I think Mikami understands to an unnatural degree that video games are fundamentally about problem-solving. Unlike an academic interpretation of "problem-solving" though, Mikami understands that the exercise of problem-solving is less about solving the actual problem but of learning new ways of thinking. Sure, other video games are problem-solving in a base sense, but Mikami's problems have that magical "Oh Shit" element to them; everyone who's done one playthrough of this game will instantly remember all three wolverine encounters, the first time they encountered Regenerators, the Krauser section, the entire 4-4 homestretch, etc. Consistent to all these amazing sections is that the game feels like it's adapting along with the player--as if Mikami was a math tutor guiding us along the workbook. "Ok you know how to deal with Wolverine now, but what if we stuck in you a locked cage with one of them? What if we put two of them in the same room? How would you adapt then?" You have to recontextualize and reinvent constantly, without forgetting the fundamentals that got you there. One of the fundamental pillars of a conservative mindset is the idea that change is risky--the problem might get worse if you approach in a new way, so it's safer to keep doing things the same way. RE4 looks at this mindset, kneecaps it, then gives it a head-exploding suplex--change is necessary, even if it is risky; use more of your resources, resupply, be more precise, exploit another weakness, or use a goddamn rocket launcher if you have to--just don't think the old way is the only way if you want to make it through. It's a constant escalation of gameplay, and that the narrative matches this escalation tit-for-tat is just aces. Literally one of the most radical games of all-time, in every sense of the word.

what may just separate the veterans from the inexperienced in this game is the quality of their knifework. leon might pack an arsenal replete with the sexiest weapons of all time, but it's the tried-and-true double-edged stiletto he's packing that remains your eternal companion out there in the shit. utilizing it to its fullest requires confidence to an extent that resembles rashness - a full understanding of where to strike, when to kick, and how to deke. if you ask me, coming fresh off a run of professional, this is one of the most compelling elements of RE4 - the convergence between melee and gunplay is transformative, configuring leon into a living weapon. there is no element of his kit that goes unused or registers as unnecessary.

i once jokingly claimed that a remake of this title needed to simply superimpose re6's base of mechanics on to the game, but actually convey to players how best to parse these systems. there's actually probably a little nugget of gold buried in there - after all, i refuse emphatically the addition of a block button ala the ethan winters duology, or the presence of a parry which, when mishandled, tends to choke combat systems with its rote all-encompassing applicability. what they really need to do here is expand and tailor the level of knifework present. imagine if we got rid of the need for qtes because we got a game with hitboxes every bit as fair, but your knife mode had dozens of options attached to it resembling something like genes dodges from god hand, informally and unofficially linking mikamis action game tenure...errant slashes leading to blades clashing...im talking high risk high reward knife action in such a manner that it doesn't compromise on leons fragility. that, to me, would be a good rendition of re4. shouldn't bend the knee or make concessions to enemy design so as to make the holy grail 'knife only challenge run' more palatable to layfolk...people figured out how to do it with the original, they'll do it again

also id like to be able to throw my knife

Nier was truly the culmination of Drakengard's experiments. This fresco of gameplay and narrative ideas works best in the arrangement of styles as opposed to the value of each individual part. Firstly, its 3d-action gameplay framework is constantly meddled with by flashes of brief but intriguing creativity, injecting elements of platformer, puzzle, bullet-hell, horror, and even text-adventure into sections, dungeons and minigames that frequently change perspective. The combat system itself isn't particularly frustrating or repetitive, but its implementation (and the surrounding RPG aspects) is underwhelmingly basic, with the best displays reserved for their most Zelda-like of boss battles. Nier often stylistically channels the splendor of Team Ico's masterpieces: Ico's idea of subdued yet majestic post-apocalyptic areas - if heavily expanded, and Shadow of the Colossus' weakpoint-addled massive bosses and warped contexts on enemies, but the melodramatic flair is all theirs. Settings range from simple fields and villages to offbeat towns that straddle the border between childish fairytales, bizarre caricatures, and disturbing nightmares, each area boasting a distinct flavor while retaining some form of melancholic atmosphere tying them all together.

As usual - the narrative is easily the highlight, yet here it attains a strikingly personal, heartfelt degree of quality. Overarching themes of sacrifice, revenge, consequence, and tragedy permeate the work, but unlike Drakengard, there's at least a glimmer of hope buried underneath. Much like the giants of 90s JRPGs, character subplots explore and vivisect different themes while avoiding self-indulgence, and towering above all of those is Kainé - one of the greatest characters of the 2010s. The eclectic cast, fantastic soundtrack, surreal story moments, and refined multiple endings are all functional to a mesmerizing whole. Nier horribly fails when it comes to its trivial side quests, awful minigames, bland dungeon layouts, etc. And complaints regarding its graphic quality and performance are all valid. There's actually quite a bit that doesn't work, and there's a lot that shouldn't work, but what succeeds is pure magic.

admirably janky and esoteric? contemporary blizzard's calculated & castrated style of development has increasingly irritated pretty much every type of person I know--storyheads are mad at the sloppiness that has become starcraft/warcraft lore, hardcoreheads are mad at the removal of the legitimate labyrinth and arcane knowledge and dedication required to compete at the higher level of their games, aestheticheads are mad at the pretty homogenous 3d cartoon style that has ran blizzard's art direction for a decade now. overwatch has flipped from a rally point of team fortress 3 to a common point of derision, only relevant in so far as to how quickly the character designs can send hornytime signals to the brain. all of this piled upon a really horrid culture of abuse (not just the sadistic misogyny of contemporary blizzard, but also the labor abuse of the blizzard of past--this game did have about a year and a half of crunch) has pretty much soiled blizzard's reputation, and deservedly so.

picking up D2 then with the context of all of that, I was pleasantly surprised by how playful and whimsical a mess of a game this is. as in, its actively encouraged to trick the game into believing you are playing with 8 players if you're doing a single-player run in order to get better gear. as in, you can and should abuse the town portal spell in combat to literally teleport in and out of boss fights to reup on health and mana potions to have effectively infinite HP&MP. as in, one of the main builds in this game is to teleport into a crowd of enemies, send out some comically small floating hammers, and then watch the corpses pile up. as in, one of the most important aspects of gear in this game, runewords, isn't mentioned at all in the actual game and requires players to look it up, but can turn your painfully average loot drops into gear that can last a whole playthrough.

and underneath all that outwardly goofy design and "is this intended?" mechanics is some really rather ingenious game design--there's this article that I was just reading that breaks down how D2 uses randomness and procgen in a way other ARPGs haven't replicated, and looking at how this game has had several "close, but not quite" imitators 21 years on, you cannot discredit that blizzard north had struck magic. this is blizzard (more accurately blizzard's former employees as most of the talent behind this game would leave the company) being calculated not in PR but in understanding the history of RPGs, of what Y2K PC players were expecting of level systems, of how to reroute the dopamine rush of action games to the frontal-lobe focused role playing genre. even if the status reveals I ultimately bounced off this for now, when this was clicking I felt like a B.F. Skinner rat giddily planning out my build paths and gear progression as I was dripfed items and levels I wanted. each 30 minute trek before teleporting back to base being like a small map of DOOM or a quick level of Mario, in that I progressed enough to have a marked difference an hour ago but not enough to truly feel accomplished, which strangely felt me wanting more instead of frustrated. its a progression loop few others replicated, and when I feel the urge to delve into this tome of weirdness again it'll have me just as captivated. except next time I won't pick such a heavy mouse 1 build like holy fire paladin, man that was starting to get boring.

= http://thegamedesignforum.com/features/RD_D2_2.html

At the risk of sounding ridiculous, I swear that I did legitimately believe the moment I laid eyes on Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike: Fight for the Future (at the Redondo Fun Factory (RIP) in Southern California) in 2016 that if there were ever a game to convert me into a bona fide frame-counting, arcade stick-wielding, competitive freak-show, it would be the one. I knew it again, more powerfully in 2018 when it appeared before me at the Chinatown Fair Family Fun Center in New York, though neither time could I exactly articulate my belief beyond being enamored with its stunningly beautiful 2D character animation. Three years later, the prophesied freak-show has at last begun to emerge.

Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike: Fight for the Future is tactile, fast, heavy, tactical, dense, and intensely mechanically immersive. For the dedicated player, the depth of its fighting system sparks learning moments and microscopic improvements with every round fought. Win or lose, the growth is palpable, and is better earned here than in just about any game I can think of. Pick any of its masterfully rendered characters (Makoto), and feel as the pattern of their personality (and unique directional inputs) burns its way into your strategic rhythm. Learn the ins and outs of your opponents and their chosen avatars, slip headfirst into some accidental parries, then land one on purpose. It's a canvas for legends, delivered in an audiovisual package that remains nigh unmatched.

this game fucks and cums. i couldn't think of a good way to start this review so i just decided to go with that. there's no subtle way to go about this: third strike is a game with a shitload of style and swagger, and it rules for being such a remarkably and uniquely presented game.

in terms of changes, it doesn't necessarily feel like a lot was edited to III's formula going from second impact to third strike. the 5 characters added round out the cast to a solid 19, and there's a lot of winners here (i ADORE twelve, love gayboy remy, and this entry made me become a makoto main). i think any potential issues i had with the past two entries' cast were a tad overblown, but still, it's great to have these additions and get a fuller and more fleshed out roster. this fighting game has the best ratio of characters that i want to main relative to the cast size; you're telling me i want to use 25% of the cast? you must've done something right in the design stage. characters here are visually appealing, aesthetically distinct, and fun to play as.

there's really something to be said for the fact that even though this roster isn't quite as big as say alpha 3's, it feels brimming with creativity and personality. maybe quality is in fact more important than quantity when it comes to these casts. we only have 4 returning SF characters here, the other 15 are all distinct characters that feel very well-defined. on a gameplay level, a lot of these new characters buck established SF archetypes too. sure, remy has similar specials to guile, but he's got much lankier normals and a much taller sprite, so he plays fairly distinctly from guile. nothing here feels recycled or reused, and in that sense, this is probably the most innovative SF game and maybe even fighting game of its time.

visually, i'm saying nothing new when i tell you that this game is eye candy. the animations, much like in the past two games, are extremely detailed and add personality to these characters in small yet important ways. but i think of all the left turns the street fighter series could've taken, the soundtrack of third strike is one i'm nearly positive most wouldn't have anticipated. III's OST gets completely overhauled here and goes in a direction that fuses hip-hop, drum and bass, and house. and it works incredibly well, in one of those ways where it feels like a natural progression of both fighting games and street fighter. i don't give a shit what dunkey says, the rapping in this game is great and there's not a single misstep in this OST. this genuinely might have taken the spot of my favorite fighting game OST of all time, but that's something i'll have to marinate on.

before i played this game at home, i played this game in the arcade, both growing up and as an adult. it captured my attention in a way that very few fighting games ever have, and, sitting down to analyze it, it's clear to see why. there are so many fine touches and refinements here that all cascade into a joyous experience. when i played this game for several hours at the arcade, i was playing it because it was providing a delight on a visual, aural, and visceral level. there's an argument to be made that if you only ever play one fighting game in your life, it should be this one, and it's a very convincing one.

After the banger that XIV was, I'm kind of let down with this one a little since it feels like they took one step forward but a couple of steps back

First of all, the roster. What the hell, only 2 newcomers? Seriously? Why is the slogan "Shatter all expectations" when the entire roaster is probably one of the most predicable in the series? Ok, K9999 coming back is unexpected, I'll give them that. That's it. The DLC characters are fan favorites, so no surprises (so far)

Second, the gameplay. I didn't have any issues with how XIV played, so most of these changes are okay but not really necessary imo, but you gotta differentiate the entry somehow. Shatter Strike is fine, that's really it.
It's still a KOF game, so it's fun as heck. EX moves outside of MAX mode gives the game an easier way to combo, making it also more fun to just making up links and routes on the go. MAX mode itself it's easier too (maybe EX moves have become way too common, but that's nothing a future patch can't tweak)

My only actual negative critique with the game is the online modes. Rollback is a nice addition, sure, but not only is kind of hard to get an stable match (between friends from my country I still get random rollback spikes for no reason) but also the actual lobby system in this game is a big downgrade from 14. No simultaneous matches? No free typing in chat? No small groups divided in the type of match that you want to play? And you have to close the lobby if you want to edit anything major... Why?
Also, the matchmaking is still broken. And crossplay is coming to the game, so if they don't fix that, it's gonna be a bigger problem.

You can tell this game was affected by the global pandemic and it shows. Otherwise it's a pretty solid fighting game, tho they played it way too safe for my liking. I'm interested in seeing it evolving however.

Si hay algo que me gusta observar en este género es sobre la expresión corporal manifestada en sus personajes. Muchas veces tan solo basta un gesto para cambiar por completo la percepción que tenías de ellos e interpretarlos. Para mi, esa es una de las más grandes virtudes y purezas demostradas en 2D. Siento que en SNK fueron conscientes de eso, a lo largo de varios juegos han querido explorar y experimentar esas facetas dentro de sus limitaciones.
Creo que uno de los más evidentes es The Last Blade 2, con su intención de enfocar en el drama e impacto. Bueno, Garou agarra lo que intentaba ese juego y lo llevó a una dirección mucho más competente. Lo que consigue es tomarse en serio su propuesta de inicio hasta el final.
Rock es, probablemente, el mejor protagonista y el más creíble que ha habido en el género. Es ese tipo de personaje que yo lo considero como "estudiante", es decir, una figura que apenas está aprendiendo a caminar en el rumbo de la lucha, construyendo poco a poco un estilo propio pero bebiendo de los demás, es una interpretación muy similar que le tengo a Sakura (Street Fighter) y Shingo (King of Fighter), pero a diferencia de estos dos, con Rock no se trata de optimismo y entusiasmo sino de una lucha interna entre educación y genética.
Él no es el único en el que se refleja estos rasgos tanto visuales como táctiles, lo aplican con todo el roster.
Al juego no le parece suficiente y decide aprovechar los escenarios como un reflejo total de la identidad y situación en cada uno. Dos de mis ejemplos favoritos son los escenarios de los hermanos Kim, ambos sitios contrastan por completo por sus personalidades y caminos elegidos (dos hermanos opuestos continuando el mismo legado de su padre.... que familiar suena todo).
Lo que respeto de Garou es que, a la hora de actuar, supo centrarse en el impacto y tomas de decisiones sin encasillarse en su sub-mundo competitivo (como lo hacen otros); la serenidad y valor en los combos, la división de poderes, just defense y por supuesto el sistema T.O.P.
Me gusta que, por más que los aprenda en profundidad, no siento que el juego me fuerce a tomar esas herramientas como algo absoluto (y luego abusarlas) sino como un elemento más para expresarme.
Todo en conjunto termina en una dirección bellísima y yo, personalmente, prefiero mil veces eso y más que simplemente conformarse con que esté "bien diseñado".
De todos los momentos increíbles me quedo con la pelea final: ese inicio mirando las estrellas fugaces para luego bajar la mirada, ver al fondo el cuadro de la madre de Rock y él diciendo "la sangre me está hirviendo" antes de luchar contra Kain.