For all intents and purposes, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth AKA part 2 of the FF7 project is an outstanding remake that should be praised, critiqued, and enjoyed by fans of the original and newcomers to any JRPG coming from part 1. And for me I have a Midgar-size to unload. First, I’m no expert in determining if a remake and sequel to the first portion of Final Fantasy VII Remake with a massive AAA budget can succeed in its lofty ambitions or at the very least decisively conclude it is better than the first installment. My criteria differ from everyone’s standards, but I’ll try to fairly judge the awesome substance along with detailing what it could improve.

I do want to state before I start that I'm not a fan of FFVII. Doesn’t mean I hate it or it is automatically bad. I favorably look at aspects they brought to the table by evolving from the past entries. What works, what doesn’t, offer evidence behind claims, critique, move on. The series core has a way of continually shifting and embarking on new journeys than retreading old familiar grounds. Sequels are the exception. For what it's worth, the seventh in the series is firmly within my top ten. And I've played over 23 titles in the IP. So I'm average with the lore, story, characters of the world. Devoured the connecting spin-offs, anime, film, and light novels. Heck, my first unofficial entry to the franchise is via Crisis Core for the planet's sake. As a result, I like quite a fair bit of the universe created. I say this early on to defuse any misconceptions of negativity. I’ll try to keep the following text as spoiler free as possible. Failing that, you have my explicit permission to call upon Ramuh to smite me down. Or Ifrit if you prefer scorched BBQ.

Bear with me as I put my mixed feelings first then move onto the good stuff. Merely concerns I had in varying degrees of quality tilting my head at various moments during my adventure.

I’m disappointed to say those who didn’t like the first entries' linear sections, make a dreaded return here. There’s so much padding nearly everywhere. Where I’m forced to overcome numerous obstacles through a straight path. Impeding my progress. Blocks on the road where I cannot move at my own pace from A to B. Unless I find a solution to my current barriers. Hurdles where a screen of tutorials will display providing information on the unique circumstances to progress. From beginning-middle until endgame. The messages never end in both main and side content. Not all of them are frustrating, but I can’t for the life of me praise at least one during a mandatory plot segment. Use a mako vacuum to overcome an obstacle while walking unbearably slow. Rerouting power via cables, climbing passages galore, sling-like Tarzan with grappling wooden/steel beams. Where my buddies consist of a frowning, no-nonsense mercenary, an endearing flower girl, a thug with a gun on his arm, a bartender/pugilist, and a talking dog who must undergo these mundane annoyances. Don’t get me started with unwilling stealth zones in some mandatory and side stuff as well. Stretching the avenue in mindless work of what would otherwise be a normal route with some leeway to explore in a regular dungeon taking the fun and excitement out of my body. An illusion tricking my mind of the ‘ooohhh’ and ‘ahhhing’ of spectacle.

To be fair, I didn’t mind these obstruction elements early on, but when I'm grumbling to repeat yet another ascending rock, ninja labors, and new tutorials to solve my current dilemma. Though, I won’t call them ‘puzzles’ but more like mindless busywork solvable by process of elimination. In effect halting the pacing and making me groan internally once again. The first had these as well, and for what it is worth it's an improvement from XIII and XV’s iterations from the usual hallway simulators and open-world nature. However, I still didn’t like the beeline routes in the remake. Whereas in the original release. I didn't need to spend hours in a dungeon. For example, in one large layout without saying any spoilers. Took me over five hours to complete. In the initial game, the same dungeon took an hour - <- spoilers for the original game inside link. To complete everything. I checked the reported lengths to complete the game and users online said similar times. Not gonna link due to spoilers, but if you check YouTube on dungeon comparison in walkthroughs. Such as mine taking four to five hours to complete the same place. Likewise, one dungeon near the end feels so forced to play as one character and engage in yet no one's surprise a linear path. Taking the haunting vibes in favor of a frustrating if not cute atmosphere marred by boxes… Just no no no. Not to say every dungeon takes that amount of time, but it is something to note going forward. With that said I feel most of these large dense places need to be cut in my honest opinion. I didn’t come here to play a three-hour chunk to reach the next adventure beat.

Don’t get me wrong, Square Enix’s work on the title has already been shown earlier in the first part to detail not a 1 to 1 retelling of the same game. Kind of a sequel/modern/recreation/re-imagining take to the past FFVII compilation/universe. Designed as a way to give old and new players a fresh, but familiar take of the aforementioned classic from 1997. Rebirth and the preceding title stretch both the material in ways I'm still coming to grips years later for better or worse.

For comparison, I recorded my entire playthrough, dividing the main scenario, optional content, and dungeon sectors and I can only conclude the dungeons will take at minimum depending on how fast and how thorough you are in exploring and battling or running. At least an hour to three hours on average. For each dungeon. Coming from someone like me who likes to explore a lot and attain as much as I can, that's a pretty long time. When put side-by-side with the extra content I devoured against the story-only segments, I emerged with less than fifty hours for the story, and the rest were completing the countless minigames and non-base content. For a total of 88 hours. And honestly I was tired by the end. Partially due to the fact of the repetitive nature. Finishing 95% of total activities except 2 side quests(which requires mini-game completion), replaying the entire length on hard difficulty with post-game challenges as well. How Long to Beat & the trophy guide will show analogous data to attain 100%. Granted times will vary. Don’t take my hours as definitive. Playstyles will differ. In my case, I don’t idle. And I don’t rush. So the numbers given above are raw gameplay completing activities.

Perhaps instead of climbing, stealth, and other hurdles we face on repeat. I would’ve favored these aspects more if the developers Creative Business Unit I(CBUI) introduced new, unfamiliar, and fun obstacles to overcome than recycling and reusing the same old methods. Letting us use an elevator or slide our way to the top somehow. Instead of sneaky mode, implement a dialogue check at different points if they are disguised. There is already a relationship meter atop our characters' heads to reflect their current status to Cloud, changing depending on answers given to the recipient. Thus I can’t imagine it can’t be too hard to inject for one passage. Heck, it's kind of similar to passing the lie/truth side-scenario in the Dust Bowl. Since there is plenty of clambering, why not include an extensive platforming branch or puzzle tomb to get from one starting place up to the treasure room? Traversal and how to get there would’ve been a wonderful inclusion. Think Assassin’s Creed’s Ezio when hunting for relics in tombs, Lara Croft from Tomb Raider or the titular character from Prince of Persia to avoid many traps. Moreover, the man with a machine gun arm could’ve demolished rock obstacles in my way not repetitively, but if I was trapped in a cave with multiple paths. Blasting different boulders atop could help stop a wave of monsters incoming on our positions. The talking dog could be used to enter smaller entryways to unlock a roadway for my allies. I could think of more possible ones, but I don’t want to litter pages here. Instead, this is to display how I could think of alternate suggestions I thought within 10 minutes. Imagine if everyone who played could say different ideas. Says a lot for an over hundred-hour game to constantly recycle the same old methods. Resulting in predictableness and dullness.

Would benefit immensely from a skip minigame option for both the story and optional content. I don't want to go through a boring repeating button segment. Hitting a specific combination on a controller or the same old solution moving a slowpoke of a cart again. Every single time I go and sync with a summon you have to hit a specific order of presses to bond. I have no idea why I have to do this three times on repeat. And there are more than eight in the game… Furthermore, anytime I have to receive regional lore concerning any place I have to press a timed button and again three times for each place. I need to repeat these mind-numbing routines in a handful of regions. A simple shortcut option would work wonderfully instead of forcing the player to engage with the systems. In Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 I was able to skip their contrived restrictions of familiar button minigames with no sweat nor downtime. To the point, I earned a reward for completing the activity!

Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth isn’t just a JRPG it’s a game spliced with Ubisoft Tower DNA. I kid you not I traveled dozens of these in regions to show nearby locations. I don’t have to unlock them, since you can stumble upon them if you stray from your main objective. But I felt I had to experience everything the game had to offer. Not purely for the story. The side content deserves to be experienced. In a YMMV area. And so climbing the tall structures is nearly the same for everyone. Usually with monsters nearby and barely any change in obstacles soaring to the top. Horizon Zero Dawn uses the same Ubisoft formula except with walking dinosaurs and every time you scale their appendages presents a challenge to get onto the robo-dino. I liked it. Was a fresh take on the formula. Part 2, doesn’t mobilize with creativity and at its most basic form clones the same functional schematic. I wish I could snipe it from far away to activate if something is blocking the antenna. Use a thunder spell, or slap fire spell to destroy vines forming an obstacle. One obstacle I liked was flying to my destination. Though, such an example only occurred in one region. Hence, I feel the developers could’ve created innovative endeavors rather than having to resort back to good old recycling. And I’ve played my decent share of Ubisoft tower games being over 12 entries. If players enjoy these types of rising to the top then I salute you. But for me, Square could do better.

This is relative in the world being a checklist and lifeless at times. All regions barely have anyone in their region to converse and interact with when roaming. Most if not all quest givers are located in their respective cities and towns. And yes there are other denizens within the settlements to converse with, but it is all located mostly with other people. This is painful to witness and experience when I am on the road and admiring the landscape and come across new mobs, but see the same types once I travel enough in a region. Expanding on the checklist most if not all side activities boil down to extermination monsters, fetch chores in retrieving an ingredient from the said place or creature, and returning to the employer. Variations will exist sometimes like following a person delving into one more stealth section or traversing on a mount. But most boil down to boring design. Some of which made me excavate using my chocobo’s senses to follow a trail and then dig for the item. One assignment had me use a sort of radar to find the exact location. No arrow at all except a circle pulsing. I think if the world was more populated adding in travelers. Not allocating all job-givers in a single location within settlements and introducing better sidequest implementation. The execution of which leaves a lot to be desired. Better investigations. Reduction in fetches in favor of already having the item in our stock or bartering for it while giving off a lore bit during discussion. Increase variation in fiend secondary objectives than the standard pressure, stagger, and kill everyone. Or remove them entirely. Such a lack of meaningful implementation leaves me filled with busy work and more like a chore than a fulfilling endeavor to look forward to. Leaving me in a state of confusion and bewilderment.

I did not like the restricted freedom in traversal, whether on foot or on mounts. Regions you encounter being large zones to freely travel there’s a steady amount of verticality to head towards whether above or low normal elevation. Nevertheless, I hit multiple invisible walls constantly as I tried to jump from a very tall cliff to the bottom since some places I traversed didn’t land where I was supposed to. I tried jumping off a cliff only to fail, thereby I had to go all the way around before finally landing on my destination. This is infuriating. Why can’t I jump from the tallest point and suffer an HP cost or none? The year is 2024 and I can’t believe I have to say this, but the game has no shortage of invisible walls. Pressing a button on your controller will help speed you down a sharp incline only if there are ‘steps.’ Without these you’re SOL. What’s baffling is two mounts circumventing these issues entirely, but my character, an EX-soldier can’t land from a high elevation? Square Enix please play Xenoblade Chronicles and take notes.

By extension, I don’t like having to manually gather materials anytime on foot or a mount. Yet when I acquired traversal vehicles later on I could gather them automatically. I’m again mystified why I can auto-pick them up through a mount but have to resort to manual pick-ups of materials I may need. The devs clearly knew earlier on. Except I'm forced once again to enlist with tediousness. And trust me the game litters the world with common, uncommon, and rare materials to freely transmute as if I'm some impromptu full metal alchemist. Good luck trying to get the right ones if you can’t find them for some quests requiring key items to be made.

Without saying spoilers. A new addition to the remake is Interlude sequences. These consist of playable sections using a certain character I won’t name. But suffice it to say I feel their global inclusion needs to be overhauled. Similar, but different from ones like FFVIII. There we could battle, earn experience, change our equipment, interact, talk to both the citizenry, and volunteer in fun activities. Here we barely interact with the world and are stuck in a linear pattern to complete before we're back on the main content. And this is a mandatory story. So you can’t bypass it. It is like teasing older veterans on you know what, but you actually can’t do much of anything. A missed opportunity to interest both old and new in the figure which I like quite a fair bit. Remember what I said previously about padding? We could use the AAA budget in the interlude, please. Not less than ten minute moments.

I feel the pacing and major villain suffer in consistency as I absorbed and devoured as much of the game. The former(pacing) is tangled in a web of Ubisoft towers with poor sidequest implementation coupled with an absence of quality of life regarding countless button assignments leaves me fatigued despite resting on days to embrace a slow-burn plot that doesn’t hit their strides until later on. The latter(villain) and extends to minor antagonists feel like someone teasing me from far away. As if “Na na na you can’t get me.” Accurate from the original yet becomes more infuriating with the lack of any real achievement upon fighting them. By achievement, only a small modicum of advancement, fluff, and perchance a bit of drama details emerge to move the group along and ascertain with one another “ All right so what have we learned, and what can we do better?” Reusing the same old trick again when moving on. Although, some segments do spice up the encounters to be different and unique. The fact I only saw their interactions change and the climax propelling faster near the endgame. And not in the middle of the game’s story. There’s a lot of focus on padding unnecessary content without giving proper characterization. One chapter takes place in a cave and after voice lines are given from an enemy encounter, I have control of my members only to realize they barely engage in banter. Calling out their moves sure and mottos yes. But nothing to extend their relationship further with bonds. Maddening to witness going through multiple sections with nothing but silence as my companion. While in reverse when finishing some side activities I am treated to some pure development straight from the heart. And here I am left wondering what in the gates hell is going on with my non-existent friendly banter. Did they run out of expenses for more voice lines? Or was it all used for Chadley's (a friendly NPC from the preceding entry) budget because his face is the most I’ve seen whenever I initiate any side activity… wish some of the money went into a M&*(New NPC) budget.

Perhaps the biggest offender to me is the motivation to complete the main story. Any game worth their salt needs to have a compelling plot. We can reduce this simple notion to some regular examples. Revenge, stop ‘x’ person, find out why I have missing memories, find a method for ‘y’ idea. Etc etc. Within the 2024 title, our task is to stop someone who-I-shall-not-name but you can probably figure out who. Along with the goal of saving the planet is sorely lacking. The turtle pace narrative walks instead of blazes. Out of the total 14 chapters, only the chapter [blank] finally moved the glaciers out of my way in my opinion. Some of which were merely a warm-up. By the end, I didn’t feel like I reached a definitive answer to my motivation at the start and was left helpless, confused, and horribly misled.

Lastly, maybe a hot take, I couldn’t help but feel a decent amount of camera work stayed too far on certain antagonists as if to give importance or impending doom. The former of which I don’t need to know the layout of a room before hitting the dude's clothing drip or his lips. The latter of which relates to my point on the villain as if poking at the player to remember they are still a grave and present threat looming over their heads. And the ‘headaches’ we receive frequently to distort our reality into a green filter television flashback in ala schizophrenia leaves me groaning every time I see it. I know the man is in pain. I know he is suffering. Yes, I will expect another occurrence again in the following cutscene. With minor variations in between. Makes me think of splendor shots as if the cutscene director wants their audience to embrace the spectacle. And to its credit, some very impressive moments took my breath away. However, not every shot or angle is up to par and I’m sad to report the camera work at times feels excessive to the point of unnecessary.

I hope my mixed feelings aren't a turnoff. Think of them as major concerns that severely impacted my overall experience. Merely trying to say the above text could be better and improved from what didn’t work out for me. Not to be taken as the ultimate egregious stain upon the landscape of gaming or JRPGs in general. And if some take that to heart well you have my permission to send Bahamut to obliterate me. Besides, the game could be far worse… like full of microtransactions, bugs, and crashes, improper balancing, nonsensical narrative, boring characters, a weak villain, etc. Yet I'm glad to report the game is nothing like those horrible examples. Anyway, now is the time for the awesome stuff. With our party exiting Midgar and embracing the wild wilderness outside the yoke of Shinra’s capital. To find answers and well hunt someone-who-I-again-shall-not-name.

Rebirth is faithful and bold. Excelling in recreating some of my favorite spots back in the original and enhancing nearly everything from combat, music, cutscenes, bonds between friends, etc. I could imagine. The over-and-beyond soundtrack and great range in the countless voice actors to the satisfying combat are nearly the same as the first installment but the addition of synergy skills adds a new tactical layer of syncing up with my ally and delivering punishing blows. And the pleasing visual aesthetic of seeing Kalm, the first town you visit is breathtaking, but more so for every city/town you visit as well. Like by the lifestream seeing Junon with a big freaking cannon jutting out into the ocean still gives me shivers. Cosmo Canyon, a place if anyone ever visited the Grand Canyon in America is of a comparable breadth and scale except steampunked and teeming with monsters, but futuristic with windmills and strapped to the rocky cliffside and denizens living freely without the yoke of oppression from Shinra. Without a doubt, the locations are given maxed attention in both scale and exploration to freely travel between several layers of a city. Don’t get me started on the jungles of Gongaga. I embraced my inner gaga over there.

Characters by far receive adequate characterization and some of their development is hidden in their sidequests. The quality of which is just as satisfying to witness once you earn the end of a side objective. My man with a machine gun easily hits powerful lines almost every time he reflects or delivers passionate speeches. Played by John Eric Bentley, he delivers words like a critical point past midpoint and hidden within a cutscene delving deep into his past providing not only proper development but nuance in his self-reflections concerning others. Most of all he’s not afraid to say it and I deeply admire him. Making his actions later on with his comrades heartwarming. Briana White who voices Aerith equally delivers an emotional range from funny and wholesome to genuinely gripping me with her performances. I saw neither cringe nor an inadequacy of tone in any of my allies in general and as a result, the cutscenes pertaining to each of my comrades' screen time were enjoyable. Heck, the talking dog rises past mountains and bites the cosmos zenith delivering one of the funniest scenes in the game. To the point, I prefer this version’s take than the old one haha. And the sheer range they undergo, once I learn new facets of their personality, is both amusing and shocking. I also feel there’s a greater emotional spectrum at play here concerning the main cast. Tifa and Aerith’s budding friendship is heartening to observe as are the darker feelings my cabal undergoes when the narrative dips back into the dark hold of Shinra’s all-encompassing reach over the planet. For every nice moment my group encounters a looming shadow is stalking them. And I like how not all is fine and dilly dally. Makes the cast relatable and human. Although, I wish Cloud would emote a bit. His facial expression is too stoic at times, but when he does delve into more emotions oh it is a sight…

The cinematography is oh my lord exceptionally well done. I know I groaned about the slow burn early on, and some camera work being excessive but goodness, when you cross after the midpoint. The story cutscenes set the tone right - Clean sequences, no hard cuts constantly to confuse the viewer on the action moments and landing the poignant spots when needed. With the voice actors enhancing these scenes to the limit. Various points during the endgame were magical and beautiful. The flow of which offers a nice break from the usual humor and fluff from the side scenarios reeling back the curtain of the main adventure. But I must say, one long sidequest chain being proto-relics regarding the super boss is pretty sick and the attention to detail and care is lovingly crafted. Fans of the series will take special gratification in experiencing all their quirks and epicness.

No copy-paste for enemies and most environments. By the end of my journey I found a total of 230 unique enemies. No different colored variations or slight increases in HP and power differences either. These mobs will chew and spit you out if you’re not careful. On normal difficulty I found the balance to be justtttt right. Didn’t find battles too easy or too insurmountable. Environments for the most part didn’t repeat as if the 3D artists got lazy. Every area you visit, be it a city/town or a hidden place tucked away reveals something beautiful and mesmerizing. I can’t count the number of times I admired the land and embraced the call of nature. Screw the main assignment and subsidiary content. I’m becoming a photographer! Heck check some of these shots here and here (insert photos)

No complaints whatsoever for part 2 shatters the limit break on soundscape design here. I would equate it similarly to how FFXVI composition goes but differently. I can’t help but notice whenever I gather new intel the music would dynamically change. Specifically towers. Vocals and instrumentals are more fleshed out as you embrace more intel and my god almighty I'm reminded of whenever FFXIV introduces a new trailer for their expansion you don’t get the full trailer, instead you get a teaser before getting the full course meal. Essentially we listen to an adequate sampler then upon reward hear a better-improved version as I progressed in each region is incredible. And good lord almighty Masashi Hamauzu and Mitsuto Suzuki the composers hit the baseball flying into a homerun reaching outer space. It's phenomenal. No copy-paste and recycling of old tracks. You will undoubtedly hear new remixes, arrangements, instrumentals, vocals and so much more while playing. Shifting and changing as I played more and more. Battles, sidejobs, new areas, main story, and cutscenes all have their unique flair of variety. Resonating with my ears. By the time I entered one weird region called Gongaga, I put my controller down and had my hands over my eyes. Silently listening to powerful emotional moments brought by flute wind and percussion instruments among others I can’t for the life of me identify due to screaming internally how a track touches my heart. For those who played a certain title in the FF7 compilation I 100% felt one person's spirit manifested and oh so pure. The feeling is Indescribable. And then I'm treated to a bow wow wow as if I'm suddenly transported onto a jolly happy place filled with children chorusing a heartwarming rendition to give me enough incentive to conquer anything and everyone in my path. Move over final boss. Once I’m listening to the beat of the bow wow I am unstoppable!

Pivoting to minigames, some of which are truly enjoyable to the extent I kept coming back. Out of more than a dozen to play around with. Without any contest. I must say Queen’s Blood(QB) reigns supreme. Fans of the series know about the Triple Triad, a 3x3 grid where you and one other player duke it out card style to win. QB is similar except we have a bigger grid to manage along with more cards to fiddle around with. Up to fifteen. I won’t go into explaining the mechanics, rather I want to say how satisfying it is to go through the side content and challenge QB players who have a passion for the cards. Bonus points for the team to cheekily take great notes from The Witcher 3’s Gwent pre-match camera angles cause man Cloud and whoever he faces offers a mean frowning “Come and get some!” face-off before entering the battle stage. And thankfully enough the difficulty is balanced I would say. There’s an interesting questline integrated into beating new and experienced veterans only to secure the thrilling conclusion near the end. Such care and thought only deserve every ounce of praise in my eyes. Rules feel fair, thankfully not overly complex. Large assortment of cards to collect and over thirty people to challenge and partake in special survival and puzzle matches too! Seriously makes me wonder if we'll face off a new big bad villain with a card game in the next installment. I can't wait! I need this version in FFXIV please!

Anyway, here are other fantastic ones to try. Leapfrog aka Frogger is a nice way to avoid the spinning beams. Fort Condor goes all out on low poly tower defense. Running Wild is like Rocket League, except with animals. 3D-Brawler is an awesome boxing game using poly characters of our members vs poly enemies. Galactic Saviors is an on-rail shooter ala star-fox kind. Can’t forget a full course Chocobo racing with separate tournaments to enter. Honestly, that one feels like its own game with different races to enter. Heck, there’s even a Wall-E-like Tower defense, but you can input your gambits. I could list extra, but I’ll refrain.

Despite what I said earlier about the padding of both story and optional content. To play devil's advocate against myself I do think on the flip side. The result of engaging with the subsidiary content reveals vital characterization for your companions. I touched on the notion with a machine gun guy. But to expand further without getting into the nitty gritty. If a player finishes all the main story content before moving into a new region and decides to complete remaining the side missions within the area. They are treated to an aftermath of story events prior about my friends. Mostly at the conclusion. Sometimes calling back to familiar NPCs we met and knew about in the past game. Making their presence feel more alive in developing their interpersonal relationships. We also get payoffs on some unanswered inquiries regarding our side-cast in the midpoint. Reveal startling lore bombs on what we know of the planet and as you dove deeper reveal further details. By endgame, I ultimately liked the ambition and deviations shifting outside the norm conceptually and with respect to certain areas to old material in a modern form. But can’t help but think their execution needs work to make it fun and gratifying. If I am treated to a tedious quest design only to reveal a paragraph of lines of development from the main cast to the side cast or vice-versa within the entire product to give me joy. Then I think something needs to change to make the long-term experience enjoyable and not half-and-half.

A triple ‘A’ JRPG remake of this caliber is a sight to behold. However, in my honest opinion, it could be improved a lot. Despite the praise I stated previously, it is not without imperfections. My numerous mixed feelings severely impacted my overall experience to the point I found underneath the splendor lies a stern absence of respecting the player’s time and freedom to participate in its padded nature. A shortage of quality-of-life features like a simple skip minigame(than a reduction in difficulty, from the latest patch) or lessening the involuntary barriers during linear slices. Would’ve done wonders to not forcibly engage with the long dungeons included thereby halting the pacing and breaking the momentum of the plot beats. And an ending I'm frankly disappointed at which I’ll explain more in a separate spoiler link regarding a breakdown why. Though I am glad many enjoyed this title greatly, I can't help but feel wary if I constantly fill the Square Enix’s CBUI heads with clouds of praise without fair critique. That is why I find this title enormously troublesome to rate fairly. After spending weeks bashing my head back and forth, plus reading what my friends had to say and reading those on the other side praising/enjoying/loving everything Rebirth has to offer. I am still shaking my head in distress. Furthermore, I don’t like being baited or teased endlessly, and inside the 2024 title clearly showed plenty. If you’re onboard with that and more such as exploding your suspension of disbelief at times then you will have no problem turning off your brain here. I’m still kinda looking forward to the last entry, but the bigger question I’ve been asking myself is if this remake/re-imagining is something all other companies will take heavy inspiration from and I believe they should for the right reasons. Left unsaid I hope my overall conclusion doesn’t deter the game from prospective buyers. My intention is never to be harsh on a game from which fans adore everything the remake offers. But to inform with evidence what worked well and what didn’t for me. And pray the information helps someone.

5.7/10

Additional Material:
FFVII - Rebirth Ending Analysis - good defense on why this works - ending spoilers
My spoiler thoughts on FFVII Rebirth. Every chapter breakdown - same warning as above

Tried to enjoy it, but there was one small issue. It randomly crashed lmao

Will probably play sometime again, probably not on Switch either. I've read on the Wiki that this is apparently common on the Nintendo-emulated versions, but I didn't touch 3DS VC Shantae at all. Not risking it lmao

Most people nowadays that pick up Xenogears go in knowing it's going to be a good game, a great one, even. Word of its quality has spread gradually over time, primarily due to the success of its descendants; Xenosaga and Xenoblade. What people don’t seem to know is how ambitious it was.
The game having a good story is practically a given thanks to the names behind it, but it's the rest of the game that really impresses. Not only does the game have a ‘normal’ form of combat, in which up to three of your party members use their three attack types to combo their opponents into hell, there’s also gear combat. Gears are the mechs in this game, and unlike the normal characters, gears need to build attack level to combo, rely on fuel, and can’t be healed normally. The game switches between these two combat forms depending on the situation, and each of them are remarkably fleshed out, making it much harder to tire of combat than it is in most jrpgs.
Besides the main combat forms, there are also side modes and mini games such as gear combat. Not the same gear combat as before, the battlin’ gear combat is a lot more comparable to an arena fighter (albeit much less fleshed out) giving the gameplay even more variety. There’s even a speed minigame, a goddamn fully built card game that looks pretty good even now.
Xenogears bleeds creativity and is fully deserving of its legacy. The game is far from perfect - there are some glitches and some party members feel a tad underdeveloped, for example - but it's a truly one-of-a-kind experience worth anyone’s time.

I had no sword at all for two and a half hours.

I eventually found Biggoron's Sword on sale for 15 Rupees in the Goron City shop as Adult Link. However, as an incredibly frustrated young Alex learned in 1999, you cannot defeat Ganon in Ocarina of Time with the Biggoron Sword. In order to finish the game, the final blow must come from the Master Sword.

During my first playthrough of this (or any) randomizer, the Master Sword was the very last item that I found. This is what it took for me to find it:

• Both the Master Sword and the Kokiri Sword were in the Fire Temple in optional chests, with the Master Sword's chest requiring the Scarecrow Song to reach it. But I couldn't get to either of those without access to the Megaton Hammer, as the room to the left where you encounter Darunia had no keys in it. (The key to the door on the right side of the entry hall turned out to be in the Boss Key chest)

• The Hammer was in the Gerudo Training Grounds, so I was ultimately gated by my lack of Hover Boots.

• The Hover Boots were in Jabu-Jabu's belly, in place of the Zora's Sapphire. But I couldn't complete that section without the Boomerang.

• The Boomerang was in the moat in place of the Ocarina of Time, but I needed the 3 Spiritual Stones before Zelda would chuck it in there.

• The Kokiri Emerald was in one of the Gibdo coffins in the Bottom of the Well, so I needed the Lens of Truth to discover that.

• And the Lens of Truth was sold by a Business Scrub in Dodongo's Cavern. I got a good deal though, it was only 10 rupees.

Obviously, I had no idea where the Master Sword would be, so this wasn't a plan or a list of instructions I followed, it's just how things shook out. And I had a great time! I used Ship of Harkinian's randomizer, and there are some fantastic options that made the constant back-and-forth scouring of Hyrule more feasible. The most useful ones were unbreakable Deku Sticks (absolutely critical since I didn't find a sword for a while), changing Link's age with the Song of Time, Bunny Hood increasing speed like in Majora's Mask, and ageless items (allowing Young Link to use the Hookshot, for example). I was incredibly impressed with Ship of Harkinian though, and will definitely put more playthroughs into that, randomized or not.

Nossa, de verdade que jogo maravilhoso! Eu realmente não esperava a emoção que esse jogo trás e a diversão que ele proporciona. Fui de cabeça nesse jogo sem nem pensar muito, pois tinha ouvido falar muito bem dele, mesmo sendo o primeiro jogo de ritmo que eu jogo. Por isso acabei estranhando um pouco no começo, mas com o tempo esse jogo me prendeu de uma forma inexplicável. A gameplay é muito bem pensada e gostosa, os gráficos são lindos demais, o estilo do jogo me cativou muito, as músicas, os ritmos, absolutamente tudo nesse jogo é incrível! De verdade, eu super recomendo!

Take “boomer shooter” out of your vocabulary; the term has been rendered meaningless.

I knew this entire little sub-genre of first-person shooters was cooked the second that the joint advertising teams of Games Workshop and Focus Entertainment all came to the conclusion that “boomer shooter” is a marketable enough selling point to tie your multi-million dollar IP to. If, indeed, it ever did mean something, it doesn’t anymore. What a boomer shooter is, in a post-Boltgun world, is “a shooter with pixel graphics”. That’s all. And if that’s all that it was — just a Doom Eternal demake — that would be forgivable. But the reality is that Boltgun is a completely miserable experience made by people who have zero fucking clue what they’re doing, chasing after trends without so much as an inkling of understanding as to why those trends are popular in the first place. Sure, fuck it. The new Doom games are gory shooters. Throwback games made popular by studios like New Blood seem to sell well. All we need to do is put the two together, boom! Free money! Paint it all in space marines and warp and chaos and we’ll be billionaires before breakfast tomorrow. How hard could it be?

I can’t fucking stand Boltgun. For some ungodly reason, someone in charge decided that the best people to put to work on a first-person shooter would be a crack team of board game and strategy developers from Auroch Digital, all of them completely unqualified to get to work on a project such as this. Consider this your first warning sign, long before you even boot up the game; why would Focus hire out to the studio behind Achtung! Cthulhu Tactics and Beermaster: Beer Brewing Simulator to make what’s intended to be a fast, brutal, tightly-paced shooter? Is it because they genuinely believed that these were the best people for the job, or was it because some tiny management-game studio from Bristol wasn’t asking for as much money as the next guys who knew what they were doing? I don’t blame Auroch, necessarily; I know what it’s like to be way in over my head under the guidance of a boss who doesn’t know enough to understand how badly I’m fucking up.

Boltgun is a game of numbers, and not of much else. “Suit your weapon’s strength to an enemy’s toughness rating,” reads one particularly cheery loading screen tip. As requested, I take aim at a Level 3 Nurgling with my STR 5 Boltgun, and the taste of bile in the back of my throat gets harder to ignore. Locking your reticle on an enemy will give you every detail about them you could ever want to know: their name, their level, total health, current health, social security number, bank password, browser history, the works. You swap between the weapons on your hotbar and each of them tells you the exact strength and name of the equipped gun: STR 4 Boltgun, STR 3 Meltagun, STR 7 Plasma Gun. Poke around levels for long enough and you’ll find secret pickups that’ll boost the power of your weapons, adding all sorts of little tags like “Kraken Round Magazine” and “Dragonfire Round Magazine” or “Machine Spirit Upgrade”. Your HUD gets flooded with all of these details, paradoxically taking up so much space on the screen that it’s near-impossible to read any of it. One pressing question remains, throughout all of this:

Why?

What do we gain from having all of this worthless fucking information on the screen at all times? Seriously, what the fuck is the point? I don’t need to know the enemy’s level. I don’t need to know exactly how much health they have. I don’t need to know a numerical value for how strong my weapons are. I don’t need to know what type of ammo I’ve got loaded into my boltgun. I don’t need to know the maximum amount of health that an enemy could theoretically have. I don’t fucking need any of this. How are you getting lapped in your UI design by the original Doom, a game that came out three fucking decades ago and realized then that you didn’t need to tell the player all of this completely fucking worthless information? If you didn’t know before playing that Auroch were strategy game developers and not people who make shooters, this is what gives it away; such a fucking obsession with showing numbers to the player in a situation where they’re worse than useless.

And none of this would matter, really, if the game were fun. If this was all just pointless, ignorable set-dressing for a game that otherwise works fine, then I could forgive it. I can’t, though, because Boltgun commits the mortal sin of being abjectly fucking boring. This might be one of the most pathetically easy games I’ve ever played, even with the difficulty cranked as high as it can go. Enemies feel like they’re shooting at you only as a formality, firing projectiles that move in slow-motion across the screen that’ll land in a different zip code so long as you strafe left. This is true for just about every enemy that can fire something at you. All of them are so sluggish that it’s as if they’re only pulling the trigger at you because they’d get fired and lose their health insurance if they didn’t. The flamers might be one of the most unintentionally hilarious monsters I’ve ever seen in a game like this; I think doctors test for brain activity by whether or not you’ve ever taken a hit from a fireball a flamer has thrown at you. You could only ever get clipped if you were comatose. Exterminatus difficulty does seem to make projectiles go a bit faster, and spawns more numerous and more powerful enemies, but I imagine most people who have played a game before could do most of this in their sleep. Not because they’re god gamers, but because Boltgun never stops drowning the player in goodies.

Pickups are peppered fucking everywhere in all of these over-long levels, littering the floor with every single type of ammo, every single grenade, and more health and armor kits than anyone could ever possibly need. There’s a section on the right side of the screen dedicated to telling you which pickups you got, and you should get used to seeing it be filled with nothing but “Boltgun ammo full, Boltgun ammo full, Heavy bolter ammo full, Krak grenade full, Health full, Health full, Health full, Boltgun ammo full, Plasma gun ammo full, Health full, Heavy bolter ammo full, Shotgun ammo full, Health full”. Outside of Exterminatus difficulty, I don’t think you ever even need to switch weapons; you get so much ammo for every single gun that you’ll never get so much as an opportunity to run a weapon dry. Armor needs to drain to zero before enemies can start dealing direct health damage, and armor caps out at 300(!!!!!), meaning you’ll always have plenty of +100 health kits to backtrack for in the unlikely situation that your foes manage to break through your 300 armor and get to your 200 health. I walked out of every stage with more supplies than I walked into them with, even after certain stages would force me into a minimum of four purges before I was allowed to move on.

In addition to your usually loop of finding color-coded keys and unlocking color-coded doors, Boltgun takes a page from the new Doom titles with the purge mechanic, where all of the doors lock and you aren’t allowed to progress until you’ve killed everything inside. New enemies will constantly spawn in, so it’s mostly just an exercise in strafing around and firing at the teleport particle effects. Enemies spawn in slowly, and the purge arenas are often big enough that you’ll be running around trying to find where the fucking enemies actually are so you can shoot them and progress. A big part of what makes these encounters so slow is that enemies spawn in waves, where more of them refuse to teleport in until you’ve killed everything from the first wave; there’ll be some shit gunner who dies in three shots from the Boltgun meandering around two continents away, and it’s up to you to go and find him so that you can get the momentum going again. There’s no challenge, there’s no pressure, it’s just blindly wandering through these enormous arenas trying to figure out if everyone else went home and didn’t tell you.

A part of me is grateful that this is on Game Pass, because it means that I didn’t need to spend a cent of my own money beyond what I was already paying to find out how atrocious this really is. The other part of me is annoyed, because I never would have bothered trying this out had it not been offered to me as part of a package deal. The only thing it cost me was my time; the one resource I can never get more of. What a complete and utter waste. You know a game is really bad when it ignites the flames of existential dread. There were so many better things I could have done with my time, and I instead allowed this game made and marketed by clueless people to suck it all away and leave me with a taste in my mouth like I ate two servings of dirt. The bar for Warhammer games is on the fucking floor. Do yourself a favor and try to forget that this even exists. I’m sorry for writing this review and reminding you of it if you’d gotten it out of your mind.

I can offer no greater condemnation than by stating that this is a sprite-based game with vertical mouselook.

Look, this game came out in 1984 so the chances of it being a deep and realistic racing simulation are exactly nil. But it still manages to deliver a cool experience!

There's a deceptive amount of skill to be put to the test here, from leaning backwards to avoid tumbling over speedbumps, to tilting your bike in the air to maintain speed when you land, and multitasking to make sure your engine doesn't overheat. And while the game's rudimentary physics aren't the most satisfying, it still manages to be a very compelling "chaos simulator" thanks to the sheer amount of stuff happening onscreen at once, with the wack collision physics meaning that at least one racer is taking a spill at any given time. The difference between winning and losing spectacularly is often mercurial and seemingly down to blind luck, yet losing is... still kinda fun actually!

The game's structure embraces this emphasis on fun - you can select any track to race on at any time, with no content walled behind any arbitrary skill checks! And you can design your own tracks, as seriously or as terribly as you want!

If you play this game trying to win it you'll probably end up frustrated (I could never finish the 5th level myself). But if you treat it as a fun little playground, it's pretty good!

Finished my replay of this game on hard mode. There wasn't much of a difference with normal except that obviously you take fewer hits before you go down. Perhaps one day I'll play on realistic but something tells me that will cross the line into being annoying for my playstyle.

If you've followed me for a while or even if you've been in the same room as me for more than 15 minutes you might now that I despise stealth games. I've tried, but I genuinely hate them all. MGS, Thief, Dishonored, even stealth sections in games I like (shenmue, max payne, disaster report 4). I've had bad luck with so called Immersive Sims because of it, as most of them are essentially stealth arpg hybrids like Deus Ex, but so far its basically only the OG (and consortium by virtue of not having stealth) that I mess with. Its not exactly a mystery why, and consider this a plea for other games to follow suit : let me murder everyone. Give me an actual choice between stealth and combat and not just stealth and "you fucked up the stealth you idiot! you might as well reload a save"

Importantly, Deus Ex's combat is deceptively fun to get to grips with. Its so simple but really effective the way that you start out as someone who takes 2 business days to line up a pistol shot to being able to run around with the gep gun blowing people up like nothing. I'm surprised no one else has tried emulating the system, with your RPG esque weapon stats determining how fast your crosshair takes to narrow and become fully accurate, presumably imitating how it takes someone to aim down the sights and prepare to fire a shot.

Now, obviously for this kind of game there has to be push back, and even with a combat build your ass is not going to last if you're trying to play the game like half life, which is precisely why its satisfying to completely forgo stealth and murder everyone through traps, ambushes etc. This playthrough I discovered how useful the non lethal gas grenades are for murder runs (ironically) cause it makes enemies freeze up to rub their eyes, lining up to get headshot with the pistol for maximum murder efficiency.

The playthrough did however highlight Deus Ex's biggest flaw : the save system. Its one of those systems which is simultaneously too annoying and too forgiving. Its annoying because I am forgetful, and losing 15 mins of progress because I forgot to save is just... frustrating. On the other hand, there is basically nothing stopping you from hardcore save scumming every 5 seconds. Ironically, there is nothing more appropriately "mean" for a choice based rpg than an aggressive auto save, as it is, you can basically game most of the big decisions and encounters. Maybe even a save room system like RE4 might be appropriate? Could even lock them behind doors with an interesting weighing up of resources if its worth risking a loss of progress for a lockpick or multitool? Idk now Im playing armchair designer but either way.

Area 51 is still kinda annoying, I didnt use console commands to noclip through it this time but I still fused with Helios because it was the fastest way to complete the level, the later bits of the game are kind of a downgrade from the initial half of the game.

Oh please, pleaaaase bonk me on the head. Okay, it's not as bad as it looks I swear. Big boobies sure, no nudity also for sure! I'm not scratching the bottom of the barrel yet, and you're wondering why this is in your feed. Ok so it's gonna be a doozy but here's roughly what happened: I wanted to play a sex game since it's one of the only types of games I haven't had the pleasure to play yet, I scroll through a bunch and decide it's not the time yet (they're scary). Lo and behold, skip a few hours and I'm looking for cracked copy of Journey for my bestie (i dont want to make her pay games just to play with me) and there it is, obviously. I recognize it, check through Steam yada yada, one of the top tags is "cute" and the price is at its highest sale that settles it I'll play through this.

Seems I cooked up a long excuse for why I have played this. Don't worry, I won't go to such lengths for the gay porn game I have in my radar. It's quite easy, dont last too long, but when it gets harder it's very fair! It's too basic to really get a higher score, although unphotoshopping a picture is quite unique from what I'd done so far. They're risque, but they probably would look like normal pictures if she had normal proportions. That'd be less bang for the buck (flat women we love u)! Now go get that bag gurl. We goin through the 4 seasons stay fresh all year long.

What baffling decision however, is that there's no romance? Rina and even your invisible self-insert with your name go far to make sure the other knows there's nothing more than a deep friendship here. It's not that I am against it, but that's not what I expected for the target demographic. It dont have the sex gentlemen, maybe we ought to play Bald Gate III. Anyways look at that white woman she made me pay to edit photos I will never forget that night.

Half-Century Challenge Series: https://www.backloggd.com/u/C_F/list/half-century-challenge/

HCC #1 = Game of Life (1970)

Hello everyone, I'm happy to announce Mega and I are engaging in the site's first Half-Century Challenge! We are both playing 50 games spanning from 1970 to 2020 and reviewing each one as we go along. Look forward to the series as a whole!

So, let's talk about Game of Life. This is not a 1 player game but a 0 player game, meaning it is played without any input from the player and merely observed. This game led the way to all sorts of 0 player games in the future such as Progress Quest, Godville, and, hell, CPU VS CPU matches in fighting games or whatever the hell. Essentially, the game is determined by RNG seeds before it even begins.

It looks like a simple game where some squares can live and die. But there is so much more to it. The abstract shapes function as a sort of Rorschach test, and I think that's kinda incredible for something from 1970. Gliders, spacers, pulse stars, etc are all potentially viewable from inside the grid.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e5/Gospers_glider_gun.gif
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_Game_of_Life#/media/File:Game_of_life_pulsar.gif
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4f/Animated_Hwss.gif

It's pretty telling that new patterns were being discovered for decades after its release, to say nothing of the countless times it has been recreated. It is directly homaged in various future games for good reason. Google "Game of Life" and thank me later.

Overall, Game of Life probably isn't something the player will be spending hours on. However, to quote John Apollo 11, it was one small step for a game, one giant leap for gaming. The term video game has sorta outgrown its origins. In the 70s, experiences like electronic versions of Pong were all the rage. The term "video game" is only so ubiquitous now since the medium harkened forth the image of games like Pong being recreated on a screen.

The fact Game of Life continues to be a cultural landmark, to say nothing of the fact it simulated something the players could never hope to recreate in real life with something along the lines of a ball and paddle? If that doesn't scream the medium was always a unique form of art, I'm not sure what does.

Next time: The Oregon Trail (1971)

Not much to say because it is indeed a prototype, but the final version of SUPERHOT is, in my opinion, one of the best indie games of all time, and its really cool to see where it all started. Pretty much everything from this prototype was improved. The polygonal aesthetic really serves the final game well, the physics feel better, the setting feels better, and while interesting its a lot cooler that there is no actual voicelines in the final SUPERHOT game.

That being said, there are actually a few touches in this prototype that are charming and are missing from the final game, like the existence of bullet casings that can be heard hitting the floor and (in my opinion) more interesting visuals for the pistol.

That being said, this was a great start for what became a great game. The biggest improvement though has to be the fact that in the final game, they put more space between "SUPER" and "HOT". I shudder to imagine a world where they didn't make that change in the final game!

...or maybe I'll take it all!

Fun patch, lots of Aventurine content and also introduces storytelling from the perspective of multiple protagonists (something I'd like to see used again in the future). The new twists are nice, but ultimately many things still feel like a setup for the final act, as Act 2 literally ends on two separate cliffhangers, but I enjoyed Aventurine's little sidestory a lot - just wish the writing didn't overuse the "going all-in/betting your life" aspect so much, it felt like doing him a disservice by pushing that trait so much. Either way, I'm stoked to see where the finale is headed!

Fruitless back-and-forths over Tomb Raider often put me in the same headspace: thinkin' about Oddworld. Now there's a solid cinematic platformer for the PlayStation 1, one with expressive characters, imaginative environments, a great sense of humor and actual messaging to compliment it's fun and often challenging puzzles. Lara can't like, mind control a bear and make it explode. I rest my case.

But opening up my copy of Abe's Oddysee immediately presents something bleakly funny: the definition of a quintology. Oh Lorne. Poor Lorne. They screwed the man at every turn. From pressing the first run of discs with a repeatable, game breaking bug (in Lorne's words, the person who made this call was not "a Gamer"), to Gamestop publishing a guide that immediately funneled new players into the most difficult hidden screens of the game, to his regrets over Exoddus and Sony throwing Soulstorm up on PS+ to die... Like Xenosaga and Shenmue, it doesn't matter if you have a story to tell or the creativity and temerity to do it, the games industry will chew you up and spit you out like some form of tangy meat popsicle. New n' tasty indeed.

Listen to Lorne Lanning talk about Oddworld for any length of time, and it becomes quickly apparent just how passionate and creatively driven he is. Ars Technica's extended War Stories interview is something I throw on at least once a year because I find his background to be fascinating, and his recollections on navigating creative and industrial fields leading to the formation of his studio, Oddworld Inhabitants, provides a considerable amount of insight as to how his worldview - and consequentially, the themes of Oddworld - formed.

Abe's Oddysee was always intended to have a message, and so gameplay was appropriately designed around the particular anxieties and beliefs Lorne wished to express. As funny as it would be to find Abe strapped, you don't shoot guns, something that was a point of contention with staff at Oddworld Inhabitants. Instead, you "shoot words" (and farts) through gamespeak, a mechanic that allows the player to interface on a more personal level with the game than simply pulling a trigger... Though through mind control, you do still do that. Sometimes the creative process demands compromise.

One complaint I would have about this system is that much of your time rescuing Modokons is front and backloaded, with an extremely lengthy middle game chronicling Abe's trials outside of Rupture Farms tucking most Modokon rescues behind hidden screens and portals. To a certain extent, loading the game so full of secrets is good and provides replayability, but I found the puzzles in which you're trying to disarm a hazardous area and lead as many Modokons to safety as possible to be more engaging than the segmented puzzle rooms of Paramonia and Scrabania. Elum, Abe's mount, does fill this role somewhat, but I twice had him despawn requiring me to reload a save and lose progress, so I'm a little upset with him right now.

The end game also gets absolutely brutal, placing checkpoints far and between sequences that require precise timing and manipulation of enemies. Controls are rarely the issue so much as understanding the order of operations to get through the multiple levels of Rupture Farms, but when everything clicks and you execute on a perfect run, it feels good. The end of Abe's Oddysee has some of the most genuinely tense moment-to-moment gameplay on the system, it is agonizing as it is great. Wait, what do you mean I didn't save enough Modokons? Hold on, why am I being teleported back to the start of Rupture Farms, wait--

While the experience of playing Oddysee can at times be a bit uneven and even frustrating, I do think it comes together into something really special. The texture of the pre-rendered environments, the clay-like quality of the character sprites, the ways in which Rupture's oppressive and hostile factory gives way to barren wastelands drained of resources and life all for the sake of capital, and how that is conveyed humorously both through the game's writing and the player's own machinations... it's great. I really like Abe's Oddysee. 3.5 out of 5 smooches on the cheek for Mr. Lanning, but not 5 because Lorne is apparently never allowed to have a quintology of anything. I don't make the rules.

Playing Arknights in 2019 and now means having two completely different experiences. By now, threads and talkpoints are kind of taking their time being developed, in a never ending, as the cool kids say, yapping. They, them characters, do yap, in this game. If you're not willing to read, the game's main motif of interest is not for you.

Who knows what the future will hold, with gacha games being a commodity not in short supply and ending as soon as the interest wanes, but thematically we're kind of passing the baton to the new generation, thanks to events like The Rides to Lake Silberneherze but especially thanks to Lone Trail. Terra is a hellish place, but the writing does the place justice by offering different perspectives of what life means, what hope is, what different societies do with a never ending source of pain, Oripathy, which we, as a pharmaceutical company and defense contractor, do kind of offer solace from. 2024 might be an awkward moment to start playing this game, but its different events and a multitude of stories, characters and themes all intersecting and weaving their way towards the future have left a mark. Sometimes the writing's goofy, but when it hits, it hits, hard.

I have a hole School Idol Festival left; unwilling to let go, I was looking for other things to keep me busy, occupied, up at night when the sweet release of sleep from consciousness would not come, especially during hard times like the pandemic. Arknights is not a rhythm game, it's a tower defense game, awkward to play, not always clear in its intent and definitely not balanced. There are operators who are better than others and the odds are mostly stacked against newcomers.

I just hope this hole won't be left vacant, again. I wish I could be younger again and never instruct my neurons to hold information such as Texas mommy and Bagpipe lemmy, but here we are. It's my brainrot and I do, as I please, anything I want with it.

Also it's kinda fucked how Gummy, balanced and good in everything Defender operator, was replaced by Myrtle, a DP printing machine, in the beginners' case, this is a scenario where if anything is too broken, the designers have the moral obligation to break anything else to balance it out and cater content to a demographic, in this case redirecting the newcomers towards a certain frowned upon gameplay loop. Please just don't bother with the meta, there's a world of hurt there and the grind necessary to even glance the thing isn't worth it in my opinion.

persona 3 was a game with identity, intent, purpose, intentionality, heart, and, most importantly, creativity. i don't enjoy the lot i've been cast in life where i have to play bad versions of persona 3 and say why they're bad, whether it be the answer, portable, or this. reload is not just a bad remake of persona 3, it is a bad game that tells an interesting story in a ho-hum and pedestrian way. it takes so many narrative risks and choices from the original presentation and either waters them down or overly explains them to make sure the lowest common denominator doesn't have to interpret art. even divorced from its source material, this game fails to create a gameplay experience worth investing time in. as a remake, it fails to capture what persona 3 meant. as a JRPG, it is a dull affair with little challenge or complexity. persona 3 reload fails to be worth the effort it takes to play it.

the design doc of persona 3 reload had a very clear goal: leave no one behind, whether it be in story or gameplay. this results in story cutscenes being more explicit and less interpretive (compare the opening FMV with yukari) and gameplay that refuses to obstruct the player in meaningful ways. to be more specific, reload sacrifices any need for the player to become competent with its systems to make sure that anyone can beat this game. theurgy makes the game brainless and poisons basically every boss fight (ken can get a theurgy skill a little over halfway through the game that casts mediarahan + samarecarm + tetrakarn + makarakarn on the entire party). resource management is embarrassingly easy to trivialize (yukari can cast media for literally 1 (one) SP; there is a veritable buffet of SP items that you can trip over in daily life for little to no investment; theurgy overall negates the importance of SP and running out of SP is not the death knell it could be in orginal). social links as a whole are extremely easy to manage both due to point requirements being lower to accommodate for needing to spend more days on new content like linked episodes. hell, remember persona fusion? now it's been greatly dumbed down such that even triangle fusion isn't available anymore. this game is a concession that persona 3 was too ambitious and needed to be toned down. this is a remake that asserts that persona 3 did too much and tries to do less instead.

i'm not even beating the dead horse that is my opinion on party control because there's so many more issues to address. on basically every level, this game has either simplified or deescalated the complexity of its mechanics to accommodate a mainstream audience. i don't think there's inherently anything wrong with making persona 3's systems more accessible, but i think these capitulations go overboard and rob the game of compelling gameplay moments. there are no bosses in the game that truly force me to approach a challenge in a new way or think outside the box in the way that bosses like change relic did. every boss in this game is made longer to accommodate for theurgy damage values without any sort of intelligent design to make the fights feel more exciting for that length of time. boss fights are longer and easier because it's more cinematic to see mitsuru skate around and use her theurgy instead of letting the player use their own competency-based skills and strategy to end the fight. i am not the person who's going to cry that atlus sold out or whatever, but i am the person who's going to tell you that persona 3 reload feels like an undercooked experience because it consistently refuses to ask anything of the player. this game is easy, this game is simple, and this game is uninteresting.

above all else, this game begs one question: who on earth is telling atlus/sega that persona games need to be longer and have more content? persona 3 was a game that had a slowburn start that reload now turns into a bloated nightmare. everything takes so much longer in reload and everything feels more belabored, so i can't blame anyone for getting burnt out or even fucked off from this game's plot by the time things start picking up steam. on top of this, a lot of the new slice of life content wastes so much of the player's time. why do we need multiple scenes dedicated to kenji's performance on job day? i remember when saying that persona 3 was 70 hours felt like i was talking about this gargantuan piece of art. meanwhile, in reload, i hit 70 hours somewhere between september and november. these games do not need to be this long, and it actively ruins the experience to do so. persona 5 being a triple digit hour experience was a bad thing, not something to aspire to.

it's hard to not be at least a little offended because, whether or not P Studio intended it, they have basically hollowed out what made persona 3 so unique, so special. reload looks drab and unimpressive in UE4, and so much of the moody visuals get lost in the graphical fidelity. iwatodai dorm feels too bright, and then when january rolls around, they make the color scheme so muted that it is genuinely comedic. and there's just some really baffling and ugly visual decisions they made, like how everyone in club escapade stands motionlessly in pose. meanwhile, lotus juice has his fingerprints all over the OST in a way that just doesn't work ("mindin' my biz, so mind your own biz"). persona 3 was more than just a game with impressive systems that engaged the player, it was also a piece of art that had an aesthetic that gets lost here. this game feels completely identity-less when compared to the original because the original was both a deconstruction and a hybrid of genres. in many ways, reload doesn't just fail to live up to that artistic intent, it outright doesn't seem to know it was even there in the first place.

and i get it, as a fan of persona 3, my opinion has a giant asterisk at the end of it. why listen to a star wars fan tell you about why phantom menace is the worst movie ever? i will own up and openly admit i expected this game to be bad and had greatly wanted it to not exist. i had a feeling atlus would fuck it up somehow. i don't like being right about that. at the same time, i think there are missteps here that would stand out regardless of familiarity with the source material. yukari's edginess is completely deleted from her character here and she now just sounds and acts like chie on vyvanse rather than a girl with abandonment issues and trauma. fuuka got turned from "weird girl who serves as the empathetic core of the cast" to "girl who could have a thrilling conversation about spoiled milk". and reload isn't the first time akihiko's been sanded down to "protein fanatic who trains a lot", but it's probably the most offensive here. wouldn't it be really fucking funny if, the whole time you were studying with him, akihiko was doing something wacky like squatting above his chair instead of sitting normally?

these characters have been reinterpreted so much that they've lost their core identity that was integral to the plot of persona 3. i don't get the feeling that i'm seeing akihiko or mitsuru, i instead sense that i'm getting how someone interprets them after nearly 2 decades of fandom and spinoff content. yukari still has those "mean" lines but they lack any emotional root, so they come off as nonsense mood swings rather than a scared girl lashing out. and i'll just say it, karen strassman clears the fuck out of dawn bennett when you compare the final aigis monologues (fwiw, in both these instances, i blame the direction, not the VAs). these characters have been done better and it's really jarring that reload tries to flatten them rather than give them more dimensionality.

there's room to broadly interpret these characters, but constantly trying to make a self-serious character like akihiko the butt of a joke that he's in on speaks to how much he's being mischaracterized here. when akihiko was in a comedic scene, it was because he was the straight man, not because he was a this big goofball constantly playing to the crowd. these characters don't feel like themselves in a profound way, and i'd have to wonder how much that comes across to anyone who hasn't played original. does akihiko just seem like a wildly contradictory character to new players? truthfully, i have no idea if any of these people would've resonated with me had this been my first exposure to them.

i don't hate what all of reload's new content wrt characterization, and i honestly really liked some of the stuff they added for shinjiro and ken. but there's just as much that is unnecessary and outright bad. when we said they wanted more backstory on strega, we didn't mean that we wanted you to turn takaya into another akechi. if you're going to remake persona 3, why even bother if you're going to do such a disservice to its characters and setting? sure, you made some of the UI stuff look neater and more Persona 5-y, but what does that meaningfully add to the experience? when i saw the trailer for reload, i immediately asked myself "what does the water motif have to do with persona 3? why is the main character sinking into water? what are they going to do with that?" and it turns out they just wanted a cool main menu animation and nothing else. i want to say that P Studio was just misguided, but some of this content is so actively bad that it makes me wonder if any of them even liked persona 3. so much of this feels like it's trying to fix something that isn't broken, like it's an apology for the source material. this isn't a persona 3 remake for people who liked persona 3. but, then again, who else was it supposed to be for if not people who wanted another persona 5? persona 5 is the new cash cow and my dread for this being a P5ified version of persona 3 was well-founded.

i kept trying to go "how would i feel about this game if it wasn't a remake of a game i love?" and that's an impossible question for me to answer. i can never know because i will never play this with the eyes and ears of someone who didn't play the original. again, as much as i've come to detest this game, i don't have it in my heart to give this a lower score, mostly out of pity, but also out of overcorrecting my harsh opinion as a fan of the original. still, i think many of reload's failings come from a place of trying to simultaneously be a remake and game for everyone. i don't think it's wrong for games to put off people. in fact, the best games often aren't for everyone because they can't be. P Studio emphasized making a game that was so mainstreamed and accessible that it would never present any obstacle or mechanic that could alienate players at the cost of making a game that players could actually be engaged with. i can't think of a broader way you could miss the mark with a persona 3 remake.

As one story ends another begins. This is what brings us to Crossbell. A city state sandwiched between two political superpowers seemingly hanging on by a thread to stay afloat of outside influences. However not everything is what it seems on the surface. Crossbell is corrupt and is very limited on what it can do to fix its own issues. And only the SSS can change Crossbell's wrongdoings from within.

I love the SSS man. Every member is so fun to see and their interactions are priceless. The squad is so diverse in personality and yet they mesh so well. Even their battle styles are different. Seeing the SSS slowly get the recognition they deserve is such a payoff. They aren't just a copy of the bracer guild and made their own identity.

I find the setting of Crossbell to be very engaging especially since the state is small enough to where you are able to get to know every character including the npcs and really connect with the characters when shit hits the fan. It also isn't small to the point where you get tired of the same locations. This can also be implied due to how well this game uses its map. Like it just makes sense that you have to go all over Crossbell to retrieve an overdue book or partake in a fishing contest at the sandbar.

As always Trails and of course Falcom delivers on its soundtrack. Like every time this track played I was on the edge of my seat because I knew I had to lock in. Another great soundtrack that the music is all it takes to change your mood in an instant.

Can't talk about Zero without a certain character's journey that has spanned over 3 games now. Definetly one of the best character journeys I have seen in a video game. Every time they are on screen I always get emotional. There is just something about how its handled that it's truly special.

From what this game concludes off of, I really wonder how Azure will start off because Zero had a pretty conclusive ending but definetly has questions that needs to be answered. Just like us as the player, the SSS still doesn't know all of the answers on the why of how Crossbell functions but if we just get over the barrier only then we can seek the truth and justice be served.

"But what we need right now is the experience of overcoming these kinds of obstacles. Think about it, clear the small barriers one by one… If we do that, then someday, we’ll have the power to get over the taller barriers, too. "

Children Of The Sun is a highly stylised puzzle shooter that takes the bullet time moments from Sniper Elite and develops the idea into a full game. Most levels consist of scouting the location and marking enemies before executing a Wanted style bullet bending blood bath.

The story is one of revenge that sees the protagonist taking her anger out on a cult that left her family in ruin and death. Children Of The Sun presents its story via brief comic style cutscenes providing short insights into the history of the main character and their relationship to the cult. Most levels are separate from the story and just see you taking down stronger and stronger outpost as you get ever closer to the cult leader. Occasionally however there will be a level that directly progress the story but these are few and far between and only near the end of the game.

Gameplay wise Children Of The Sun strives to take a small idea and stretches it as far as creatively possible. This leads to some fun and unique concepts that don't overstay their welcome. With the core mechanic being bullet time this idea develops and introduces bullet redirection, slow-mo and high caliber speed to tackle a variety of different enemy types and scenarios. Latter gameplay becomes more of a puzzle game as you try to solve who to kill first and who to keep alive for a latter redirection. I did find this to become quite tedious in particularly the last 2 levels as I got relative stuck for extended periods of time due to either poor puzzle execution or long distance aim (I was playing on my Steam Deck and may have had better luck with a mouse).
One of the biggest drawbacks I found was the mini games that were randomly thrown in. These were not good and felt really out of place. Thankfully there wasn't many and only 1 was particularly difficult, but I feel it would have been a better experience with the removed completely.

The mood and atmosphere for Children Of The Sun is great and can be particularly satisfying at times. However there doesn't seem to be much keeping me engaged. You can battle other players for a high score but apart from that Children Of The Sun feels very one and done.

(Part 1 of the Half Century Challenge, created by C_F. You can read their first review here)

For today’s review, I wanted to take you all back, and I mean WAY back, all the way to 1970, when the Apollo 13 launched into orbit, the US was given the “gift” of PBS, and a band nobody knows of known as The Beatles would break up, with all of the members going on to doing their own thing. Yes, it was a magical time in history, one full of many ups, downs, and surprising developments for the future, lacking the bullshit we face now on a day-to-day basis, and there were plenty of things for people to do and experience, even involving the world of video games. These were a rare breed around this time, certainly nowhere near as universally known and praised like they are today, and none of these titles could ever come to match the quality of what has managed to come out since, but every once in a while, it is nice to take a look back at some of the most primitive ages of video games, seeing what developers could get away with at the time and use to make a simple, yet very memorable experience. This can be seen with some games such as with today’s example, Highnoon.

In general, I’m not really one who is too into text-based adventure games. Not to say that I have anything against them, but whenever I go to play any video game, I typically like to have… you know, SOMETHING to look at rather than just a wall of text, hence why I have only played, like, one or two of them throughout my entire life. I have wanted to check out some more of them though, as there are quite a lot of them, and there has to be some special elements they bring to the table that most other games couldn’t, otherwise why would they have persisted for so long. So, I decided to pick this one, which I had never played or heard of before, and based on my experience, I would say that I had a good time with it. You definitely aren’t gonna get much more then what is initially presented to you, but for being one of the earliest text-based adventure games, it manages to do its job well, while also adding enough charm to make it an enjoyable title to mess with for around 10 minutes or so.

One of the most appealing parts of this game, as well as any game made in a similar manner to this, is the fact that, for the most part, your imagination is the key tool to helping you paint the scenario laid out in front of you. You have already been spoiled enough with all of your fancy-schmancy new video games that have GRAPHICS and SOUND and CONTROL, BLEH! Who needs that shit, anyway?! All you need to have a grand ol’ time is just a bunch of text telling you what is going on, and you can just form the scenario around in your head. It’s almost like reading a book, except this has way more interactivity then a book, and you can make your own adventure out of it, rather than just simply reaching the same, predetermined conclusion every time.

But of course though, you gotta have a basic set-up to get you moving on the road ahead, and the set-up for this game is simple: it’s 1889, and you have been challenged to have a showdown in the Allegheny Mountains, facing the nefarious Black Bart, who will make sure that you end up as a dead man by the end of the day. You then meet up on a deserted road, and it is up to you to get the upper hand on Black Bart by moving forward, using your trusty pistol at precisely the right time, and to hope that luck is on your side so that Black Bart doesn’t end up taking you down and continuing his reign of terror. It’s a premise we have all seen and heard of before, but now, instead of watching it play out in front of you, or possibly even pretend-playing this scenario out with friends, you are now in the line yourself, and you have to take out your computer opponent before it is too late.

From there, you have very limited options for what you can do next, but they are enough to get the job done. All you can do is move forward, fire your gun, jump to the side for cover, give up, run away like a little bitch, or just do nothing at all, with each of these commands being assigned to specific numbers on the keyboard. You can then go about inputting these numbers one by one, seeing what the program does in response to this, and then continuing on from there. A lot of it is, obviously, randomly generated, as you don’t know what will happen at any time, or whether or not Black Bart will shoot or not, or even if the shots will hit you, but there is also a bit of strategy that comes into play, as whatever move you end up making at specific times could be the difference between life or death, so it is always wise to consider your next movement and choose wisely, which not only creates some pretty exciting tension, but also a good ol’ helping of satisfaction when your next move turns out to be just what you needed.

Aside from the main premise and how the game works, a lot of the appeal from this game can also be seen in the way that the game not only describes what events play out, but also how it reacts to your moves. While it mostly types things out in the way that you would expect it to, a lot of the time whenever something happens, or whenever you do anything specifically, it will throw in a snappy or snarky comment to emphasize what happened, such as “Good idea there”, or “You aren’t gonna get too far by doing that.” There was one part in the game that really stuck out to me and made me laugh, which was when I ended up getting killed by Black Bart, and how the game chose to describe what happened, where it basically said “Black Bart fires at you, landing a bullet right in your back, and then he fires again, with him shooting you right in the ass. You aren’t gonna be resting peacefully after that.” I dunno, seeing something like that in a game that is this old feels oddly refreshing, and it makes the game much more memorable as a result.

However, with all that being said, I still can’t say this game is anything more than just good because of how limited it is. It is a text-based adventure game after all, so there is only so much you can get out of it, with just one scenario to go through and the several outcomes you can get out of it, mainly either “you win” or “you die”. It is definitely only for the crowd of gamers like myself who has the love and patience for these kinds of games, but for those of you who prefer a little more interactivity, playtime, and, y’know, things to look at in your games, then this is definitely gonna be one of the last things that you ever end up deciding to check out for yourself. That doesn’t lower the game’s quality, mind you, it just affects how approachable it is in 2024.

Overall, despite being very basic and offering little more than the base concept, Highnoon is both very impressive and very charming for a game that came out back in 1970, providing you with a simple, yet descriptive scenario that you can paint in your head and have fun with, plenty of options to choose from to change the course of the game in however way you’d like, and giving off enough charm to where it feels like it stands on its own compared to what very little else was on the market at that time. I would recommend it for those who are a fan of these kinds of text-based adventure games, because while it may not give you that much to do, it is still a neat example of where these kinds of games were around that point, and it is fun to mess around with even over 50 years later. And for those of you who actually sat here and read all of what I just typed about a text-based adventure game from 1970, thanks for sticking it out to the end, as writing this one was much harder than you think it would be. Also, go check out C_F’s first review up there as well. Tell them that Mega sent ya.

Game #565

if you think this game “plays weird” and don’t get the hype i beg you to play 5 other NES platformers then come back, relax, and feel the lushness of the first true strand type game.

super mario bros is not the primordially simple jumping game it is often introduced as. platformers had ages to mature in the hypercompetitive arena of the arcade throughout the 70’s and early 80’s. aside from its understatedly elegant aesthetic, the ambition in SMB is in the elevation of movement from merely a mode of traversal to a gymnastic, expressive activity.

megaman, simon belmont, and ryu hayabusa are all transparently simple state machines— the amount of possible actions they can take is finite and countable. super mario bros did not invent momentum in platforming, nor was it the first to leverage the additional complications that a more involved system of movement entails. the friction between the player avatar and the ground. the acceleration from a dead stop to a full run. the short moment after taking your finger off the jump button before the character truly starts to fall. all the little intricacies and details compound to make mario a much more expressive vessel for a player to inhabit. what sets SMB apart is that the movement is honed to the extent it becomes even more natural than the comparatively simple systems of the above games.

mario’s body doesn’t literally move like the human form does, but negotiating the balance of a jump in mid-air, trying to establish steady footing on unhelpful terrain, and wheelin and dealing with newton’s first law in general is central to the human experience. in super mario bros, nintendo squarely refocuses the platformer from a cabaret of obstacles to a celebration of acrobatic motivity

and so, it became the bedrock upon which their castle was built

...did we all play the same game?

'cause generic soundtrack aside, i don't even need to hesitate - this is superior to quake ii in just about every way. sure, there's no rocket jumping, but that hardly matters in a corridor shooter; what's important is gunplay and Q2 wishes it had weapons half as good as these. the shotgun? nailgun? the fucking bfg that shoots black holes? get the hell out of town and don't let me see you here again

...that praise being said, i'll be damned if it doesn't put its shakiest leg first

unlike quake ii, the start here isn't slow because of its shooting - that feels fantastic from the get go - instead it's the aggressively invasive 'story' that's constantly trying to pull you from the action. let me shoot. the fucking. aliens! that's all i wanna do, man!!

"nah nah - i hear you", calls tim willits, newly appointed president of the Carmack Fan Club, "here, you can shoot again - in a turret section! and after that, ohoho, more mission briefing!! and then - two more vehicle segments!!!"

with one swift motion i knock that shit out of his fucking hands. then i scream, "I JUST WANT TO SHOOT THE STROGG WITH MY SHOTGUN. THAT'S LITERALLY ALL I WANT TO DO. I DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT YOUR SET PIECES (besides the mech one - that was pretty cool) OR YOUR SPACE MARINE STORY - I DON'T EVEN CARE THAT I COULD PERSONALLY WALK FASTER THAN MY CHARACTER WITH WEIGHTS STRAPPED TO MY LEGS. THE GUNS FEEL GOOD, TIM. PLEASE JUST LET ME USE THE FUCKING GUNS!!!!"

i think he took that bit about space marines harshly given the events that transpired shortly after, but all of my prayers had been answered nonetheless! no longer was i walking back and forth through areas i'd already visited just to report to some dumbass military man that the elevator got unjammed or steve blum #3 successfully completed filing his tax returns; i was actually playing the game - uninterrupted

when quake 4 gets its shit fully together after the first 1/3 or so, it shifts from stop-and-go into maximum overdrive. there's zero bad weapons, enemy types continue to vary enough (not to mention there's actually a couple decent bosses - a rarity for shooters) and ironically even the mission objectives become significantly more engaging when they're things you're doing and not just details off sgt. pvt. blum's shopping list

environments start looking a lot cooler too. Q2 toyed with body horror in small doses, but ravensoft went all-in here. call me simple, edgy, whatever - i think giant entrails breaching through space corridors and limbless (but still alive and wiggling) bodies being used as power supplies is pretty fucking rad. say what you will about id tech 4 - doom 3 looks fantastic and this is no different. hands down the most underrated shoter engine

misguided start aside, this is the best fps (barring quake 1, obviously) that i've played in a considerably long time. can't wait to receive matthew kane's next orders in quake 5!

wait fuck

I was a big fan of Kira's games before this one came out, so it was quite the pleasant surprise to learn they too were King's Field and Shadow Tower pilled. Lunacid not only does a beautiful job emulating the charm of its spiritual predecessors, it also modernizes and iterates on them in a clearly very passionate, loving, and respectful sort of way. Of course, it also has no shortage of its own ideas, and they really do give it a fresh, endearing identity. And goddamn is this game sweet— if I fell down its well I don't think I'd want to return either.

It's such a vibe to do some old school dungeon crawling to the tune of lo-fi, listen to the Banjo-Kazooie speak of an adorable little cast of characters, then shit myself when moments of this game are lowkey scarier than any horror game I've ever played. There's also not really a speed or jump height cap so far as I know, so if you wanna grind and turn the game into Quake, the world is your oyster. And don't get me started on all the cute little nods to some of my favorite game series, King's Field and Shadow Tower obviously, but off the top of my head, also Castlevania, Drakengard, Zelda, and Kira's other games of course! Shit, even the real life moon cycle buffs your in game magic, if that doesn't sell it I dunno what will.

I've always wanted to make a game like Lunacid, and seeing someone inspired by all the same shit I like honestly really inspires me. Given aspects of it can be a little obtuse I'm sure it won't be for everyone, but maybe give it a shot if it's a rainy day (or preferably, full moon) and looks like your thing!