First Impressions – FOR HONOR and For Glory!

Welcome to “First Impressions”, a new series on AGB where I take you through the first 30 minutes of the some of the latest and greatest of the gaming world’s offerings. You have my promise that I will be going through the game, whatever game it may be, for the first time live on video.  No betas. No demos. No second chances. Just First Impressions.

For the series opener, I’ll be giving you my first impressions on Ubisoft’s ambitious historical fighter, FOR HONOR.

 Live By The Sword, Die By The Sword…

Wheat blows gently in the wind as the light of the sun shines upon a warm and welcoming world.  But that welcome is lost, as the land shakes and the earth ruptures, and that which was once welcome is welcome no more. From below the ground, a cataclysmic disaster rips asunder any sign of man’s presence on the world. A voice is heard, telling the tale of woe and war. The voice belongs to knight clad in black armor. Apollyon, the bringing of war.

And that’s only the opening cinematic! WOO! Rivaling that of most animated movies, FOR HONOR’s opening cinematic is epic and breath taking and left me eager to start the game. As first impressions go, that surely was an impressive outing. I was blown away by the visuals, there’s no doubt about that.

I didn’t know much about this game before I bought it, however the one thing I did know was that I had to choose a faction: Viking, Knight or Samurai. I decided to align myself with the Samurai faction, although Knight and Viking didn’t make the choice easy. From there, I was allowed to customize my character emblem, and then thrown into a quick tutorial. Right away my mind was blown. I was a Samurai. The detail that was put in the armor and movement was incredible. The surrounding castle ruins, the fire dancing in the lanterns, the medieval banners blowing in the breeze, all crafted with love. I was most certainly impressed.

The words New Mission Objective flash across the top of the screen as a side bar appears and begins to instruct me on the ways of the sword. Holding L2 locks on to enemy, while the right analog stick controls sword placement and stances. At first I practice against straw training dummies, switching between targets and alternating stances. Then an AI bot knight appears from the castle to help practice blocking and striking. The sounds of swords clashing is just spectacular, and seeing the sparks fly when steel strikes steel is a treat within itself. After a few more strikes, I knew I was sold. I was in, hook, line, and sinker. And I still hadn’t even completed the training.

First impressions? FOR HONOR is simply impressive. The sound is fantastic, the graphics are eye-popping, the story is interesting, and the game play is engaging. In the video I only played for 30 minutes, and when I switched to Twitch, I played for another hour or so, and I wasn’t not disappointed at all in any way. When beginning the story mode I was forced to go through training once again, but if that bit of drudgery was a necessary evil to continue on with the carnage and chaos of war, then I accept it gladly. I honestly didn’t mind, because as I said, this game is impressive.

As of this writing, I still haven’t completed Story Mode, so a full review is still a work in progress. If you’ve played the game, or just watched me play the game in the video, then please write in the comments and let me know what your first impressions are of FOR HONOR. Also, if there are any games you would like me to check out, then write that in the comments, too! For now, the next scheduled First Impressions will be at the end of the month when HORIZON ZERO DAWN is released! Until then, gamers, stay Awesome!