Nah, you get out of the repurposed Cathedral Ward stuff really fast (before the end of this QL, even) and everything I've seen after that (beaten three of the five bosses now) has been entirely new.
I couldn't skip that particular cutscene because the next scene that it would have dumped us into is a huge spoiler, but please keep complaining that I did something to try to look out for everyone watching the video and didn't stop to explain exactly why.
Next time you want to complain about something incredibly trivial on the Internet, stop for a minute and remind yourself that you don't actually know everything about everything. Don't be the type of person that makes interacting with others on the Internet so shitty.
I love how Brad says that he couldn't skip that specific cutscene even though the screen literally shows a button prompt to skip said cut scene.
It's well known at this point that, somehow, Brad can write but not read. I'm serious. HE CANNOT READ, watch any quicklook he's playing and prove me wrong!
Expectations change over the course of nearly three years, and expectations are also naturally higher for a sequel. If they'd just made the exact same game again, it would've been a definitive 3 stars.
Even side by side, the first game was a 4 verging on a 3 while this game is a 4 verging on a 5, which you already figured out for yourself. I think the list of complaints (shooting is a bit clunky, performance doesn't always do right by the visuals, could have used a little more exploration-focused content, is well made but not terribly original) is more than enough to justify the score, but different strokes. It's still a heck of a game, and if CD steps it up this much again for a third one (which I have to imagine is going to get made at this point), they'll really have something special. They've certainly proved with this that they're willing to listen to feedback, and they did a great job of building on what they started with.
@wrathofgod: The weird thing about this review to me is, @brad reviewed the 2013 game, gave it 4/5 stars and then says this game is a "great step up" over that game. Yet this is also 4/5 stars. I realize when you're grading on a 1 to 5 stars scale, with no half stars, each star can represent a pretty broad swathe of games, so maybe the 2013 game was a low 4 (almost 3) stars game and this one is a high 4 (almost 5) stars game. But it still looks weird, and I agree that text doesn't do a great job explaining why this isn't a 5 stars game.
I am wondering if this is an issue with Jeff's system? Based on my time with the game on PS4 + the reports from Digital Foundry it doesn't sound like the PS4, at least, is unplayable in any parts and the framerate has never felt nearly as bad as some people have reported. I remember on my PS3 last generation, I had a launch system when Assassins Creed: Brotherhood came out. The game was nearly unplayable, I had loads of screen tearing, dips into severe framerate, and more...turns out it ended up being because of a jank system.
I remember hearing some of the Bomb crew talking about Witcher 3's console frame rate like it was unplayable at times as well...which after 80 hours in I never experienced either. /shrug
The most likely explanation is that different people have different thresholds for what constitutes acceptable performance. I've seen plenty of ugly-low frame rate in the first five hours on PS4, and most annoyingly, almost all of it has happened while I'm trying to aim a gun at something.
I'm the last person to join the frame rate patrol, but a steady 30fps should be the absolute minimum expectation for console games. Dipping much below that starts to affect playability in an unpleasant way. I hope a performance update is soon forthcoming.
In contrast to the first game, which had you murdering mercs by the dozens and then abruptly remembered to go "oh hey supernatural stuff!" in the last third
That wasn't really what the first game was like at all. It had a very steady build up to the reveal, as @brad says that Rise seems to.
I distinctly remember the supernatural enemies toward the end of that game feeling perfunctory and not very well justified by the story.
Brad's comments