seized the whole kingdom, and the King then joins the ally with the Old Ones to control the whole kingdom.

Despite the whole land of kingdom are cursed, there are a nameless warrior had bought to the kingdom for the quest to defeat false King Allant and pacify the Old One.

The story in this game is very good which I really liked the opening backstory of explaining how the traitor king and the dark being had conquered the whole kingdom by using such a dark power that summons the multiple of demons had began to spread everywhere on the land and start stealing all human's souls which turns them into a sort of creatures which rapidly growing a population of demon army.

Then you have a player who then wakes up in the hub room called nexus and meets the woman named maiden in black guides a player to go on the quest to defeat numerous of large creatures including false King Allant and silence the Old One in order to save the kingdom.           

It's just like every other dark fantasy stories which has a similar concept all about the medieval battles between good human and evil creatures which I really liked the idea that kept the storylines quite interesting in the game.

I also liked the player's appearance of these 10 classes such as Barbarian, Hunter, Knight, Magician, Priest, Royalty, Soldier, Temple Knight, Thief, and of course Wanderer which I really liked how they designed their armour and outfit to make it look more old-fashioned and badass especially the Knight is by far the best looking appearance in any of Souls games.

I got to say most of the enemies are really morbid looking and also wicked like skinny ragged Dregling, slimy large-shield Hoplite, flame headed Blue or Red Eye Knight, crazy looking dog, top-hat Fat Official, thieving Imperial Spy, creepy Scale Miners, long-ass Rock Worm, squiggly Mind Flayer, big-headed crawlies Man Centipede, devil looking Gargoyle, undeaded Skeleton, floating Storm Beast, ghostly dark Reaper, pointy nose Depraved One, freaky giant Mosquito, and that ugly-ass Rat.

The bosses are also quite deadly as f**k like large shell Phalanx, gigantic Tower Knight, skilled sword knight Penetrator, 8-legged Armor Spider, big beast Flamelurker, terrifying Dragon God, weird-armed lady Fool's Idol, flying-winged beast Maneater, mysterious Old Monk, big fatty Adjudicator, tall Old Hero, large flying Storm King, hideous Leechmonger, crooked Dirty Colossus, white-cloaked Maiden Astraea with bodyguard, and of course the false leader Old King Allant.

The presentation itself is looking remarkable for its dark fantasy themes because I really liked the medieval-style settings they put in the game in each location such as world 1 which has a huge stone castle, cliff pathway, the old-fashioned streets, and large looking King's Tower, the world 2 has the city of miners filled with mining areas, the huge tunnel, and the underground lava areas, the world 3 has the dark looking prison room, the creepy looking church, and narrow walkways, the world 4 has the island of shrine that worshiped the storms and mourned the dead, has the gritty looking caves, and then of course the area of stormy weather, the world 5 has the humid looking valley with inhabitants are afflicted by poison and plague, has the huge swamp areas are sorts of sticky, gooey and gloomy things going on, and of course the rotting cavern has unclean environments. 

Overall, it has very good story, awesome player's class appearances, morbid and wicked enemies and bosses, and of course remarkable presentation themes.

 

Gameplay

The game has an option to play single-play offline or online multiplayer, so I had to select offline single-player to focus on entire story campaign.

Your main goal is to prevent the Old Ones from harming the kingdom, so in order to do that you must beat the whole game by defeating all bosses including false King Allant in each world.   

You'll start off with the player's customisation which you have 10 classes to select, so each class will have different pros and cons to it such as Soldier has very well-balanced physical combat, Knight has well-rounded choice for beginners, Hunter are really beneficial with ranged weapon, Priest has good amount of defence attributes but struggles to wield many weapons, Magician are skillfully command magic spells with high intelligence but nowhere near quite easy as other class like Royalty for example, Wanderer may not have a decent starting equipment but has high level of luck, Barbarian has the strong class level but not an easy choice for the beginners, Thief are better at the stealth play but has weaker defence level, Temple Knight is another good choice for beginner providing good amount of attack damage level, Royalty is slightly much straight-forward than the Magician in terms of magic stats level.  

Once you done creating your player, then the game will begin at the start with 3rd-person perspective on-screen and you will also have a HUD screen interface which displays on each of the corners such as player's status at the top-left corner which indicates player's health, mana, and stamina, where as the bottom-left corner displays the small inventory icons like weapons, items and magics, and finally the souls currencies displayed on top-right corner which I will explain it for later on this review. 

Push the left stick to move player around, while holding with the circle button to make player run faster.

Push the right stick to rotate the camera around the player to see the surroundings of the level.

For the combat play, you press the right shoulder button to use quick attack are fast but slightly weak for hit damage on enemies, where as the right trigger button uses as slow but strong attack which makes the highest damage hit on enemies.

You have the left shoulder button which act as the block are used for shielding to protect player from enemy's attack, where as you can also perform parrying by pressing the left trigger button when the enemy's attack are coming close to you then press it at the right time to do perfect parrying to prevent taking heavy damage from the enemies.

You can also evade their incoming attacks by simply tapping the circle button to do dodge roll when any of types of enemies does something like charging attacks as an example.  

You can also lock-on target by pressing the right thumbstick button which locks on enemies with the target dot-symbol, and you can switch target by pushing the right stick to change target of the enemies nearby you're facing.  

You can switch your single-hand weapon mode onto the two-handed mode by pressing the triangle button, so what it does do is that if you're equipping such as heavy weapons that are difficult to master with one-hand you can switch it to the two-handed mode makes your heavy weapon an easier to swing around, so that adds-up the realism to the combat system.

To keep you in mind, your stamina bar may go down lower when you keep using your ongoing attacks, sprinting, and dodging may cause your player go really tired quick during the combat, so the best way to save your stamina is to not make multiples attacks, sprinting, and dodging so much and wait until the stamina bar goes up a bit, so keep an eye on your stamina bar before you make multiple actions.

You can use the magic power by equipping the catalysts stick, so this will allow you to use types of magic spells like cloak which makes it harder for enemies to spot you, curse weapon boost weapon damage by 50% but lowers your health points, death cloud creates a plague of cloud which infects the enemy, fireball launches a large ball of flame, and etc. but it also drains down your magic power bar which you really need to use one of the item that replenish your magic power bar.

Not only you can use magic power, you can also use miracles which you really need to equip talisman in order to use it, so what it does do is that this will allow you to perform various of the miracles power such as cure which cures up your deadly status like poison and plague, heal that recovers your health points, evacuate transports you back to the nexus with souls, hidden soul makes it harder for black phantoms to spot you and etc.  

You can cycle your weapons and shields by pressing the left and right d-pad button depending on which weapons and shields you're equipped with, and you can cycle the items that you're equipped by pressing the down d-pad button, as well as the miracles with the up d-pad button.                          

Defeating multiples of the enemies are not the only they can drop out the items on the floor, but also can increase your souls currencies which you'll see on the top-right corner of the screen, so what it does is that you can use these souls currencies to purchase stuff at the shop like the items that you really need it for the adventure like the consumables such as herbs and elixir, ammunition like bolts and arrows, weapons such as swords, axes, spears, and shields, sorcery stuffs like magics and miracles, and of course you really need to buy materials for upgrading your weapons as requirement in which you need to meet up a blacksmith that they can forge your weapon you're equipping with the materials turning it into a stronger and tougher weapon that increases your attack points. 

You can gain access to your player's pause menu by pressing the option button, so you'll see the list of stuffs like the items that you're carried and collected, the weapons and shields that you have equipped with left and right hand, and you can also see the player's attributes list which explains what your status level you have gained so far.

You can meet up the maiden of black in nexus which you can able to increase your attributes stats by spending it with your souls currencies that you have previously collected, so this will improve upon your player's strength, endurance, intelligence, vitality, dexterity, magic, faith, and luck which means that this will make your player feel stronger to fight against the highly skilled enemies that are tougher to fight with, so the more you build up the stats the better your player performance goes.

I also wanted to say important thing about saving up the souls currencies is that you don't want to lose them because if you get killed by the enemies then you will lose all the remaining souls currencies, so to retrieve all souls currencies back is that you need to head over to the same spot where you died on, so you will see these dark flashy bloodstains that lays on the floor which you need to pick it up as soon as possible, but if you die again without retrieving the remaining souls currencies then you will lose everything which means you had to start over the farming habits again which is huge pain in the ass sometimes but you really needed to be really careful of fighting the tough enemies without keep dying in the game.

Make sure to keep an eye on your weapon and armour because they can break easily later when using it quite often, so you had to meet up the blacksmith to help you repairing your weapon and armour when needed to get it fixed, so be sure to double check on your stuff before it can damage soon later.

You don't really want to carry all the stuffs on your inventory because if you overload with the items and weapons too much then it became really heavy to carry around meaning that your player moves really slow which prevent you from sprinting and dodging during the combat, so you may need to meet up the person who can keep your stuffs on their storage which reduces the heaviness on the player may help you a bit.  

So far, the entire gameplay works really amazing for most of it because I find the combat system quite different from any of Action-RPGs makes it feel fluid and sturdy to play which provides many of great fights between the player and enemies.

The whole combat gameplay is about knowing how the fight system actually works in the game which heavily focused on level of realism such as relying on stamina level so every time you start swinging, blocking, parrying, and dodging may depletes your stamina meter bar down making you feel vulnerable to fight back, so instead of going full-on lethal you had to learn to tackle the enemies down by using the right weapon and armour you equipping with and levelling up your souls level for better overall attributes may going to make significant result, and you may need to gather more enough consumables to restore your health and mana, you may also need to collect enough materials to upgrade your weapon may result a huge damage attack on enemies, how many items and weapons you have carried on your inventory may cause the player go slower on combat battle if the whole things becoming too heavy to carry around, and of course you really need to figure it out what are the enemy's and boss's main weak patterns and how to avoid taking multiple damage from these guys because they are just tough as nails with aggressive A.I level they put up in combat giving you an extraordinary ass-kicking which you'll die a lot in the game, so the best way to get good at the game is just to keep playing the game with learning all trials and errors you make to overcome the previous mistakes, so having to figure all the strategies out that I've said before is the best way to prevent multiples of deaths.

I also liked the choices of weapons they included in the game such as swords with fairly balanced stats are reliable to use, daggers are small and fast with high attack speeds, axes are slow and short-ranged but providing heavy damage attack, hammers delivers strong blunt attacks are effective against the armored enemies, spears provides decent damage at a long-range but can be easily parried by enemies, bows are best used to deal with single targets from long distance, catalysts grants players the ability to cast powerful spells, and of course the talismans grants players to ability to cast powerful miracles.

These weapons works amazingly well for any of classes requires with recommendation choice of weapons that works effectively against any types of foes in the game.

I also wanted to point out the most important thing in the game is the default control schemes because I'm not very good with the default control settings which sadly there are no option to customise the button mapping because I didn't want end up keep pressing the wrong button when I'm attempt to attack the enemies or trying to switch from one-hand to two-hands mode, so at the end it not really that bad because I won't mind with their choice, so once you get used with the default controls the better your practice plays. 

I really liked the exploration in the game because I love discovering different areas of levels where I can spent time on collecting some rare items and materials, gain access to the new paths, helping out NPCs a favour, and of course killing many enemies as possible to keep farming with souls currencies is what keeps me playing the game, and I really do liked the design overall for several of the areas in the game because I don't find these areas quite difficult to explore around when attempting to find a way to reach at the boss battle locations even though the level design are looked incredibly big, but just about the right amount of the size.

My favourite part of the game is has to be a boss battles because as I'm said about the game is really damn tough to play, but I've managed to defeat all of them with multiple of tries is my reason to keep playing the game because it's part of the fun factor that keeps the game's challenge quite motivating for me to play.

You have many of these insane bosses that I've mentioned above that are really good with their counter-attacks, deadly special moves, uses magics and miracles to weaken the player, and of course their stats level is significantly powerful which you need to be really prepared to fight with hard-ass bosses can give you a ass-whooping time is what makes the game seems stressful but also a fun at the same time.

I also heard many great things about the online multiplayer where you can able to play on co-op mode up to 3 players to team up in a host world where visiting players appear in soul form that can only be returned to their bodies when a boss is defeated, where as the competitive mode where the players can invade another world as a black phantom to engage in combat with the host player.

Not only it has online multiplayer, the game also make use of asynchronous mode for those connected to the Playstation Network which mean when navigating levels, players briefly see the actions of other players as ghosts in the same area that may show hidden passages that is pre-written on the floors that can also help others such as forewarning safe or hostile positions, trap locations and tactics against enemies or bosses.

These are also quite helpful if you're willing to join the game online for its multiplayer as well as getting the hints and tips messages may going to help the players quite a lot makes the game even fun to play on PS5.    

Overall, it has amazing combat system, brilliant exploration, epic boss battles, and of course both the offline single-play campaign and online multiplayer modes.

Graphics

The visuals is just pure perfection which I got to say it is definitely the most beautiful graphic design in any of PS5 library showcasing the Sony's 9th-gen hardware providing magnificent results on environmental design on large areas that are sharp as the crisp, the texture mapping are looking clean on surfaces, the landscaping from draw-distance is looking nice and smooth, the use of the lighting and shading effects are well-built on some areas like from lava pit and gloomy places, the use of the animation on players and NPCs are incredibly stunning throughout the game, and of course the options to use two graphics mode are both really good especially playing on performance mode which provides full-on 60 fps just running so smooth without any of performance issues where as the fidelity mode ran on locked 30fps but supports the great amount of graphical details to make the whole game look amazing giving it a cinematic feel to it thanks to better resolution up to 4K and high reflections details, so that being said both of these graphic options are looking nice on PS5 hardware.

Overall, it has magnificent environmental design, stunning overall animation, and smooth performance.

Music and Sounds

The original soundtrack on this game is fantastic because I really liked the epicness of orchestrated folklore music that really fits the dark fantasy action. It sort of sounds like it has Hans Zimmer vibes to it which is reason why I loved the range of choir vocal and heavier intensity of instrumentation. It was composed by Shunsuke Kida did such an stunning job on his score which is completely redone but also captures the magic of the 2009's original soundtrack to make it sounds better. 

I got to praise the game for its sound design because it's one of the game that makes the use of tempest 3D audio, so which means if you have one of the 4KTV or Headphones that supports 3D audio which provides a better cinematic sounds experience with rich surrounding noises and bassy booming effects.

I say the voice casting did a wonderful job on their role as NPCs in the game offering a great use of dialogue during the conversation with the player.

Overall, it has fantastic soundtrack, rich sound design, and wonderful voice performance on NPCs.

Special Features

The game has unlockable gallery mode which includes concept art and behind the scene stuffs going on, and it also has new game plus after beating the game once while retaining all weapons, armours, items, and attributes just adds up a replay values.

Overall, a decent features.

       

Advantages

Remarkable presentation

Amazing combat system

Brilliant exploration

Epic boss battles

Excellent offline campaign solo and online multiplayer

Magnificent visual performance

Fantastic soundtrack

Disadvantages

Lack of customisable button mapping options

Some enemies can be bit overpowered 

 

Final Verdicts

Presentation 9/10 - very good story, awesome player's class appearances, morbid and wicked enemies and bosses, and of course remarkable presentation themes.

Gameplay 9/10 - amazing combat system, brilliant exploration, epic boss battles, and of course both the offline single-play campaign and online multiplayer modes.

Graphics 10/10 - magnificent environmental design, stunning overall animation, and smooth performance.

Music and Sounds 9/10 - fantastic soundtrack, rich sound design, and wonderful voice performance on NPCs.

Special Features 8/10 - unlockable gallery mode and new game plus.

Overall 9/10 - I am happy to say that I did managed to enjoy the game quite more because as I never got to beat the 2009's original game on the PS3, I did give it a second chance with the PS5 remake which I did managed to beat the whole game entirely which turns out to be better than I've expected.

Demon's Souls is a outstanding Action-RPGs game that does the job really well for its presentation, combat, exploration, boss battles, and of course both the single-play and online play are the main reason to pick up and play.

I am glad that the development team behind this PS5 remake did a stunning job of making an improvement over the 2009's original in terms of technical feats, quality-of-life changes, and making an adjustments of the experience that would appeal to the newcomers are easier to getting into with this title.         

This game definitely going to be my future top 5 PS5 game list or maybe I don't know what to say because I feel this game deserves an similar recognition as the other PS5 game exclusives which is why I had such a wonderful time playing this game for over an hours. 

The cost of the game are usually worth £25 or more for physical copy, where as the digital release on PS Store cost around £70 but it is also included on extra categories in which you can able to access the game for free if you had PS Plus subscription with it.

Is it a must play title for PS5 owners? Yes absolutely if you're a particular fan of the Soulslike genre will likely give the game a worth of shot because this is definitely one of the finest Action-RPGs game on Playstation platform, so please check it out guys. 

   

                                       

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R-Type Final 3 Evolved PS5 Review

 

R-Type Final 3 Evolved is a 2D horizontal-scrolling shooter game was released in 2023 for PS5, which was developed by Granzella and published by NIS America. It is a updated version of 2021's title such as R-Type Final 2 which was previously released for PS4, XBONE, XSX/S, Switch, and PC.

Before I begin reviewing the game, I wanted to talk about the Irem's classic shooter that was all started back in 1987. 

R-Type is a horizontal-scrolling shooter game was created by Irem was originally released for Arcade, so it's really a simple straight-forward shooter where you take control of your star ship went for the battle to destroy the evil alien empire bent on wiping out all of mankind.

What makes the game quite interesting is that your ship has ability to use assisting device called force which protecting you from enemy firing projectiles and providing additional firepower, so that really adds up the new innovation for it's genre. 

The game was commercially successful and being celebrated by many video game critics for its visuals and gameplay, and it is also being listed as one of the best shoot-em-ups games of all-time.

The success of the first game had spawned numerous of home console ports including TG-16, SMS, PC-88, MSX2, Atari ST, C64, ZX, GB and various of platforms are also received positive reception citing as really great conversion especially SMS version was immediately recognised as one of the best games available in the SEGA's 8-bit library, where as the TG-16 version being labelled as the system's most accurate home conversion of the arcade original game.

The game also spawned with numerous of sequel including R-Type 2 came later in 1989 for arcade and was ported later in between 1991 and 1992 to Amiga, Atari ST, GB, and of course SNES titled as Super R-Type featuring new stages and enemy types are also received similar praises as the first original game.

Then you have R-Type Leo which is a final game to be released in arcades around 1992 was met with positive reception.

The third game in the series was released in 1993 for SNES titled as R-Type 3: The Third Lightning calling it a solid shoot-em-ups title for SNES library.

In around 1998 and 1999, they bought R-Type Delta for PS1 as the first entry in the series to incorporate 3D graphics.

Then R-Type Final was released in 2003 for PS2 which includes over 100 unlockable playable spaceships. 

Those games are amazing back then which defines not only just the shoot-em-up genre, but also a shoot-em-up libraries that cannot be forgotten because R-Type is a fantastic video game series that the fans of the shoot-em-up genre will never forget their wonderful nostalgia of their arcade experience that changed gaming forever. 

So going back to this review now, I am so looking forward to play a new entry of the series titled as R-Type Final 3 Evolved for PS5 which I had the reason to play this because number one: I previously enjoyed the earlier R-Type games like the first and second title, number two: I was originally intended to get R-Type Final 2 for PS4 until I've found out the updated version just got released for PS5 which I've decided to get the R-Type Final 3 Evolved instead which has more additional features like 7 exclusive stages that aren't present in Final 2 version. 

What did I think about this game? the stuffs will be answered on this review which is why I will cover all the positives and negatives to say that this game is either worth playing it or is it something that are not nearly good as you may think.

So without go further do, let's start the review.

Presentation

There are an opening scene which shows the bunch of crew members inside the small-sized craft area getting the star ship ready to take off for the battle which I believed the fighter star ship are fighting to protect the humanity from the threat of alien invasion team known as Bydo empire.

Yeah, there's not whole of story beside you can also check it out on R Manual on the main menu option to know the background history.

What I've liked about the game is the design of the star ships known as ultimate interchangeable fighters which includes three ships such as R-99 Last Dancer which is basically a simple regular looking ship, R-100 Curtain Call which has really cool pointy rear from the back, and R-101 Grand Finale has curvy design around it, which I got to say I really liked the overall design of these ships that are so mecha-like model to make it look like one of those 80's badass sci-fi ships you see from TV toys commercials, animated cartoons, and some sci-fi films...yeah that's just me being silly.

Aside from the opening scene and ship overall design, the stage presentation is actually brilliant because you have several of the locations which has different stage settings, so stuff like stage 1 which as piles of rock structures at the background, has nice waterfall and large sea, and of course really dim looking caves with purple glowing light.

Stage 2 has blistering stormy weather, enormous looking military sea ship, and the part where you can go under the sea water. 

Stage 3 is basically the whole cave filled with glowing areas, objects of crystals, and abandoned facility room. 

Stage 4 has the terminal rooms filled with factory made facilities that manufacturing enemy's ships and some miscellaneous stuffs going on.

Stage 5 is where you're on the dark areas of underwater seabed which has streaming bubbles at the backgrounds, and has sea-like seaweeds and stuffs. 

Stage 6 has the large size of corridor room with unusual full of cogs of gear around the areas.

Lastly the Stage 7 has gloomy places filled with foggy areas around it covered by waves of puddles and has floating man-made objects at the backgrounds. 

I consider these stage presentation design a significant because I have never seen anything look remarkable as any of shoot-em-ups games which proves that they have provided the best overall design that fits the series pretty well.

I also wanted to praise the R museum where you can able to browse and explore the underground aircraft is basically like the showrooms filled with many star ships which I really liked the option to use the first-person perspective when wondering around the areas is seems to be quite cool.

Oh don't forget you have R-Park which has really nice large area of lobby which you can not only to just explore around, but also interact and communicating with people.   

Overall, it has brilliant stage presentation and cool overall ship design. 

Gameplay

                        

The game has various of game modes such as arcade, score attack, competition, and online.

On arcade mode, you get to select any of these playable ships and you will be played in 2D side-scrolling perspective as your goal is to beat every stage by defeating bosses while fighting the enemy's ships throughout the stages.

You control the ship by pushing the left stick controls or d-pad button to move around, but you can also change the speed of the ship by pressing the left trigger and left shoulder button which makes an easier to control the ship depending on which stages you're on or the enemy you're facing against may require good tactics.

You can also slow down the gameplay by holding the right trigger button which makes the enemy's movement and projectiles more slower while the player can able to move faster makes so much easier to evade their attacks as well as preventing being crashed onto corners, but I think it's perfect for the beginners to use it so you don't have too, unless if you're one of those people couldn't able to beat the game properly.

You'll shoot with your projectiles by tapping the circle button, while holding the circle button will charge up the wave cannon beam till it reached to full gauge bar which displays on bottom of the screen, so this will allow you to blast with the powerful projectiles does a heavy damage attack on bigger enemies.

You can also hold the square button to use rapid fire shot if you don't like to keep mashing the firing button, so having the rapid fire button can be useful for suitable players. 

Defeating off the enemies will drop off one of these 3 power-ups items like the red coloured vulcan which act as the stronger version of primary fire, the blue coloured lasers which fires two lasers diagonally as well as ricochets around the areas, and the yellow coloured flames which fires the flames from top to bottom while crawling through the ground floors.

You have the device called force which allows you to use certain of things, so for example: when being attached on the front of the ship which it will protects you from the enemy firing projectiles at the front of the force device, while de-taching off from the ship which providing additional firepower like 3-ways or 5-ways firing shots which the force device can follow you around your ship when pressing the cross button, so you can also re-attach your force device on back of your ship will allow you to fire a projectile from behind makes it easier to shot backwards when you see the enemies are coming from the behind just works.

You can perform a devastating special weapon by pressing the triangle button when the dose level displays from the right-side of the screen are fully on 100% gauge can be slowly increased by your firing projectile from the de-tached force device, so this will allow you to use it to kill the enemies or damaging bosses entirely. 

So far the controls works perfectly well in the game because just like the previous entries of the series, the ship movements and firing mechanics just plays it well throughout the game with no issues whatsoever.

I like the option of changing the speed of the ship which allows me to easier avoiding the enemy's projectiles and hazardous objects just works well on several of the stages that may have some tight spaces just like most of the R-Type games which requires you to carefully not accidently getting crashed onto the corners makes the game quite very challenging to play which is absolutely fine for professional players, but the casuals may not like the tight spaces design which not only it makes difficult to evade the corners or objects but most of the enemy's ships can may get in your way or shoot's multiples of their projectiles can be bit of a headache when attempting to get pass through the tight areas takes about a minute to get it done which is why you have right trigger button to slow down time may going to help you a bit for some tight areas.

I got to say that I really liked the various of power-ups on each playable ships which has an advantages because they will have different kinds of firing attacks like your vulcan, laser, bombs, missiles, and you name it does make a really cool firing damage attack on any types of enemies you see on screen.

Completing stages will reward you with two types of currencies system such as main and materials, so the main coins are used for purchasing stuffs like decals and stuffs from the shop menu, where as the materials comes with red, blue, and green currencies are used for purchasing a new playable ships up to 99 through R museum area, so this is really awesome because I really liked unlocking stuffs in the game when beating each stages to get a rewards is what makes the game so great to play.

I had to say that the boss battles are incredibly epic which is a highlight point of the game such as you have long-ass sea dragon and two-tentacles eyeball creature in stage 1, undership eyeball sea monster in stage 2, long centipede creature in stage 3, pentagram like machine in stage 4, large looking seaweed monster in stage 5, cogs-like gears machine in stage 6, and large pointy creature coming out from wavy area in stage 7, so those bosses are actually pretty good in the game that requires good amount of strategy which is why those are tough as nails to beat gets really intense to play.

As I enjoyed the main arcade campaign, you can also play 7 previous stages from the Final 2 which is a great addition to this game because you wouldn't need to get Final 2 to play those 7 levels if this has already included in the Final 3 Evolved, so I also had a good time with the Final 2 stages are just as fun to play.

Unfortunately for those who own the copy of Final 2 for previous platforms may going to miss out 7 new exclusive stages that's being included in Final 3 Evolved, so yeah you really need to get it on PS5 in order to play these 7 new exclusive stages, so tough luck for PS4, XBONE, XSX/S, Switch, and PC owners will never had a chance to play Final 3 Evolved still remains to be stuck on PS5.  

Speaking of fun, you can also get an extra stages as an homage stages course DLCs which includes the stages from the previous entries of the series like from first two R-Type arcade games, R-Type 3, R-Type Delta, and list goes so on, but the good news is that you can get season pass vol.1 for free and the bad news is that you had to pay vol.2 and vol.3 for £16.99 each makes £32 both together which is hella stupidly expensive because these DLCs stages are surprisingly amazing to play but you just don't want to spend that such a high price which you had to wait for the sales go down to £8 each instead, so I just got lucky I had all three season pass (including vol.1 is free) quite cheaper which is why I really wanted to re-visit the classic stages from the previous R-Type games so badly. 

There are other game modes that are quite decent to play like the score attack mode where your goal is to make a higher score as possible in one of the individual stages, but you can also create an original course by arranging the stages they've completed in any order, so up to 10 original courses can be saved.

Then you have competition mode allowing players to challenge others across the globe, as your main goal is to complete two of these virtual space station stages in competitive score based action, and there's also the online mode called R-Park which allows you to explore around the large areas of lobby for players to interact with each other.    

There's one of the thing that kinda bums me the most is the lack of local 2 or 4 player couch co-op which is a shame because that would have made the game enjoyable to play if its has the feature which is sadly been missed out in the game.

That being said, I really enjoyed the whole game which turns out to be really great to play it on PS5 system with no regrets whatsoever.

 

Overall, it has great controls, epic boss battle, fun game modes, and enjoyable single-player arcade action. 

  

 

Graphics

The graphics is looking excellent on the PS5 hardware system despite being released on the PS5 console providing the newer engine such as Unreal Engine 5, in comparison to Final 2 which runs on the Unreal Engine 4. 

The stage settings is looking amazing for its 3D-like environmental design that are bold, sharp, and detailed which proves that the game is providing such strong quality such as nice reflection on water and waves, the structures of the level layouts has really hard surfaces textures giving a fine detail on stages, the use of lighting and shadow effects are keeping intact in some areas with the balanced level of glowing and toning surfaces, the player's and enemy's projectiles are nicely bright making an easier to spot-on screen, the weather system in one of the stage is incredibly good with winds and blows everywhere, the use of colours is remarkably vivid on some areas, and of course the player's star ships and bosses has really fantastic use of animation.

The game's performance just runs really well on the 60fps with just a little bit of frame-dips didn't really affect the overall gameplay because I believe it's an bit of slight improvement over the Final 2 releases which I'm glad the game just ran fine with no issues.

Sadly, this game just got released on PS5 which they had no plans to release on other platforms like PC and XSX/S, so this made me feel puzzled because it's not impossible for them to release Final 3 Evolved for PC and XSX/S because I'm pretty sure these systems can manage to handle Unreal Engine 5 games, so why not?

Let's hope the game can get the PC and XSX/S release in the future, when the time is right for developers to consider releasing it to other platforms, so who knows?

Overall, it has amazing 3D-like environmental design, fantastic use of animation, and solid performance.

Music and Sounds

The soundtrack in this game, especially with Final 2's OST, is sounds magnificent because I really liked the style of electronic trance music just really fits the game's action in many stages. It was composed by Yuki Iwai which she was known for creating music for games like X-Men vs Street Fighter, Tech Romancer, and the first R-Type Final, so she did such an incredible job for creating the energy of the original soundtrack that adds up the game's intense action.

I also liked the calm and soothing song at the ending credits which has two options on the sound menu such as full Japanese vocal sang by Mai lida and humming vocal sang by Haruka, so they are both sounds good but I kinda much preferred set it to the Japanese version over the humming version makes it everything better in my opinion.   

The sound design is also quite great which I really liked the loud environment of the explosions, firing shot, and collisions just about right in each stages.

Overall, it has magnificent soundtrack and great sound design.

Special Features

The game did however had several of unlockables including stage select, some decals and stuffs from shop, has multiples of playable ships up to 99, galleries, and of course stage courses DLCs.

The physical copy of the game comes with nice artbook, official soundtrack CD, and reversible cover.

Overall, a good stuffs.

Advantages

Brilliant stage presentation

Enjoyable single-player arcade action 

Epic bosses

Fun game modes

Multiples of unlockable ships

Excellent overall visuals

Magnificent soundtrack 

 

Disadvantages                        

Tight spaces can be frustrating in some areas

Missing local co-op mode

Overpriced season pass vol.2 and vol.3

No PC and XSX/S releases for this game (Why?)

Final Verdicts

Presentation 8.5/10 - brilliant stage presentation and cool overall ship design. 

Gameplay 8/10 - great controls, epic boss battle, fun game modes, and enjoyable single-player arcade action. 

Graphics 9/10 - amazing 3D-like environmental design, fantastic use of animation, and solid performance.

Music and Sounds 8.5/10 - magnificent soundtrack and great sound design.

Special Features 8/10 - stage select, some decals and stuffs from shop, has multiples of playable ships up to 99, galleries, and of course stage courses DLCs.

The physical copy of the game comes with nice artbook, official soundtrack CD, and reversible cover.

Overall 8.5/10 - R-Type Final 3 Evolved is a remarkable 2D shoot-em-ups title that never disappoints the fans of the genre will likely going to enjoy this amazing arcade game filled with terrific stage courses with chaotic level design and crazy bosses, solid gameplay system with smooth controls and cool power-ups, some of great game modes to play, and beautiful graphics engine with strong quality design and performance is what makes this game a stunning overall shooter for PS5 library.

Unfortunately for PC and XSX/S owners out there may not able to play R-Type Final 3 Evolved because you may going to miss out the 7 new exclusive stages being included on PS5 release, so like I said before hopefully they will consider releasing two platforms in the future, but I don't think they gonna bring it to 8th-gen console due to Final 3 Evolved running on Unreal Engine 5 as opposed to Final 2 running on Unreal Engine 4.

Both of the physical and digital copy of the game is hella pricy which cost about between £40 and £45 despite most of the NIS America's product is not that really cheap to purchase, but unless you may consider getting the physical copy for it's extra goodies being included in the case like what I've mentioned before, and to those who are rather much preferred to get it digitally then look it up to PS Store.       

Is it worth it? the answer is absolutely yes if you're really into with the shoot-em-ups games in general, so go for it and see what you think I guarantee this may not going to disappoint you because it's a really fun game to play.  

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