Sly 3 was another fun sly game, but by far Sly 2 has to be my favorite. The game didn't really bring many improvements over the second game, but gathering a whole gang of thieves was a fun premise. The gang as always have a great dynamic and the new characters added some charm. The gameplay is more or less the same besides for new minigames/gameplay sections as other characters. The most disappointing thing about the game is the removal of the bottles that were hidden across the levels of Sly 1 and 2 as it made you want to explore all the places you visited in this game that isn't really important. The game was still a good game, despite feeling a bit short compared to the previous entries.

I knew going into this that this wouldn't be a pleasant experience based off of other reviews but I still went in open-minded having played it a full year after it's release. The bar was low man, but holy shit. What happened between House of Ashes and this?

Something about this entire premise just did not hit right with me. They already went with the whole "saw trap serial killer" concept with Until Dawn, but this one just full sent it to death, with no believable reasoning behind it. The backstory twist was predictable and completely undermines it's own villain, just turning him into a teleporting superhuman who shows up whenever it's convenient. The game suggests that he's in 3 or 4 locations at the same time while never hinting that there are some supernatural elements at play. It just made the whole 8 hour runtime feel weird and pointless.

This isn't helped by the pacing at all. The first half is outrageously boring, setting up some of the worst characters in the series who all seem to hate each other. The 2nd half is where all the "action" takes place, but it's more like scenes where character A or sometimes B run/hide from discount Mikie Myers interspersed with the most annoying investigation settings in the series. They introduced the most useless collectible ever in this game, on top of the usual lore clues sprinkled about. It basically gave them an excuse to go hog wild with these bland and almost pitch black empty spaces that just exist for you to fumble around in for 20 minutes trying to figure out where the game intends for you to go. If there was any tension at all that you achieved from running away from the killer, these walking around bits usually nuked that feeling every time they showed up. These are usually the worst parts of the other games but they've never been this annoying to deal with until now.

They implemented a new inventory item system where each character has their own light source and bonus "power" they can individually use, such as Charlie being able to open locked drawers. I'm open to this series trying new things, but this one was a bit of a flop. I kept forgetting that it was even a thing you could do because some characters just use their abilities much more often than others. I found myself locked in a room as Kate for 30 minutes because she's supposed to use this super cool investigative journalist trick with a pencil that the game gave no indication that she even fucking had in the first place. She used it literally once in that moment, and then never again, so what was the point?

Trying to dabble into this part without spoiling, but if the game wants me to utilize what we know about the character's and their individual personalities to our advantage, then they need to really consider writing better characters? This series isn't well known for having the most stellar casts and I'm usually able to swallow it fine, but this one in particular has some of the most one-note, insufferable barbarians at it's helm. You learn almost nothing about them and yet the Curator's smug ass treats you like a dickhead for not picking up on what you're supposed to do with the little information that's thrown at you. This, coupled up with the fact that the villain is basically Homelander, made the deaths and failures feel extremely cheap.

The optimization itself is also still pretty stinky a year after release. I almost refunded it because it was doing some weird audio de-syncing and displaying extreme desaturation that I never turned on. Opening the game itself was like opening malware; it just death gripped my whole system and refused to exit fullscreen mode no matter how hard I struggled to change it. Subtitles were written incorrectly and had words spelled wrong sometimes. The first fuse box mini-game had the wrong inputs listed. I thought for sure that the game was just broken, but it turned out that you're supposed to use your keyboard to do them even though the UI tells you to use the mouse. Just straight up forehead mechanics.

Please just be a fluke, Supermassive. I really like their games but they need to slow down the release times if they're gonna try to make longer, bigger games like this. Not every story they put out can be golden, but there's some formulas they refuse to change and it's starting to ruin the experiences. Each game has worse looking models with zero souls behind their eyes. I would love if the next one has a cast of characters who are actual friends that don't snipe each other with every line of dialogue, but it's set in space so who the fuck knows. They're probably miserable co-workers, again, who all have a previous past of dating each other, again. At least that one looks like it has a monster.

The game plays better and I hate it.

The dragoon plays better... which I hate because its a living thing and every single game with a living thing feels heavier
because well, they're alive, like in Panzer Dragoon.

The in-game cutscenes have more movement but are rough as hell, the simplicity of the original made them stand out a bit more.

You can say this game is "better" in some aspects, but does it make it a better product than Drakengard 1? nope

Nier Automata is a game I wanted to play for a while because of how big of a fan my boyfriend is and the game did not disappoint. Although I enjoyed the gameplay I wasn't the biggest fan of the bullet hell sections. And by far I had the most fun playing as 9S more. It was fun to see all the different perspectives it has to offer as the characters are interesting and compelling all with their own secret goals. The messages and stories the game tells are really devastating at times, which is why just running around listening to music after finishing quest was good breather. The biggest gripe I had with the game was the map ;v as it is difficult to navigate sometimes coupled with the fast travel that is locked to points making you need to open the map separately to check where you actually need to go. The game also offers and amazing soundtrack, memorable locations which made it pretty easy to travel around the map. The many twists and turns in the story really had me hooked and I finished all of the main endings. It really is a game that I would recommend that everyone tries at least once.

(7-year-old's review, typed by her dad)

[Dad: What score are you thinking]

[CatTheCutest: A five!]

[Dad: A five?? Are you sure?]

[CatTheCutest: Well, a four. A four-point-five!!]

Okay. So first up, you start off as Gollum, and if you look at him, he's kind of creepy and horrifying. Then you see some... beautiful image. But then Gollum shows up! GRRR! And also it's very dark, so it's kinda hard to find things, especially those VINES. It was just so dark. There was only like teensy bits of fire and that was your only light. And be careful, or else you'll accidentally fall off a cliff! Cuz I did.