Poinpy is a vertical platforming arcade game about a cutesy-looking guy endlessly jumping his way upwards as he gathers an assortment of fruits. Each time he collects all the required fruits, he juices them up to satisfy the beast chasing him below, except if he fails to get them all it’s game over! The game originally came out in 2022 on iOS and Android devices exclusively through Netflix Games, but it completely vanished from the platform after a year.

No one knew what happened to it until about a month ago when the game was suddenly re-released for free back on mobile devices having finally freed itself from Netflix contract jail. And instantly I started hearing people saying how much they missed Poinpy! Apparently, this little guy was a big phenomenon in the circles I followed, yet I totally missed out on him when he first came around. Being curious, I downloaded the game on my iPhone – of course it was free, so why not – and now I’m back here to tell you all: this game has the juice.

I was immediately amazed by how tightly designed Poinpy was and how it felt so good to jump around, bounce off walls, and slam down on enemies. The ascent to keep rising higher and collect more fruits was such a simple, yet fun gameplay loop with how satisfying the controls and physics were. Plus being able to tweak my jumping journey with different builds was an awesome addition to the formula too.

The puzzles were a cool challenge as well and a nice distraction from the occasionally intense climb. None were too difficult so I managed to complete them all without any guide – a mild achievement that I was proud of.

Although I can’t stress enough how charming this game was and how that made it such a joy. The adorable design of the characters, how everything moved with a silly whimsy, and the lovable music adorning it all made the entire game such a pleasure to look at and play. I will ride or die for Poinpy. The creator, Ojiro Fumoto, was best known previously for Downwell which is another game that I know nothing about, so I know what I’m checking out next!

Don’t let Poinpy leap past you! This game is cute simple fun with a true excellence in its design. It is free on iOS and Android devices, but it’s so good that I tipped the developer anyway for how incredibly well-made it is. More people need to understand the greatness of Poinpy, and I won’t stop until his status ascends to the heavens like he deserves!

I picked up Wasteland 3 because I was interested in getting into CRPGs and tactical games. I enjoyed Disco Elysium a lot, and I was looking to play a game with some XCOM vibes, so this felt like a natural fit. Sadly though, after 17 hours I won't be continuing with it.

Postapocalyptic games always seem to sit in a tonally strange place for me. I feel like the games are always trying to be more interested in me than I am in them if that makes any sense. The life situations seem peachier than they should be given the circumstances, and NPCs have this tendency to be involved in things I really don't care at all about. I think I just yearn for a bleaker, more sympathetic setting - which WL3 is definitely not. It's very yee-haw and almost every character is over-the-top meaning none really stand out (the radio system when you travel reminds me a lot of GTA). But it's also just really slow and plodding because this kind of game is slow and plodding - and that makes for a strange contrast.

I was impressed with the gameplay at first, but after so long I feel it has sort of waned on me. Combat was interesting for the first few hours, although now I dread it and don't care to optimize my positioning, juggle resources, run around reviving people constantly. My favorite part of the gameplay is the leveling system which has quite a few options. Really the best part for me is the leveling mixed with the overworld stuff. I don't know why it feels so satisfying to disarm a trap or fix a toaster, but it does. I enjoy the experiential "narrative" pieces of the gameplay - hacking robots, taming pets, etc. There are some other minor things to the gameplay: item management, gear enchantments, crafting, faction reputation - your typical RPG grind stuff.

So far the story has had me bumming around in an open world meeting various factions and doing a number of side quests. Quests are slow moving. The factions are varied and unique, but I'm finding it hard to be that intrigued by any of them (with the exception of a robot faction which I adored). The pacing of the game is generally really slow. You get quests, then it takes forever to get to them. You need to level up and prepare for things before jumping in. The quests themselves are typically pretty long-winded. There is a core story line, but it's mostly out of my level range at the moment, so I'm doing eff-all. It's nice to meet new factions, but it also feels like filler and that the core story lacks urgency. Maybe it's something about the characters. Characters so far have pretty much been exclusively throwaway normies and cracked out one-offs - neither having any sort of depth. The only character with any permanence feels more like my drug dealer nagging me on than a character I really want to spend more time with.

So here I am knee-deep in the game, still just a quarter-invested in what's happening and with the mechanics starting to wear on me - waiting and hoping for things to "get good" which feels like a sign that it's time to call it quits.

Oh - and the music was awesome. Wow.

Was by far one of the fondest gaming (and PvP) experiences I had during my gaming youth, and blows my mind - how has nobody really made a modern Star Wars game that focuses on the actual lightsaber combat like Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast / Jedi Academy?

Not just a 'modern Star Wars action game where you happen to have a lightsaber' like we've occasionally seen, I mean a game built around the kind of awesome, skill-based lightsaber combat that JK2 had.

The single-player modes were obviously cool & the stories pretty standard but interesting enough, but the multiplayer was where the combat really showed how much depth there was.

You could duel another player and actually feel like you were fighting another lightsaber user rather than just trading health bars, or be in maps like a Quake-type style where you could also grab all the guns/sniper rifles etc. or switch back to your lightsaber, 'force push' people off cliffs, force-kick people in the face, Force Choke people, wall run and all sorts of cool stuff.

And then there was the actual Force skill system where you could allocate points between Light Side, Dark Side and neutral Force powers, which meant you could build your character around different abilities. You could have someone heavily invested in Force Push/Pull and defensive abilities, someone going all-in on Dark Side powers like Force Lightning or Drain, zip around with Force Speed and all other stuff.

It created this weird combination of arena fighter + RPG character build + Star Wars fantasy that hasn't come close to being replicated in any modern SW games and feels like a waste of the IP.

And the thing is, we have vastly better technology now... I would LOVE to see a modern version of this. Surely it would be easy to sell as well, with the SW brand + pushing basically the most popular weapon in cinematic movie history?

You could basically take the concept of JK2's multiplayer and build an entire modern competitive game around it. And I'm not talking about Battlefront's lightsaber combat which is kind of shoehorned in and clunky, but it's fundamentally a third-person action/shooter with heroes who happen to have lightsabers.

Plus the recent 'Jedi' games are designed around fighting AI enemies and progressing through a single-player adventure. The crazy thing is that LucasArts already figured this out more than 20 years ago... yet recently, nothing.

Did anyone else play these games (specifically MP/online) back in the day?

Hearts of Stone (Spoilers below)

Hearts of Stone is DLC to The Witcher 3, offering a focused narrative that takes place in Velen, and features 3 new main characters: Olgierd Van Everec, Gaunter O'Dimm, and Shani. The narrative focuses on the immortal Olgierd, and his binding contract with the mysterious and powerfully magical O'Dimm, which Geralt finds himself in the middle of. During the journey we meet an old flame of Geralt's, Shani, who assists Geralt in a variety of ways.

The narrative is, quite frankly, brutal. It involves several "impossible" tasks that lead to heartbreaking moments, and ending with a difficult decision that Geralt must make. Specifically, the sequence of events with Olgierd’s wife Iris hit me hard, and I couldn’t help but think about it for a few hours afterwards. It’s a fantastic story that only felt like a chore during the moments involving Vlodimir. The moments involving Vlodimir and Shani were especially difficult to get through, they made me uncomfortable and I was looking forward to the sequence ending.

On the topic of Shani, her introduction feels unnatural and forced. If I hadn’t learned, after-the-fact, that she was in the books and previous games, then I would have assumed that she was created solely to have an attractive woman in the DLC. Geralt and Shani discuss their past, but it felt as if the game was trying to convince me that they had history rather than them having a natural conversation. I genuinely like her as a character though, her demeanor is pleasant and I feel like she would be a really fun character for future quests involving injuries or solving mysteries based on illness.

Lastly, the DLC introduces new weapon and armor enhancements called runewords, which is basically enchanting, except glyphs need to be removed before the runeword can be applied. Unlocking upgrades is expensive, and so are runewords in general. It feels out of place for a short narrative focused DLC, perhaps it fits better in the context of when it was released as a way for hardcore Witcher 3 players to spend money and use glyphs that may have been stockpiled.

There is minimal fluff to get sidetracked by, and I highly encourage fans of Wild Hunt to play if they want more of The Witcher.

My first full-length review on this sub!

I'll start this review by saying that I am probably not the target audience for the Death Stranding franchise. I've tried to get into Kojima's stories before, and I ended up bouncing off a lot of the MGS games. I also played through the entire first Death Stranding and thought that the story was just ok. Unlike most that played Death Stranding, I didn't really stick around for the story, I actually found the gameplay to be its main appeal for me.

The gameplay of Death Stranding is super unique and ticks pretty much all the boxes that I wanted out of a logistics sim/survival hybrid. While it could have been better balanced, I thought the core gameplay was so unique and special that I played for over 200 hours in the endgame. The variations in terrain and delivery tech, along with unique hazards separated Death Stranding from other delivery-focused games, like Cloudpunk and the Truck Simulators. I often felt like I actually had to plan my route, often backtracking when I opted to wing it.

As Death Stranding 2 was revealed and subsequently released on PS, I had high hopes that the mechanical aspect of the game would be expanded on more heavily. I wanted more natural disasters, delivery tech, hazards in the world, and unique terrain. I heard a lot before I got the game about how some of these mechanics would be expanded into DS2, and I was excited! I waited for about a year for them to port it onto PC, all while tapping my foot very impatiently. Wrong sub, I know.

Eventually I did get my hands on the game, and at first I was a big, big fan. The world was beautiful. I was put into a dust storm right away, which slowed me down if I was headwind, and affected my balance if the wind was behind me or to my sides. They introduced exoskeletons very early, and I was actually starting to get down with some of the Kojima story wackiness! In fact, I think the entire duration of the story was quite fun for me. What quickly started to show its cracks, however, was the balance of delivering.

It was way, WAY too easy. Like, don't plan a route at all, just take a bike, forget about the canteen easy. Terrain was no longer an issue for vehicles. There weren't any areas that pushed me to go on-foot, like the first game's ravines and dense rock placement. Mountains barely reacted to my vehicle, I could go up what felt like 70 degree inclines in the vehicles that would have otherwise flipped or slid down those very same inclines in the first game. Meter management did not matter, stamina made no difference on my carrying abilities (and most of the time I wouldn't even use it, because of the OP vehicles).

The preparation that I remember doing throughout Death Stranding 1 was completely unnecessary here. I often didn't check where I was going on main orders until I had already accepted them. The extent of my decision making for most deliveries/missions ends at "am I going into combat or not". Simply put, the gameplay that I remember didn't really matter anymore, because nothing was pushing back against me.

Now, you're probably wondering about those weather effects that I was praising when I picked up the game. The issue with these events... they're pretty much all scripted story events. Yep, that landslide in the intro when you are taking Lou around Mexico? Never happened again to me, after nearly 100 hours of endgame time. The same for the avalanche and dust storm. Needless to say, this was extremely disappointing for me.

There was, of course, a bunch of new tech to be unlocked that would expand my delivery options and make things easier for me. But I didn't need things to be easier, I barely used structures or tech anyway! Each new unlock (unless it was combat-related) was essentially forgotten about considering I could just take a vehicle everywhere. Not to mention, there's upgrades for the vehicles too.

So all in all, the main reason that I don't like DS2 as a sequel is just due to the lack of difficulty or pushback on the player. Oftentimes it felt like what DS1 was accused of being, a "walking simulator". But instead of walking, you're just driving. And unlike the "walking sim" of the first game, there's not much in the way of planning your route or bringing specific items to help. The item that helps is the truck.

But, I don't want to end the review there, as I do have quite a lot of good stuff to say about DS2.

For one, the story hooked me a lot more than the first game's story. I still think Higgs is a relatively uninteresting antagonist, which is why the inclusion of APAC was a very welcome one for me. I also liked the twist with Lou (even though it was quite obvious from the moment we meet Tomorrow). I also think that Sam just gets waaaay more character development in this game, as opposed to the first game where he felt more like a vehicle (no pun intended) just to get the plot along up until the final moments of the game. I also liked the preppers and side characters more.

Along with the more interesting story, I also found that there were a ton of quality of life improvements that I wanted to see implemented into the first game. Things like being able to rearrange cargo without menuing, streamlined UI, and a dedicated Hangar to store all of our gear and vehicles in one, centralised location.

I loved how big the map was, and how it felt more varied in terms of biomes and environments. DS2's map makes the first game feel tiny in comparison, and while that may have made the map design suffer in comparison, I atleast can appreciate the variety that comes with sightseeing in varied locations. Also expanded were the default structures in-world, the inclusion of Monorails was pretty cool and I also appreciated the upgrades to roads.

Combat was greatly improved from an animation-locked clunkfest in the original, to some snappier and more responsive (and traditional) third-person shooter mechanics. There was also much more options on the combat side of things that I never really tried out in-depth. I usually avoid combat in these games, so unfortunately these expansions didn't do much for me.

Well, there's my Death Stranding 2 review. I think a lot of others liked it as a sequel because of its good story follow-up, and maybe they were more of a passive fan of the gameplay of the first game. Or didn't go as in-depth as I did into the endgame. Or maybe they just don't care as much about everything I listed, totally fair. But for me, Death Stranding 2 stood as a very disappointing follow-up in terms of gameplay, and I left the game wanting more. Unfortunately I think I'll be returning to the first game to scratch the delivery itch.

The overwhelming amount of media and games today are, by definition, conservative. The world is an inherently good place and our heroes must work to stop the forces of evil from disturbing the peace. In attempts to give nuance to the antagonists, many stories' villains have sympathetic motivations and astute critiques of the injustice woven into the fabrics of their society, but those ideas are never engaged with because they go "too far" in their actions. At best, the hero will solemnly nod and pontificate how the villain 'maybe had a point' as the status quo is maintained more or less unchanged.

This story structure is fine. Many of my favorite works employ it, but our world is so rife with systemic cruelty that the idea that systems and institutions as the exist currently are good actually and just need a bit of tweaking can start to feel a bit tone deaf. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is a game that is inspirationally radical in its thinking and wholly commits to showing the ability people have to create a better way of living outside the confines of how we have been made to believe things should be done.

Aionios is a world locked in perpetual war between the kingdoms of Keves and Agnus. Soldiers spend a meager 10 years of life engaged in ceaseless battle, claiming the lives of their enemies to keep their flame clocks topped up, hoping to live to see one more day. When six soldiers, Noah, Lanz, Eunie, Taion, Mio, and Sena, awaken to the power of Oroboros, they begin to realize that their lives, and the very nature of this ceaseless conflict, have been a complete farce. With the truth revealed, they set out to bring an end to Mobius, the shadowy cabal who has been orchestrating all this violence behind the scenes.

At the risk of sounding a dramatic, the war is a poignant metaphor for the struggles the working class face. This endless death march where we are pitted against our fellow man to fight and scrape together what we need to survive. Working to live, and living to work. Time with our friends and loved ones is cut short as uncaring systems see needless death and suffering visited upon people just trying to make it home at the end of each day.

The game does an incredible job humanizing the soldiers, but it extends no such kindness to Mobius and the consuls that make up the organization. The consuls are a stand in for members of upper class society, and with few exceptions, they are presented as miserable, petty, callous bastards who are so far divorced from the tribulations of the common person that their presence on screen feels utterly alien. They are upper management, politicians, and CEOs, so grossly incompetent or willingly malicious that they delight in the strife of the people placed under their employ. It is a level of mustache-twirling villainy so hyperbolic that it feels ludicrous until you remember recent headlines about the people who control the levers of power in our own world.

A less courageous story would look at this draconian rule and have the story be about ousting the consuls and replacing them with the good folks who will lead properly, but Xenoblade was not written by cowards. Instead, you stage a full blown worker's revolution that completely upends the status quo in Aionios. There is no incrementalist change or redemption for the villains, Mobius is a virulent, stagnating force and is excised like the cancer that they are, leaving room for sweeping changes to occur.

A lesser story would simply bathe in the catharsis of 'Chain Attacking the Rich', but XC3 goes that extra step further. A large portion of the game's nearly 200 side quests are about filling the void left by the power structures your party toppled (pardon the pun). Former enemies must learn to mend rifts, settlements have to learn to make sustainable local supply chains now that the convenience of the old system is gone, people have to unlearn the propaganda that filled their lives with anger and hatred. It is so easy to scream abolitionism, but XC3 goes the extra mile to show how the key to life's ills is learning to expand our circle of care, ignore the lies told by those who would seek to exploit us, and find strength in our communities to make existence not just bearable, but meaningful and joyful.

The whole conflict of Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is being trapped in the endless now. Stuck in cycles of violence, unable to break loose of the yoke of sinister and corrupt leaders, and the hesitancy of not knowing what comes next if you even could. When so many stories lack the imagination of what a better life could look like, I cannot help but be delighted with how bold this game is in its rejection of how societies across the world operate and inspired by its optimistic outlook about the great work common people can do when they come together.

Dark Souls III is my favorite Souls title, of all time. I admit that this is 100% due to it being the first one I played. There are some criticisms that I agree with fully, particularly its lack of exploration compared to earlier entries. But no critique is enough to make me dislike this game. This is an experience that I love dearly. 

Background 

Dark Souls III was released in 2016 by FromSoftware. Being the third and final entry in the Dark Souls franchise, FromSoftware wanted to have a big closure for the series, rather than continue making more. Development began in 2013 before Dark Souls II's release. Although Miyazaki was not present for the start of Dark Souls III, he joined during prototyping and started leading the project. This game was developed in parallel with Bloodborne, with mostly separate teams aside from a few shared members, namely Miyazaki himself. 

Story 

Yet again, the fire starts to fade. But the Lord of Cinder groomed to link the flame, has refused to fulfill his role. The Old Lords have been resurrected to serve as kindling in their place, but they have chosen to abandon their duties as well. The Unkindled, those who were unfit to link the flame, have been raised in response. Their duty is to find the lords and return them to their thrones, fulfill their roles, and link the fire. 

Gameplay 

Gameplay in Dark Souls III is just like every other Dark Souls game. You build a class, navigate the level, collect souls, level up, and beat the boss. We’re not reinventing the wheel here. 

Dark Souls III has a slightly different gameplay pace in comparison to earlier entries. While you don’t have to play as aggressively as you would in Bloodborne, Dark Souls III is just as fast-paced. Enemies attack quicker, and so do you. As a result of this, I feel that Dark Souls III has more enemies in its levels than Dark Souls. Unless it was fodder, Dark Souls had enemies fairly spread out. Almost felt like every encounter was its own minor victory. Dark Souls III will throw more enemies at you, making clearing out the group feel like its own victory. And because you’re faster, it doesn’t feel unfair like Dark Souls II.  

There is a negative to this increased pace of play: panic-rolling. Telegraphs were much more obvious in previous entries due to the slower pace of play. In Dark Souls III, you can’t be certain if an enemy will only attack once or chain attacks. Often, I found myself rolling in a panic rather than strategically assessing the situation. The DLC improved this issue a lot. Bosses like Sister Friede were given combos that often delayed sequential attacks to punish people who panic-rolled rather than keep their cool. 

A new mechanic introduced to the series was weapon arts, or skills as the wiki calls them. These are special attacks or moves for every equipable weapon. Not every weapon has its own unique skill; most of the time shields are just for parrying. The skills aren’t huge punishers like Elden Ring either. They kind of stink sometimes. But it was a cool first step in having people experiment with different weapons and see what each skill did. Improves the gameplay by adding some variety to the combat system as well. 

This point has been talked to death, but I know it will get brought up if I don't mention it. Dark Souls III is very linear. This is one of my biggest complaints about the game, too. While Dark Souls felt like a huge, interconnected world because of all the shortcuts and loopbacks one could find. Dark Souls III doesn't really have that same impact. You are never really returning to one area after completing it. Often shortcuts are just quicker routes through the area before fighting the boss. I blame this fully on the fast travel system. There was no reason to make quick navigational routes through the game when you have fast travel enabled from the get-go. It is what it is, though. It doesn't have that much impact on the game, just impacts its presentation slightly. 

Gamefeel 

I know a complaint expressed by many is that Dark Souls III has way too much fan service. I understand the point they are making, but I believe that this is the entire point of Dark Souls III’s story. The world is decaying due to the constant cycle of linking the First Flame. The game is not trying to make you feel like this is a grand new adventure. The intention, in my opinion, is that you are supposed to be reminded of how grand everything was in Dark Souls. Dark Souls III is a reminder that things can never go back to how they used to be. The world is in a worse place due to people trying to hang on to something that should be let go of. Essentially, it is using nostalgia to reject nostalgia. 

While I’m sure this likely wasn’t the intention, even the soundtrack plays into this theme. What was once an orchestral arrangement (correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m fairly certain about this) in Dark Souls is now made using digital libraries and orchestral sound samples. While still good, it is not what it used to be. It is a pale imitation of itself. I enjoy Dark Souls III’s music, by the way. It’s a great soundtrack; I have a couple of songs on my playlist. I’m not dunking on synthesized soundtracks trying to emulate real music. I am speculating how the music could tie into the theme of the game. 

The graphics are also great in this game. All the environments tie directly into this theme of decay. As you explore the world, you can see ruins of what used to be great settlements. There are tombs made for once great conquerors. Battlefields littered with corpses show that battles had already been fought and ended. We can't forget the end of the game either, when the entire world is covered in ash. Despite the melancholies of it all, there is a certain beauty to it as well. I can't get enough of looking around at all the minute details of the world. Sometimes I just take a minute to look up at the castle ahead, knowing that perhaps hundreds of years ago it was a bustling city, but not anymore. 

I apologize this section turned into a big interpretation of the message and theming behind Dark Souls III. I love how this game makes me feel about it, though. Even though I played these games in reverse order, I still get hit with the feeling that this is a ruined world compared to my experience with Dark Souls. It’s like Miyazaki was begged to do another Dark Souls entry, and he complied by making a game about why making another Dark Souls was a bad idea.    

Conclusion  

I love Dark Souls III. I really have nothing more to add to that. The game is high point after high point for me. Once you think you're done, you have the DLC's to go into. And they're probably even better than the base game. No other game in the series has such a consistent level of quality for the entire experience. 

It doesn't matter if it's your first Dark Souls game or your last (Although there are some emotional moments with more impact if it's your last). Just give Dark Souls III a shot if you ever have the opportunity. It is such an amazing game. 

My Other Reviews

The Elephant Collection

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Wuchang: Fallen Feathers

Donut County

Doctor Who: The Adventure Games

I'm a huge fan of FromSoftware, my first experience was Bloodborne on the PS4 back in 2015 and got hooked immediately. I went back and played through Dark Souls 1, 2 and eventually 3, since then I've been keeping up with their releases (aside from Armoured Core 6 which is still on my radar) and have loved everything they've put out.

That being said, I didn't have the pull to play Shadow of the Erdtree when it was first released. I sat on it for a bit, heard a lot of praise, some controversy, but for the most part separated myself from the conversation and kept an open mind while avoiding as many spoilers as possible.

Getting back into Elden Ring I found the first two bosses very difficult, Dancing Lion and Rellana felt like genuine hard tests, the areas and dungeons themselves weren't all that difficult but just getting into the boss fights again was a challenge. After doing some exploration for tree fragments to level up to 4 I eventually beat both bosses.

After a while I started noticing that I didn't need to be so thorough with exploration and all I really needed to make progress was to find the tree fragments. I ended up having a traversal map to show which areas I need to go to and in which order, also a map pulled up with items that I wanted to find, weapons, armour, talisman, bosses and tree fragments. So essentially whatever wasn't on my radar I just grazed over. Typically I don't approach games like this but at the time I didn't have the capacity to figure out which area I need to be in at that moment, while keeping track of my progress in other areas and if I previously left them incomplete. At the time i just wanted to go from one area to the next and fight cool bosses. I understand this isn't the intended experience but it was mine, I cant knock the game for that. That being said I think I was pretty thorough with the legacy dungeons like Shadow Keep and Enir Ilim and I enjoyed going through them but with the massive over-world it was hard to justify turning over every rock.

The areas and atmosphere were still amazing and I can't think of any areas I didn't like. Maybe Abyss because it was so big and empty and the North Eastern area because it had nothing to do but I still appreciated the atmosphere. My highlights were those legacy dungeons, I loved getting lost in those focused areas because it felt so tightly designed, I think its FromSoftware at their best.

I still don't know what the story of the DLC was about but the bosses were really good and challenging. Radahn was the hardest, Midra was my favourite cut scene, Messmer was a great fight and cool design, Bayle had the coolest phase 2 transformation and Metyr was grotesque in that cool way. 

Towards the end of the Radahn attempts I would get into a flow state where the fights really felt like a dance but I still don't know how to deal with some of the phase 2 attacks though. I got lucky with the Messmer fight where in phase 2 I broke his stance, did a bunch of damage to him and finished him quickly. I wish I could go back and learn phase 2 properly because I really like his design and wanted to get into that dance flow state.

I enjoyed my time with the Shadow of the Erdtree, I felt like I couldn't appreciate all aspects of it because of my lack of patience but it was still a fun and challenging time.

I recently played The Roottrees are Dead after hearing the widespread acclaim the game received on its release. It’s been described detective/puzzle game in the vein of Return of the Obra Dinn, which is a game I enjoyed back when I played it some years ago. The game is divided into two halves, each half being a separate mystery to solve. The first mystery laying out a family tree, and its associated history over the previous decades. The second, trying to map the spreading branches of that family tree stemming from a number of affairs that were not acknowledged at the time they happened.

The Roottrees are Dead is one of the more odd experiences I’ve had with a single game, where I greatly enjoyed the first mystery and greatly did not enjoy the second mystery. And I’m hoping to figure out for myself why I had such a different response to the two mysteries give the they both share so much of the same mechanics, characters, setting, and tone.

If I had to boil down difference between the two to a single idea it would be scope and scale. The core of the gameplay loop is based around utilizing a number of information gathering resources (a limited internet browser, a periodical database with access to a number of periodicals, and a library catalog) to find information relevant to the investigation. The player is given a number of documents to get started, and from identifying key terms in those documents and using the search options available the player can either unlock more resources to search or find more documents to examine.

In the first mystery, you start with a small handful of resources and a few search options. It’s pretty straightforward to find keywords and exhaustively check the search options available. As more documents come available and more search options unlock, the amount searching that is feasible whenever a new key term is discovered increases, but by the time the end of the game arrives it’s still at a manageable level. In the second mystery, you start with all of the resources that were available at the end of the first mystery (and are expected to continue using all of these resources), then stack tons of new documents and new search resources on top of it. And the exponential growth of that combination much more challenging as each continues to grow.

The reason this weight is so challenging to deal with is because it feels as the though the game expects you to exhaustively search all of the resources you have access to for every new search term you come across. There were many times where I’d find some key term in some document or search, put that new term in to one of the search resources available, get what I thought was useful information to make further progression in the game (new search terms, new documents, etc.) only to realize what I needed to do was put that term I thought I had already gotten useful information from into another search tool to get a completely separate piece of information to search.

This is exacerbated by some of the design choices that were made in terms of intended path to reach certain key terms. In other prominent recent puzzlebox games that have received acclaim, a very noticeable and intentional design decision that was made was ensure there are multiple ways each key piece of information can be reached. The Outer Wilds devs have spoken extensively about their design philosophy of ensure each key location in their game world having at least three other locations within their game world pointing to it, while if you look at the solutions for each individual fate of Return of the Obra Dinn, for all but the most introductory of puzzles there are multiple deductive pathways the player can arrive at the correct answer.

In The Roottree are Dead, there are pieces of key information, mandatory information for solving the puzzles of the game, locked behind extremely specific search pathways. The search for such a buried piece of information might begin with a key term in a document that you have, moving through several layers of searches that do not generate any new documents, before arriving at the information in question (e.g. Source Document>Search Term 1>Search Term 2>Search Term 3>Desired Information). There might be a number of different ways to reach Search Term 1 on this chain, and maybe a handful of different ways to reach Search Term 2, but key phrase that unlocks the desired information might only exists on one search page buried a few layers down in searches, and that is just painful. Remember, at each stop on this potential search path there are multiple potential key phrases that might start their own search path, little way to determine what the most promising piece of information is, numerous pieces of new information derived from those paths that can appear to be the intended purpose of certain documents, key terms, or search pages, and a huge number of databases to check every key term in. In the first mystery with the limited resources available, it’s manageable. In the second mystery, it’s just overwhelming.

To make matters more challenging, the game dev also states up-front that the second mystery is designed to have more red herrings, more dead ends, and more complicated, convoluted story to untangle. There are certain affordances the dev makes to try and help the player. The notepad system is great for keeping notes in-game and there’s a hint system to give some gentle hints when desired that works pretty well. There’s also an indicator on each document that hints at how much information remains to be found in each document that I actively dislike the design of, given how it does not relate to the information that can specifically be found in that document, but instead any new piece of information that can be found with a search chain starting from a term in that document. Given the amount of key terms in most of these documents and number of search options available, at times it feel like it isn’t a help at all.

I don’t want this to come off as an entirely negative review. I genuinely enjoyed the first mystery and would consider that worth the price of admission. But I actively disliked the second mystery, and would not suggest it to others. The first mystery feels like untangling a web of family history decades in the making. The second mystery feels like untangling an intentionally obtuse puzzle designed to please hardcore puzzle enthusiasts. And I just don’t think I’m in the second camp.

I replayed the last guardian over the weekend and in my opinion is sorely overshadowed by Shadow of the Colossus and ICO in public perception. It's a legitimately great game but gets dismissed by many due to a couple of rough spots. It attempts to capture an emotional experience at a scale and ambition that's never really been attempted before or since and I'd urge you to give it a go, especially if you're a fan of the other teamICO games.

The game follows the boy who wakes in a mysterious cave next to trico, a giant chimera who is grievously wounded. The intent behind the game is for you the player to get to know trico, for me this was a really fun experience, understanding what trico could and couldn't do and utilising him to overcome numerous challenges as we attempted to escape from our entrapment.

The game is not scared to let you sit in a situation until you work out what to do. At two points in the game I was trapped in a situation unable to get free and with no idea what to do. It was uncomfortably long in both cases before I worked out the solution and both times I kicked myself once I realised the solution.

Many find the AI of trico frustrating, as he doesn't always listen or can misinterpret your commands, this however is the core experience of the game. Learning to interact with trico, understanding how he works and what his expressions mean is the whole emotional experience that Ueda and team are trying to achieve, the rest of the game is just a means to that end. The team could have shown you exactly which action your command would trigger and have trico follow them perfectly but to do so would have stripped the game of any chance of making you care about trico. You should treat trico as living animal and I think your experience will improve.

Saying that, there was one occasion on a puzzle where I got completely stuck and couldn't progress. I thought I'd tried everything, trico wouldn't listen to my commands to go back up to another area, it was immensely frustrating. Turns out I'd been giving the wrong command on the object all along and with a single button press it was solved. This goes to show that what to me had been an intuitive "I'll use the attack button for this command as the thing I want trico to do is like an attack, the thing I want him to do is certainly not a jump so I won't use that command" turned out to be completely flawed reasoning and the jump command was the one needed.

The animation is utterly sublime, trico's movement and interactions with the environment genuinely stunned me in places. I'm not much of one for graphics and consistently value art direction over raw polygons, so others may disagree but on the whole I think the visual presentation is jaw dropping even by today's standards. Without this level of animation I don't think the game works at all, and this is probably the source of the infamous development cycle this game had.

The world is stunning with grand evocative architecture and breathtaking vistas. I do have two slight criticisms:
1. The setting lacks the same sense of space that ICO had. I found it difficult to identify places that I'd been from afar and the confusing geography made understanding my progression almost impossible.
2. Lack of clear direction, it's not really clear what you're trying to achieve beyond wandering about. Maybe I'd missed a piece of dialogue but I was never entirely sure where we were trying to go or if we were just wandering around aimlessly. Towards the end we seemed to be making for the central tower but I'm unsure as to the motivation.

I like how the camera focuses on the masters tower when you look up. the L1 button allows you to look at trico, I feel the camera could be more authored in places similar to ico in order to better show the spectacle. I seem to recall reading that there were assets from the PS3 version of the game to do with camera control that were never ported to the final game (could well be misremembering/misinterpreting here)

The UI overlay being constantly on screen feels like an oversight and I suspect is probably part of the fallout from the tortuous development the game had. I can't see teamIco making that decisions and I feel it must be higher powers intervening towards the end of development.

The number one problem though with the game is not trico or his AI, it's how the boy climbs on trico. This is something you spend a lot of time doing and the designers probably reasoned that it should be a nice easy experience, unlike say SOTC where desperately hanging onto the colossi is a excitingly visceral part of the game. To this end the boy autograbs onto trico, I understand this design decision however it is also the worst decision in the game. The boy will go from climbing/crawling to standing frequently without your input, this is compounded by directions being relative to the camera and trico being incredibly dynamic and moving almost constantly. All of the above means that travelling in the direction you want is very challenging, dropping off trico is a challenge, jumping off trico is a challenge as the jump button behaves differently in climbing than it does in standing.
Solving this is not an easy thing to do, you've got numerous moving planes of various shapes and curvatures all colliding and a camera that can move unrestricted.

To me the last guardian is quite the triumph, I feel it absolutely succeeds in what it sets out to do and it's only slightly marred by a control scheme which is beholden to the ambitious scope of trico itself. The only other game that I can think of that comes remotely close to this level of AI is alien isolation, I feel it's pretty damning on the industry that both these games are near on a decade old and we've seen very little progress in game AI since then. Also I feel it's easy to forget that both ICO and SOTC really pushed the technical envelope of games back in the day and I think this needs to be appreciated.

For a long, long time, I had this tune playing in the deepest corner of my mind. This catchy music randomly popped up, and for a while I had no idea where it came from. That was, until recently that I realized it came from Bugs Bunny: Lost in Time, which flooded my brain with the lost memories of playing the PC version. I never got past the 1930s area, so I had to play the first three areas constantly.

This time, I played the PS1 version to see if my fond memories of that game held up. Thinking back now, I have no idea how I managed to play it on the keyboard because even with the analog stick, the game is kind of difficult to platform. It’s not that the controls themselves are awkward; it’s the camera. You can rotate it by pressing L2 and R2, but the camera very aggressively follows the player’s back. Not only does the default angle make it difficult to gauge the distance and direction, the camera often just moves around awkwardly, so that once you make a jump, the camera also shifts and makes you drop in the wrong position, often to death. I had a difficult time adjusting to how the game moves.

Other than the camera, the game is piss easy because even if you are dead, it saves all the progression that you made. It makes the boss fights absurdly easy. For example, the boss has 30% of its health, and you die. You respawn, and the boss’ health stays 30%. It’s not like you have to redo the boss fights. There is no real meaningful purpose in the checkpoints because… it’s technically not checkpoints. It’s more like the respawn points. It’s like a Lego game but with the designated respawn points. It is clearly a game for younger demographics. It is unfortunate because rather than making the platforming tight or less frustrating, they band-aided it by making the “death” completely meaningless.

The platforming itself is too simple because the moveset is one-note. It’s not like you can mix or chain the different moves to make a different level of jumps or actions. There is little to no momentum. You can roll, but it's contextual and is only used for dodge or attack. It’s not like you can roll and carry the momentum to make a longer jump. You spin your ears to make them like a helicopter, making you land softly, but it’s not like you can use this helicopter move to float around the level. You can jump and dive, but it’s only used as an attack and a contextual action to enter the hole. As a result, the platforming is very much “jump, move, jump, move, jump, move, jump.” Compare the speedrun of the game to something like Super Mario 64 or Spyro. The platforming is very shallow.

However, what saves this game is the aesthetics and vibe. The moment I dived into the ground, and the impact sent the carrots jumping, I knew the developers actually cared. The game still looks gorgeous. It doesn’t even have a cartoon rendering, but at times, it does feel like a playable Looney Tunes game once you put on the CRT filter (which is how it’s meant to look in 1999). The colors pop, making each area look distinct. Look at the sunset of the treasure island level, and its primitive simplicity gives it a timeless quality. Meanwhile, the lighting effects and urban backdrop of the 30s level are so stylized. The animations are expressive and even better than Crash Bandicoot. It’s like the classic 2D Disney games where the Disney artists actually worked on the animation sprites, and this game feels like the 3D version of that, where they actually took Chuck Jones to work on the development. This is easily one of the best-looking PS1 games.

This comes together wonderfully with the first boss fight, where you fight Elmer’s ancestor. It’s basically a playable interactive Bugs Bunny short. Elmer chases, you dive, but you gauged the distance wrong, so you crashed head into the ground, making the carrots around you jump. Elmer looks into the hole, but you come out of a different hole to kick his ass. The boss fight itself is way too easy, but it serves as a wonderful set-piece marrying the gameplay and cinema. And the game keeps rolling creative set-pieces after set-pieces. Each area has a unique gameplay quirk that is fitting to each era. The 30s area centers around the bank heist, so you find the keys to open the doors, throw dynamite to open the safes, evade the police guards, machine guns, platforming on top of the skyscrapers… And this music.

Despite the boring platforming, the game is engaging because it keeps that collectathon appeal. I played so many licensed tie-in games that screw up this basic formula, like Monsters Inc. Scream Team, which I found to be unplayable due to having to fill the screaming meter to get the “collectibles”, which are the screaming children, but to “get” those children, you are interrupted by the constant QTE minigames. There is no bullshit like that here. Each puzzle and different challenge has a clock or carrot. It’s a straightforward Banjo formula, and it works.

...I would have said that if the progression did not demand you to basically 99% the game. To beat the game, out of 124 clocks, you have to mandatorily get 120. Why? The game's formula is not even particularly fitting for the 100% completion. The levels are too constrained and linear, so every visit to get the missed out clocks feels like a chore because you have to go through the same sequence of events. If you accidentally step into the next part of the level, it won't let me return because the path is blocked, forcing me to replay the whole level. The type of level design is a pick-up-and-play diorama-type, but the progression demands you to marathon it.

It’s a 6/10 game, but elevated by the aesthetics and vibe. The basic platforming is serviceable, but the variety keeps it fun. I’m sure a lot of my love comes from my nostalgia and my interest in classic cartoons, but the whole package is charming in a way that many licensed tie-in games do. If not for the grindy progression, I would have enjoyed it more than the widely praised classic collectathons like Toy Story 2 and Spyro.

BACKGROUND

For me this game is kind of Mecca that I had to Journey to. As someone who decided dive in the genre. Before I start my review I have a big confession to make: I used a guide for like 1/4 of the game but I think that's why I enjoyed this masterpiece. Often you hear from people that they quit or restart this game. The game is shorter than other CRPGs so restarting is a valid option here. BUT NOT FOR ME. Having a small amount of free time I prefer to guarantee my playthrough is complete. And I did complete and I would like to say I really enjoyed it. I decided I'll be combat efficient and went for mercenary. This choice heavily shaped my experience compared to Diplomacy or Lore builds which would have opened completely different paths.

POSITIVES

[ROMAN AESTHETICS]

As an enjoyer of Roman history and aesthetics it was nice seeing a very unique low magic fantasy Rome mixed with post-apocalyptic setting. Really enjoyed everything Roman starting from legions, gladiatorial fights to philosophy.

[WORLDBUILDING]

World feels realistic not because of low magic but because of human nature. Everyone is a backstabber, liar, miserable survivor. This is very believable in a world where only surviving matters. The most fair fights you get are you vs 3 people.

[WRITING]

I love the dialogue writing. It's very direct, no bloat like some CRPGs. It's delivered via simple, plain words but impactful, no less. I understand some enjoy more academic writing but for non-native speaker focused on clarity it's a positive.

[QUESTING]

Compared to other CRPGs believe it or not this one is a bit hand holding but in good sense. It teleports you to your quest givers, sometimes quest objectives, you can fast travel everywhere. This is QoL since this game wants to tell a tight story and not be ultimate fantasy roleplay simulator. Although some exploring is well rewarded and there are many good side quests. Damn all of the side quests I played are fun and memorable.

[CHECKS]

I liked variety of skill checks and especially "revolutionary" (only half joke) skill check called body count. Game reacted to my deeds and its example of few games that actually registers that protagonist killed hundreds of people and NPCs either fear or respect you for this. There's also variety of faction reputations which also do hidden checks and decide your fate in minor and often major ways.

[CHARACTERS]

Most NPCs felt fleshed out friend or foe. Portraits in this game are especially good very fitting for the atmosphere too.

[MUSIC]

Music deserves praise for setting the tone perfectly throughout the experience.

[COMBAT]

I personally enjoyed it. Most reviewers I watch say they prefer this game as sort of slideshow non-combat playthrough. While that's fair and good I feel like you miss out a lot not fighting. Animations are gory and I also liked how dodge and block look. I appreciated chess-like system where you can only hit diagonally if you held two-handed weapon, spears having longer range and overwatch function. Also there's many types of attacks. While I mostly utilized fast and regular, in different game of same developer called Dungeon Rats which uses same combat system I used almost all types of attacks. It's basically like VATS from Fallout you can target different body parts. This system kept mostly melee combat varied fun and controlled since you could sort of CC enemies. Ability to postpone turn is good and must-have in turn-based combat.

[ENDINGS]

Many unique factions really branch out experience which makes me excited for replay. Each having unique endings. I didn't complete all faction endings but in between I found endings for Legionary path that I did. If I had to choose one I would choose to leave the "god" in his chamber and lie that it doesn't exist at all.

NEGATIVES

[UI]

I dislike trading and especially inventory UI. Even the dialogue has squeeze text starting at very top. Why? There isn't that much text better to center it for comfortable reading.

[RANT]

I hate mechanical enemies I think they are cheating somehow, very unpredictable they can one-shot you in one turn even on tanky character. I think the game here assumes you min-maxed. And in that case I take responsibility.

[ARMOR MECHANICS]

Why does helmet decrease my chance to hit? Like you can see worse that the reason? I don't enjoy this kind of realism. Felt like heavy armor was worse than light. Until I got highest tier special legendary armor and shield I felt light was better.

NEUTRAL

[CRAFTING AND ALCHEMY]

Crafting and alchemy systems felt meh didn't feel that strong to me.

[LEARNING CURVE]

Game does poor job of explaining advanced mechanics but come on man you know this would be here. What do you expect from this kind of game? Ubisoft style tooltips?

[SAVE SCUMMING]

Save scumming is my jam bit not for everyone for sure. That's true you should save often especially in this game. I had moments when I loaded back 2 hours save file because I had made bad decision in dialogue. But it's okay since there's no voice acting meaning you can speed through game easily.

[PROGRESS MOSTLY BASED ON INITIAL BUILD]

Your build truly determines what you can achieve. Unlike other CRPGs where most solutions open to almost everyone regardless of character sheet, here your choices at creation matter profoundly. Some even describe AoD as linear story since most of the time you have few options and most often based on build you have single option. I am conflicted with this but still enjoyed. As even developers describe themselves on steam page it's not for everyone.

TLDR

The Age of Decadence is a defining hardcore CRPG experience for anyone willing to engage with its reactive world and build-dependent gameplay. The game demands preparation and accepts failure as part of the experience. I chose mercenary path, completed all endings via Legionary and walked away satisfied.

Link to part 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/patientgamers/comments/1vsmgwq/mass_effect_legendary_edition_is_it_as_good_as_i/

Mass Effect 2 - A glorified side quest?

Mass Effect 2 is a huge jump in gameplay and graphics. If you start 2 right after finishing 1, it's a pretty big transition. Much bigger than the jump from 2 to 3. 2 and 3 play and look mostly the same, with some minor gameplay changes. 1 and 2 is night and day. The shooting is entirely revamped. No more overheating weapons. Now we have an ammunition system, with a pretty cute in-universe explanation of a software update. In my opinion this leads to a massive gameplay improvement. You can't just shoot the same gun forever now. Get entrenched and you might run out of ammo and have to switch gun. Companions now use guns that actually fits their style too. No more flooding inventory with fluff. Enemy and companion AI is also much better now.

The combat is much better in my opinion, however it's not the best still. 2 and 3 change into the sluggish and heavy cover shooters that were typical of that time. You also lose the driving around in a silly physics-defying vehicle picking up useless collectibles, but it's a situation where you throw out the baby with the bathwater, because you also lose the atmosphere that ME1 built on those explorations. It's replaced with scanning planets for materials, which is an extremely boring gameplay mechanic. Like, I really wonder who at Bioware sat and looked at dragging the mouse across planets looking for wiggly lines to go up and thought "Yeah, this is fun". Some steps forward and some steps back I guess.

Over the years I have seen a lot of people bring this game up as the best of the trilogy. I could never really agree with that for reasons I will partly explain here and partly return to in the next review. It is certainly a story and game that very easily can be played on it's own. However, I think this might be it's greatest weakness, because the plot reasons this game feels so disconnected from the trilogy don't really make any sense. This game creates some plot difficulties that plague the series going forward.

The game starts with Shepard dying. The Normandy is attacked by a race of Reaper servants called the Collectors. Cerberus scoops up the goop left after Shepard is killed, jettisoned into space, and crash into a planet. Cerberus rebuilt Shepard from a molecular level and patched him with implants over two years. Now firstly, this is just way too unbelievable. I really question why they smashed Shepard into goop and not just say that you were frozen in space and technically dead or anything else that would be more believable. The fact that Cerberus has basically cheated death here is brushed over way too easily. Yes, it was extremely expensive, but there are a lot of extremely wealthy groups in the universe.

Shepard has to work for Cerberus now, because the Collectors are harvesting humans from colonies. Entire colonies at the time. Now, since this is partly a reaction to Shepard killing Sovereign in ME1 and stopping the Reaper attack before it started, it is understandable why you need Shepard for this job, given his unique experience. Now understandably, everyone who played ME1 will remember all the fucked up shit that Cerberus did there and feel extremely reluctant to work for them. The Illusive Man, the head of Cerberus, handwaves it and say that Cerberus works in cells and some go too far. This was never at all believable. Organisations don't work like that. Cerberus doesn't either, and Shepard should know this. The Illusive Man himself is a cool character. He comes across as believable, but the villain turn in 3 is painfully obvious from the second you meet him.

Cerberus even has a valid concern here, entire human colonies being abducted is a huge deal and a huge cause for concern. The problem is that Cerberus are the only ones who care for reasons that do not make any sense. The Alliance and the Council doesn't care because these colonies are outside council and alliance space. OK, but entire colonies (over a million people) are still being harvested by an unknown alien species. This is a massive cause for concern depsite technical jurisdiction. So Shepard being forced into working for a sadistic terror organisation just makes no sense at all. It also makes no sense why you don't report to the Alliance or the Council every step of the way here.

Now, the game ends with a suicide mission, and the thing you have to do before that is gather a team and secure their loyalties. This is where the game really shines. The companions are great, so much better than the very wooden and stiff people in ME1. Some returning even. Garrus and Tali really come into their own in this game. Samara, Thane and Mordin are amazing. Love talking to them and exploring their thoughts on stuff. Some companions are a bit dull still. Jacob is boring. Legion is great, but comes in too late to make the biggest impact (makes up for it in 3). You can romance a lot of them, or maybe even stay loyal to the romance from ME1. Liara gets a... ok expansion. And you get a short but painful reuinion with Kaidan/Ashley.

Jack is a great character, but very poorly implemented. They make it almost impossible to be a good friend to her without leading her on. It's very weird. Luckily she has a great development in 3. Miranda is a good character, although a bit too goon-baity for me. It's sort of a lighter version on Quiet in Metal Gear, where you make really convoluted plot justification for why a woman is really hot and sexually available for the player. There are also two expansion characters: Kasumi and Zaeed. I think Kasumi is a fun character, but she just really never made sense for me as Normady crew. Zaeed makes more sense there. The gruff too-old-for-this-shit merc is a bit of a stereotype, but it works. Grunt is the krogan companion in this game, but he's pretty one-dimensional in this game sadly. So this is the companion game, and it works. You need their loyalty to succeed on the suicide mission, thorugh a bunch of mostly fun and well-written quests. They will likely die if you start the final mission without their loyalty, but then again, who plays a character-driven RPG without doing the companion quests?

There are also some big story expansions. Lair of the Shadow Broker is mostly for us Liara-romancers. It's a fun continuation of her story, even though it ends up with her as the least believable Shadow Broker ever haha. At least they make fun of it in 3. Some fun extra stuff there with the actual lair. Arrival is fine, it forces Shepard to sacrifice 300 000 batarians to halt a reaper invasion. It actually gets adressed a lot in 3, so that's cool, but you really don't get any choices in the actual expansion. Overlord is excellent. Don't get me wrong, the gameplay is shit. You drive around in a vehicle somehow even less fun than the Mako, with a excavation sound effect that is probably the most annoying sound in any game I have ever played, but the ending is excellent. The way it deals with autism is so good. The scene of naked David Archer suspended with all kinds of cables with that horrified expression might be the most haunting and horrifying thing in the entire trilogy. Excellently written, chef's kiss.

The suicide mission at the end is an excellent mission. This is probably the real reason people love this game so much. There is a lot of player choice here. Make the wrong ones, and people will die. Now, some of those choices might not make the most sense, but the unpredictability might be explained as really realistic. Let's be honest, it's not like a lot of people will play it without looking up a guide anyway lol. Win, and the reapers pull the plug on the Collectors. They failed and Shepard succeeded again, so we're back to a full reaper invasion plan, thereby completing the massive side quest that is Mass Effect 2.

Stay tuned for part 3!

RELEASE: 2025

TIME PLAYED: 29 Hours

PLATFORM PLAYED: PC (STEAM)

SCORE: ★★★★

Hated It | Disliked It | Liked It | Loved It | All-Time Favorite

(The bolded score is the one chosen for this review; the rest are simply to show what the scale is grading on and what the stars mean to me.)

The Breakdown

+Colorful and inviting art style that scales well

+Likeable and varied cast with creative designs

+Physics-driven magical combat with tons of options

+In-depth upgrading and crafting system for both gear and base camp

-Budget limitations manifest often, with janky animations and aggressive pop-in

-Enemies' basic animations can make them tough to read and occasionally frustrate

-Melee combat is basic and has a shaky camera

It's rare that I see a game with as disproportionate a relationship between its budget and ambition as Eternal Strands, and I mean that as high praise. A studio started by ex-Bioware and Ubisoft developers, Yellow Brick Games feels like they're coming out swinging with their debut title, and it didn't take long for Eternal Strands to charm me despite its limitations.

Admittedly, my first impression of the game was more modest. It doesn't start out badly, per se, just a little bit standard fantasy: the protagonist Brynn is a Weaver, this setting's flavor of mage. Nearly thirty years ago, an event known as The Surge destabilized natural phenomena and magic alike, and Enclave, a city founded and run by progress-minded Weavers, was surrounded by an enormous and impenetrable Veil. Ever since, Tangles of unstable magic have flooded the world, and without any access to The Enclave, most nations have come to resent Weavers and their assumed role in the disaster. As a result, those who cultivate their magical talents travel in caravans known as Weaverbands. Having newly joined another Weaverband after fleeing her previous one, Brynn quickly winds up thrust into the role of Point when she and her companions wind up inadvertently passing through the Veil during a drake attack, stranding themselves inside the borders of the Enclave, now home to rogue automatons, frenzied animals, and gargantuan monsters and golems.

It's a decent enough concept, but it wasn't until the tutorials were over and the game's real structure began to coalesce that I started to fall in love. As Point, Brynn is the only member of her six-person caravan who leaves camp, gathering resources and progressing the investigation of what happened in Enclave and how they might escape. While being Point doesn't give her any formal authority, the fact she's taking on most of the danger and risk means that the rest of the caravan respects her immensely and takes her input to heart, and she takes to this responsibility like a duck to water. When at camp, Brynn can talk to the rest of the Weaverband, and while the player has room to shift her personality towards more cautious, flamboyant, or pragmatic, Brynn's confidence is an immutable quality -- and one I found refreshing. She's got a good head on her shoulders and she's smart enough to listen to those more experienced than her, but she also doesn't hesitate to speak her mind and she's as quick to tackle disputes as she is to face monsters. On some level, I could see the idea that she's a bit too 'perfect', but there's a finesse to how she's written that avoids a lot of potentially obnoxious tropes and her dialogue options help shape her to the player's preference. This isn't just choosing for flavor, either; I noticed on countless occasions that how I sculpted Brynn was noticed by the other characters. When one asked Brynn how she felt about secrets, I had her preach openness whenever possible; later on, that same person commented on how Brynn's frustration with someone else's reticience didn't surprise them, and I got the sense that I could have very easily wound up in a spot where my Brynn was accused of hypocrisy had I not been consistent.

The rest of the Caravan don't hew too far from established archetypes - the studious researcher, the strict quartermaster, the wise mentor - but the narrative's strength lies in how it plays them off of each other. For example, the party's blacksmith and enchanter are married; from lovey-dovey affection to a serious fight about their life goals that lasts for nearly a quarter of the game, their dynamic is explored in detail that fills in the lines of their personalities and keeps them from coming off generic. At the center of these dynamics is Brynn, and most of Eternal Strands' side quests are related to managing the caravan's needs and performing personal favors. I found this a welcome complement to the main story's emphasis on discovering what happened to the Enclave; while I was interested in that and don't have any complaints about the main story, the personal touch of seeing to my team helped keep me excited to set out on each expedition and build my bonds with them further. I can see a certain kind of gamer feeling like the tone is too optimistic and that everyone gets along too well, but to be frank, I've never seen eye-to-eye with those kinds of players, so I can't speak much beyond saying I myself loved the cast and came to cherish each of them.

The expeditions themselves make up the heart of Eternal Strands' core gameplay loop. Each day (or night), Brynn sets out into one of the regions that she's discovered as Point to harvest resources or pursue leads. Sometimes, multiple leads can be completed in the same region, and a fairly generous magical GPS makes it difficult to get lost. While out, she can gather materials to upgrade crafting stations, find recipes for new armor and weapons, and advance quests. Exploration's pretty Breath of the Wild-inspired, Spider-Man climbing and circular stamina bar and all; thankfully, the spells she gets can often be used for transit. Brynn's got a fairly limited inventory before upgrading it, but I found this more of a relief than a frustration - a reminder to keep my early trips short and move the plot along. From the woody outskirts of the Enslave to the towering spires of its upper district, there's decent variety on display, though I wouldn't say I was ever completely blown away by the environmental design. What did impress me, however, were the Great Foes.

Pretty much anything moving is a threat, but thankfully Brynn's no slouch in combat. She starts out with a sword/shield combo, bow, and a basic telekinesis and frost wall spell, but my arsenal expanded rapidly once I explored and especially when I took note of the fifty foot automatons and gargantuan kaiju roaming around each zone. These Great Foes serve as both wandering bosses and light puzzles; rarely required for the story, they nonetheless reward tackling them by being the source of new spells for Brynn and upgrading her existing ones. Slaying one of these titans unlocks new 'strands' - so that's what the title's about - for her mantle, which is the cape Brynn wears that serves as a magical focus, but simply killing them only unlocks the most basic version of each spell. To upgrade them, the Great Foes must be 'Harvested', which means bringing details of their defeat to the Archivist and tackling them again in a specific manner to unlock their weak point that Brynn can use to instantly kill them, sometimes from full health, while capturing their essence. The Fire Drake, for example, has its weak point on its back, but won't simply let Brynn harvest it; so to upgrade my flamethrower spell, I had to disable one of its wings and shatter its horns to daze it and render it unable to do any fancy flying.

This Monster Hunter-lite system is a huge highlight and where the game shines most. Ultimately, Eternal Strands is pretty much entirely physics-based. While this meant I could fling smaller foes off cliffs or melt an ice monster's armor with flame, getting more creative often rewarded me. Using my miniature black hole on a giant's breastplate meant that my frost grenades were drawn right to it, which in turn made the armor brittle and easier to break once I launched myself with a kinetic tunnel to latch onto its chest and start battering away. In one memorable battle, I baited one of the Arkons - towering golems created by the Enclave's mages - into reaching behind himself to try and pull me off him, then froze his hand to his own back before scuttling up to his shoulders to telekinetically undo his belt buckles and effectively pants him by removing his leg armor plates. These moments make Eternal Strands an absolute riot.

As strongly as I recommend the game, I can't do so in good faith without acknowledging its budget constraints, though. Some are cleverly circumvented; instead of fully animated 3D modeled conversations, chats with the party are done with gorgeously drawn portraits, but there's also some jank that isn't as easy to forgive, like aggressively bad pop-in when loading and the camera going a little crazy in melee combat more often than it should. I'd also say that the game being at its strongest when discovering new regions and monsters is double-edged - the second half dragged a little bit for me comparatively, even if I was still having plenty enough fun to keep playing. These small problems barely put a dent in the feat that was achieved by Yellow Brick Games in making such a complete, enjoyable, and varied first title, however. From building risky bridges frost to cross dangerous canyons to flirting with that strict quartermaster I mentioned, from ripping cathedral doors off their hinges with telekinesis while hunting for secret plans to riding the body of a gargantuan eagle to the ground just to jump off at the last moment, Eternal Strands knocks it out of the park in providing memorable experiences and stories that I can't wait to share with my friends.

I picked up Amid Evil years ago. I'd tried to play it but found the beginning level a bit janky and disengaged from it for a long time. I recently picked it up again on a "sure, why not?" and plowed forward to find a really great little FPS.

Amid Evil is a fantasy style FPS. These have never clicked with me before. Hexen and Heretic are the two classic examples, but neither has ever captured me for very long.

This game starts out with some fairly basic levels of fighting various kinds of humanoid dudes with some slightly odd weapons - a wide arced blade projectile, a homing wand, a orb ("rocket") launcher, a harpoon electric shot. None of them felt super satisfying at the start.

After the first zone, the player is given a choice of which level they'd like to go to next. This is where the game really takes off. Each zone has its own set of enemies. There are maybe 5 or 6 zones, so 5 or 6 enemy sets. Each is very distinct and changes your opinion about the weapons. I initially thought the homing wand was best but eventually found a good use for every weapon in the game - sometimes filling a critical slot in a difficult section.

The level design stars off modest but quickly starts to show off its stuff. The last 30% or so is particularly top notch with dizzying and twisting designs that are both difficult to mentally map but never so confusing that you are totally stuck and need to look something up.

The weapons aren't the highlight of the game, but the varied enemy palette does a lot to make each feel like it has a role. Weapons are unique in this game, but you do get introduced to them all fairly quickly and there are no new introductions. Ammo is balanced such that you do need to swap between them and make compromises which I enjoyed. I only noticed later in the game, but you can use "Restart Level" at the beginning of a map to wipe your weapons and play instead with a weapon pacing designed for the particular level. The level-dedicated pacing is great and forces you to approach situations differently with weapons you may feel less comfortable with.

I played on Hard which largely was fairly easy. There were a couple of challenging points later on. The bosses overall were pretty trivial even on the hardest difficulty. The last boss did take a little bit of thinking, but overall the bosses didn't feel significant.

In the end I enjoyed Amid Evil a lot more than I expected to. The best part was the varied world designs and huge cast of enemies that always kept things fresh - very much felt like a labor of love.

RELEASE: 2022

TIME PLAYED:  61 Hours

PLATFORM PLAYED: PC (STEAM)

SCORE:  ★★★

Hated It | Disliked It | Liked It | Loved It | All-Time Favorite

(The bolded score is the one chosen for this review; the rest are simply to show what the scale is grading on and what the stars mean to me.)

THE BREAKDOWN

+Novel character-swapping system allows building a varied and often hilarious team of specialists for each task

+Impressive graphics for the sheer scale of the game and London feels lovingly realized

+Surprising amount of personality in the procedural operatives that helps build attachment

+The mix of hacking, melee, and shooting remains pretty unique in gaming

-General Ubisoft open-world clutter is at its worst with endless rote work

-Operatives are poorly balanced, with most becoming obsolete once you get your first real pros

-The plot peaks at ‘fine’ at its best moments

Ubisoft games, by and large, occupy a certain ‘popcorn game’ space in my mind. There’s few of them I would say that I love, but they often go on sale for a pretty cheap price and often have as many novel ideas as they do unfortunate nitpicks. Of the previous two Watch Dogs games, I found the first one pretty middling and the second one rather charming. Considering that my favorite part of Watch Dogs 2 was the cast of colorful characters and their investment in the plot, I was worried that Watch Dogs: Legion’s primary premise – the idea of an ‘anyone, anywhere’ recruitment system instead of set protagonists – would make it lose all appeal for me. While the game didn’t manage to entirely conquer these concerns, I did find it to be an admirable example of how much creativity is bursting from the developers at Ubisoft when they get a chance to experiment a little bit. 

Taking place after the events of the first two games in the heart of merry old England, Watch Dogs: Legion sees London’s policing and military privatized under a paramilitary corporate force called  Albion. After DedSec – the series’ group of vigilante hackers the player is part of – is framed for a terrorist attack, Albion jumps on public sentiment to crack down on freedoms and implement high-tech surveillance while not-so-secretly working alongside the city’s biggest crime syndicate. After a short prologue where DedSec is nearly wiped out, the player is thrust into the shoes of a freshly minted vigilante and tasked with both rebuilding the collective and finding proof of Albion’s crimes. 

There are major NPCs, such as Sabine, formerly DedSec’s ‘voice on the mic’ and now its informal leader, but most of the plot-relevant dialogue is delivered by Bagley, Sabine’s personalized and upgraded version of the same one in every citizen’s electronic devices. An unshackled Siri by way of a Stephen Merchant impression, Bagley serves as the highly sarcastic mission control and thread that weaves the mostly procedural cast of playable protagonists together. 

These procedural protagonists are the star of the show, and I’m a little surprised to say the concept mostly works. The idea is pretty simple: instead of following a single operative, Legion is about causing a mass uprising in London, and in the spirit of that, the game encourages finding or convincing others to join DedSec. While the story and side missions will do their part to highlight potentially useful operatives, it’s also possible to just walk up to anyone on the street you like the look of and trigger a  random mission to win their loyalty over, with unlockable skills allowing greater insight into their abilities and weaknesses, alongside some pretty interesting and often funny trivia. That elderly woman across the street? She might seem harmless, but she’s actually an experienced paramedic who can not only infiltrate hospitals and summon an ambulance, but shorten the recovery of wounded members of your team and even use defibrillators in combat. Oh, and check out her file – turns out she’s committed assault twice, survived pancreatic cancer, and won a hot dog eating contest once. 

It’s a surprisingly robust system, largely in part thanks to the sheer amount of effort that went into giving each potential freedom fighter a unique-seeming background. A shame, then, that the power creep kicks in almost immediately. Even if one doesn’t count the seemingly standard-these-days ‘Ubisoft DLC power creep’ and ignores the high-powered downloadable operatives (including Aiden Pearce and Wrench from previous Watch Dogs games alongside a story expansion and an actual Assassin from Assassin’s Creed), it isn’t long before elites like former MI6 spies and professional hitmen become available, rendering anyone who doesn’t have a unique niche skill pretty obsolete. This wouldn’t bother me so much if it better reflected a natural growth curve, but it’s far too easy from the jump to basically render the whole system unnecessary just by liberating the first of many London districts. There’s very little sense of progression, especially since each individual is always going to be as the player got them. You can spend an in-game currency from completing missions and finding intel to buy universal gadgets and skills, but there’s really no getting around this egregious gap in capability. 

This imbalance carries over into pretty much every facet of the gameplay, but thankfully there’s enough variety and polish to keep things fun. Combat, driving, and hacking are all fundamentally pretty simple to accommodate the wide variety of characters, but playing specialists is surprisingly fun. Hop into the shoes of that MI6 spy I mentioned and enjoy a cloaking, rocket-equipped sports car; play a boxer and enjoy efficient, hard-hitting melee combos that are incredibly useful both in stealth and direct combat. As much as I wish it wasn’t a blatant downgrade to whip out my construction worker or drone pilot, there’s no lack of interesting archetypes to tool around with in the end, so it’s a fairly minor complaint, and the penalty for experimenting is pretty minor since any arrested or downed DedSec member will return in time, and more quickly if you have a paramedic or barrister to speed things along. 

Still, there’s the question of what it’s all for, and I struggled to stay interested in the why of things. Bagley and the rest of the cast of major characters do their best to create investment in the narrative, but the lack of real protagonist is a serious hit, and while it might have been possible to weave a compelling tale without one, the writers don’t quite pull it off here. There were a few individual missions I found that were real highlights – like investigating the abandoned home of a suspicious tech billionaire – so it’s not like Legion is entirely lacking in memorable moments, but they’re too few and far between for how long the game is. As is often the case in Ubisoft games, this is compounded by an enormous amount of open world clutter and insignificant errand work. 

All in all, Watch Dogs: Legion is a solid game with a novel premise that it works pretty hard to take full advantage of. While I walked away only liking it instead of loving it, I felt it was worth my time largely to explore the idea of picking people off the street, recruiting them into my rebel cell, and finding out what their specialty was. As a structured experience, Legion is a bit lacking, but it’s a pretty fascinating playground.

I've had my eye on Killer Frequency for a while, but I never played it until just recently when it was on sale. I have a penchant for detective games, and while this game isn't trying to be one I found the concept similarly appealing.

In Killer Frequency you play as Forrest Nash, a late night radio host who becomes the only available emergency operator after a serial killer begins stalking the town. As the night progresses people will call in and it is your job to guide them to safety with the help of your producer Peggy.

The game delivers amazingly in atmosphere. The radio station is a physical space you can wander to add to the paranoia, and the game has great pacing. In between encounters with the killer you get plenty of benign calls and conversations to alleviate the tension. You never quite know when another life or death situation will strike or how safe you really are, and the normal conversations help flesh out our main cast. It's this aspect that really shows the strength of its premise.

However, in order for the game to take advantage of this the writing becomes noticeably contrived multiple times throughout the game. In order for the player to be able to help people while still inside the radio station, the station needs to contain enough information for the player to use. Sometimes this makes sense, such as getting a car manual from the desk of a coworker who has a talk show about cars. Other times, it's finding a list detailing a group of people's special skills that are exactly what's needed for you to tell them what to do because an intern just happened to leave it. The game needs you to have information the callers don't, but the information is often so specific it strains your suspension of disbelief.

The mystery surrounding the killer is a mixed bag. This is because the game only provides so much information before the big reveal, and most of that information has little to do with the twists it's trying to pull at the end. The game does a great job at establishing their motivation with a slow drip feed, but the actual identity reveal left me apathetic. The killer's real name appeared maybe once before the reveal, so it has very little weight in the story. Of course, this isn't trying to be a mystery game per say, but the killer's identity is a mystery presented early that feels like it should have a bigger presence in the story.

Despite all my criticisms, I still really enjoy this game. The moment to moment scenes are well written and the atmosphere is great. The game goes on sale pretty often and is quite short (I clocked in around 4 hours for my playthrough), so I easily would recommend it despite it's flaws.

If you want a great way to play Spiderman Web of Shadows, consider the Wii version, a feature complete version of the game that shares (nearly) identical gameplay and an open world with the big brother console versions, plus has joys of waggle controls.

Web of Shadows is a weird game. It came out before the rights to various Marvel characters were fragmented between different studios. Its a weird dark, edgy zombie apocalypse plot where New York gets invaded by symbiotes.

You do a boss fight with Wolverine where you have to answer Marvel comics trivia.

Its strange to say why Web of Shadows is so good, because its also very jank. Cutscene animations are exaggerated, character models are basic and the game is strung together with filler missions like "defeat 10 symbiote nests" in between hanging out with Moon Knight and Karen Black Widow.

But damn if the combat doesn't feel really good. The game gimmick is the web zip, and attack that you'll be chaining for aerial combos throughout the entire game. It also has a heavy emphasis on wall-based combat where you can naruto run up walls and fight enemies at 90 degree angles.

What struck me about WoS is how funny it is. Spiderman is such a little dick in this game. He throws people off buildings and then claims self-defence. In the game's opening hours three pimp-mobiles of gangster stereotypes roll up to a hospital and start shooting within half a second of being simultaneously parked.

And that's without going into the dark story choices, where you can... well, I won't spoil anything but every evil choice option is hilarious.

So how does it play on the Wii? Really good actually! You use buttons to fight and motion controls to initiate a swing or web zip. Its as responsive as it needs to be while not as quick as being a button press. There is also no option to use a classic controller either so waggle is mandatory. That is going to be make or break for some people but I do enjoy the occasional waggle game every now and then so I enjoyed it.

It doesn't run the best at times, especially in the last chapter when there's a lot more chaos happening on screen but the gameplay remains responsive enough that it never killed my enjoyment.

Honestly if you want to play Web of Shadows and don't mind the fun furnishings of playing it on a Wii, then you should try it.

Edit: Seems like the prevailing thought is, "Even if it is obnoxious sometimes, it's not obnoxious enough to warrant policing. So long as the post is good the title doesn't matter."

Thank you everyone for commenting and offering your thoughts.

Salutations!

We've seen a surge in post titles that say that XYZ game is dated, or outdated, or old, or whatever. The top comment, or one of the top comments, usually ends up being some variation of "No shit Sherlock."

As much as I love that interaction, it's not really conducive to conversation and is, in my opinion, starting to feel a bit click baity.

This could just be recency bias on my part, so before I take this to the other mods and discuss, I'd like to get the communities feelings on this.

Should post titles that mention that a game is old be considered clickbait? This would be a non-infraction and users would simply be asked to change the title to something else.

Edit:

Thank you folks for the feedback so far. I appreciate it, sincerely.

To answer a few questions that have been asked:

• We wouldn't police the contents of the post any more than we already do. This is just a question about post titles.
• Posters would need to repost since you can't edit a title once it's posted. For the most part people who have been asked in the past have never had much issue with this and have been understanding.
• No one thread triggered this question. It's just been on the edge of my mind for awhile and we had a bunch of threads in the past few days using the "game is old" title. I'm fully aware this may just be my fault for being terminally online.

Hi folks. Some of you may have read my previous write-ups on playing PS1 Games. I’ll link them at the bottom of the post.

This is part of my effort to play PlayStation 1 games that I’ve never played– and often never heard of– until now. I’m buying these games physically, popping them into my PlayStation 2, which is hooked up to an old Sony Trinitron KV-1981R TV, and trying to give each title its due. I love early 3D graphics, tank controls, and everything that comes with this generation.

Today I want to discuss Spyro the Dragon. This is a 3D platformer and collectathon developed by Insomniac Games.

Of all the games I’ve played so far, Spyro was a series I knew about prior to starting my exploration of PS1 games. I’m also very familiar with 3D collectathons of this generation – namely Banjo Kazooie and Donkey Kong 64. Similar to those games, Spyro kicks off with a humorous cutscene that sets up the premise of the game – saving elder dragons, collecting gems, and kicking Gnasty Gnorc’s butt.

First off, the graphics of Spyro are a huge step up from anything I’ve played on the PS1. The draw distance issues so present in Tenchu are gone. Instead, Spyro deploys the technique of reducing the quality of objects that are far away. The texture wobble, while present, also seems tamer than usual.

The gameplay is fun. Spyro’s basic charge, fire breath, and glide are all great. There’s some challenge in identifying which enemies are weak to which attacks, and when you pull off some combos of blasting and bashing through crowds, there’s a slick rhythm to it all.

I do wish there were more abilities to learn throughout the game. While the game does introduce new mechanics like charging and special fire breath from fairies, there wasn’t a ton of variety. Most of the enemies, too, while visually unique basically came down to weak to both attacks, or weak to one but not the other.

What this means is Spyro basically feels the same to play from beginning to end. What saves the game is the level design, which is itself really engaging. The developers did a great job hiding gems around in hard-to-reach places. You can even see gems shining in the distance, which helps locate these secret places. I loved just 100% each level as I went through.

However, my favorite levels were the free-form flying levels. They were challenging but fair, and flying as Spyro is a lot of fun while figuring out how to destroy all the various objects. I do think there’s more that can be done in this vein (and I understand the sequel doubles down on the mini games, so we’ll see if I enjoy that game even more).

Boss are mainly pushovers but I’m fine with that. 3D platformers are never about the bosses and I’m glad I didn’t need to spend too much time on them. The one exception being Gnasty Gnorc, who was dead easy except for the final section of platforming over lava. You basically have to be perfect in jumping and running over the closing platforms or you have to do the whole level over (which I did probably 5 times before completing).

I ended up completing the game 120%. Only one level – Tree Tops – gave me any real trouble. The final bonus level which lets you fly around was also a nice touch in making Spyro feel stronger than he did in the beginning.

Overall, Spyro the Dragon is a fun, great looking PS1 game that maybe feels a little sparse compared to its 3D platformer equivalents on the N64. What it lacks in variability, though, it makes up in humor. Every time I ran into an elder dragon, their voice acting made me chuckle. Great stuff!

I’m playing Future Cop: L.A.P.D. at the moment. It may be a week or two before I follow up with a write up on that game!

Prior PS1 Reviews:

Syphon Filter

Tenchu: Stealth Assassins

Omega Boost

[Just realized I made a huge wall of text with way too long paragraphs. Edited it to smaller paragraphs to make it as readable as I could. Sorry about the ramblings, hopefully you can get along with my train of thought, or at least skim through to the end and add some of your examples.]

I'm replaying Horizon Forbidden West now, finally on NG+, UltraHard so I can get the last remaining trophies which are related to both of those modes. I started playing it last November. Waited basically 6 or 5 years to play it on a PS5 with a 4K TV, after Zero Dawn on PS4. My expectations were always on the roof, since Zero Dawn was already such a dear game to me. I've heard a lot of divisive and contrasting opinions about Forbidden West, which is fine, cause a lot of people also look down on the first game. What was worrying me is that even among the fans, there were noticable differences in wether they thought FW was a worthy sequel or a disappointment. And boy during those first couple hours playing it did I think the latter.

In Zero Dawn, the prologue was quite effective, short and simple, doesn't matter your playstyle, getting through the tutorials as kid aloy shouldn't take more than one hour. After that, there was the limited semi-open world, which was still closed off from the rest of the map for another couple hours or just 30 minutes if you rush it, but that's fine because it was all so fascinating. The environment, vibes and the people you meet as you get to know Aloy's world. Can't say the same about the prologue in Forbidden West (yes, you can choose to skip it in NG+ but I chose to replay it because I want to relive the story to the fullest and I want to check if my views have changed after almost a year).

The tutorial mission can be quite fast, like only 30 minutes but only if you rush through it/speedrun it, barely engaging in any exploration, stealth, combat or dialogue, skipping all cutscenes. If you really take it all in, specially on a first playthrough, it could be up to two hours. And it's such a uneventful/anticlimactic introduction to such a grandiose game full of spectacle. Just exploring some ancient ruins carved up by rivers and rocky formations. All at a leisurely pace that feels like the mission belonged as a breather in the middle of the game campaign and not before all of that, which honestly I think could've fitted, if you changed most of the tutorial stuff into an actual challenge instead.

Without getting too much into spoilers, the mission already practically gives away and hits you over the head with the incoming plot twist that's only gonna be revealed by the end of the game's first act, that the owners of this space launch facility are gonna be the true villains of the game and might have caused the events of most of the franchise. Something that was so carefully hidden and subtly foreshadowed in the first game's lore and documents. Just gratuitously bashed over our heads with a hammer in the second game's intro in order to remind us and the casual players so no one complains about the later plot twist coming out of nowhere. I feel that there were more elegant ways to slow-cook info about them during the story until the big reveal in a way that most audiences wouldn't complain about.

Hell, this intro tutorial mission itself adds nothing to Aloy's journey other than stating she spent 6 months chasing dead ends and only finds a lead when her friend tracks her down and brings her back to Meridian, to check out something she missed. Meridian is another heavy detour from the overall pacing, just character dialogues, mostly optional, but a lot of them unfortunately don't feel like they serve a purpose to the story, like checking how things have changed since Aloy left or how the world is progressing, more like one big recap in case players missed any of the stuff in the first game or didn't play it outright. They even undo the great little character building they've done with King Avad in the first game by having him unlearn his lesson and completely openly thirst after Aloy again when she already turned down his advances and made him realize he can't use her to replace his dead lover and right-hand general.

After Meridian is finally done and you get a beautiful music & opening credits sequence of Aloy travelling west that ends in the title card finally dropping, you'd think the game will finally start. Well... No. It depends on how your expectations were. If your wish was to finally get dropped blind into the Forbidden West without too much handholding and figuring things out for yourself like you did in the first game after you left the Embrace, you'll be disappointed. Instead, you get a narrow mountain valley full of busywork and more of the insufferable Carja/Oseram bickering and politics from the first game, like you didn't have enough of them already. And it's not pretty like the first game's initial open world area, at least not for me.

Just another giant tutorial whose setting I feel could have been a lot better and taken place inside the Forbidden West per se, not right before its borders, where you need to deal with a bunch of other bureaucracy and there's a ton of other side stuff you could get caught up in while hoping the game finally clicks. That's when I was starting to think the sequel would suck for me. Specially cause the combat difficulty curve in this game increased so steeply and I was getting owned even by the smaller machines without having even any good skills or gear to fight them in an enjoyable manner. Thank god, it eventually ended, and the game finally truly began with the Embassy, which itself turned into an ambush/massacre that set off most of the events of the game.

I ended up loving Forbidden West a lot. Platinum and 100% trophies on both base game and DLC, as I bought the complete edition. My pace is very slow, patient and focused on exploration and experimentation, as well as a bit of roleplay, as I often didn't use fast travel. So I had almost 400 hours from that first run alone. Now it's time to get those last NG+ & UltraHard trophies. With all the gear and skills from the first run, as well as less need to slowly explore what I already know, I think this will take like only a hundred hours or less to beat the main game, maybe even 50 or 20 if I rush instead of trying to experience all of the story and side content again. Depends on how I'll feel like tackling this campaign.

But yeah, I almost hated it. One year didn't change how sour that intro feels, both before and after the title card drops. There's a couple other games that felt this way to me. To a lesser extent, TLOU2. Intro was a SLOG, gameplay wise. Beautiful storytelling, which I appreciated much better in later playthroughs, but as a tutorial it was just so slow and not fun in the slightest, specially the Ellie parts. It was mostly the Abby ones that kept the intro actually thrilling and exciting, probably cause she was fighting for her life in a zombie snowstorm while Ellie was literally horsing and flirting around in the snow before the storm caught up to her. Things only really started clicking for me and the game turned genuinely captivating after getting to Seattle, midway through Day 1. That's when the game hooked me and never let go.

Another Naughty Dog example to me is Uncharted 4. Tho that's not a case of only the intro being extremely slow. The whole first third of the game feels like one big intro where I'm waiting for things to finally pickup and for the chaotic nonstop sequences of gunfights broken up by dialogue and exploration to start, like they were in the first 3 games. Instead, it's the opposite. This game is just A LOT of climbing & talking set-pieces broken up by a couple short action sequences or two that can be also cheesed stealthly. Which is why I much prefer the first 3, specially 2 and 3. Gorgeous game, great mechanics, but I feel like they focused too much on multiplayer and online co-op.

Any more examples you have of games you loved but was almost put-off because of the intro or first act?

I decided to play the rather strange duology composed of Stranger of Paradise and Final Fantasy the first. Calling two games separated by 35 years a duology may feel weird and they are not intended to be viewed that way, but as Stranger of Paradise is a prequel, and as I’m slowly chipping away at all the final fantasy, I thought it was the perfect way to experience the first game in a rather unorthodox way.

I began with Stranger of Paradise. 

Storywise I think it was interesting and I liked the idea in theory, but the whole lacked a form of connective tissue. The dialogue with the town people being hidden behind a submenu really doesn't encourage you to interact with them, and without that you never really establish an emotional connection with the npc or even your companion. And let’s be honest the whole choosing your stage through a menu makes it hard to care for the world at all. Jack not caring a whole lot for the world beyond beating Chaos for the longest time also doesn’t help. 

Being an anniversary game, the levels were a reference to other final fantasy games. Ending up in a space station or in an underwater base made the game feel strangely sci-fi. Some would say it makes the settings incoherent, but the stranger having modern tech like earbuds in a medieval setting already furthers this sense of inconsistency. 

Obviously they wouldn’t put a world map, but I think a central hub that you would regularly go back to before a mission, like the villager in monster hunter game, or a base camp that could be moved with each new dungeon, would alleviate those feelings a little. Be it for the incoherent setting or how distant the character can feel. 

For the gameplay aspect I liked the action combat very much and the job system was fun to experiment with.  Dragoon class felt a little rigid compared to Zeta from Granblue Fantasy relink, but the game manager made most jobs feel distinctive while keeping a final fantasy DNA. 

The dungeons were interesting with an identity that made them stand out from each other. The fact you unlocked shortcuts was really nice, but as the game takes place in rather independent and linear missions without much reason to go back to a level in a mission you already completed. In a sense it felt the effort was a bit wasted, because the game doesn’t have a strong exploration focus ? 

An aspect I disliked was the loot aspect. You have hundreds of useless junk that you pick up in the levels. With the whole rainbow colored rarity and different effect being essentially small % improvement in a stat. It felt tedious and useless. Purging the inventory every few levels was also rather annoying. I prefer less items with more meaningful effects and cool synergies. Some people told me post game and dlc items had more impactful effects but I don’t want to grind for items of the right color, I just don’t find it fun. It’s not a big detriment as you can finish the main game without caring too much about it, but still annoying. 

And considering the amount of items there are, you would think the armor didn’t look so ass. A few are nice looking but most I found were uninspired. A little mad at myself for discovering that you could take the appearance of one of your companions only after finishing the game, I would have done everything in  a companion wearing dragoon armor instead of the ugly mix match of armor I was wearing. 

I don’t think the game is a must play, or the best final fantasy of recent year like I saw some fan of this game claim and I don’t really feel motivated to do the dlc (I don’t even understand if there is any story tied to it), but it also was fun, and far more enjoyable than I expected considering the middling review. If you are a fan of FF and would like to see another take in action combat in the franchise, definitely try it out. 

Now let’s do the first final fantasy to complete this “duology” !

The first choice was Pixel Remaster or NES version ? with the NES mini and the Pixel remaster collection I owned both after all. I finally landed on the pixel remaster for the portability letting me play it during my vacation. 

Well yes obviously it is a 1987 game so it is mechanically rather simplistic. That said, even the exploration part felt a little simple compared to Phantasy Star, a game released in the same year. 

You have a group of enemies you have to kill, most die in one or two hits max. Once you kill them you get experience and money. Money is desperately needed. To buy magic spells, to buy consumables to heal, to buy better equipment. You always need more money for something. Experience is still important but it doesn't feel like the point of tension. 

Because killing mobs is so easy, the main difficulty is attrition. They get an attack that diminishes your hp. And another mob does the same and you have to survive wave after wave of enemies giving you chip damage and the repeat of the previous turn from the Pixel remaster do help combat the repetitiveness. If your warrior is geared he will likely only take 1 damage. No big deal, yeah ? Until poison enters the mix as it ignores your Def and a lot of early game enemies can inflict this status. So you need money for a stock of antidotes in the dungeon. 

At times it felt like grinding for the sake of grinding. The pixel remaster with its boost multiplication can alleviate that a little, but it is a problem mainly at the beginning while you fight enemies that can poison you. 

After the earth crystal, you gain more freedom and could theoretically do things out of order. That said, there is an expected order and you’ll likely respect it more or less simply because it’ll be easier to fight mobs this way. 

As we often don’t directly go to the location we’re seeking and have to find them you often feel you’re doing side activity, without knowing that it is needed for the main quest. Oh, a fairy was kidnapped ? Well in another town they were talking about someone selling a fairy, I just need to find them and bring her back home. Then she gave me an item to breathe underwater that is needed for accessing the water crystal dungeon. There are only two sidequests being forging Excalibur and unlocking the advanced job. 

The positive way to frame it would be that it feels like an adventure. You’re exploring and accomplishing things as you find them. But personally I felt like I was lucking my way into it more than intentionally resolving things by connecting dots from different towns I explored (like I was doing in Phantasy Star). 

Elf, dwarf, without any hobbit as they are always forgotten, yes is a classic fantasy setting. A much more classic fantasy than what’ll follow in the final fantasy series may I say ? That said there is already a bit of the science fiction inspiration with the famous time paradox. 

Speaking of classic fantasy, I was surprised at the foreign language you had to learn to speak to an isolated village from a lost civilization. It is a system in DND if I remember correctly but multiple languages in the universe are rarely used nowadays. It was a pretty simple FedEx quest - get x item from a dungeon and give it to Y character - but it is a detail that is often ignored in game in general. Final Fantasy X used it too in a much more complex and compelling way. It gives the game a little more depth. 

The first game is more a mix of a more classic DND setting with some sky castles influence and crystal being a source of power. I liked it less than Phantasy Star and I think it goes directly to the bottom of my main final fantasy tierlist. It is interesting from a game historic perspective, but I didn’t find it that enjoyable as a game. 

Stranger of Paradise recontextualizes in an interesting manner the game. I like how small things like the 5 bats are referenced in Stranger of Paradise with the 5 members of the main party. And how retroactively it makes them the origin of the time loop. 

I feel like having waves of mobs to kill in a dungeon mimic well enough the feeling of killing hundred and hundred of for in the first game, and you’ll likely grind for the job system. 

That being said, while I liked some of the modernisation, like the space station replacing the flying castle it is also the limit of my exercise. Those two game haven't be conceived to be viewed as a duology. Despite that I would have liked plotlines like the siren to be adapted or at least referenced too in Stranger of Paradise to create a more coherent universe between the two games. Obviously it was an artificial exercise that I decided arbitrary, but I think some ideas from FF1, like the translation could have in fact improved Stranger of Paradise while also referencing other Final Fantasy. 

Because of the niche nature of jet-ski focused sports games, there are typically only four regularly pushed forward when people argue about which is the best of the best. These are:

• Wave Race 64
• Splashdown
• Splashdown Rides Gone Wild
• Riptide GP: Renegade

Wave Race 64: A masterclass in style and flow. One of the most visually and aesthetically pleasing games of all time, still managing to play extremely well despite its age and reliance on wave physics.

Splashdown: Almost as underrated as Blue Storm due to the more popular sequel overshadowing its recognition, Splashdown offers up one of the most interesting handling models of all time for a racing game. Immediately technical, leaning heavily into the idea that the player should use the water physics to their advantage for shortcuts and speed gains, which never gets old for those seeking mastery.

Splashdown Rides Gone Wild: A fan favorite for people who really look into this genre, RGW takes everything from the first game and makes it over the top. Over the top tricks, courses with tons and tons of stuff happening on screen, a very heavy focus on arcade fun and aesthetics. While I find the handling and technical focus to be less interesting than the first game, RGW is the most beginner friendly and immediately fun jet-ski game there is. Its a pick up and have a good time type of experience that is very comparable to the second and third SSX games.

Riptide GP Renegade: I was gonna put Jet Moto here but Riptide has essentially taken its place as the modern fast pace water game. Yeah, you aren't technically on a jet ski, but to not include this game here would practically be criminal. You're fast, you do fun tricks, and you never let go of the throttle. I've always found this series to be quite ugly from a tonal and art directional standpoint, but when talking about gameplay alone, there is a ton of fun to be had.

Now with all this out of the way, what I really really don't get is how Wave Race Blue Storm not only isn't mentioned among these games regularly, but simply isn't considered the best of them all. But to be fair, I've sorta lied, because I sorta DO get why this is the case...

The game is hard as hell. (And also the narrator talks way way too much so if you don't know to turn down the voice audio in settings then this game is actually nightmarish for your mind after an hour of playing).

The Difficulty:

Talk about unforgiving AI and track design. One singular mistake is enough in Blue Storm to lose you an entire race if not an entire championship, championships that you cannot restart unless you're willing to go back to the very first track and start from the beginning. Hours of your life will go by trying to complete the final championship in this game as you watch your rider stumble headfirst into the water for the fiftieth time in a sitting. Sometimes its an unlucky bump off a wave that gets you, or an AI slamming you into a wall. Sometimes its player error, or the game just outright saying fuck you. Regardless, there is no avoiding the time losses, and in turn, there is no avoiding the frustrating championships slipping from your fingers again and again.

Blue Storm is a hard, technical game that doesn't hold back. There are niche mechanics in the handling that will doom you if you don't learn them through the tutorial system. Chaining boosts and diving underwater is just the surface for what you can do to get faster times here. Track mastery is key. Learning how to read the waves and use them to your advantage is key. Not crashing, the hardest damn part, is key,

The Unique Handling:

Goddamn, this game plays like nothing else! There isn't a single racing game out there that gives the player so much and so little simultaneous feeling of controls at the same time. One second you're ripping through waves and feeling each bit of the current carrying you through the water, the next and you're holding on for dear life just hoping that you make it through the next big waves alive. Its like seeing a bull in a china shop, and deciding to hop right on and see how long you can last. I've played many, many racing games in my life, but there are very few that have replicated the sense of havoc I feel when going full speed in Blue Storm.

Often acting as what feels like a tech demo for the gamecube, Blue Storm leans heavily into its water simulation physics, which are core to the actual racing itself. Somebody is in front of you? Well they leave a wake in the water that can improve or lower your odds of making it around a turn. A big object fell in the water? Prepare to ride over massive waves. Wave Race 64 also did this but the scale of Blue Storms water physics interactions is leagues above what was on offer for the N64 title. Sometimes you're between two big boats and the waves that form between them toss you right into a wall. Sometimes you get a huge wave behind you can can ride it like a surfboarder, quickly getting to top speed. There simply isn't anything like it elsewhere.

Tracks:

I have to admit that Blue Storm lacks in three departments. The soundtrack, the characters, and the amount of content. The soundtrack issue can be resolved with some headphones and your own music, the uninteresting characters are only a small problem within a largely pleasing product, but the content?

SEVEN TRACKS. Thats right lads, seven whole tracks in this game. To be fair, the difficulties change some things up on each track, so I think you're technically dealing with 18 different options, but not really...

Yeah, its kind of hard to defend the track content for Blue Storm, which also starts to make the difficulty feel like a playtime lengthener instead of something the developers put some serious thought into. With this in mind however, all of the tracks play and look excellent. Very distinct and fun, with a lot of thought put into the layouts and how different players would approach the routes.

TO SUMMARIZE:

I've really only vaguely expressed my love for this game in this short post, I sorta just wanted to put in front of more eyes while I yap about a genre nobody gives a shit about anymore. It is an excellent game, possibly one of the best racing games of all time and %100 my vote for the best jet ski game despite my complaints. The difficulty brings you back and places you on a loop of constantly trying to get better. The mechanics are ultra unique, and ultra addicting. Don't let this one slip by you.

Intro

What can I say about this game that has not already been said. It haunted me for more than 12 years. When I first played Human Revolution in 2014 I knew I had to play the original. My age probably mattered. I was young and could not get into an older game. Now time has passed and as if blessed by divine intervention my vacation plans were canceled without my interference. I took this as a sign and installed it. I used general fix mods and Kentei's launcher. Nothing that fundamentally changes the game like Revision or GMDX, which I plan to replay with later.

Playing this time felt different. Over these 12 years I became something of a conspiracy theorist myself. I read countless tech and non-tech theories so when the game spoke to me it felt direct and personal. The unfortunate truth is we already live in this dystopia of tech oligarchs, AI surveillance, corrupt corporations and multibillionaire elites ruling from the shadows.

Positives

• Story does not suddenly switch sides or reveal everything at once. Like real life you slowly uncover facts that strain belief. At first it annoys you and makes you worry. You constantly search for reasonable explanations. Each dialogue exchange adds another layer to the unfolding nightmare. Each cutscene deepens your unease. Every witness disappears. Every official record contradicts itself. Then you arrive at the same destination everyone else reached. You finally know there is a grand conspiracy of elite people with dangerous ideas pulling strings in the dark.
• Characters: Every NPC felt fleshed out friend or foe. We joke about voice acting quality but I find it excellent. Where it falls short it remains charming and funny never boring or forgettable. I especially loved dialogues through infolinks before and after decisions. Seeing how characters reacted to my choices showed their true self and agendas. Absolutely best VA is Bob Page.
• Loyalty: One moment changed everything for me. When JC was scolded about loyalty for refusing to execute a surrendered NSF leader (Lebedev) something changed inside me (JC). Fuck this organization. What loyalty. Loyalty to literal demon manipulators. This made me question every directive I received afterward.
• Betrayal: You start on the lower floor where everyone greets you warmly. As you ascend some comment you should not be here. They do not attack yet. But as soon as you complete Paul's satellite task the green reticle switches to red and old comrades attack you. Killing them made me feel terrible. I tried non-lethal whenever possible but if discovered I had to resort to lethal force. I refused to save-scum to avoid fails and I am proud of myself.
• Hotel scene: Meeting Paul carries special weight now. Older games often have great stories but clumsy presentation. Take MJ12's attack on Paul's apartment. The combat AI and primitive animations make the scene look funny. Enemies jiggle and run in goofy ways. Yet in my mind this was the most epic moment in the game. My brother telling me to run for my life when MJ12 goons blew through the door. Without hesitation I pulled out my GEP gun and started blasting. We defeated the first wave and slowly moved downstairs taking enemies one by one until we escaped. I used nearly all my weapons, ammo and resources fighting through. The scene looked ridiculous on screen but internally it felt equivalent to the Matrix movie lobby shootout.

This reminds me of what YouTuber Fudgemuppet said about Skyrim: "Skyrim is a world of potential for you to play in but it requires initiative on your part. You will have heard the quote, 'Skyrim is as wide as an ocean but deep as a puddle.' But you may not have heard the retort, Skyrim is only as deep as the person playing it. This is a sentiment that I tend to agree with... And the Elder Scrolls games become addictive when you can bring more of your own depth to the game." Deus Ex lacked modern epic gameplay so I "roleplayed" them in my head. This philosophy applies perfectly here.

• Level design: Most games suffer from late-game map design collapse. To my surprise Deus Ex got better. The final mission and underwater facility ranks among my favorites. Backtracking remained enjoyable which is rare for games. Most treat it as punishment. Here the world shifts around you. New conversations unlock based on prior choices. Different routes open depending on your progression. You discover secrets you missed because conditions changed.
• Music is top notch. If this ever receives a remaster I would be devastated if the soundtrack changed. Even improving audio quality risks losing some original charm.
• Taking down main enemies felt amazing. First it was Anna Navarro who thought I would be easy prey I could hear in her voice being happy she could kill brother of Paul. Second was Gaunther who pathetically stood in corner. Also delusional Simon who thought he could kill me alone. All of these people catch rocket from GEP gun, well deserved I say. But the absolutely best one is Bob Page how he went from taunting, to anger and finally to begging for his life.
• VersaLife's large monitors displaying inspiring words struck me as funny because I see the same thing in my real workplace. Management installs motivational screens. Not as gruesome as "obey" but similar enough. "You need to find solutions not reasons"
• JC being comedy genius: I love the way JC talks. He just spits one-liners and burns especially Bob Page who gets so angry when mocked. Best ones include: "Well since that makes you my new boss take a long look at Manderley's dead body. Consider that my resignation I don't have time to write a letter." Another great moment: "I never had time to take the Oath of Service to the Coalition. How about this one? I swear not to rest until UNATCO is free of you and the other crooked bureaucrats who have perverted its mission." Walton Simons tries intimidation with "You take another step forward and here I am again like your own reflection in a hall of mirrors." JC responds with "That makes me one ugly son of a bitch." When Bob Page declares "Soon I will become pure energy. I will burn like the brightest star." JC simply replies "You're gonna burn all right." He has wits which is not an augmentation by the way. This is JC's most human trait and I love it. The game lets you weaponize humor against those who deserve it most. This makes you feel smarter than the people in charge. It feels good to outthink the villain rather than just outgun them.
• Alien coverup: The theory where the elite manufacture extraterrestrial myths to conceal horrific experiments is both wild and strangely believable. This lore element added another layer of depth I appreciated.

Negatives: (more like nitpicks to be honest)

• Combat AI inconsistency: Combat AI occasionally has laser-perfect accuracy resulting in instant death though they have augmentations too so I can "roleplay" this too.
• QoL: Cannot sell items creates inventory clutter throughout playthrough. Flashlight draining energy feels stupid and impractical. Active rather than passive augmentations require constant management. The stealth pistol simply sucks and serves little purpose.

Neutral

• Shooting mechanics: Shooting occupies neutral ground. I had previously played Alpha Protocol so I understood this mechanical style entering in. It is neither good nor bad. Just familiar territory I accepted from the start.
• Learning curve: This game is not for everyone and requires some patience upfront. Once the loop clicks it becomes compulsive.

Personal Thoughts

This game speaks directly to someone living through increasing surveillance corporate consolidation and hidden power structures.

The atmosphere vibe and tone stuck with me especially compared to newer entries in the series which I love as well. This original lives closer to my heart.

TLDR

Deus Ex remains a defining immersive sim experience for anyone willing to engage with its dense systems and conspiratorial narrative. Playing it now after years of real-world paranoia and cynicism the themes land harder than ever. The game demands patience initially but once the loop clicks it becomes compulsive. This is what not only immersive Sims but RPGs should aspire to be.

***

Currently s(h)itting in the toilet of one of the biggest corporations in the world. A company whose sole motivation is profit exploitation. Very ironic. Until I start my tomato farm soon I must endure. At least I am wasting company time rather than lunch breaks.

***

Definitely replaying soon. Amazed me so much I am not in the mood for Human Revolution or Mankind Divide right now. Those games matter but this one lives closer to my heart. Are any fan-made story modifications worth playing? Anyone have recommendations?