- [Narrator] The highly anticipated fantasy action-RPG,
Pascal's Wager, has finally released on the App Store.
It has been developed by TipsWorks
and published to iOS and iPad OS by Giant Network.
You may remember this game was originally shown running
on an iPhone 11 on stage at the Apple Special Event in 2019.
Today I'm going to present my, I suppose,
initial thoughts on the game,
and I will showcase how it performs across all my devices.
It's nice to finally have a decent
souls-like game on mobile.
There is no denying though,
its similarity to FromSoftware's games,
ie Dark Souls, Bloodborne, Sekiro,
or even the recent Jedi: Fallen Order.
Even when talking to the developer,
they acknowledged that this game is inspired by those ones.
Sure, it doesn't quite match the graphical fidelity
of those souls-like games,
but the quality of gameplay is not far off here.
This is a flagship experience to be played
in the palm of your hands,
without annoying mobile gatcha mechanics,
since it's a paid game, so there are no microtransactions
or ads to cheapen the experience.
And that's something hard come by these days.
Like FromSoftware's games,
Pascal's Wager is incredibly hard.
It will take you a while to understand the mechanics,
especially if you're new to this genre.
You do have an opportunity in the first chapter
to reduce monster damage greatly
by receiving the Egg of the Bearer.
This is what I did as I could not get past
the first boss for a while.
I'm just really bad at these games,
even though I enjoy them, I suck.
There are a few playable characters here,
all bringing very different play styles to the table.
The voice acting is okay.
It's pretty average, let's be honest.
And I could accept this,
but what I found a little annoying was how the dialogue
didn't always match the English subtitles.
Now you could just turn this off, but I actually,
I just find myself, I like reading subtitles.
- I have no idea, but his mask makes me feel uncomfortable.
He left shortly after you passed out.
- [Narrator] The game was made by a Chinese developer,
so there must have been some English translation mistakes
that were looked over.
To add on, the camera would sometimes get caught
behind a tree or a building, which resulted in
unnecessary damage taken from the monsters.
This could mostly be eliminated
if I reduced the camera sensitivity,
so give that a go if you're having an issue.
But how does the game perform across all my devices?
The iPhone 11 comes with the new A13 Bionic chip,
which features a 20% faster CPU and GPU than the A12.
This allows Pascal's Wager to have
advanced graphical settings enabled,
including post-processing effects, such as anti-aliasing,
bloom, and you can also have
60 frames per second gameplay here.
In-fact, when you launch the game,
it will automatically detect your hardware
and enable the iPhone 11 graphics mode.
While Giant Network have told me that
their game aims for 60 FPS gameplay here,
it will occasionally drop during more challenging scenarios,
but it's not too noticeable to the average gamer's eye.
The games load times are quite fast here too,
thanks to improved speeds from the iPhone's hardware,
attributed also by the new Metal API features in iOS 13.
This means when you die, and you'll do that often,
you won't be looking at a death screen for nearly a minute.
Pascal's Wager looks pretty great on this device.
It's definitely not the best-looking game
I've seen on mobile.
I'd say the graphics would match
seventh generation consoles,
PS3, Xbox 360, something like that.
The game is also quite dark on this iPhone,
which can hide some of the graphical imperfections.
Up next, we have the 2018 11" iPad Pro.
Playing on this device, you'll notice that
the in-game brightness for the game is higher.
The load times is still as fast,
and the iPad's battery doesn't drain nearly as quickly.
The A12X Bionic chip is very powerful,
and for graphical performance,
I would say it can outperform the A13.
This means the visual render quality
is a little higher here.
But this means some of the graphical imperfections,
if I can call them that, are more noticeable from the odd,
bland textures on characters or rocks,
to the lack or quality of grass on the ground.
Another thing is the touchscreen controls.
It's a little awkward due to the larger display.
That said, Pascal's Wager should be played with a controller
on both iPhone and iPad.
This allows dodging, parrying,
and attacking to be more precise.
But don't think for a second
that it will eliminate the difficultly factor.
Unh, unh, unh.
The iPad Pro also seems to do a better job
at managing 60 frames per second.
It does drop a little bit,
but it wasn't as bad as the iPhone 11,
So now we have an iPad Air 2.
Pascal's Wager is supported on all iPads
back to the original 2013 iPad Air.
That is pretty incredible work
on Giant Network and TipsWorks.
This model here is the second-generation iPad Air,
which comes with the Apple A8X chip.
It was pretty powerful back in 2014,
but it has its limitations nowadays for more high-end games.
For example, the game can occasionally freeze
for half a second during fights.
It also appears to automatically choose lower settings
when you initially play the game.
So you'll notice there is a lack of grass on the ground.
The edges on textures are not nearly as sharp,
and there are issues with texture pop-in.
But it's not unplayable by any means.
And if you have only this device to play Pascal's Wager,
I think you'd still enjoy yourself.
The iPhone SE has an Apple A9 chip,
which is still a solid little chip.
Most high-end games still run on this device,
like GRID Autosport, CoD Mobile,
or even The Elder Scrolls Blades.
I wouldn't suggest playing a big game like this one
on an older iPhone though,
mainly due to the smaller display.
It makes it very hard to play.
It plays okay, but obviously
the visual quality is quite reduced.
Still, you might be surprised to know
this game is supported on iPhones back to the iPhone 5S.
Wow!
It's impressive that they even
decided to support these older devices.
Pascal's Wager is an iOS exclusive for now,
but will be launching an Android in Q2 2020,
and PC and consoles later on.
Anyway, are you going to play Pascal's Wager?
Do you think it's the best souls-type game on mobile now?
What do you just think of the game overall?
Let me know everything you're thinking in the comments.
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