So far, NMH3 is what I expected: Hitting hard in the places you'd expect and missing harder... also in the places you expect. It's clear that the overall graphics weren't as much as a priority as getting certain cleaner HD visuals and music right, which have been amazing so far ngl. However, sometimes I need to take a second and pause my hacking and slashing to notice how man... there are a lot of cutbacks or really graphically glitchy areas in the game. I can move my camera an inch and have the entire map before my eyes change into a different kind or render with different lights and shading.
Sometimes, the shaders on Travis close in on him and make him look like what happens when you put Dragonball FighterZ on low quality settings.
Which I find funny considering Travis's model is also a little muddy. But this is what I anticipated, realistic-looking characters have always had muddy skin tones. Mortal Kombat, Apex Legends, Witcher; they all have these universal issues. The visual effects on his beam katanas and death glove moves are amazing, though. The only thing I have left to complain about is... I'll get to it.
As for what I like, the combat is the same but improved (imo) and probably the best incarnation of it. Certain enemies are braindead easy while others are insanely difficult either through jank or high armor/HP, so sometimes enemy waves can have massive difficulty spikes. I like all of the Suda moments and wackiness cutaways that Travis Strikes Again had started, they're good fun. However, one thing has always bugged me:
Whenever you finish a chapter (AKA win a ranked battle), the story cutscenes end with an actual anime ED... and then it has one of those intermission pages, like the one from DBZ where Goku and Gohan do stuff or the JoJo Stand stats screen, with a random character... and then an entire anime OP to kickstart the next chapter. The first time it happened, I was confused. The second time it happened, I was like "
Oh, I get it now! But why did they show it twice? It takes like ten minutes, there's no way they'll stick with this, right?". The third time it happened, I was like "
what the ****".
Why? Who decided to do that? Could I skip it? To be honest I didn't check, but even if I did, that's ****ing stupid. Why would you repeat if it was so long? Why would I be forced to do this? If you put a skip option on it, you have to at least be aware that it'll be annoying if it constantly stands in your way.
Overall, game's aight so far.