Cittycat
2023
Play Forza Horizon
This review contains spoilers
An amazing must-play title for the Nintendo Switch. I can't add anything positive that hasn't already been said countless times, so I will try to explain why some of it's flaws hold it back from being a perfect game for me and is in some cases actually worse than BotW:
- The Depths: The first time you descend down and discover another world the size of Hyrule will be one of my favourite gaming memories of all time. But I felt disappointed by them the more time I spent down there. Almost no variation in the environment, almost no worthwhile items or collectibles, the same enemies as the overworld, it even pulls an Elden Ring and reuses main bosses as in-world minibosses. We complain about too large worlds with repetitive content a lot but why did Nintendo get a pass for this one here? Trying to fight your way through the darkness to find a lightroot is really fun, but I honestly couldn't be bothered to do all 100+ of them when you have to go through the ever-same terrain.
- The four main quests: TotK has some amazing cutscenes and story-bits but the four main questlines are not among them. We see essentially the same 6-10 minute cutscene more than four times: "here's a flashback to the fight against Ganondorf. And...oh my.... this girl looks like.... Zelda?!?!?!?! No.... could she really be.... the princess?!?!?!" these are agonizing to watch honestly.
While the questlines themselves have about the same structure and depth as the BotW ones, they vary wildly in length and quality in my opinion: The Gerudo questline (desert) is long, high quality and epic throughout. The Goro questline (volcano) is short and even the temple feels more like cut content and doesn't compare to the other ones.
- The "secret" fifth sage/questline: It's too long filled with bad puzzles (especially those in the jungle), the sky islands you have to go through during a thunderstorm is a cool gimmick that overstays it's welcome as you try to find the exit. Then you go into the depths to do four shrine-tier puzzles to unlock: a mech! The mech is awesome. Only problem is that the mech is totally useless: you do no damage and any damage you recieve goes straight at your health. How can you add a mech to a game and not make it fun??
- Controls: The control layout is way too overloaded. The buttons do so many different things that you often freeze up for a couple seconds and think "how do I do that again?"
I don't know why but I constantly threw away my weapon by accident. The ability wheel is laggy and slow to respond, rotating things with Ultrahand is a pain, you have to go into the inventory to toggle the sages and attaching something to your bow is a one row list of every item in your inventory making it take forever to select something.
I also have my problems with how the final area and boss rush are way too long without any way to return or save or prepare but it probably sounds like I hate this game now already but I don't. I love Tears of the Kingdom, I just don't think it's a flawless masterpiece 10 our of 10. More like a 9 out of 10 and that's an amazing score as well.
- The Depths: The first time you descend down and discover another world the size of Hyrule will be one of my favourite gaming memories of all time. But I felt disappointed by them the more time I spent down there. Almost no variation in the environment, almost no worthwhile items or collectibles, the same enemies as the overworld, it even pulls an Elden Ring and reuses main bosses as in-world minibosses. We complain about too large worlds with repetitive content a lot but why did Nintendo get a pass for this one here? Trying to fight your way through the darkness to find a lightroot is really fun, but I honestly couldn't be bothered to do all 100+ of them when you have to go through the ever-same terrain.
- The four main quests: TotK has some amazing cutscenes and story-bits but the four main questlines are not among them. We see essentially the same 6-10 minute cutscene more than four times: "here's a flashback to the fight against Ganondorf. And...oh my.... this girl looks like.... Zelda?!?!?!?! No.... could she really be.... the princess?!?!?!" these are agonizing to watch honestly.
While the questlines themselves have about the same structure and depth as the BotW ones, they vary wildly in length and quality in my opinion: The Gerudo questline (desert) is long, high quality and epic throughout. The Goro questline (volcano) is short and even the temple feels more like cut content and doesn't compare to the other ones.
- The "secret" fifth sage/questline: It's too long filled with bad puzzles (especially those in the jungle), the sky islands you have to go through during a thunderstorm is a cool gimmick that overstays it's welcome as you try to find the exit. Then you go into the depths to do four shrine-tier puzzles to unlock: a mech! The mech is awesome. Only problem is that the mech is totally useless: you do no damage and any damage you recieve goes straight at your health. How can you add a mech to a game and not make it fun??
- Controls: The control layout is way too overloaded. The buttons do so many different things that you often freeze up for a couple seconds and think "how do I do that again?"
I don't know why but I constantly threw away my weapon by accident. The ability wheel is laggy and slow to respond, rotating things with Ultrahand is a pain, you have to go into the inventory to toggle the sages and attaching something to your bow is a one row list of every item in your inventory making it take forever to select something.
I also have my problems with how the final area and boss rush are way too long without any way to return or save or prepare but it probably sounds like I hate this game now already but I don't. I love Tears of the Kingdom, I just don't think it's a flawless masterpiece 10 our of 10. More like a 9 out of 10 and that's an amazing score as well.
I like both Neptunia and Senran Kagura, so for me this is like the biggest crossover event since The Avengers but better! Story-wise this is a full-on Neptunia game with a couple Senran Kagura cameos, which is fine by me. You either really like or really hate Neptunia games and it's stories, though I was a bit disappointed with the Visual Novel cutscenes. Even the ReBirth games for the PSVita had character models that moved and reacted with lots of expressions, here it's really just a couple jpegs with many lengthy transitions between them.
Combat wise it was fine. Funnily enough this is not the first Neptunia game with Senran Kagura like combat. They already did that with Neptunia U Action Unleashed but there the combat was terrible imo. Here it's competent and actually fun to play. Because here they made a new combat system from the ground up instead of trying to fit RPG elements into existing Senran Kagura combat like in Neptunia U. This sadly also means that pretty much all of the fan-service stuff from the SK games are missing here. No clothes ripping, no questionable camera angles, nothing. This might actually be the most prudent game of both franchises to date!
The game is not that hard, not that deep and not that long but I like it when games know when to call it quits and not overstay it's welcome. This is a 2/5 or 3/5 game for most people but because I'm insane it gets the Neptune bonus to 4/5.
Combat wise it was fine. Funnily enough this is not the first Neptunia game with Senran Kagura like combat. They already did that with Neptunia U Action Unleashed but there the combat was terrible imo. Here it's competent and actually fun to play. Because here they made a new combat system from the ground up instead of trying to fit RPG elements into existing Senran Kagura combat like in Neptunia U. This sadly also means that pretty much all of the fan-service stuff from the SK games are missing here. No clothes ripping, no questionable camera angles, nothing. This might actually be the most prudent game of both franchises to date!
The game is not that hard, not that deep and not that long but I like it when games know when to call it quits and not overstay it's welcome. This is a 2/5 or 3/5 game for most people but because I'm insane it gets the Neptune bonus to 4/5.
2005
A short and sweet hack n slash that's great to play even today. The setpieces, the soundtrack, the combat they're all worth experiencing even for someone who did not grow up with this game or many Playstation 2 games that play alike.
Even with it's ~9 hour length I felt like it ran out of things hard around the 5 hour mark. You will see most enemies and abilities during the first two hours, not much gets changed up there over time sadly. Though it does always vary in it's environment and the many puzzles inside them.
While the puzzles and enemy placements were all fine, towards the end it became insanely frustrating, just throwing long stretches of parkour with no checkpoints and dozens of the strongest enemies in a square box room at you really felt unnecessary.
Yes it gets repetitive sometimes, the levels are gimmicky, you will press R2 and turn levers for a big chunk of your playtime, some enemies are frustrating and it only has like three boss fights, but it's still cool overall.
Even with it's ~9 hour length I felt like it ran out of things hard around the 5 hour mark. You will see most enemies and abilities during the first two hours, not much gets changed up there over time sadly. Though it does always vary in it's environment and the many puzzles inside them.
While the puzzles and enemy placements were all fine, towards the end it became insanely frustrating, just throwing long stretches of parkour with no checkpoints and dozens of the strongest enemies in a square box room at you really felt unnecessary.
Yes it gets repetitive sometimes, the levels are gimmicky, you will press R2 and turn levers for a big chunk of your playtime, some enemies are frustrating and it only has like three boss fights, but it's still cool overall.
Even with it's awful final battle and some rough edges, this DLC to one of the best FPS games ever made is still dimensions ahead of and more fun than most other shooters
2019
Turn out Anime Dark Souls is really cool!
It definetly has issues. General enemy placements and level design are truly awful sometimes, much of the items and mechanics you get are useless and the story and the game goes on for a bit too long for my taste. When you beat that very large area with the many bosses and all of the character arcs complete, you think it's over. Huh, what a nice ending. But no, after that it goes on for another solid 10 hours with it's worst areas and bosses yet, culminating in a final (final final, no really, now THIS is the final one! oh, it's acutally not! it's this one! oh, it actually has another phase, the final one!) battle which lays all of the games flaws bare and after 30 hours of this game I just called it quits there.
But otherwise, this was a good game. This all could be addressed in a sequel. A Code Vein 2 could be great and stand out well from other Soulslikes and From Software's works.
It definetly has issues. General enemy placements and level design are truly awful sometimes, much of the items and mechanics you get are useless and the story and the game goes on for a bit too long for my taste. When you beat that very large area with the many bosses and all of the character arcs complete, you think it's over. Huh, what a nice ending. But no, after that it goes on for another solid 10 hours with it's worst areas and bosses yet, culminating in a final (final final, no really, now THIS is the final one! oh, it's acutally not! it's this one! oh, it actually has another phase, the final one!) battle which lays all of the games flaws bare and after 30 hours of this game I just called it quits there.
But otherwise, this was a good game. This all could be addressed in a sequel. A Code Vein 2 could be great and stand out well from other Soulslikes and From Software's works.
2022
I don't think I can add much to this other than what's already been said by countless reviews and videos about OW2's changes, new business model, balancing etc; so this will just be a bullet list of things I noticed that not many talk about I feel
- there hasn't been a day where a hero was not locked from playing. Torb and Bastion were not playable for weeks! And now another one is not playable at the moment. This happens all the time in multiplayer game yes but OW2 takes very long until they become playable again. To set a precedent on this only a couple weeks released is impressive.
- with the removal of 2CP maps, locking of maps like Numbani and a changing rotation of select maps, you are playing with less total maps than at Overwatch 1's release in 2016!
- Blizzard is awfully silent about the PvE mode, which is supposed to save the game I guess. I was not impressed by the first 2019 gameplay at all. With not much shown since and it's content becoming only seasonal events, I have no hopes for this being any good. The new Halloween event PvE game was not much different from the OW1 events either. I have lost any interest in PvE content for Overwatch and I don't think they can pull off something good here. The poor track record of all recent AAA co-op shooters released in the last couple years does not help either.
- of course it sucks that content is cut from one game to the next. Blizz has no excuse here since they don't add nearly enough to call this a sequel. My hot take: I think not enough has been cut in OW2 and it carries legacy baggage. Their focus away from stuns and CCs has left some heroes without their core abilities, in particular Mei and Doomfist. They're not reworked but just a less fun version of themselves with their core gimmick removed. When they can't come up with a way to make them fun again, why not just cut them out altogether?
I don't think all hope is lost here though. At it's core, this is still one of the most fun FPS games out there right now. The few new things there are like Kiriko are fun too.
- there hasn't been a day where a hero was not locked from playing. Torb and Bastion were not playable for weeks! And now another one is not playable at the moment. This happens all the time in multiplayer game yes but OW2 takes very long until they become playable again. To set a precedent on this only a couple weeks released is impressive.
- with the removal of 2CP maps, locking of maps like Numbani and a changing rotation of select maps, you are playing with less total maps than at Overwatch 1's release in 2016!
- Blizzard is awfully silent about the PvE mode, which is supposed to save the game I guess. I was not impressed by the first 2019 gameplay at all. With not much shown since and it's content becoming only seasonal events, I have no hopes for this being any good. The new Halloween event PvE game was not much different from the OW1 events either. I have lost any interest in PvE content for Overwatch and I don't think they can pull off something good here. The poor track record of all recent AAA co-op shooters released in the last couple years does not help either.
- of course it sucks that content is cut from one game to the next. Blizz has no excuse here since they don't add nearly enough to call this a sequel. My hot take: I think not enough has been cut in OW2 and it carries legacy baggage. Their focus away from stuns and CCs has left some heroes without their core abilities, in particular Mei and Doomfist. They're not reworked but just a less fun version of themselves with their core gimmick removed. When they can't come up with a way to make them fun again, why not just cut them out altogether?
I don't think all hope is lost here though. At it's core, this is still one of the most fun FPS games out there right now. The few new things there are like Kiriko are fun too.
2022
A cute and funny little game. If you have any affection for roguelites and (cult)building/farming games, this is the game for you.
I fell a bit off towards the end of the 11 hour playthrough I feel. Many mechanics like aging of your followers or requiring X many followers to progress the game make you sometimes feel punished for not playing it fast enough. Every in-game day you spend decorating or building out your base instead of fighting is a day where you potentially wear out a mine or lose a follower. At the end the game it wanted me to have double the amount of followers I had, so I rushed through levels for about two hours just to grind the follower count higher. Especially frustrating since it ran out of things to show at that point.
The combat (which is about ~60% of your gameplay) felt old for me quick too, but that's more of a preference thing. It relies a lot on dodging and waiting for invulnerable enemy phases to be over. The camera is quite far away and with many enemies and props on screen at once it felt too chaotic at times with the outcome feeling out of your control.
But that's (probably) fine. It's short, focused and well made, even when I encountered more technical issues and game crashes and softlocks than I expected from a game like this. However it feels like it's held back from being a truly great work.
I fell a bit off towards the end of the 11 hour playthrough I feel. Many mechanics like aging of your followers or requiring X many followers to progress the game make you sometimes feel punished for not playing it fast enough. Every in-game day you spend decorating or building out your base instead of fighting is a day where you potentially wear out a mine or lose a follower. At the end the game it wanted me to have double the amount of followers I had, so I rushed through levels for about two hours just to grind the follower count higher. Especially frustrating since it ran out of things to show at that point.
The combat (which is about ~60% of your gameplay) felt old for me quick too, but that's more of a preference thing. It relies a lot on dodging and waiting for invulnerable enemy phases to be over. The camera is quite far away and with many enemies and props on screen at once it felt too chaotic at times with the outcome feeling out of your control.
But that's (probably) fine. It's short, focused and well made, even when I encountered more technical issues and game crashes and softlocks than I expected from a game like this. However it feels like it's held back from being a truly great work.
Since I love both Neptunia and Senran Kagura this should have been the best game ever for me
But they took things from both things, put them together and you somehow get the worst of both worlds
Neptunia's RPG elements are here but most things serve no purpose and are confusing. Neps mechanics were made for turn based JRPGs and not for a hack-n-slash.
Senran Kagura's combat got watered down, feels worse to play than SK games and now with a dozen layers of RPG ontop. IT's really sad because SK games were always fun and satisfying to play with lots of animation and fan service which they also reduced for some reason. I MEAN HELLO WHERE IS MY NEP BOOBA
But they took things from both things, put them together and you somehow get the worst of both worlds
Neptunia's RPG elements are here but most things serve no purpose and are confusing. Neps mechanics were made for turn based JRPGs and not for a hack-n-slash.
Senran Kagura's combat got watered down, feels worse to play than SK games and now with a dozen layers of RPG ontop. IT's really sad because SK games were always fun and satisfying to play with lots of animation and fan service which they also reduced for some reason. I MEAN HELLO WHERE IS MY NEP BOOBA
2021
Prehaps we treated Genshin too harshly
1996
It might be very short, with some brutal floors where you will die over and over again, but it's fun.
It's simplicity is the biggest strength the game has. Three classes, a handful of weapons, a dozen enemies and one town. You can quickly grasp the game and use all of the tools it gives you to defeat the boss and advance to the next floor.
Combined with it's (back then) dead simple controls and mechanics makes Diablo infinitely more accessible to play and enjoy today than any other PC RPG from 1996.
I've never played this before but had a great time playing it all the way to the end together with friends in online multiplayer, which still works after all those years.
It's simplicity is the biggest strength the game has. Three classes, a handful of weapons, a dozen enemies and one town. You can quickly grasp the game and use all of the tools it gives you to defeat the boss and advance to the next floor.
Combined with it's (back then) dead simple controls and mechanics makes Diablo infinitely more accessible to play and enjoy today than any other PC RPG from 1996.
I've never played this before but had a great time playing it all the way to the end together with friends in online multiplayer, which still works after all those years.
2016
To me this feels like a huge downgrade from Yakuza 0.
You have the same world which isn't a bad thing of course but it just feels very samey after already having thoroughly explored it in Zero.
The story is not nearly as packing as Zero in my opinion
The combat is the same
This is a good game and I will rate it as such, but I just seem to fall off hard on this one
You have the same world which isn't a bad thing of course but it just feels very samey after already having thoroughly explored it in Zero.
The story is not nearly as packing as Zero in my opinion
The combat is the same
This is a good game and I will rate it as such, but I just seem to fall off hard on this one
2000
A weird and short Fromsoft game. It plays a lot like King's Field. Despite being on the PS2 the levels and characters are very boxy and with a 2 meter viewing distance this could easily be on the PS1.
This is not a good game but you somehow still feel a kind of atmosphere and intrigue that few studios like Fromsoft can pull off, that makes even their worst games worth a shot.
This is not a good game but you somehow still feel a kind of atmosphere and intrigue that few studios like Fromsoft can pull off, that makes even their worst games worth a shot.
2020
The fundamentals are as rock-solid as a comp shooter could possibly be. You feel that many people spent years to perfect it.
This is a game that should be sprawling with different game modes and characters and maybe custom content even. But it has like one game mode, very few maps and characters that are not memorable whatsoever and a very slow content supply through updates.
Competitive FPS is a very saturated market where it's very difficult to stand out even with a good game. It has found a quite large niche somewhere between CSGO and Overwatch in spirit. I just wonder how long this is gonna last in this state.
This is a game that should be sprawling with different game modes and characters and maybe custom content even. But it has like one game mode, very few maps and characters that are not memorable whatsoever and a very slow content supply through updates.
Competitive FPS is a very saturated market where it's very difficult to stand out even with a good game. It has found a quite large niche somewhere between CSGO and Overwatch in spirit. I just wonder how long this is gonna last in this state.
While I loved New Leaf and spent hundreds of hours in it, I never really got into New Horizons, even after about 20 hours of total playtime.
Instead of boring you with me trying to explain Animal Crossing to you, I will list my two main culprits that make this game less fun
- Tools. Your shovel, axe and fishing rod are now consumables that will break. To make a new tool you have to either buy or craft it again. This takes up way too much time since you will find yourself at one corner of the map, tool broke, go back to town, make tool, go back to corner and so on. And it get really awkward with the stick that makes you cross rivers because that can break too! You get upgraded versions later but they require even more resources to craft. There's no real progression here and tool will stay as frustrating as in the beginning.
- Content. There doesn't seem to be much to do in this game. I feel like New Leaf had much more to offer and experience for the player, especially in the beginning. The whole build-your-own-island concept seems to be culprit of this, since you unlock buildings with their respective content later on but that doesn't excuse it.
Lately it seems to be Nintendo's main strategy to release a game with less content than it's predecessor and then to release the remaining content in a drip feed. Animal Crossing should be perfect for such a model but you need to have a solid base first. Offering paid DLC in conjunction doesn't make this sting any less.
Instead of boring you with me trying to explain Animal Crossing to you, I will list my two main culprits that make this game less fun
- Tools. Your shovel, axe and fishing rod are now consumables that will break. To make a new tool you have to either buy or craft it again. This takes up way too much time since you will find yourself at one corner of the map, tool broke, go back to town, make tool, go back to corner and so on. And it get really awkward with the stick that makes you cross rivers because that can break too! You get upgraded versions later but they require even more resources to craft. There's no real progression here and tool will stay as frustrating as in the beginning.
- Content. There doesn't seem to be much to do in this game. I feel like New Leaf had much more to offer and experience for the player, especially in the beginning. The whole build-your-own-island concept seems to be culprit of this, since you unlock buildings with their respective content later on but that doesn't excuse it.
Lately it seems to be Nintendo's main strategy to release a game with less content than it's predecessor and then to release the remaining content in a drip feed. Animal Crossing should be perfect for such a model but you need to have a solid base first. Offering paid DLC in conjunction doesn't make this sting any less.