DargoKillmar
2024
I'll be honest, I bought this for the hype, played for about 10 minutes and thought 'yeah, I'm probably refunding this'. Played a bit more, just to see where would it take me. Suddenly, I was waaaay past the maximum playtime to refund. I didn't want to refund anymore.
One of my favorite things about metroidvanias is never really feeling stuck. Somehow, you just keep going forward. If you hit a wall, you try a different path and continue. Animal Well is so rewarding in this regard, giving you a permanent feeling of progression, with new puzzles all the time. It remixes its mechanics to make every challenge feel like a novelty, and it's SO GOOD at letting you find out its secrets. You're likely to find out how some of the tools you get work by sheer luck or accident, making challenges you skipped thinking you didn't have the tool click. These tools never really work the way you expect. More accurately, they always work in an extra way that you didn't expect.
Everything is framed in a gloomy atmosphere aided by visuals and audio.
This is a very good game!
One of my favorite things about metroidvanias is never really feeling stuck. Somehow, you just keep going forward. If you hit a wall, you try a different path and continue. Animal Well is so rewarding in this regard, giving you a permanent feeling of progression, with new puzzles all the time. It remixes its mechanics to make every challenge feel like a novelty, and it's SO GOOD at letting you find out its secrets. You're likely to find out how some of the tools you get work by sheer luck or accident, making challenges you skipped thinking you didn't have the tool click. These tools never really work the way you expect. More accurately, they always work in an extra way that you didn't expect.
Everything is framed in a gloomy atmosphere aided by visuals and audio.
This is a very good game!
Pretty on point for a game that's both an adventure and a cat simulator. You can do most things you expect to do, and it's a good short time. Beat it in just under 4 hours and had some stuff left to do. I think it's a good time for this kind of games.
Ah, unfortunately I got softblocked from a part of the game in which there were a couple missions I have left to do :( I know there's a way back in, playing a bit with collisions, and they recently released a patch that might have solved it.
I would have liked the controls to have a better gamefeel to them, cause I didn't really feel much feline agility. But if you're looking for a game you can just lay back and enjoy, with little rush and with a nice soft piano in the background, this might be right up your alley.
It's not exactly I game I love, but I enjoyed it in short doses, and the dev team behind it seem to have put a lot of love in this.
Ah, unfortunately I got softblocked from a part of the game in which there were a couple missions I have left to do :( I know there's a way back in, playing a bit with collisions, and they recently released a patch that might have solved it.
I would have liked the controls to have a better gamefeel to them, cause I didn't really feel much feline agility. But if you're looking for a game you can just lay back and enjoy, with little rush and with a nice soft piano in the background, this might be right up your alley.
It's not exactly I game I love, but I enjoyed it in short doses, and the dev team behind it seem to have put a lot of love in this.
2023
Amazing and satisfying game with really neat puzzles. The main concept, learning different languages by guessing and observation, is one of the coolest ideas I've played in a very long time. It understands language really well, not only creating a form of communication but whole differentiated cultures and ways of understanding the world. You don't only have to learn words and translation, but also the proper grammar to use them. I'm in awe.
I think they have a very nice formula with this saga. The open world works very well with the different side stories, the customization, the way they manage collectibles, etc. I specially enjoyed the bounty hunter stuff in this one.
However, it suffers from the same thing most Star Wars spin-offs suffer from, in which the story itself feels like an accessory to the main story we already know from the movies and which they can't seem to separate themselves from. That story is finished, it works by itself, and doesn't need any of these stories in it, which ultimately makes them feel weightless an unimportant. And it's a pity, because I actually like the characters in these games. The story itself would be more interesting if it didn't have to last 15-20 hours.
It's worth mentioning that this game has quite a problem with balancing in combat. Some fights feel like they're trying to emulate Dark Souls combat in terms of struggle, but instead they just feel unfair and boring. That doesn't apply to the whole of the game, and the biggest example of this is an optional fight, so don't let it deter you too much from playing it.
However, it suffers from the same thing most Star Wars spin-offs suffer from, in which the story itself feels like an accessory to the main story we already know from the movies and which they can't seem to separate themselves from. That story is finished, it works by itself, and doesn't need any of these stories in it, which ultimately makes them feel weightless an unimportant. And it's a pity, because I actually like the characters in these games. The story itself would be more interesting if it didn't have to last 15-20 hours.
It's worth mentioning that this game has quite a problem with balancing in combat. Some fights feel like they're trying to emulate Dark Souls combat in terms of struggle, but instead they just feel unfair and boring. That doesn't apply to the whole of the game, and the biggest example of this is an optional fight, so don't let it deter you too much from playing it.
2023
It's good as a mindless, charming crafter. There's some interesting mechanics brought with this one, and it's surprisingly expansive. Perhaps a bit too much for the likes of me, who couldn't be bothered to engage into some of its secondary systems as I didn't feel like I needed them to progress, and they just required more grinding than I was comfortable with.
There's a lot of craft, then craft again, then craft once more, and that can get tiresome to some people. But still, i think the ideas are good. If you're a completionist, you'll probably be surprised by how much time this game is willing from give you. If you're not, you'll probably be annoyed at how much time it's willing to take from you.
There's a lot of craft, then craft again, then craft once more, and that can get tiresome to some people. But still, i think the ideas are good. If you're a completionist, you'll probably be surprised by how much time this game is willing from give you. If you're not, you'll probably be annoyed at how much time it's willing to take from you.
Yeah, this is amazing. It is kind of a walking simulator, but a walking simulator can still be good if it makes sense to walk the path the game is presenting you with. The world of Hellblade II is striking, intriguing, terrifying. You legitimately want to keep walking forward, and see what's next, see how everything before you is going to look like.
The game manages to make you feel whatever it wants you to feel at any moments, it uses your senses in a magnificent way. I've been terrified, turn around as I was walking cause I was feeling watched.
What's more, this game only works with a woman as a protagonist. I don't mean to say it's some sort of feminist plea, which wouldn't be bad if it were. But the story it tells can only be told from a woman's perspective, and for that, Senua is a magnificent character and protagonist. Metaphors are very cleverly integrated into the game.
The gamer community should be bragging about a feat like this. One of the best things of Hellblade, is that it cannot be adapted to any other media without losing most of what makes it great. You can't just simply tell this story without a controller in your hand, this story can only be a video game.
This was a great game. My one grip with it is that sometimes it is slower than it needs to be when you're not in control of the game.
The game manages to make you feel whatever it wants you to feel at any moments, it uses your senses in a magnificent way. I've been terrified, turn around as I was walking cause I was feeling watched.
What's more, this game only works with a woman as a protagonist. I don't mean to say it's some sort of feminist plea, which wouldn't be bad if it were. But the story it tells can only be told from a woman's perspective, and for that, Senua is a magnificent character and protagonist. Metaphors are very cleverly integrated into the game.
The gamer community should be bragging about a feat like this. One of the best things of Hellblade, is that it cannot be adapted to any other media without losing most of what makes it great. You can't just simply tell this story without a controller in your hand, this story can only be a video game.
This was a great game. My one grip with it is that sometimes it is slower than it needs to be when you're not in control of the game.
2018
Visually and musically stunning. It has a good JRPG spirit, with small, solid and simple stories for each character. However, since the story of each of the characters seems completely disconnected, it's really hard to get into it once you've already played five of them. You don't ever get the feeling of getting anywhere. Plus, progression didn't feel too natural, at some point my characters started to struggle and I never had enough money to upgrade their equipment. In the end, it didn't do enough to click with me.