Calling something "good with friends" is often the cruelest thing you can ever say about a multiplayer game. Yeah, you can have fun with friends in basically anything, it turns out friends are good, not Phasmophobia. And it's so easy to see that in Lethal Company, especially from the outside looking in - some bullshit lame horror coop horror game to scream at, acting as the new steam flavour of the month game to merely moisturise the slip and slide of socialisation.

Despite the resemblance, Lethal Company is not that. Flavour of the month, maybe, but versus the thousand souless PC games out there of it's breed it's truly closer to something like Dokapon Kingdom and hell, Dark Souls, for the kinds of emotion and socialisation it brings up.

Because truly, Lethal Company is a game about having a really shit job. There's no real sugarcoating it. It's a game about being explicitly underpaid for dangerous, tedius work salvaging objects from ugly factories, where the corporation you work under and the true majesty of visiting planets and experiencing it's fauna are so stripped back and corporatised that you don't even notice it. This setting and the gameplay really sets out a very clever vibe for the game, as frankly, it on it's own, is almost deliberately not fun, but it is a wonderful way of building up a camraderie between players and really get into the boots of a worker in a bad job slacking and goofing off a bit. On my first playthrough with friends I found some extraodinary catharsis in one of the gang spending some of our quota on a jukebox playing license free music and just having a jam for a while, and likewise, a good haul which takes some of the pressure off others is appreciated, and the "man in the chair" - the guy left behind at the ship to deal with doors, turrets etc, feels both valued as part of the team, but also themselves lonely, tense, awaiting their friend's safe return.

It is also, as a more obvious point, very funny. Basically every run of this game you'll make something funny will happen. A comrade fumbles a wonky jump to their death based on bad information. You walk just inside the range of your comrade's voice to hear them screaming for help for half a second. You watch as the man in the chair as a giant red dot slowly bears down on your comrade, try to warn them and then see the red dot taking delight in eating them, and there's so much more. It's surprising really as a game with so little going on in gameplay and so limited in variety of stuff that it keeps on bringing up new stupid shit to happen.

Its rarely legitimately scary, even in the rare case you're alone amongst monsters with all your friends dead. The stakes established are just set too low, the animations a bit too goofy for the intensity to ever feel too much. And that kinda folds back in on that "shit job" thematic of the whole thing. Being almost indifferent to the surprising variety of monsters, seeing them as much as obstacles as hell demons that want to eat your face, is ultimately part of the job. Yes, the fourth angel from Evangelion wandering around whilst you slowly crouchwalk across the map to your ship is tense, but almost amusingly tense. Gotta roll with it.

It's a delightful experience, really. If you wanted to you could linger on how cobbled together the whole thing feels right now and how limited the actual gameplay really is, but they do nothing to take away from the truly great times Lethal Company sparks. The closest a game will ever get to being on the last day of your christmas contract with debenhams and just slacking with the other temps, giving people discounts on their items for no good reason and occasionally the weeping angels from doctor who come out with a giant spider and they're in the ONE hallway that leads back to the exit and Ernesto is dead, damn.

Intelligent systems, is this a bit?

As soon as it was announced Engage is a game that was raising a bunch of red flags. Nostalgia baiting, the awful focus on a myunit, gimmicky new mechanics and fucking GACHA? The whole thing really looked like intelligent systems giving into the worst tendancies of post-awakening Fire Emblem.

And y'know, if that was it, i'd probably be at least fine with that. Fates, even revelations, one of the dumbest fucking things i've ever played, are all still at the very least, compelling. I have like 100 hours in Fates, embarassing as that is, because the Fire Emblem formula is still pretty great, conquest has like 5 good maps and the bad stuff is mostly ignorable. I have played fucking Gaiden to completion even after Echoes was out just to see what was up.

With engage ive got 15 hours in it and I can barely stomach a moment more. I want to keep going because I love FE. But I absolutely cannot stand this game.

Yes, like Fates, Engage is a game that falls prey to IS' stupid tendancies. But the real sin with Engage is that what has been cribbed about just does not gel together at all.

Main issue is bloat, on a gameplay level. Part of the genius of Fire Emblem is how really quite simple it all is, and how limited the resources and options really all are. The best section of the entire franchise, and it's not even close, is Thracia 776's Munster arc, a section which truly relies on you making the most of an incredibly limited toolset and pushing it as far as you can against overwhelming odds. Of course, over the years the complexity inevitably increased, to mixed but often positive results. Engage firmly goes too far though.

The big problem is the mixing of the social sim stuff from 3 houses whilst also incorporating its new stuff with the engage system and so on. Being able to boost stats and stuff in a hub was questionable but mosty worked in 3H, a game structured around it. In Engage all the stat boosting, friendship boosting, animal handling(why), minigames (WHY) are mindnumbing roadblocks to the fun strategy. These sorts of things have never really sat right in FE, where the ways damage formulas and speed formulas in particular work make tiny stat boosts often have huge implications, but this goes way too far in a game system very unsuited to it. It essentially stretches the preperations stage, already too long in most FEs, to being the majority of the game. It's unnaceptable.

And it's a real shame as a lot of the changes in the gameplay department are actually really good. Map design is probably the best it's been since radiant dawn, unit balance doesnt seem so overfocused on a small amount of strong units, bosses actually move about and honestly the engage system, regardless of it being insulting to the original characters and whatever, is a pretty neat gimmick honestly. It's a way more balanced version of pair up that gives effectively more burst damage and interesting techniques, which combined with enemies being generally stronger than previous games makes for an interesing loop. Obviously, its in this game so the execution is flubbed - the rings being limited in number kinda undoes the balance improvements on its own, and the skill inheritance, bonding, and gacha ring stuff is yet more pointless fluff to waste your damn time.

If the game just had the engage system over lets say, Radiance series levels of prep and other stuff going on, the gameplay could have been great, probably the best the series had seen in over a decade. But there's way too much going on to waste your time and it does not gel together.

The story and characters are so bafflingly bad I don't know who it's even for. As ludicrously bad as fates' are, at least it's very easy to pinpoint what's going for - the sheer power trip of being infalliable corrin, the stupid golden route both sides-ing and being able to have children with your big booba wyvern riding sister. Engage's is less bad in the "IS is down bad" regard, but it's worse in that it just completely forgets to have anything at all. It's completely hookless, the world and characters feel like they've got nothing going on at all, and it all feels very rote. The mystical/dragon elements feel tappen onto a pretty normal fire emblem plot and all they do is make the MC less personable and relatable. FE has only really had a good story in like 4 games, but it's structure as a series has always made it very easy to connect to characters and it has never dropped the ball this hard, and it's not like it's even trying something.

The whole game is just a confused mess, and doesnt even seem to be sure of who it's appeal is for. It's nostalgia bait to an extreme whilst barely resembling the simple, down to earth nature of those games. It goes for a simpler structure, dropping choice and most of the social sim elements (which people quite liked even if they're not entirely my bag), but keeps just enough of them to be really annoying. Characters are less of a focus for some reason? Romance is less of a thing? I can't even tell who this game is for because it feels like it consciously does something to alienate a fan of every game in the series, and it certaintly isnt for new players. Even as a "we needed 20 more characters to eventually put in heroes" joint it's a complete failure.

I hesitate to say this is the worst FE - Revelations is truly awful - but even Fates had like, an idea of what it was going for, as bad as what that is and as bad as it's execution is. Engage is aimless and awful and for the first time ever, it's easy for me to put an FE down.

When i play Forbidden West, I can only think of one game. Ghost of Tsushima. Both, when they boil down to it, are the sort of basic crowdpleasers that there's been a million of over the past decade and that I don't usually tend to like, but made ridiculously pretty.

But I do like Ghost of Tsushima - quite a lot, actually. Whilst a big aspect of that is my love of the samurai cinema it's trying to ape, I do legitimately feel it takes the most generic of formulas and crafts a truly meaningful story and art piece out of it - whilst also being one of the best of it's class gameplay wise - And i've never felt that more than after playing forbidden west.

Because Forbidden west is just a pretty face. That's it. Whilst i will forever appreciate guerilla for crafting the robot dinosaurs that 10 year old me dreamed of, this is a weak as hell open world game. Not just in comparison to Tsushima from an artistic perspective, but also technically and mechanically, it's barely an evolution on it's predecessor.

And maybe that's the main issue. When horizon came out in 2017 I already felt it was a bit behind the curve on the open world adventure stuff, with a lot of bad UI, over reliance on crafting, a very weak core story and quests, and feeling a bit rough round the edges. But the aesthetic was really nice and the combat against the big robot dinosaurs was good.

Forbidden West, 5 years later, feels near identical to Zero Dawn. There's only minimal improvements to the game systems, and the whole thing has a level of polish way below the standard sony first party fare. These games have come to feel so polished over the last few years that even things like the movement, the climbing ribbed straight from uncharted like tsushima, feel notably worse. Doesnt help that at time of writing its full of technical issues and just lots of little quality of life imperfections that really add up like weird controls and overlong animations for picking up items which you do every 5 seconds.

But the real issue is that there's no innovation, no new hook to really make up for all this. Horizon Forbidden West is as about as iterative as a game could possibly be. It looks about the same, the story is the same bullshit as last time with basically the same boring characters and there's not even some really obvious gameplay feature they're trying to sell... it's just more of the same of a pretty open world game which is probably about a notch behind the average ubisoft trash mechanically at this point.

Even if you're really into this stuff, at this point I think you can do a lot better. If you're not, don't make this the one open world game you play a year. You can do better, and frankly, so can Guerilla.

So, I decided to do a little digging on the development and circumstances of Wanted Dead and im convinced this is like a money laundering scheme or something. Like, this is definetly a crime right. Some rich asshole forms an entertainment company in switzerland called 110 Industries, which seems to consist almost entirely of this, Vapourware, and selling the debut album of Stephanie Joosten - most notable for playing quiet in MGSV - on Vinyl. He seems to really want to just make a game that's john wick, so he picks up Soleil and they just use his money to make a sequel to Devil's Third instead, being sure to cast Joosten and a Phillip-Morris model in lead roles, and put in the movie references the rich funder wanted in.

And yes, this game is just Devil's Fourth. Whilst Itagaki is oddly absent considering this game feels like a scam, It's the same Valhalla game studios team from Third, and it plays remarkably similarly. The main change is that combat is slightly less shit. You get pretty standard combos with your sword intermixed with a ludicrously powerful pistol used to stagger and parry enemies at a pretty high range. There's a heavy emphasis on canned finishers to restore health (Think doom 4), and the general sense is the game really wants you in the thick of things at basically every moment, slashing and dashing amongst the gunfire. It's a very chaotic system, and I would hesistate to say it's good, the enemy variety just isnt there, and enemies are just a bit too tanky to keep the flow great, but it's far improved from Devil's Third and is a serviceable action game with a pretty nice high degree of difficulty. I would go as far to say that it's bosses are pretty good, and I really like how fast the player dies - make the wrong mistake to even a single grunt and they'll kill you straight up, even on the difficulty that gives you cat ears.

But let's be real, that's really not appeal of Wanted dead when you get down to it. What is - is that will not see a game as truly baffling as Wanted: Dead in a long time. So many times it will make you question why. Why is there a relatively high production value full shmup included? Why is there this kinda rad mix of animated cutscenes intermingled in? Why do some scenes feel pieced together out of dialogue from different drafts? Why does the game clearly jab at some heavy stuff like health insurance and Margaret Thatcher for like 2 seconds and then drop it? Whats up with the Cooking videos featured heavily in the advertising but not in the actual game? Why is there a single (one) ladder that you can climb in the whole game? I legitimately could go on for much longer than this you have no idea, you go like ten seconds in this game and you wonder what the fuck the motivation behind the decisions was.

The game is all over the place to the point where I am in denial that it's just incompetence. A police officer pulling stuff from an interview that the SUPECT REFUSED TO TELL HER to go on to the next plot point is something Neil Breen would catch in the edit. The game's developers have been open that it's a throwback to cheapo PS2 games (presumably oneechambara being the point of reference?) but I seriously feel like this is all a bit. Am I being made fun of? Are Soleil making fun of this rich swiss asshole by making a shitpost? Am I now an accessory to money laundering?

Wanted: Dead is not a "weird game" in the way something like a Suda51 or Swery game is, or even LSD Dream Emulator. I'm tempted to compare it to kane and lynch 2 but that game is a million times more focused in it's vision and what it's trying to portray. I can't stop thinking about it, every decision it makes is so... wrong, yet also so deliberate. I've seriously never played anything like it.

It also, at times, also shines legitimately super brightly. I really like the banter between the gang, as weirdly odd as the voice acting is. I really like that one of it's primary characters is straight up mute and its a nice representation even. The mixing of media types and stuff is sick, there's one absolutely brilliant boss fight and the very final moments of the game provides a legitimately ace story twist which honstly makes me view the whole thing much more fondly.

The whole thing is bewildering. I can't stop thinking about it.

----------------------------------------------

Other "huh?" things I didn't mention for the sake of pacing

- Final level is absurdly long after the rest of the game was pretty good in this regard
- Claw minigame does basically nothing
- Difficulty curve insanely and blatantly all over the place, the first mission is one of the hardest.
- The degree to which the world is altered from the real world is odd and excessive.
- There's like 6 shower scenes
- Why do you get a free single revive like half the time when the game is overwise commited to being a tough classic action game? But you only get it when one member of your squad is there?
- Why is there such detailed gun customisation in a 5 hour action game
- Why is the one loading screen a very dated meme.
- Why does the one ninja elite enemy look like it's from a different game
- Why do the protagonists just not even mention sometimes why they're going to do a thing.

Make it make sense.

The lead developer of Dino Rex, Takatsuna Senba, has a blog. Despite being entirely in japanese, it's one of those blogs that is pretty interesting even with machine translation, with anecdotes and tidbits that really give an insight to the way game development was in early 90s japan.

In what is probably the saddest blog post of his, he details a few things about dino rex - how he knew it was bad, the hit detection was terrible, and how he was denied even a single month's delay to fix it in order to capitalise on the fever surrounding street fighter 2 and the introduction of Taito's upcoming F3 arcade board.

In the end, Senba delivered the game's final build and his resignation the same day. He hasn't made a game since.

Dino Rex is a tragedy through and through. Originally concieved as a Shmup, which were games Senba and his team actually knew how to make (having made the exceptional Gun Frontier and Metal Black in the prior 2 years), Taito heads demanded a fighting game following the success of street fighter 2. In like, 6 months.

It's shit.

Dino Rex is just a very good example of what not to do with a fighting game. Terrible readability, bad animation which doesnt convey windups/etc, and worst of all, controls which feel barely functional. It really ends up feeling like two dinosaurs just wailing at each other without a drip of nuance, and gameplay boils down to staying out of range and charging up your special attack because literally everything else you can do is a complete crapshoot.

It is at least, pretty cool. There's an extremely distinct style to the three games Senba lead at Taito, characterised by sprites with harsh black outlines, extreme use of parralax backgrounds and foregrounds, and use of surreal visuals - as well as a distinctive UI/font. Dino Rex's look, with its use of digitized dinos, sadly does look a bit cheap in comparison to GF/MB, but there's some bombast in watching dinosaurs throw each other into stands and cause general carnage that is caught well here. Honestly, Dino Rex isn't a bad game to watch a video of, it's just irredeemably bad to actually play. Still, it is never even close to as cool as the space-western Gun Frontier or as beautiful as the fever dream that is Metal Black. And those are actually also fun!

Mechanically, Dino Rex is probably the worst fighting game I've ever played. It's only very slightly redeemed by some neat visuals which themselves are a massive step down from the creator's previous games. And the career of one of Taito's brightest developers died for transgressions that were mostly out of his control because of it.

Dino Rex, today, is just a footnote to stories. The end of one promising development teams, one of many failed SF2 imitators, a ridiculously awful game that some extremely talented people also happened to be involved with. And that's pretty much it.

I'm going to review Senba's other games, and despite it being his last, I felt compelled to do Dino Rex first. Because this isn't the shit anyone involved with taito in the 90s deserves to be remembered by. The two games he was most involved with prior - Gun Frontier and Metal Black - are the ones that deserve the last word.

It's a pretty standard horror situation. Enter a room. Doors close behind you. Biohazard detected - and you're locked in with it. If you counted the amount of times this sort of thing happened in the dead space series you'd probably need a calculator. But this time, in the medical bay of the USG Ishimura in 2023 it's different. The lights are out. Necromorphs fall from the ceiling, lit up for frames by the impeccably timed remnants of environmental lighting that persists. I pull out the ripper - a buzzsaw launcher essentially - and start just going wild. Flesh squelches, sparks fly off the blade, giving tiny glimpses of the other assailants that threaten Isaac clarke. 30 seconds of near invisible ultraviolence later, and the lights turn on. But I'm still stomping, smashing R2 until the flesh has been pounded to sludge.

And in that moment I wonder. Why couldn't Demons Souls 2020 have been like this?

The ultimate strength of Dead Space '23 is it's willingness to change whilst having immense respect for the source material. Where other developers just lie and tell you that a remake is from the ground up, Dead Space truly is. The layout of the ishimura is changed, the story is vastly expanded, the combat takes a lot of new elements from 2/3, Zero g sections are basically all brand new and there's countless other things. It is in so many ways, nigh unrecognisable. I went back just now to watch some footage of the original and wow, it looks both like ass and almost fundementally different - and yet, DS23 feels unflinchingly faithful to it simultaneously.

The biggest change in aesthetic is the lighting and general ambiance. Whilst scenes like the one mentioned above are standouts, the whole game is far, far darker and more claustrophobic than the original. You're commonly stuck in areas with thick volumetric fogs and gasses, and relying on your torch to see. You will get ambushed more and jumpscared more, no doubt. But the general higher level of focus on this sort of thing feels very "right". The sheer level off fidelity in the game means everything that needs to be legible remains so.

Probably the biggest change overall though is the expansion of the story, particularly with regards to Isaac being a much more active character and actually having a voice, which is a particularly excellent performance from Gunner Wright. Again, it's measured, but goes a long way. The new side stuff is nice too, particularly the hunter sideplot, and just what generally feels like a good second pass on story elements. There's just a whole bunch of little changes that feel like "oh yeah that makes that moment work a bit better" which add up to a pretty hefty improvement. Great stuff!

And it gives me so much pleasure to say it's all just like that. The new layout of the ishimura is spot on, giving it a better sense of space as you can now move inbetween the tram hubs through passageways, and the locations themselves are now more differentiated in aesthetic whilst still clearly all being of the same ishimura "vibe".

I do have some issues with the remake - I do seriously think cutting maybe one or two chapters would improve the game a lot overall as there is a real sense that Isaac is just running errands for like 2/3 of the game and then the plot starts - but I understand that's probably a step too far for many and I get it. It is also a little bit buggy - not bad by any means but when everything is so polished otherwise a few AI quirks and weird effects do stand out a bit - but in the time ive been writing this up a patch has already gone out to fix a fair amount of it.

It's a fantastic remake. On a very similar level to Residen Evil 2's and i think it would be fair to say in many regards it exceeds it. It makes me appreciate that original game more too - a game which packaged together the right bunch of Gen 7 tropes, obvious sci fi horror influences, and cults to put together something that stood out, and for a while the series absolutely gave it's era of Resident Evil a run for it's money.

It really feels like Dead Space has found it's new steward in EA Motive (who have previously only made bad star wars games what the hell) - and I think it speaks to the regard i hold in this remake in that if they go on to make a new Dead Space - i'd be more than good with it.

Still, would have been nice if EA didn't murder this series and Visceral in the first place.

Maybe I'm naive, but I find it hard to imagine that Soul Hackers 2 was born of corporate cynicism. You don't make a sequel to a niche, rad as hell JRPG like that without some passion for the original. I can just imagine a small gang at Atlus lobbying for years for the oppurtunity, and being ready to give their all for it.

But dear lord, this game is such a damp squib. Divorce it from its frankly, minor relation to Soul Hackers 1 and you're left with such a by the numbers JRPG with rock bottom production values and absolutely no hook beyond some pretty fun characters and some quite pretty aesthetics.

And those bits are pretty good. Ringo in particular is a proper gremlin, a really fun MC that works well, and the game can be extremely pretty, with strong environmental design whenever you're outside dungeons. In what's probably going to be the most controversial take of this review, I also think the combat is one of my favourite incarnations of the SMT systems - It ends up very fast paced in comparison to SMTV and even P5s systems, and it doesnt fall so much into some of the series' traps. Fights in general also feel like they're a litlte less common than normal for SMT, thank god.

But man is it so fucking bland otherwise. The characters might be fun but the plot of finding the 5 McGuffins to save the world from the SECRET SOCIETY is so, so bad. There is just no hook - it could still work if it had the cool themes of the original, bathed in the 90s tech paranoia and counterculture. Alas, you're left with a plot which is Dragon Quest levels of by the numbers.

Maybe the weakest aspect though is the production. It all feels so damn cheap. Whilst the game has some pretty locations, they are all hilariously small and there's next to nothing to do with them, and you'll spend most of your time in dungeons with the same 5 assets spammed ad nauseum. It didnt have to be an issue - your average Gust game has similar production values to this and I will gladly consume cute girl game #47, coming this winter. But where Gust work within their constraints and make games suited to the stories they can tell, focused on character dynamics, small worlds and small scale conflicts, Soul hackers 2 still wants to be the biggest game in the room. It feels a bit pathetic, honestly.

The end result is quite poor. A relatively short length and fun characters/aesthetic probably just puts it over the gargantuan Persona 5 and the dull as dishwater SMTV of the recent SMTs, but its a far, far cry from the series' peaks.

The first 2-3 hours of inscryption are wonderful. A creepy, thoroughly atmospheric dive in this weird, creepy card game, played in a small little cabin against some weird guy who pantomines the parts of the bosses and kills you with a camera at the end. There's so many little touches in this part, and coming off the table and solving all the little puzzles of the cabin with an aim to escape/win, its awesome. There's a great occult, macabre vibe to it all, and then it all comes together for a neat resolution as you and your talking cards hatch a plan.

Its sad for me to say that whilst it would have been dissapointing in it's own right, the game would have been better stopping right there. It would have left me wanting way, way more and the game would come out at about an hour and a half long, but that's a better world than the one we live in.

Because Inscryption really just could not help itself from going down the creepypasta meta rabbit hole for the latter two thirds of it's runtime. It's not as bad as the dev's previous game Pony Island and is presented pretty well, but is ultimately just way less endearing and interesting than the first act.

Sadly the game also gets less mechanically interesting. Part of this is definetly a psychological element - i'm less interested in getting into the minutae of the mechanics when its obvious the game's now committed to throwing the baby out with the bathwater every 20 minutes, but I also think there's an elegance to the creature sacrifice emphasis of the first act that nothing that comes after comes close to matching.

I understand there is meant to be a point to this, at least somewhat, as the soulful roleplay-driven gameplay gives way to more mechanically deep or whatever gameplay, but I do think it just falls flat and the non-card gameplay of the latter sections are particularly weak in comparison.

And the story? It's thankfully told with fantastic production values and editing and is pretty well paced, and pulls those good old 4th wall meta game tricks which honestly im a bit tired of by now even if they're very cute in this one. But it's just really not interesting and there's not really much more to it than Sonic.exe at the end of the day. It's well told and the presentation is outright incredible throughout, but on a personal level it's really just where I wish the story didn't go after such an incredible opening.

It also really drags near the end. The final section prior to the ending is way too fucking long and not much even happens in the story. If it didn't so blatantly feel like a "final act" I probably would have dropped it about halfway through.

So yeah, if I stopped playing the game after 2 hours the score here would probably be a 4.5/5, maybe even a 5 if i was feeling particularly generous. And it's not like the rest of the game is offensively bad or anything, it's just profoundly dissapointing, especially in the light of what's clearly a mountain of effort and attention to detail that's gone into it that feels in service of completely the wrong way for the game to go.

Inscryption truly took me down the rabbit hole. I wish it didn't bother.

Bad news, you've agreed to remake Resident Evil 4. You can't do a dead space where you just make it look prettier and make obvious improvements because RE4 isnt the sort of game to benefit from that and is about as close to a perfect action game as has ever been produced. And unlike your previous, considered remakes which even at their worst have value in portraying the same events differently, you cant change this one too much because that'd make less money. Also, corporate demands you remove the tank controls the original game is completely built around because modern gamers dont understand not being able to move whilst aiming.

It's a testament to the fine state of modern Capcom that this realisation of terrible ideas sort of works. Give this project to the capcom of 2016 and it'd almost certaintly be a remake on the level of Demons Souls 2020 where even if it looks """"prettier"""" it ultimately contributes basically nothing and just looks kinda off. Given what must have been ludicrously tight limitations considering the straight regugitation of RE4 with modern menuing and movement is probably the version that sells best - I think the job here is a good one.

Perhaps the boldest, though basically unspoken decision, is basically to drop the part where RE4 is this really clear, methodical and calculated action game. Whilst RE4make is still kinda decent in this regard, and it's encounters are often very fun, the focus is far for more on chaotic situations and reacting on the fly, in real time, to stuff. The decision alone to adapt RE2make's pretty stupid crit mechanics, along with enemies now focusing more on flanking (i get the feeling many way well spawn behind you but am not gonna state that definitively), variable stun damage, and the way animations interact and are rarely invulnerable - the end result i'd say is unquestionably a worse action game in terms of replayability and depth, but it does heighten how intense the encounters often feel. It almost feels crass to make this comparison considering it's lineage - but it feels a lot like the last of us.

And I think it's neat. Its kinda fascinating how significant the change in gameplay feels with nearly identical encounter design, weapons, general structure - to the original. I like how it rewards a different set of tactics and sort of fiddles with things like the balance of the original not by neccessarily buffing and nerfing things, but the game system changing neccessities. Grenades for instance are good in OG RE4 but here they are insanely good thanks to them simply allowing a way through masses of bodies.

The best changes, and the ones you can clearly tell the devs are most confident of, are those to the knife, probably the only real glaring fault for my money of the original RE4 combat system. Speeding up ground takedowns alone helps a lot, but I think limiting it as a resource and it's use defensively is very well done, and works particularly well with all the grabs and flanks the game throws at you. It's the one thing i see in this game as somethig which, with balance accordingly, i'd say "straight up mod that into RE4" were it that easy.

More questionable decisions come in the story and tonal changes. The middle ground adaptation of still keeping the story pretty fucking stupid (this is a good thing) whilst having the characters and general tone be much darker and less in line is not too great, though it could be worse. The character portayals being so good does sweeten the deal though. Ashley and Leon's growing friendship over the course of the game is legitimately lovely, the new Luis stuff is fantastic, the somehow made the Merchant better, and I like how Ada seems a bit more conflicted in this version. The antagonists definetly do take a blow in being less fun though. Whilst the original is clearly better overall, I will say there is fun to be had playing a serious version of Leon experiencing all this stupid shit.

Overall, I find it hard to judge. Part of the brilliance of particularly the RE2 remake is in how it accompanies the original work, provide an alternate take on events, and the entire "RE2 experience" is raised from having the two versions regardless of which one is "better." RE1 and 3 also benefit similarly (Even if the 3 remake is pretty weak). And with RE4 being such a conservative remake, the risk was that it would be almost pointless. Fun, yes - its Resident Evil 4 - but ultimately contributing very little. But I do think it is worthwhile. It certaintly isnt the best version of RE4 and it's more confused than any prior remake, but the changes here are interesting and make for an interesting take on the game, and particularly the character changes which can kinda feed back into enjoyment of the original.

Also, it really is a title that really makes you appreciate the original. Nothing can hammer home just how strong the encounter design, pacing and scenarios are in the original like them being nearly unchanged for the most part 18 years later, put in a different game system thats not as good, and it still is fun as hell. RE4 really is one of the best to ever fucking do it.

In a perfect world, the RE4 remake is a much bolder title. In my head I imagine something similar to RE1make with fixed camera angles and making greater story changes to give things to give more contrast - but that was never going to happen when that would not sell so well. RE4 is not the best remake and probably never could be burdened with the reality that it will sell 10 million copies if it just played it safe. With the constraints in mind, I think it's about as good as we were going to get.

And the silver lining is now Capcom has drunk the poisoned chalice, it's shackles are gone. The potential with Code Veronica and even RE5 for remakes which have the alternate take potential of RE2 is now ripe for picking. And im really up for that.

This week, fortnite got an update to Unreal Engine 5.1, and it is remarkable. You don't have to be a lover of the corpo-cartoon artstyle to appreciate the massive improvement in tech, with lighting being a particular focus. But as impressive as that is, perhaps moreso is the integration. You'll be lucky to find anyone saying it "doesn't look like fortnite". Models still pop out in the lighting the same way, the reflections arent out of place, and many of the most obvious changes, like denser foliage which the light beatufiully scatters off, are both quite well measured and are brought in with a whole new map. It is a wonderful demonstration that heavily stylised games can (sometimes) benefit from new tech, as well as a masterclass in making changes in the right places to integrate with an extremely well defined art style.

In the same week, Nvidia rereleases Valve's best looking and possibly most cherished game with a similar setup - new look with a particular focus on lighting. Except it looks like shit.

The general assets are the main issue. Stock Portal has this subtlety to a lot of it's assets and textures especially in the first half of the game that slowly creeps up more and more towards the conclusion. What initially seem like sterile test chamber walls show deliberate signs of age, scuff marks, and are slightly stained. Even in the very first room, the table is slightly scuffed. It's subtle, but pervasive stuff and is one of those things that gives the game a bit of an uneasy vibe. The new assets just straight up do not look like they fit together at all. When you're in sections where bits of white wall combine with the square pyramid-ish walls it just looks super off to the point where i'd assume they were outsourced to completely different studios or something, they dont look like they're from the same game at all and the same could be said for an awful lot of the assets.

The lighting is also outright comical at times. In the final boss fight the floor is so fucking reflective it's hard to parse. The reflections in general are seriously a problem and combined with a massive increase in constrast creates a whole bunch of very ugly scenes, particularly in the first half. The second half of the game fares better with it's more industrial environments and larger focus on shadow casting, which is probably the one thing i'd say is the one legitimate improvement in RTX portal, but it's a needle in a haystack and you'll be lucky to find a few frames of gameplay where there isnt some horribly judged asset or blinding reflection to be a bigger distraction.

What really sucks about Portal RTX is that it should work. A more subtle use of the tech, textures which were touched up rather than replaced and maybe focusing the super eyecatching effects on specific areas could have made Portal look generally improved. Even a drastic change in art style like say, the Demons Souls remake could have worked in it's own way in a different vision sort of thing to better show off the tech (and yes, that sort of approach is it's own can of worms). But what's here feels lazy, unthought, and destructive, and it's hard to tell what it's even really going for other than OOOH REFLECTIONS. Like a horse that lays down in front of you asking for a beating, this is the truest example we will probably ever get of companies putting tech, bigger numbers and flashiness before artistry. Hollow and pathetic. If everything made with this modset/whatever it is looks like this, it can all rot.

Tango, what do you think you're doing. After three games of the purest, unadulterated mid you can't just drop this joyous, gen 6-ass, best action game in a decade out of nowhere.

If you go looking for it, there is stuff to complain about in Hi-Fi Rush. The mid-game isnt nearly as good as the first few or last few chapters, the combat feels like it has a relatively low skill ceiling compared to the absolute peak of the genre, I think it could have done with a few more licensed tracks, the assists are a bit clunky to use, and it feels like Tango didnt quite have the time or budget to put everything they wanted in. But I don't really care about that.

Y'know what i care about? When the game throws me through window, sticks me with a room of enemies and the world pops off to one of my favourite tracks from when I was 15. God, what the hell, it actually did that.

Hi-Fi rush's world moving to the rhythm, and the sheer enthusiasm of it all could have probably carried a game with combat of something like DMC1 or even a Ratchet and Clank, but the combat here is legitimately fantastic. I guess having Masaki Yamada - old guard from Capcom's Clover team and platinum's glory days - as lead game designer helps, but you could honestly make a case for this being his finest achievement. Not quite up to Bayonetta 1 combat, sure, but I don't feel bad about mentioning it in the same breath, which is insane for this stupid gimmick idea for an action game. I have no reservations saying its a miles better action game than DMCV, for instance.

And y'know, I even liked the characters and dumb jokes, most of the time. Yes, a lot of that is just Korsica and Macaron's accents, don't at me.

Tango has really captured lightning in a bottle here. Mad respect for Shinji Mikami and crew for fostering such a "Not 2023" concept, and also someone should help them because Director John Johanas is clearly a master manipulator to get everyone on side for this.

Around 2/3rds of the way through Xenoblade 3, there's a big old cutscene. It's about an hour long, and it is absolute peak JRPG. A ridiculously emotionally charged rollercoaster of a sequence that is simultaneously emotional enough to get me to cry a bit whilst being mired in enough fake lore for me to be unable to explain exactly why to a concerned person entering the room. It's bombastic and cathartic and absolutely incredible.

And yeah, of course. Xenoblade was going to get that right. Even in 2, a game that does not take itself seriously at all, nails it's huge moments and has some proper emotional gut punches. Add on top Monolithsoft's gargantuan worlds, vistas, fondness for mecha and soundtracks that go insanely hard - and these games just poke at the part of my brain that obsessed with JRPGs as a kid, like very little else (In recent years, basically Ys VIII).

Xenoblade 3's real strength though, is in it's quieter, and character focused stuff. It could not be overstated how much more fun, relatable, and nuanced this game's cast is compared to the previous games. I legitimately love every member of the core cast and I'm pretty partial to most of the heroes as well. Of all things, main lad Noah might come off worst of the lot because so much time is spent hanging out with these goofs. The dub pulls a tonne of weight here, taking the bits that worked from Xenoblade 2's (the great regional accents and the very naturalistic dialogue delivery, with a bit of scrappiness coming through), whilst being far less grating and feeling even more spontaneous. Eunie in particular is an absolute joy, the foul mouthed snarky cockney bird lady stealing the show. The delivery and the casualness of a lot of the dialogue really sells these guys and their relationships, its fantastic. I also appreciate the truly large amount of both fake and real swearing, to the point im surprised the game is rated 12.

Its also worth noting the core cast is together in about 2 hours, and the game uses the oppurtunity to explore the relationships between them build subtly change as the game progresses. Its very good stuff. Honestly though, even the side heroes you get are far more fleshed out and have better questlines than any of the non-shulks of Xenoblade 1 at least.

And the benefit of this character work (as well as just being great itself) is that when that incredible, hour long cutscene hits, dear god does it hit, because I care way more about these goofs than basically any other JRPG characters.

Aside from that enormous step forward, it's Xenoblade, really. For some fucking reason i somewhat doubted Monolithsoft could pull off another one seemingly out of nowhere whilst simultaneously being laboured with keeping all of Nintendo's first party projects afloat, but turns out they knew what they were doing and Xenoblade 3 just iterates and improves on the previous game's cores. Combat is a particular improvement - whilst it's not as good as Torna's, which makes sense for an RPG that's far less restrictive - it's a big leap over 1 and 2 in playability whilst also giving far more freedom to the player in terms of build, and the increased party size works wonders.

Whilst the core plot probably isnt the strongest of the series, not really able to one up Xenoblade 2's truly bonkers final act and much stronger antagonists in the moment, thematically it's far improved, with the focus on the world is a fuck of Aionis and the actual conflicting beliefs at play being big steps forward.

I would be remiss not to mention the music, which again, is great. It's a lot more subdued and melancholic than previous entries, with even the game's equivelent of Engage the Enemy/Counterattack, The Weight of Life, being a bit more minor key and featuring the haunting wooden flutes that pervade the soundtrack. I'd need a few more listens before calling it against Xenoblade 2's ost which just goes ridiculously hard all the time, but it's very very good, even if less bombastic.

Of course, it's Xenoblade - by sheer scale alone the game has more problems than most games have content. Whilst sidequest design and narrative is massively improved in the hero quests, standard sidequests remain quite weak, and even getting to those hero quests can be a bit of a faff. UX is a bit of a mess with an accessories menu that should be shot into the sun, class balance is all over the place (Signifier my beloved) and Xenoblade's traditional conflict of smelling the roses and doing side stuff whilst a conflict that determines the fate of the world hangs in the background, this time with a ticking clock - remains.

But it's all so minor in the grand scheme of things. Xenoblade 3 is such an absolute joy to just be in, hang out, and go through another wonderful Monosoft world, and it's the best main Xenoblade, probably by a fair bit. I think I still prefer the fast pace and incredible combat of Torna - but its super close. It fills me with the same joy I had playing JRPGs as a child, but with the nuance and character driven stuff I crave now.

Monolithsoft are an absolute treasure and easily one of the best developers in the industry right now. Turns out that with fostering a positive work environment, providing benefits to workers and avoiding crunch, they maintain a prolific, exceptional output. Long may it continue.

Stray is a very respectable game. For a game who's credits arent rolling long enough to demand multiple credits songs and 3 point font, it is astounding in terms of visuals, technical design, and to an extent game direction. It achieves seemingly everything it goes for with only minor "objective" issues. You could have told me that this game was made by naughty dog as a little side project and i'd only need two drinks in me to believe you.

And it really is a very ND-style game, down to the straight up game flow. Linear platforming where you snap from location to location, chase sequences, extremely light puzzling, general level-to-level structure and the occasional quiet bit where you just get to explore a very small area - it's like Uncharted 4 but drake is small and there's no ludonarrative dissonance trophy. Even has the very naughty dog thing of having a conspicous landmark in the horizon you always work towards in the levels. I swear im not crazy, it's really noticeable when you catch onto it.

The problem with Stray is that, for my money, you don't feel like a cat. Which is a pretty big issue for a game where that's the hook. There's a few good gags, the animation passes muster for the most part, but the behaiour of the cat and in particular the interactions it has with others don't. You could practically replace the cat with a small dog, hell, it would probably make more sense for the things the characters demand and how they treat you.

My favourite moment in the game, is, when in what is ostensibly a tense, high-stakes situation where you're meant to solve a puzzle, the cat can simply lie down by a record player in a comfy alcove, as long as you and they want. It's lovely. And there's just not enough of it. The adventures of cats are crescendos to lives spent revelling in comfort and warmth - even in wild and big cats - and you can let me meow as much as you like but the pure action adventure betrays the nature of cats. I feel like small creature. I don't feel like cat.

On top of that the sci fi narrative is very bland. Fortunately the environments are excellent and carry the game pretty hard. Again, the naughty dog influence is well integrated, with fantastic subtle signposting of areas that feels naturalistic whilst ensuring you're never really lost.

Again, the game is very competent, and a frankly remarkable facsimile of games with hundreds of times the budget. It's well paced and i appreciate it's brevity, and i would be remiss not to touch on it's excellent soundtrack. And it's that extreme competence that makes it dissapointing for me that it doesnt actually get it's hook. And without it, it's ultimately forgettable, as good as it is.