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yuri has lead me places i wouldn't even go with a gun
Geometry Dash
2013
I swear every discord server has that one guy who'll occasionally post a clip that starts off on 'attempt 53837' with the most eye bleeding background you've ever seen where you can barely see what you're supposed to interact with, proceed to get through 43% of it at lightning speed and die, and then their next message is 'yeah gonna grind this one out a little more I'm liking this one'
Super Castlevania IV
1991
It's fine.
When folks decry Super for being a blasphemous take on the tried-and-true formula of Classicvania with it's eight-directional whipping, they're absolutely justified in their thought. It takes away the strategical element that made us love the thinking person's aspect behind the careful movement. An entire sub-system becomes a complete afterthought, with them only being convenient at hyper-specific instances rather than something that was there to truly compliment our whipping prowess to help with entire courses and encounters. Taking a death becomes less threatening as losing a sub-weapon essentially turns into a very minor slap on the wrist at worst, as an empty sub-weapon box may as well had been what it felt like the entire time we had been playing.
It's an ordeal that can't be simply ignored in a self-imposed challenge like the charged mega buster in every NES era Mega Man past the third game, and you're left with Simon being able to skillfully twirl his whip better than any other Belmont before or after him. Perhaps Simon was always meant to be presented as the most headstrong and bullish of the family? Characterization through mechanics? It remains to be seen if that was the intent, or if it was supposed to be an "evolution". An evolution that no doubt would've made this entry an even bigger target of contempt, especially if the stage design would continue to fail to compliment the new system beyond smattering a few bats flying down from odd angles, and if we could still easily thwart Axe Armors from below the floor they're standing on. Luckily for all of us however, this would be the only time such a new take would be used, and instead of being a deplorable turning point for the series, it is in fact unique and now it's own experience.
A retelling of the original that shows Simon's entire journey from beyond Devil's Castle, braving the horrors that crept from the onset of the horrid manifestation of Dracula's power within what was once a peaceful forest accompanied by strings of a violin within a purple and grey console. A walk through the caves with beautiful woodwind arrangements, and mesmerizing illusions brought upon by the seventh mode conjured by unknown forces presumably under the control of the dark lord himself. The approach to familiar scenery from the beginning of our original story of the legendary quest partnered by intimidating percussion for nightmares to come. We make our way through the retold portions of Simon's tale, and upon completion hear echoes of our past one last time before we must move on to beginnings of a new generation. The slow haunting keys of an organ cue the entry of Dracula to the main stage. Simon's Theme of which signaled the entrance of the hero at the very start, returns once again at the final moment the Count is nearing his defeat to build the audience's tension to the epic conclusion of the adventure. The orchestra plays to the agonizing death of the villain, and rings in daylight's victory over the darkness.
The fabled saga, retold and reimagined with added flare of chilling drama and suspense. Not to replace the original, but to remember it through a more cinematic lens. Forever immortal.
When folks decry Super for being a blasphemous take on the tried-and-true formula of Classicvania with it's eight-directional whipping, they're absolutely justified in their thought. It takes away the strategical element that made us love the thinking person's aspect behind the careful movement. An entire sub-system becomes a complete afterthought, with them only being convenient at hyper-specific instances rather than something that was there to truly compliment our whipping prowess to help with entire courses and encounters. Taking a death becomes less threatening as losing a sub-weapon essentially turns into a very minor slap on the wrist at worst, as an empty sub-weapon box may as well had been what it felt like the entire time we had been playing.
It's an ordeal that can't be simply ignored in a self-imposed challenge like the charged mega buster in every NES era Mega Man past the third game, and you're left with Simon being able to skillfully twirl his whip better than any other Belmont before or after him. Perhaps Simon was always meant to be presented as the most headstrong and bullish of the family? Characterization through mechanics? It remains to be seen if that was the intent, or if it was supposed to be an "evolution". An evolution that no doubt would've made this entry an even bigger target of contempt, especially if the stage design would continue to fail to compliment the new system beyond smattering a few bats flying down from odd angles, and if we could still easily thwart Axe Armors from below the floor they're standing on. Luckily for all of us however, this would be the only time such a new take would be used, and instead of being a deplorable turning point for the series, it is in fact unique and now it's own experience.
A retelling of the original that shows Simon's entire journey from beyond Devil's Castle, braving the horrors that crept from the onset of the horrid manifestation of Dracula's power within what was once a peaceful forest accompanied by strings of a violin within a purple and grey console. A walk through the caves with beautiful woodwind arrangements, and mesmerizing illusions brought upon by the seventh mode conjured by unknown forces presumably under the control of the dark lord himself. The approach to familiar scenery from the beginning of our original story of the legendary quest partnered by intimidating percussion for nightmares to come. We make our way through the retold portions of Simon's tale, and upon completion hear echoes of our past one last time before we must move on to beginnings of a new generation. The slow haunting keys of an organ cue the entry of Dracula to the main stage. Simon's Theme of which signaled the entrance of the hero at the very start, returns once again at the final moment the Count is nearing his defeat to build the audience's tension to the epic conclusion of the adventure. The orchestra plays to the agonizing death of the villain, and rings in daylight's victory over the darkness.
The fabled saga, retold and reimagined with added flare of chilling drama and suspense. Not to replace the original, but to remember it through a more cinematic lens. Forever immortal.
Lies of P
2023
This review contains spoilers
Lies of P is a game about lying.
For a game that copies a lot of the most recognizable characteristics of From Software games, it still feels like a wholly original and unique game despite how many people write this game off as a ‘Bloodborne clone’. What I think Lies manages to do that other souls-likes fail at is advancing the design elements of From rather than simply siphoning their mechanics to influence how the player perceives the game: Pulse Cells are analogous to the Estus Flask, but also let you recharge your final Cell if you perform well enough in combat, opening up build options in whether you want to do more damage in this riskier state or simply want a faster charge rate. Legion Arms reflect a much more limited, less abusable version of Sekiro’s Shinobi Prosthetic, and Guard Regain’s compatibility with blocked damage places this game in an aggression range between DS3 and Bloodborne, with the parry-focused combat of Sekiro.
Because of these various yet closely associated influences, the game is almost like a perfect remix of the Fromsoft formula, allowing you to appreciate where certain ideas are pulled from before the game puts a new spin on them. I’m personally incredibly happy with the level design of this game, which feels like it draws most directly from Dark Souls II of all places, a risky choice considering the general attitude most people have towards that game. One of my biggest complaints with Dark Souls III is how that games’ level design very quickly abandons any aspect of interconnectivity or large-scale exploration that the first two games in the series allowed for in favor of an almost entirely linear experience that put its combat front and center, for better or worse. Lies of P manages to somehow have the best of both worlds, with incredibly engaging bosses that I always look forward to fighting and levels that don’t feel like straight lines with an absurd number of bonfires. Most levels here wrap around themselves in really impressive ways that allow for stargazers to be placed incredibly sparingly, a design choice I will always prefer to DS3’s more ‘theme-park’ approach to level progression.
Beyond the game’s astonishing level of mechanical cohesion (I haven’t even mentioned the Assembly system, which is honestly reason enough to play this game if you’re a fan of games with similar combat systems), the cohesion of this game’s story is criminally undervalued. I can’t really blame most people for not being able to take this game seriously for being a soulslike about… Pinnochio, especially when most of our internal perceptions of the character are either of the Disney version or the character in the Shrek movies. You’re just going to have to trust me when I say that this game is a very thought-out adaptation of the source material and doesn’t simply use the Pinocchio property as a shallow aesthetic stunt. Lies is a game that actually uses the property it’s adapting within the vehicle of it’s story, and I have an endless respect for this game in how much faith it has in its own concept. When asked “What makes someone human?” Carlo Collodi’s The Adventures of Pinnochio serials answers that it is our ability to help others and act for their sake that makes us human, as shown in Pinocchio’s transformation at the end of the story after months of studying, working hard and saving money to care for his sick father. Lies of P’s answer, is actually not very different: We’re human because we can choose to act, and by exercising our agency we help each other far more than we help only ourselves. The game’s Real Boy ending sees everyone in the hotel replaced with a puppet copy after being killed by the newly reborn, perfectly obedient Carlo, after. The game’s most ‘Pinocchio’ mechanic, Lying, even shows a refreshing amount of nuance and respect to human morality by never painting the choice to lie or not as a simple choice between ‘doing the right thing’ and ‘doing the wrong thing’. Many of the choices in this game feel like they lack a ‘right’ answer, but often I found that lying to most people was often a mercy that showcased how communication often has to fulfill an emotional need more than a logical one. That’s not to say that lying is always the new ‘right thing’ in this game; Although the best ending in the game requires you to express your humanity a lot (through lying, mostly), the game still has a couple lies that genuinely stumped me on whether I wanted to lie or not; Do you decipher Alidoro’s scroll and tell Eugenie’s brother is dead? Do you tell Venigni that your own father is responsible for the destruction of Krat? Do you admit to Arlecchino that you are, in fact, a murderer? I can’t begin to express how relieving it is that this game isn’t trying to lecture the player about honesty or morality, understanding that lying is both innately amoral and innately part of the human experience. Lying is a choice, and what is more human than the ability to make our own choices?
Lies of P is the most honest game I’ve played.
For a game that copies a lot of the most recognizable characteristics of From Software games, it still feels like a wholly original and unique game despite how many people write this game off as a ‘Bloodborne clone’. What I think Lies manages to do that other souls-likes fail at is advancing the design elements of From rather than simply siphoning their mechanics to influence how the player perceives the game: Pulse Cells are analogous to the Estus Flask, but also let you recharge your final Cell if you perform well enough in combat, opening up build options in whether you want to do more damage in this riskier state or simply want a faster charge rate. Legion Arms reflect a much more limited, less abusable version of Sekiro’s Shinobi Prosthetic, and Guard Regain’s compatibility with blocked damage places this game in an aggression range between DS3 and Bloodborne, with the parry-focused combat of Sekiro.
Because of these various yet closely associated influences, the game is almost like a perfect remix of the Fromsoft formula, allowing you to appreciate where certain ideas are pulled from before the game puts a new spin on them. I’m personally incredibly happy with the level design of this game, which feels like it draws most directly from Dark Souls II of all places, a risky choice considering the general attitude most people have towards that game. One of my biggest complaints with Dark Souls III is how that games’ level design very quickly abandons any aspect of interconnectivity or large-scale exploration that the first two games in the series allowed for in favor of an almost entirely linear experience that put its combat front and center, for better or worse. Lies of P manages to somehow have the best of both worlds, with incredibly engaging bosses that I always look forward to fighting and levels that don’t feel like straight lines with an absurd number of bonfires. Most levels here wrap around themselves in really impressive ways that allow for stargazers to be placed incredibly sparingly, a design choice I will always prefer to DS3’s more ‘theme-park’ approach to level progression.
Beyond the game’s astonishing level of mechanical cohesion (I haven’t even mentioned the Assembly system, which is honestly reason enough to play this game if you’re a fan of games with similar combat systems), the cohesion of this game’s story is criminally undervalued. I can’t really blame most people for not being able to take this game seriously for being a soulslike about… Pinnochio, especially when most of our internal perceptions of the character are either of the Disney version or the character in the Shrek movies. You’re just going to have to trust me when I say that this game is a very thought-out adaptation of the source material and doesn’t simply use the Pinocchio property as a shallow aesthetic stunt. Lies is a game that actually uses the property it’s adapting within the vehicle of it’s story, and I have an endless respect for this game in how much faith it has in its own concept. When asked “What makes someone human?” Carlo Collodi’s The Adventures of Pinnochio serials answers that it is our ability to help others and act for their sake that makes us human, as shown in Pinocchio’s transformation at the end of the story after months of studying, working hard and saving money to care for his sick father. Lies of P’s answer, is actually not very different: We’re human because we can choose to act, and by exercising our agency we help each other far more than we help only ourselves. The game’s Real Boy ending sees everyone in the hotel replaced with a puppet copy after being killed by the newly reborn, perfectly obedient Carlo, after. The game’s most ‘Pinocchio’ mechanic, Lying, even shows a refreshing amount of nuance and respect to human morality by never painting the choice to lie or not as a simple choice between ‘doing the right thing’ and ‘doing the wrong thing’. Many of the choices in this game feel like they lack a ‘right’ answer, but often I found that lying to most people was often a mercy that showcased how communication often has to fulfill an emotional need more than a logical one. That’s not to say that lying is always the new ‘right thing’ in this game; Although the best ending in the game requires you to express your humanity a lot (through lying, mostly), the game still has a couple lies that genuinely stumped me on whether I wanted to lie or not; Do you decipher Alidoro’s scroll and tell Eugenie’s brother is dead? Do you tell Venigni that your own father is responsible for the destruction of Krat? Do you admit to Arlecchino that you are, in fact, a murderer? I can’t begin to express how relieving it is that this game isn’t trying to lecture the player about honesty or morality, understanding that lying is both innately amoral and innately part of the human experience. Lying is a choice, and what is more human than the ability to make our own choices?
Lies of P is the most honest game I’ve played.
Final Fantasy VIII
1999
The 2000 Toyota Echo of Video Games
If there’s anything in this world worth keeping alive, it’s love.
In the void that is Revachol, we see the light of love and hope slowly fade away. It is up to us to cultivate and nurture that light so it does not die. Love is not dead! As you read this, you are alive and breathing, and it's up to you to seize what remains and fight for it. We can no longer wait for some great revolution that will fix all of our problems. If you truly desire a revolution, you must create the conditions necessary to birth it!
Disco Elysium isn’t just a game about what political faction you align with or finding out who lynched the man behind Whirling-in-Rags; it’s a story about love and why we must hold onto it, even in the darkest of times. I understand that nowadays, with the current state of affairs, it's hard to believe in love and hope. It's difficult to place our hope in a future that seems to have been stolen away from us, yet that's precisely when we need it the most.
I choose to believe in love. I choose to hold on to the hope that a better future is possible, no matter what, because I believe it is. The people we know, the community we live in, and the world we inhabit are worth fighting for. Disco Elysium taught me that fixing the world and making it a better place isn’t just about picking up a gun and waging some violent revolution; it’s about cultivating community and caring for those in it. That’s where the true beauty of Disco Elysium lies.
I believe the way this game conveys that message is quite powerful. Disco doesn't make some grand showy gesture beating you over the head with its message; instead, it laboriously takes the time to show you that the world you live in is beautiful and worth fighting for. It spends the time showing you the inner lives of those around you and has you helping them, one person at a time.
There is one specific character that I feel best embodies this: Cuno. Cuno, at first, is seen to be an irrational, difficult, vulgar, and poorly-behaved child, which leads you to inevitably hate him. As you learn more about Cuno and his home life, however, you realise there’s something greater at play. He doesn’t act out for the hell of it; he is the way he is because his father is a drunk who’s fallen down on his luck due to becoming a victim of the system giving up on him and his son. He’s left with no choice. The system has abandoned Uuno and his son, leaving them both to fend for themselves and pick up the pieces. Which sadly isn’t uncommon in Revachol and the real world as well. It’s perhaps one of the most striking and poignant stories in the game. I eventually went from despising Cuno to feeling empathy for him, as I did for many others in Revachol when I learned their stories.
I believe this approach to storytelling and character writing is incredibly effective, and the best part about Disco Elysium is that these kinds of stories are all over the game. This goes to show how much love and care was put into humanising the inhabitants of Revachol, which helps make the world feel alive. Because of how well the game fleshed out its world and characters Disco Elysium was successful at conveying the message that this world is worth fighting for. Not only was I captivated by this world, but as the game drew to a close, I found myself deeply invested in the wellbeing of these characters and the city.
As I learned about these stories, Revachol’s history, and the many political factions vying for power, I realised that this game was never about solving a murder or finding which faction is "correct." It was about learning to love those around us and working together to create a better world, one step at a time. Creating a better world was never an unattainable goal conjured up in the minds of idealistic and "ignorant" kids. It is a possible reality, but it demands the working toiling masses of the world unite and work hand in hand in creating this future. It is on us to seize the future and lift eachother up when we need it most.
Never give up on fighting for this future. It is only dead when you allow yourself to be convinced that it is.
In the void that is Revachol, we see the light of love and hope slowly fade away. It is up to us to cultivate and nurture that light so it does not die. Love is not dead! As you read this, you are alive and breathing, and it's up to you to seize what remains and fight for it. We can no longer wait for some great revolution that will fix all of our problems. If you truly desire a revolution, you must create the conditions necessary to birth it!
Disco Elysium isn’t just a game about what political faction you align with or finding out who lynched the man behind Whirling-in-Rags; it’s a story about love and why we must hold onto it, even in the darkest of times. I understand that nowadays, with the current state of affairs, it's hard to believe in love and hope. It's difficult to place our hope in a future that seems to have been stolen away from us, yet that's precisely when we need it the most.
I choose to believe in love. I choose to hold on to the hope that a better future is possible, no matter what, because I believe it is. The people we know, the community we live in, and the world we inhabit are worth fighting for. Disco Elysium taught me that fixing the world and making it a better place isn’t just about picking up a gun and waging some violent revolution; it’s about cultivating community and caring for those in it. That’s where the true beauty of Disco Elysium lies.
I believe the way this game conveys that message is quite powerful. Disco doesn't make some grand showy gesture beating you over the head with its message; instead, it laboriously takes the time to show you that the world you live in is beautiful and worth fighting for. It spends the time showing you the inner lives of those around you and has you helping them, one person at a time.
There is one specific character that I feel best embodies this: Cuno. Cuno, at first, is seen to be an irrational, difficult, vulgar, and poorly-behaved child, which leads you to inevitably hate him. As you learn more about Cuno and his home life, however, you realise there’s something greater at play. He doesn’t act out for the hell of it; he is the way he is because his father is a drunk who’s fallen down on his luck due to becoming a victim of the system giving up on him and his son. He’s left with no choice. The system has abandoned Uuno and his son, leaving them both to fend for themselves and pick up the pieces. Which sadly isn’t uncommon in Revachol and the real world as well. It’s perhaps one of the most striking and poignant stories in the game. I eventually went from despising Cuno to feeling empathy for him, as I did for many others in Revachol when I learned their stories.
I believe this approach to storytelling and character writing is incredibly effective, and the best part about Disco Elysium is that these kinds of stories are all over the game. This goes to show how much love and care was put into humanising the inhabitants of Revachol, which helps make the world feel alive. Because of how well the game fleshed out its world and characters Disco Elysium was successful at conveying the message that this world is worth fighting for. Not only was I captivated by this world, but as the game drew to a close, I found myself deeply invested in the wellbeing of these characters and the city.
As I learned about these stories, Revachol’s history, and the many political factions vying for power, I realised that this game was never about solving a murder or finding which faction is "correct." It was about learning to love those around us and working together to create a better world, one step at a time. Creating a better world was never an unattainable goal conjured up in the minds of idealistic and "ignorant" kids. It is a possible reality, but it demands the working toiling masses of the world unite and work hand in hand in creating this future. It is on us to seize the future and lift eachother up when we need it most.
Never give up on fighting for this future. It is only dead when you allow yourself to be convinced that it is.
Prey
2006
the epitome of every common id tech 4 complaint; a show-offy tech demo with not much to actually show
prey seems to be far more concerned with its novel-at-first gravity shifting, portal hopping and other gimmickry than it is with delivering a fun shooter. almost every weapon feels pretty weak, enemies are as generic as they come and the level design is frustratingly boring - especially when it teases its potential so irritatingly often
there's some really cool aesthetic direction here - sometimes. the sphere's strange fusions of human civilization and mechanical-organic hodgepodge future tech that's reminiscent of quake's strogg is REALLY FUCKING COOL. but it's actively sidelined and little more than something to glance at in passing during the actual levels - steel halls with constant gravity walks, enemies popping out of portals and the occasional vehicle sequence. it's lame!
tommy's kind of an annoying jackass for most of the story. he embodies "Fuck off I don't believe in that made up nonsense" and constantly whines about how his heritage is a bunch of superstitious gobbledygook... even while he's literally talking to his deceased grandfather in the afterlife. though i guess i can't really blame him for not giving a shit, because his supernatural ability amounts to little more than being able to walk through forcefields and push the buttons behind them (usually to turn said forcefields off)
oh and to never die - tommy's really good at keeping his soul alive via 10 second bursts of spiritual whack-a-mole. i guess that works out because it means none of the dull shooting ever needs to be gone through a second time, but i'd have gladly taken some guns that actually felt satisfying instead. out of his arsenal, which is primarily driven by different flavors of machine guns, the only weapon i found especially great was the leech gun. i guess the weird caustic paint-splattering shotgun is kinda neat too. the grenades look cool but are functionally reminiscent of quake 2's, which is not a compliment at all and i barely touched them because of it
narratively, things pick up substantially in the last four missions. considering there's 21 of them, that's not a fantastic ratio, but it ended on an interesting enough note for me to wish prey 2 wasn't cancelled. so that counts for something
still, i find it hard to believe that a sequel to this would've been nearly as good as arkane's 2017 release
prey seems to be far more concerned with its novel-at-first gravity shifting, portal hopping and other gimmickry than it is with delivering a fun shooter. almost every weapon feels pretty weak, enemies are as generic as they come and the level design is frustratingly boring - especially when it teases its potential so irritatingly often
there's some really cool aesthetic direction here - sometimes. the sphere's strange fusions of human civilization and mechanical-organic hodgepodge future tech that's reminiscent of quake's strogg is REALLY FUCKING COOL. but it's actively sidelined and little more than something to glance at in passing during the actual levels - steel halls with constant gravity walks, enemies popping out of portals and the occasional vehicle sequence. it's lame!
tommy's kind of an annoying jackass for most of the story. he embodies "Fuck off I don't believe in that made up nonsense" and constantly whines about how his heritage is a bunch of superstitious gobbledygook... even while he's literally talking to his deceased grandfather in the afterlife. though i guess i can't really blame him for not giving a shit, because his supernatural ability amounts to little more than being able to walk through forcefields and push the buttons behind them (usually to turn said forcefields off)
oh and to never die - tommy's really good at keeping his soul alive via 10 second bursts of spiritual whack-a-mole. i guess that works out because it means none of the dull shooting ever needs to be gone through a second time, but i'd have gladly taken some guns that actually felt satisfying instead. out of his arsenal, which is primarily driven by different flavors of machine guns, the only weapon i found especially great was the leech gun. i guess the weird caustic paint-splattering shotgun is kinda neat too. the grenades look cool but are functionally reminiscent of quake 2's, which is not a compliment at all and i barely touched them because of it
narratively, things pick up substantially in the last four missions. considering there's 21 of them, that's not a fantastic ratio, but it ended on an interesting enough note for me to wish prey 2 wasn't cancelled. so that counts for something
still, i find it hard to believe that a sequel to this would've been nearly as good as arkane's 2017 release
Final Fantasy VIII
1999
Memories are more real than time
Doom 3
2004
for being such a black sheep, you'd think it'd feel a hell of a lot less like doom!
sure, it's a more 64 oriented take than what most fans are comfortable with, but absolutely deserving of the moniker nonetheless; way more so than that qte-ladenquake knockoff 2016 reboot, anyway
it's one thing not to like doom 3's pacing, corridor-driven structure and how it distributes enemies; it's another thing entirely to dismiss anything and everything designed outside shooter norms as "dated" - as if the lighting in this game isn't still impressive or completely and totally deliberate. that "duct tape" mod wasn't an ingenious feat of fan programming that fixed a broken aspect of a woefully mismanaged fps; it just went against the game's intended design
and call it a symptom of half life's popularity if you want; i feel the mars base introductory sequence is more atmospherically dense and to-the-point than black mesa could've dreamed to be. unlike quake 4, which has a lot narrative stop-and-go, the action in doom 3 is almost completely uninterrupted throughout. it's story-driven compared to its maze-y predecessors, but most of that happens via in-game radio chatter. never once did i ask myself "where's the next thing to shoot at?"
hell - if anything i'd say this may be the core doom experience to a fault. the way enemies are dispatched doesn't differ much from their DOS-based counterparts. there's a lot of strafing around projectiles and shotgun kissing. like - a lot. and that's great, but i'd be lying if i said i didn't get seriously tired of needing to back away from every door i opened to prevent getting jumped by an imp's otherwise unavoidable lunge attack. granted, this wasn't because it was cheap and unpredictable or whatever - much the opposite - all it took was running up to the guy when he stood up and blowing his ass away with a single shotgun blast
oh and since i've opened a can of controversy by even mentioning the shotgun, i'll just come out and say that it - along with pretty much every other weapon - is really good. yeah yeah, spread is bad, whatever. the maps are set up in small to medium sized corridors and arenas. so it's not hard to get up close and kill most enemies in a single shot. too far away? that's what your other weapons are for. i'm not sure where the strangely common ammo complaints come from either. i played on veteran and used most guns in equal measure (though i favored the shotgun and used the chainsaw religiously) and i often had max ammo for everything minus the bfg
my biggest problems with the game structurally, besides its oft stale monster closeting, are more retrospective than anything. the whole experience is lots of fun, but it ramps up so much more in the second half that i can't help but wonder why it doesn't get there sooner. why is so little time spent in hell and the nether regions of mars? why does the enemy variety take several hours to spontaneously expand beyond primarily shooting imps and marines?
i don't wanna mince words here: this is the best depiction of hell in the whole damn franchise. it's so grandiose, grim and genuinely fucking evil. the level design also feels much more in line with what i'd expect from a classic doom title and has brilliant lighting which forgoes any need to even use the flashlight. it's perfect but most of y'all probably didn't even see it because you dropped the game about six hours too soon
apparently resurrection of evil is a lot more akin to the second half so i'm expecting that to be great as well. whether i'll play that or prey 06 next, i'm not sure; what i am sure of is that id tech 4 goes hard and doom 3 is pretty fuckin' awesome. i'm not surprised to see that the common consensus of a post-quake id software game is wrong once again. at this point i probably wouldn't be surprised if rage was the best game ever
sure, it's a more 64 oriented take than what most fans are comfortable with, but absolutely deserving of the moniker nonetheless; way more so than that qte-laden
it's one thing not to like doom 3's pacing, corridor-driven structure and how it distributes enemies; it's another thing entirely to dismiss anything and everything designed outside shooter norms as "dated" - as if the lighting in this game isn't still impressive or completely and totally deliberate. that "duct tape" mod wasn't an ingenious feat of fan programming that fixed a broken aspect of a woefully mismanaged fps; it just went against the game's intended design
and call it a symptom of half life's popularity if you want; i feel the mars base introductory sequence is more atmospherically dense and to-the-point than black mesa could've dreamed to be. unlike quake 4, which has a lot narrative stop-and-go, the action in doom 3 is almost completely uninterrupted throughout. it's story-driven compared to its maze-y predecessors, but most of that happens via in-game radio chatter. never once did i ask myself "where's the next thing to shoot at?"
hell - if anything i'd say this may be the core doom experience to a fault. the way enemies are dispatched doesn't differ much from their DOS-based counterparts. there's a lot of strafing around projectiles and shotgun kissing. like - a lot. and that's great, but i'd be lying if i said i didn't get seriously tired of needing to back away from every door i opened to prevent getting jumped by an imp's otherwise unavoidable lunge attack. granted, this wasn't because it was cheap and unpredictable or whatever - much the opposite - all it took was running up to the guy when he stood up and blowing his ass away with a single shotgun blast
oh and since i've opened a can of controversy by even mentioning the shotgun, i'll just come out and say that it - along with pretty much every other weapon - is really good. yeah yeah, spread is bad, whatever. the maps are set up in small to medium sized corridors and arenas. so it's not hard to get up close and kill most enemies in a single shot. too far away? that's what your other weapons are for. i'm not sure where the strangely common ammo complaints come from either. i played on veteran and used most guns in equal measure (though i favored the shotgun and used the chainsaw religiously) and i often had max ammo for everything minus the bfg
my biggest problems with the game structurally, besides its oft stale monster closeting, are more retrospective than anything. the whole experience is lots of fun, but it ramps up so much more in the second half that i can't help but wonder why it doesn't get there sooner. why is so little time spent in hell and the nether regions of mars? why does the enemy variety take several hours to spontaneously expand beyond primarily shooting imps and marines?
i don't wanna mince words here: this is the best depiction of hell in the whole damn franchise. it's so grandiose, grim and genuinely fucking evil. the level design also feels much more in line with what i'd expect from a classic doom title and has brilliant lighting which forgoes any need to even use the flashlight. it's perfect but most of y'all probably didn't even see it because you dropped the game about six hours too soon
apparently resurrection of evil is a lot more akin to the second half so i'm expecting that to be great as well. whether i'll play that or prey 06 next, i'm not sure; what i am sure of is that id tech 4 goes hard and doom 3 is pretty fuckin' awesome. i'm not surprised to see that the common consensus of a post-quake id software game is wrong once again. at this point i probably wouldn't be surprised if rage was the best game ever
Lacey's Wardrobe
2024
This review contains spoilers
So then, I'm going to make this a review/analysis for the first three (I'm going to make one on the fourth someday. It's just fairly recent and I don't have all of my thoughts gathered yet.) on YouTube and not this game, you might be asking why? Mostly because I feel like this is pretty much the closest thing I have resembling a "platform" and an audience. I really appreciate you for reading this especially since this little YouTube series and Metal Gear Solid 2 is what has inspired me to look deep into works of art I enjoy. This series has so many themes I want to go over and hopefully can do justice for. There will obviously be spoilers for the 3 videos in this series . Also some incredibly disturbing topics will be covered such as CSA, Child Abuse, Suicide and Animal Abuse.
The series is basically just putting a horrid twist on those "cute girly" flash games made in the 2000s with some of them getting updated to have frightening Easter eggs that could easily traumatise anyone playing them and accidentally stumbling upon these secrets. The creator of these flash games, Rocio. Has described these cursed flash games as the "Real Girl Games". That line is haunting to me since the videos do depict what I'm sure many women go through such as Stalking, depicted in the first video. being unable to meet expectations in the dinner video, Childhood abuse/CSA in the Petshop video. Please do take note that I'm biologically male and don't like a girl at all. With me only really being genderfluid very recently and even then my life is still through that of a boy... even if I want to be more feminine. If I do end up saying some stupid shit. Please let me know.
The first video, the one this game is actually based on. Is incredibly lacking to the later entries in my opinion. The horror is decent but not enough to really dissect here. You could say that Lacey being forced by the player to go outside when the Stalker is right there and here even telling you to not make her go outside represents her parents, aka the player I think. Still doing something we want against her will. But this is just a theory and again...not that interesting.
The dinner is when we really start to pick up. Lacey opens up a dinner (wow, no fucking way Andria really?) and is enthusiastic about it until she realises that...the costumers can be quite unforgiving when they're hungry. It's safe to assume she's had so much trouble running it, with customers yelling at her for not working fast enough... unfortunately, I've seen a lot of employees get treated like shit. It's incredibly sad to see. Especially since Lacey tries her best to do anything to make them happy and keep her business a float but...to no avail. Then the video glitches into the "horror" state. Showing what I assume to be her uncle and her things from her childhood. It's pretty clear to me that she has PTSD and has flashbacks to her awful childhood which we'll get to...before we know it, The business is shut down. With Lacey smoking before taking her own life. As someone that struggles with wanting to meet expectations and feeling like I'll be a failure with no future...this hit me incredibly hard. Especially since, while definitely not as bad as Lacey's situation by any means. Does remind me of getting yelled at for not doing things properly or not being smart nor competent as my peers. Sometimes even wanting to uhh...go to sleep forever since I thought my parents hated me for being so useless. The atmosphere turning into the cold, dark night when we see her business shutting down, it's incredibly chilling yet fitting in my opinion. I'm sure a lot of people can relate to falling short on expectations. To say this is a huge improvement over the first one would be an understatement.
The Petshop gets even better. Lacey opens up a Petshop (by the way the timeline of these games don't really matter all that much, from what I've seen at least.) this is going to be quite impactful to me, I have a dog named Sora and I love him very much. I'd have a mental breakdown if I saw him even get hurt haha. Plus I've always loved animals for all of my life. But anyways, that aside. Lacey's pet orders seem simple and reasonable enough until the customers begin to make more and more weird requests...which the scariest ones being the rabbit having it's limbs cut off and the turtle having teeth to smile at it's owner...then as we do the typical horror transition. Lacey is in another reality it seems with a house. The sky and ground seems like something that would come out of hell though...huh, wonder why? Anyways. As Lacey gets permission from a cat to go the keys she walks into her dinning room with pigs eating flowers...this is supposed to represent her family. Her uncle was the main abuser but it's safe to say the rest of her family probably treated her like shit as well. With them neglecting her and leaving her with the uncle...them eating flowers in my opinion is symbolism for taking away her childhood innocence for their own greed and benefit. With the uncle being heavily implied to assault her...it's sad how much shit this poor girl has gone through. But before we're able to process it...no one is at the dinning table anymore besides Lacey. She gets out of there and enters the living room with a...weird cage. She then suddenly gets in it. Pondering about her life and how "this pain hurts so comfortably.". I interpret this as Lacey just not knowing what to do about her situation and just being forced to suck it up, getting used to it so much to the point where it's the norm for her. The cage represents her feeling trapped since she really can't do anything in her awful circumstances. As she's going through her "edgy moment" in her own words, she finds a key. Picks it up and opens the lock leading to the second floor of the house. She enters the bathroom, saying "I'm not afraid of myself, let's look just for a little bit." As we look into the mirror...Lacey begins to transform into the one behind these games, Rocio herself. Talking to us if we're enjoying her work, this is where we get the famous line. "These are the real girl games". With the most horrifying visuals and audio. Before Lacey books it out of there...if this scene isn't perfect I don't know what is. Lacey turning into Rocio symbolises to me as these games being her own way of venting and telling her experiences through Lacey. Lacey is supposed to be the representation of how damaged you can be mentally because of gender roles/societal expectation, women don't have it easy, men don't either. But this series is made by a woman and I'm sure is representation of what they might have experienced...which is awful to think about. Carrying on from the depressing topic into another. Lacey storms into her bedroom after witnessing the horrifying sequence, then Lacey begins to ponder again. Thinking about fun things to do such as eating ice cream, buying CDs of her favourite songs and getting a cat before she's reminded of her pet dog. I haven't brought him up yet but now is the perfect time. Lacey in a split frame talks about her uncle being a pig and taking her "angel" away...which is her dog, Puddles. It's fairly obvious her uncle killed her only real friend she had. Leaving her in an even worse mental state... something I'd like to mention is that my dog looks really similar to puddles which just only made me more depressed watching this. As Lacey slowly begins to lose her mind she goes to a room that looks like nothing from our reality and more like again, hell with candles and a matchbox on the ground before taking her life. As she sings a depressing tune about her 4-legged best friend...before waking up from her nightmare? Huh-wait...oh...if you look under her bed as she's woken up you can see a corpse censored underneath it...it's safe to assume she's killed her uncle. I think the hell symbolism makes a lot more sense since her home life was her own hell plus her worst fear is going to hell after killing her uncle, that's why it was her nightmare if I had to guess. Again, this is an amazing video and an improvement over the last. Seems like tundra will only keep getting better and better. I definitely didn't have an abusive homelife like Lacey so I can't comment on it much but I'm confident in saying that's it's just as horrifying as than this series depicts. For children, seeing those who gave you your life being abusive towards you with no form of escape...that is pretty much their own hell. It feeling eternal and never ending. Plus the scenes with her dog almost made me shed a tear due to how much I fear about my dog being hurt and how painful it is to lose your best friend...fantastic work, Tundra. I'm really sorry if this comes off as too sappy it's just...it's been a while since I've seen a video series that captures my attention this much. With the topics it handles and how respectful it feels by showing how horrifying and damaging these can be. If you haven't watched the series yet, please do. It's incredible and there's definitely some stuff I left out, with having amazing scares as well.
- Andria <3
The series is basically just putting a horrid twist on those "cute girly" flash games made in the 2000s with some of them getting updated to have frightening Easter eggs that could easily traumatise anyone playing them and accidentally stumbling upon these secrets. The creator of these flash games, Rocio. Has described these cursed flash games as the "Real Girl Games". That line is haunting to me since the videos do depict what I'm sure many women go through such as Stalking, depicted in the first video. being unable to meet expectations in the dinner video, Childhood abuse/CSA in the Petshop video. Please do take note that I'm biologically male and don't like a girl at all. With me only really being genderfluid very recently and even then my life is still through that of a boy... even if I want to be more feminine. If I do end up saying some stupid shit. Please let me know.
The first video, the one this game is actually based on. Is incredibly lacking to the later entries in my opinion. The horror is decent but not enough to really dissect here. You could say that Lacey being forced by the player to go outside when the Stalker is right there and here even telling you to not make her go outside represents her parents, aka the player I think. Still doing something we want against her will. But this is just a theory and again...not that interesting.
The dinner is when we really start to pick up. Lacey opens up a dinner (wow, no fucking way Andria really?) and is enthusiastic about it until she realises that...the costumers can be quite unforgiving when they're hungry. It's safe to assume she's had so much trouble running it, with customers yelling at her for not working fast enough... unfortunately, I've seen a lot of employees get treated like shit. It's incredibly sad to see. Especially since Lacey tries her best to do anything to make them happy and keep her business a float but...to no avail. Then the video glitches into the "horror" state. Showing what I assume to be her uncle and her things from her childhood. It's pretty clear to me that she has PTSD and has flashbacks to her awful childhood which we'll get to...before we know it, The business is shut down. With Lacey smoking before taking her own life. As someone that struggles with wanting to meet expectations and feeling like I'll be a failure with no future...this hit me incredibly hard. Especially since, while definitely not as bad as Lacey's situation by any means. Does remind me of getting yelled at for not doing things properly or not being smart nor competent as my peers. Sometimes even wanting to uhh...go to sleep forever since I thought my parents hated me for being so useless. The atmosphere turning into the cold, dark night when we see her business shutting down, it's incredibly chilling yet fitting in my opinion. I'm sure a lot of people can relate to falling short on expectations. To say this is a huge improvement over the first one would be an understatement.
The Petshop gets even better. Lacey opens up a Petshop (by the way the timeline of these games don't really matter all that much, from what I've seen at least.) this is going to be quite impactful to me, I have a dog named Sora and I love him very much. I'd have a mental breakdown if I saw him even get hurt haha. Plus I've always loved animals for all of my life. But anyways, that aside. Lacey's pet orders seem simple and reasonable enough until the customers begin to make more and more weird requests...which the scariest ones being the rabbit having it's limbs cut off and the turtle having teeth to smile at it's owner...then as we do the typical horror transition. Lacey is in another reality it seems with a house. The sky and ground seems like something that would come out of hell though...huh, wonder why? Anyways. As Lacey gets permission from a cat to go the keys she walks into her dinning room with pigs eating flowers...this is supposed to represent her family. Her uncle was the main abuser but it's safe to say the rest of her family probably treated her like shit as well. With them neglecting her and leaving her with the uncle...them eating flowers in my opinion is symbolism for taking away her childhood innocence for their own greed and benefit. With the uncle being heavily implied to assault her...it's sad how much shit this poor girl has gone through. But before we're able to process it...no one is at the dinning table anymore besides Lacey. She gets out of there and enters the living room with a...weird cage. She then suddenly gets in it. Pondering about her life and how "this pain hurts so comfortably.". I interpret this as Lacey just not knowing what to do about her situation and just being forced to suck it up, getting used to it so much to the point where it's the norm for her. The cage represents her feeling trapped since she really can't do anything in her awful circumstances. As she's going through her "edgy moment" in her own words, she finds a key. Picks it up and opens the lock leading to the second floor of the house. She enters the bathroom, saying "I'm not afraid of myself, let's look just for a little bit." As we look into the mirror...Lacey begins to transform into the one behind these games, Rocio herself. Talking to us if we're enjoying her work, this is where we get the famous line. "These are the real girl games". With the most horrifying visuals and audio. Before Lacey books it out of there...if this scene isn't perfect I don't know what is. Lacey turning into Rocio symbolises to me as these games being her own way of venting and telling her experiences through Lacey. Lacey is supposed to be the representation of how damaged you can be mentally because of gender roles/societal expectation, women don't have it easy, men don't either. But this series is made by a woman and I'm sure is representation of what they might have experienced...which is awful to think about. Carrying on from the depressing topic into another. Lacey storms into her bedroom after witnessing the horrifying sequence, then Lacey begins to ponder again. Thinking about fun things to do such as eating ice cream, buying CDs of her favourite songs and getting a cat before she's reminded of her pet dog. I haven't brought him up yet but now is the perfect time. Lacey in a split frame talks about her uncle being a pig and taking her "angel" away...which is her dog, Puddles. It's fairly obvious her uncle killed her only real friend she had. Leaving her in an even worse mental state... something I'd like to mention is that my dog looks really similar to puddles which just only made me more depressed watching this. As Lacey slowly begins to lose her mind she goes to a room that looks like nothing from our reality and more like again, hell with candles and a matchbox on the ground before taking her life. As she sings a depressing tune about her 4-legged best friend...before waking up from her nightmare? Huh-wait...oh...if you look under her bed as she's woken up you can see a corpse censored underneath it...it's safe to assume she's killed her uncle. I think the hell symbolism makes a lot more sense since her home life was her own hell plus her worst fear is going to hell after killing her uncle, that's why it was her nightmare if I had to guess. Again, this is an amazing video and an improvement over the last. Seems like tundra will only keep getting better and better. I definitely didn't have an abusive homelife like Lacey so I can't comment on it much but I'm confident in saying that's it's just as horrifying as than this series depicts. For children, seeing those who gave you your life being abusive towards you with no form of escape...that is pretty much their own hell. It feeling eternal and never ending. Plus the scenes with her dog almost made me shed a tear due to how much I fear about my dog being hurt and how painful it is to lose your best friend...fantastic work, Tundra. I'm really sorry if this comes off as too sappy it's just...it's been a while since I've seen a video series that captures my attention this much. With the topics it handles and how respectful it feels by showing how horrifying and damaging these can be. If you haven't watched the series yet, please do. It's incredible and there's definitely some stuff I left out, with having amazing scares as well.
- Andria <3
It's actually a common misconception that this is a video game because it's instead a list of bullet points on what your new personality is going to be.
From Blaviken to Toussaint, I've followed The Witcher through all of his misadventures. These adventures have shaped Geralt over the course of seven books and three games, most of which are fantasy stories that I hold in the highest regard. The Witcher is one of the genre's crown jewels, in my opinion; its distinct brand of ethical dilemmas and its complex character writing drew me in as a teenager, and they continue to captivate my imagination and stir my soul to this day.
These adventures, however, cannot last forever; every story must end. The final expansion for The Witcher 3, Blood and Wine, aims to serve as an epilogue chapter in Geralt's story, and I must admit that it is one of the most fitting and satisfying ways this saga could conclude. Although the beautiful, lush mediaeval countryside and vineyards of Toussaint did not fully capture my heart on a second playthrough eight years later, I would be lying if I said I could think of a more suitable place to end Geralt's adventure in. Toussaint is large—almost shockingly large for what should be the setting of an epilogue chapter, but I believe its size works well in its favour. When compared to the previous expansion, Hearts of Stone, I discovered something interesting. Hearts of Stone demonstrates an impressive degree of restraint in its approach to storytelling, while Blood and Wine takes a hard left turn by expanding the scope massively and letting the chains loose, reminiscent of The Wild Hunt's massively complex narrative. What sets Blood and Wine apart, however, is how it refines and enhances the expansive and nonlinear storytelling approach of The Wild Hunt, which results in what I feel to be a vastly more enjoyable and satisfying narrative experience.
CD Projekt Red handles everything here with the utmost care, and I can feel the love they put into Blood and Wine. It’s incredibly commendable how much respect they have for the source material and how dedicated they are to honouring The Witcher’s history in this expansion. I would be remiss not to praise this expansion for the immense love and care that went into it. Serving as an epilogue to a multi-year-long epic, Blood and Wine stands as one of the most impressive storytelling feats of the past decade. Everything here is almost perfect, and despite not fully capturing my heart in the way I had hoped it would, I’m still deeply satisfied and moved by Blood and Wine.
This is truly one of the greatest expansions of all time.
These adventures, however, cannot last forever; every story must end. The final expansion for The Witcher 3, Blood and Wine, aims to serve as an epilogue chapter in Geralt's story, and I must admit that it is one of the most fitting and satisfying ways this saga could conclude. Although the beautiful, lush mediaeval countryside and vineyards of Toussaint did not fully capture my heart on a second playthrough eight years later, I would be lying if I said I could think of a more suitable place to end Geralt's adventure in. Toussaint is large—almost shockingly large for what should be the setting of an epilogue chapter, but I believe its size works well in its favour. When compared to the previous expansion, Hearts of Stone, I discovered something interesting. Hearts of Stone demonstrates an impressive degree of restraint in its approach to storytelling, while Blood and Wine takes a hard left turn by expanding the scope massively and letting the chains loose, reminiscent of The Wild Hunt's massively complex narrative. What sets Blood and Wine apart, however, is how it refines and enhances the expansive and nonlinear storytelling approach of The Wild Hunt, which results in what I feel to be a vastly more enjoyable and satisfying narrative experience.
CD Projekt Red handles everything here with the utmost care, and I can feel the love they put into Blood and Wine. It’s incredibly commendable how much respect they have for the source material and how dedicated they are to honouring The Witcher’s history in this expansion. I would be remiss not to praise this expansion for the immense love and care that went into it. Serving as an epilogue to a multi-year-long epic, Blood and Wine stands as one of the most impressive storytelling feats of the past decade. Everything here is almost perfect, and despite not fully capturing my heart in the way I had hoped it would, I’m still deeply satisfied and moved by Blood and Wine.
This is truly one of the greatest expansions of all time.
Resident Evil 5
2009
All games are products of their time, even ones which "bucked trends" or "were ahead of their time" are only so in comparison with their contemporaries. RE5 is interesting historically because it definitely screams 7th gen : the color grading pejoratively described as the "piss filter" of brown environments assaulted with bloom, the co-op multiplayer focus of the days where such things were starting to become mainstream in the console market, the mowing down of hundreds of racist caricatures by a buff white guy, the fact that Albert Wesker's tailor discovered normal maps and is really excited to absolutely plaster them on his jacket etc.
Its hard to avoid noticing the main two things which jump at you when playing re5, namely that its RE4 but not as good and more racist. Asset reuse is fine, honestly, even mechanics recycled from re4 arent unwelcome but its the rehashing of re4 set pieces whilst doing them worse that lets re5 down. Similarly, the ingenious inventory management mechanic of the RE4 attache case : equal parts survival horror resource management and tetris space allocation is replaced by a dull 3×3 grid whose ultimate depth involves exchanging shit to your ai partner to reload a weapon before exchanging it right back.
The multiplayer aspect makes re5 have kind of an absurd difficulty curve based on your luck in finding partners. Some sections with the Ai partner were a bit patience testing, given their passive nature and limited commands, but then Id get randomly paired up with a god on their fifth playthrough who'd hand me 300 bullets for the machine gun and absolutely tear mfers up with endgame weapons. Very funny to me as well, how certain doors and weights and stuff require the cooperation of chris and sheva because of course its too heavy for a guy whos built like a brick shithouse, he needs help from a small framed spinning instructor to move it.
That being said, its got its bright moments and thankfully the multiplayer aspect made the use of QTEs for custcenes impossible so it does have that over RE4. In all honesty, its not an AWFUL game gameplay wise. There are a few levels which are quite striking visually, namely the temple areas and the faster arcadey nature of it all makes it not better but different to the pace of RE4. The implementation of a cover system and gun wielding zombies is as stupid and unwelcome as you'd expect, and the smoking gun for me that the island in RE4 is not only the worst part of that game but an incredibly ill omen of things to come for the franchise.
I suppose I should mention the elephant in the room : the game is set in "Africa". Not very specific where in Africa except the locals speak French so theres about 20 countries that could apply to. The spectre of the war on terror looms large as the intro depicts an american leading a counter terrorism operation and soon we see Akihiko from Persona 3 doing an arab accent get executed by frenzied locals riled up by a preacher. And sure, like in re4 the reason for it all is a parasitic infestation but the visual language of the game borrows a lot from contemporary wars that its hard to miss. There are heroic black characters like Sheva and her captain buddy but they seem there more as a pre emptive defense at criticism.
Admittedly, considering the state of AAA games at the time, RE5 is not THAT much more racist that the other shooters about doing imperialism in thr global south; that is until you get to the chapter where the enemies are all black people wearing grass skirts and chucking spears at you. And im sorry but zombie or no zombie, that sequence made me surprised to find out that Rudyard Kipling's ghost didnt have a writing credit in the game.
Smarter and more personally invested people than me have already talked about this aspect so I won't go much deeper into it except to say that its an odd obsession with studios who thrive on schlock and silliness to try to delve into more serious or thorny subjects that they are not equipped to handle.
Its hard to avoid noticing the main two things which jump at you when playing re5, namely that its RE4 but not as good and more racist. Asset reuse is fine, honestly, even mechanics recycled from re4 arent unwelcome but its the rehashing of re4 set pieces whilst doing them worse that lets re5 down. Similarly, the ingenious inventory management mechanic of the RE4 attache case : equal parts survival horror resource management and tetris space allocation is replaced by a dull 3×3 grid whose ultimate depth involves exchanging shit to your ai partner to reload a weapon before exchanging it right back.
The multiplayer aspect makes re5 have kind of an absurd difficulty curve based on your luck in finding partners. Some sections with the Ai partner were a bit patience testing, given their passive nature and limited commands, but then Id get randomly paired up with a god on their fifth playthrough who'd hand me 300 bullets for the machine gun and absolutely tear mfers up with endgame weapons. Very funny to me as well, how certain doors and weights and stuff require the cooperation of chris and sheva because of course its too heavy for a guy whos built like a brick shithouse, he needs help from a small framed spinning instructor to move it.
That being said, its got its bright moments and thankfully the multiplayer aspect made the use of QTEs for custcenes impossible so it does have that over RE4. In all honesty, its not an AWFUL game gameplay wise. There are a few levels which are quite striking visually, namely the temple areas and the faster arcadey nature of it all makes it not better but different to the pace of RE4. The implementation of a cover system and gun wielding zombies is as stupid and unwelcome as you'd expect, and the smoking gun for me that the island in RE4 is not only the worst part of that game but an incredibly ill omen of things to come for the franchise.
I suppose I should mention the elephant in the room : the game is set in "Africa". Not very specific where in Africa except the locals speak French so theres about 20 countries that could apply to. The spectre of the war on terror looms large as the intro depicts an american leading a counter terrorism operation and soon we see Akihiko from Persona 3 doing an arab accent get executed by frenzied locals riled up by a preacher. And sure, like in re4 the reason for it all is a parasitic infestation but the visual language of the game borrows a lot from contemporary wars that its hard to miss. There are heroic black characters like Sheva and her captain buddy but they seem there more as a pre emptive defense at criticism.
Admittedly, considering the state of AAA games at the time, RE5 is not THAT much more racist that the other shooters about doing imperialism in thr global south; that is until you get to the chapter where the enemies are all black people wearing grass skirts and chucking spears at you. And im sorry but zombie or no zombie, that sequence made me surprised to find out that Rudyard Kipling's ghost didnt have a writing credit in the game.
Smarter and more personally invested people than me have already talked about this aspect so I won't go much deeper into it except to say that its an odd obsession with studios who thrive on schlock and silliness to try to delve into more serious or thorny subjects that they are not equipped to handle.
Xenogears
1998
Gave myself a day to kinda just sit with the whole experience of my first playthrough. Xenogears is one of those games that kinda just existed within the culture in a way where I always heard people vaguely gesture at its greatness, but never actually got any full details about what exactly made it so great. So for years and years and years and years and years I kinda just kept putting it off, playing many other games before and after it, hearing about its complexities but never really the details as of what those complexities were. Finally experiencing it for myself I completely get it.
An experience that is some parts Neon Genesis Evangelion, some parts Gundam some parts sci-fi novels and films, Xenogears wears all of its inspirations firmly on its sleeve and proudly bears it all as it goes into its own psychological, religious explorations of the self.
The ways in which it talks about running away from your problems rather than dealing with them and how that inevitably comes to bite you in the ass, there's a quite good example with the martial arts tournament you enter that genuinely surprised me when it happened.
The ways it delves into how trauma can inform and explain behaviors, can cause people to drift one way or another instead of facing the real problems within themselves, be lead to more and differing kinds of abuses, or completely shut themselves down due to their inability to truly cope with the things that've happened to them. But it also firmly discusses how important it is to continue to live, to continue to fight and go on despite the struggles we face in life, how we have to take responsibility for ourselves and the things we do despite our traumas, that again our traumas can be an explanation for behaviors and actions you may take, but at the end of the day you have to be responsible for your own actions.
There are a few characters I do wish were able to get more from the story (Rico, Maria, Chu Chu) and the very clear rushing of things does absolutely fuck with what was clearly supposed to be this ambitious and sprawling experience, though I will say in spite of the clear rush job that Disc 2 ends up as, I genuinely still quite loved the way they handle the presentation and style. Some of the quick cuts are really sharp and effective, I dig the kinda play stage type beat they do for some of the cutscenes they didn't have time to fully make enviornments for, I like the way they frame each part from differing characters POV's. There's a lot of cool things that make that second disc really interesting, kinda reflecting episodes 25 and 26 of NGE in ways.
It's such a strange feeling in ways cause like I kinda despised the gameplay at times (ground combat relies a bit too heavily on deathblows and grinding them out where-as I feel like the Gear combat is a bit better balanced in terms of building up to your deathblows and having to strategically manage your fuel levels in interesting ways). But even though I wasn't huge on the combat or some of the dungeon design (fuck Babel Tower) the whole thing just really came together for me. Everything it was doing was absolutely fuckin aces, it honestly reminded me of watching NGE for the first time as a teenager AS WELL AS watching both Shiki-Jitsu and Rebuild of Evangelion 3.0+1.0 with what exactly it was going for in its messaging and just how much it resonated with me. How much Fei's character arc resonated with me, how dense and packed of an experience it was overall.
I think I can safely say that I'm getting into the series cause I wanna see what else can come from anyone involved who was able to put this together.
An experience that is some parts Neon Genesis Evangelion, some parts Gundam some parts sci-fi novels and films, Xenogears wears all of its inspirations firmly on its sleeve and proudly bears it all as it goes into its own psychological, religious explorations of the self.
The ways in which it talks about running away from your problems rather than dealing with them and how that inevitably comes to bite you in the ass, there's a quite good example with the martial arts tournament you enter that genuinely surprised me when it happened.
The ways it delves into how trauma can inform and explain behaviors, can cause people to drift one way or another instead of facing the real problems within themselves, be lead to more and differing kinds of abuses, or completely shut themselves down due to their inability to truly cope with the things that've happened to them. But it also firmly discusses how important it is to continue to live, to continue to fight and go on despite the struggles we face in life, how we have to take responsibility for ourselves and the things we do despite our traumas, that again our traumas can be an explanation for behaviors and actions you may take, but at the end of the day you have to be responsible for your own actions.
There are a few characters I do wish were able to get more from the story (Rico, Maria, Chu Chu) and the very clear rushing of things does absolutely fuck with what was clearly supposed to be this ambitious and sprawling experience, though I will say in spite of the clear rush job that Disc 2 ends up as, I genuinely still quite loved the way they handle the presentation and style. Some of the quick cuts are really sharp and effective, I dig the kinda play stage type beat they do for some of the cutscenes they didn't have time to fully make enviornments for, I like the way they frame each part from differing characters POV's. There's a lot of cool things that make that second disc really interesting, kinda reflecting episodes 25 and 26 of NGE in ways.
It's such a strange feeling in ways cause like I kinda despised the gameplay at times (ground combat relies a bit too heavily on deathblows and grinding them out where-as I feel like the Gear combat is a bit better balanced in terms of building up to your deathblows and having to strategically manage your fuel levels in interesting ways). But even though I wasn't huge on the combat or some of the dungeon design (fuck Babel Tower) the whole thing just really came together for me. Everything it was doing was absolutely fuckin aces, it honestly reminded me of watching NGE for the first time as a teenager AS WELL AS watching both Shiki-Jitsu and Rebuild of Evangelion 3.0+1.0 with what exactly it was going for in its messaging and just how much it resonated with me. How much Fei's character arc resonated with me, how dense and packed of an experience it was overall.
I think I can safely say that I'm getting into the series cause I wanna see what else can come from anyone involved who was able to put this together.
Faust meets Witcher in one of the most deeply tragic and moving love stories of all time. Hearts of Stone is more than just a love story; it is also an interrogation of love, seeking to both affirm love and understand its proclivity for destruction when left unchecked. It retells an age-old story, but it does so in a way that excellently demonstrates The Witcher's almost supernatural ability to transform simple story concepts into some of the most intricate and riveting studies of the human condition ever seen.