Aight, so let me start off by saying that no game has ever compelled me to write something like this until Anthem came out. This is truly gonna be a first for me, and honestly I don't even know what message I want to convey with this post, but I'm gonna just get what I feel off my chest regarding this game. This hopeful, promising, head scratching launch of a game. For this reason I put TL;DR in the title so y'all ain't even gotta waste your time if you don't care. Cause boy, do I have a LOT to talk about. So if you ain't tryna read, just scroll on down to the bottom. Now then...
Anthem, for every sake of the word, is not perfect. It is a game with flaws that are hard to overlook, some much more than others. However, it is not a BAD game. But I want to say for the record that Anthem is a game that was beaten with the stick before it was even given a chance to leave the ground. Between bandwagon rumor mills about in-game currency, to the joke that was the private demo, it definitely was painted in a dark shadow. Then the game came out. Now everyone and their mother's retainer is chastising it for many a reason, rightfully so in a good number of cases. Hilariously enough, not the gameplay, as is the case usually with loot shooters. But we'll gloss over that. Many reviewers of course haven't even come close to reaching a point where the game matters (10 hours or so, and that's being generous), which is, again, the case for loot shooters excluding Borderlands. Cue the "It's gonna be dead in a month" youtube comments, and whatever.
But let's talk about the real thing that gets me with this game. Remember when Destiny came out? Remember the sour taste D1 left in everyone's mouth until The Taken King dropped, and even after that came out, the economic practice that got the game slandered until people just held the L? The same thing that D2 tried to pull with Forsaken until they fixed it so it came with both DLCs, EVEN though they were most likely aware that a lot of people who played their game only bought the Warmind DLC because Curse of Osiris was wack? Yeah. Remember how D1 also flipped the entire script when TTK came out because despite the rest of the nonsense surrounding the game, it became a game worth playing? Sound similar to Destiny 2 with Forsaken, right? We not even gonna talk about the depressing roadmaps before Forsaken, with QoL changes that probably should have already been present in a sequel game. But y'all waited for that, right? Thinking emoji.
Remember The Division? I do. I remember all 330+ hours I put into that game from launch. Remember how the game basically sucked until the 1.4/1.5 patch? I definitely do. Remember how flawed the rewards in PvE content were until said patches came out that included hard as hell Incursions before the DLC came out? I SURE do. Y'all waited for that, too. Wanna go deeper? Remember Diablo 3? Remember how nonsensical that game was until D3:RoS? Remember the Auction house? I can go on and on about this, but I guess the point I'm making is that for all the ups and downs these loot games/game services put people through, they waited. Well, except for D2, but people came back to that game anyway after dropping it, myself including for all of a month.
So what gives with Anthem? I could buy the idea of "Well, we're tired of games releasing like this", but people bought D2 anyway. And they HAD a Demo. Anthem told you upfront what you were getting and you also had a Demo. Not saying that the launch was any good, for the record, but again, you knew what you were walking into. I mean, minus the technical issues and such, but anyone could have expected that from a game dependent on servers and whatnot. Plus, to their credit, they already have a roadmap. I could give people benefit of doubt and let them say "Well, with all of these games that are basically the competition, they should have taken notes, even if it is Bioware's first real loot shooter" because....well, they'd be right.
But the ONLY reason I'm hesitant to give people that, is because Destiny 2, a WHOLE SEQUEL, released with roughly the same amount of content as the previous game, and basically learned nothing. You can't give Anthem any breathing room because they should have taken notes, but will let Destiny 2 cruise on by when they already knew the game was in its best state when TTK came out, and didn't take any notes from said prequel? Forsaken's launch before the change is all the proof we need on that one, because they wanted a whole $40 for it, and if you didn't own the DLCs before Forsaken, they wanted you to drop another $35. And if you happened to own one but not the other...you still had to cough up $20. Congrats, you just bought D2 for launch price again. Sounds JUST LIKE TTK, don't it?
Biggest part of the irony? Forsaken just turned D2 into D1. Welcome to Destiny. Leave it to the critics to generally love Destiny, but leave Anthem on seen, with reviews including but not limited to titles such as "No amount of patches could make Anthem fun to play", and the time invested into the game isn't enough to get into what REALLY matters in games like this, which is usually the endgame. We can say reviews don't mean a whole lot. But to the regular market, it damn sure does. Even online meme propaganda can carry weight. Persona 4 Arena, a relatively niche fighting game that's close to my heart, was slandered before it even came out because of the autocombo system that...didn't really do anything, and it's a prime example of people truly having power over the fate of games before they even touch our hands. Now, in this case, is it a EA thing? Probably. I wouldn't even be surprised. But enough about Destiny and such, cause that's a whole different can of worms.
"BUT DON/HAKUMEN/ANGRY BLACK MAN/SOUNDBOARD GUY, ANTHEM ALSO HAS OTHER PROBLEMS. A WHOLE BUNCH OF TECHNICAL PROBLEMS!"
I too, remember falling through the world map in Division. I also remember loading times on D1 being absolute hell. Anthem cutting my whole console off...well that's kinda nutty. No excuse at all for that. But guess what? Y'all also waited for that. But y'all ain't ready to wait on Anthem. Again, I can understand the whole thing about being tired of games launching like they do. Three strongholds, one of which is just the story mission turned to 11? Grandmaster 2 and 3 being unreasonably scaled AND worthless? LOOT ECONOMY BEING GARBAGE (Something that Destiny 2 ALSO has prob-Right, I promised to shut up about D2) in a game with a meager loot table? I completely understand, and I'm not gonna fault anyone for being upset. I'm mad I have to turn on Anthem tomorrow and make use of an exploit to get decent gear because the loot economy is so damn laughably bad, instead of just being showered in garbage loot that I can at least deconstruct for mats. I'm pissed that component blueprints take a UNREASONABLE 150,000 reputation across 3 factions to earn the blueprint for, and you don't even learn about it until you get all factions to Level 3. I'm mad that the Challenge of Valor, which unlocks when you beat the game, is almost as bad a reward as heist money in GTAV, a game that has the absolute WORST economy I've ever seen in gaming history, not including Garbodor level MMOs. And if I had a dollar for every QoL change I could talk about wanting, even at such an early stage...
The thing is though, the game just came out, and it's Bioware's first loot shooter (as far as I know, anyway). One might say I'm too accepting of what's considered the norm now, which we could argue as true. But with so many things to consider, I just feel like this is a case of people complaining about things that would have made sense to get loud about in...what, 2014? Oh wait. People def did. Well, people who played the game did. And eventually, these things got fixed. Division became such a wonderful game that I wondered if it was the same game sometimes. Destiny 1 became a GODSEND after The Taken King, with RIse of Iron not being a slouch either. D3:RoS became something worth playing...disregarding how I feel about Diablo 4 being long overdue. It's really absurd how people choose NOW to be ready to write something off but weren't as skeptical as they should have been for D2, myself included. Oops.
TL;DR for those who don't wanna read: Anthem ain't that bad. If you waited for D1/Division, or made excuses, you can do the same for Anthem. If you've been consistent on being intolerant of games launching like this, congratulations! I'm proud of you. And if you simply don't like Anthem because you don't enjoy it, that's the best opinion you can have, cause you ain't gotta explain jack diddily squat.
If you made it this far, thanks for reading my rant. I hope you have a good day. And Jump Force is still wack.
Anthem, for every sake of the word, is not perfect. It is a game with flaws that are hard to overlook, some much more than others. However, it is not a BAD game. But I want to say for the record that Anthem is a game that was beaten with the stick before it was even given a chance to leave the ground. Between bandwagon rumor mills about in-game currency, to the joke that was the private demo, it definitely was painted in a dark shadow. Then the game came out. Now everyone and their mother's retainer is chastising it for many a reason, rightfully so in a good number of cases. Hilariously enough, not the gameplay, as is the case usually with loot shooters. But we'll gloss over that. Many reviewers of course haven't even come close to reaching a point where the game matters (10 hours or so, and that's being generous), which is, again, the case for loot shooters excluding Borderlands. Cue the "It's gonna be dead in a month" youtube comments, and whatever.
But let's talk about the real thing that gets me with this game. Remember when Destiny came out? Remember the sour taste D1 left in everyone's mouth until The Taken King dropped, and even after that came out, the economic practice that got the game slandered until people just held the L? The same thing that D2 tried to pull with Forsaken until they fixed it so it came with both DLCs, EVEN though they were most likely aware that a lot of people who played their game only bought the Warmind DLC because Curse of Osiris was wack? Yeah. Remember how D1 also flipped the entire script when TTK came out because despite the rest of the nonsense surrounding the game, it became a game worth playing? Sound similar to Destiny 2 with Forsaken, right? We not even gonna talk about the depressing roadmaps before Forsaken, with QoL changes that probably should have already been present in a sequel game. But y'all waited for that, right? Thinking emoji.
Remember The Division? I do. I remember all 330+ hours I put into that game from launch. Remember how the game basically sucked until the 1.4/1.5 patch? I definitely do. Remember how flawed the rewards in PvE content were until said patches came out that included hard as hell Incursions before the DLC came out? I SURE do. Y'all waited for that, too. Wanna go deeper? Remember Diablo 3? Remember how nonsensical that game was until D3:RoS? Remember the Auction house? I can go on and on about this, but I guess the point I'm making is that for all the ups and downs these loot games/game services put people through, they waited. Well, except for D2, but people came back to that game anyway after dropping it, myself including for all of a month.
So what gives with Anthem? I could buy the idea of "Well, we're tired of games releasing like this", but people bought D2 anyway. And they HAD a Demo. Anthem told you upfront what you were getting and you also had a Demo. Not saying that the launch was any good, for the record, but again, you knew what you were walking into. I mean, minus the technical issues and such, but anyone could have expected that from a game dependent on servers and whatnot. Plus, to their credit, they already have a roadmap. I could give people benefit of doubt and let them say "Well, with all of these games that are basically the competition, they should have taken notes, even if it is Bioware's first real loot shooter" because....well, they'd be right.
But the ONLY reason I'm hesitant to give people that, is because Destiny 2, a WHOLE SEQUEL, released with roughly the same amount of content as the previous game, and basically learned nothing. You can't give Anthem any breathing room because they should have taken notes, but will let Destiny 2 cruise on by when they already knew the game was in its best state when TTK came out, and didn't take any notes from said prequel? Forsaken's launch before the change is all the proof we need on that one, because they wanted a whole $40 for it, and if you didn't own the DLCs before Forsaken, they wanted you to drop another $35. And if you happened to own one but not the other...you still had to cough up $20. Congrats, you just bought D2 for launch price again. Sounds JUST LIKE TTK, don't it?
Biggest part of the irony? Forsaken just turned D2 into D1. Welcome to Destiny. Leave it to the critics to generally love Destiny, but leave Anthem on seen, with reviews including but not limited to titles such as "No amount of patches could make Anthem fun to play", and the time invested into the game isn't enough to get into what REALLY matters in games like this, which is usually the endgame. We can say reviews don't mean a whole lot. But to the regular market, it damn sure does. Even online meme propaganda can carry weight. Persona 4 Arena, a relatively niche fighting game that's close to my heart, was slandered before it even came out because of the autocombo system that...didn't really do anything, and it's a prime example of people truly having power over the fate of games before they even touch our hands. Now, in this case, is it a EA thing? Probably. I wouldn't even be surprised. But enough about Destiny and such, cause that's a whole different can of worms.
"BUT DON/HAKUMEN/ANGRY BLACK MAN/SOUNDBOARD GUY, ANTHEM ALSO HAS OTHER PROBLEMS. A WHOLE BUNCH OF TECHNICAL PROBLEMS!"
I too, remember falling through the world map in Division. I also remember loading times on D1 being absolute hell. Anthem cutting my whole console off...well that's kinda nutty. No excuse at all for that. But guess what? Y'all also waited for that. But y'all ain't ready to wait on Anthem. Again, I can understand the whole thing about being tired of games launching like they do. Three strongholds, one of which is just the story mission turned to 11? Grandmaster 2 and 3 being unreasonably scaled AND worthless? LOOT ECONOMY BEING GARBAGE (Something that Destiny 2 ALSO has prob-Right, I promised to shut up about D2) in a game with a meager loot table? I completely understand, and I'm not gonna fault anyone for being upset. I'm mad I have to turn on Anthem tomorrow and make use of an exploit to get decent gear because the loot economy is so damn laughably bad, instead of just being showered in garbage loot that I can at least deconstruct for mats. I'm pissed that component blueprints take a UNREASONABLE 150,000 reputation across 3 factions to earn the blueprint for, and you don't even learn about it until you get all factions to Level 3. I'm mad that the Challenge of Valor, which unlocks when you beat the game, is almost as bad a reward as heist money in GTAV, a game that has the absolute WORST economy I've ever seen in gaming history, not including Garbodor level MMOs. And if I had a dollar for every QoL change I could talk about wanting, even at such an early stage...
The thing is though, the game just came out, and it's Bioware's first loot shooter (as far as I know, anyway). One might say I'm too accepting of what's considered the norm now, which we could argue as true. But with so many things to consider, I just feel like this is a case of people complaining about things that would have made sense to get loud about in...what, 2014? Oh wait. People def did. Well, people who played the game did. And eventually, these things got fixed. Division became such a wonderful game that I wondered if it was the same game sometimes. Destiny 1 became a GODSEND after The Taken King, with RIse of Iron not being a slouch either. D3:RoS became something worth playing...disregarding how I feel about Diablo 4 being long overdue. It's really absurd how people choose NOW to be ready to write something off but weren't as skeptical as they should have been for D2, myself included. Oops.
TL;DR for those who don't wanna read: Anthem ain't that bad. If you waited for D1/Division, or made excuses, you can do the same for Anthem. If you've been consistent on being intolerant of games launching like this, congratulations! I'm proud of you. And if you simply don't like Anthem because you don't enjoy it, that's the best opinion you can have, cause you ain't gotta explain jack diddily squat.
If you made it this far, thanks for reading my rant. I hope you have a good day. And Jump Force is still wack.