Destinyblade
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GOTY '23
Participated in the 2023 Game of the Year Event
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Gained 10+ total review likes
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Gained 3+ followers
Full-Time
Journaled games once a day for a month straight
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Journaled games once a day for a week straight
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Played 100+ games
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189
Total Games Played
004
Played in 2024
066
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Hi-Fi Rush was surprisingly good. I've never played a rhythm game before but I enjoyed it a lot. The visual style and sense of humor helps it stand out for me. The way the game almost seamless shifts between ingame cutscenes and 2D cutscenes is impressive. I like the cuts we get from gameplay to 2D stills seamlessly for impact almost like how 2D animations sometimes hover over certain frames for impact.
The game knows when to be funny and when to just stop and let the gameplay take over. The characters are fun and goofy without being annoying. The story itself isn't anything really special but the characters made it entertaining.
The music goes unimaginably hard. The original tracks are all good and it has an interesting selection of licensed music that manage to fit the scenes where they play very well. It is fitting that the first and last boss fight themes are Nine Inch Nail songs.
My one complaint would be the last fight which somehow fails at two aspects of the gameplay that the game had done so well until that point. The last fight is a mess in terms of visual clarity and audio clarity which is horrible for a rhythm action game. At some point I left that fight to the gods and got through by being lucky. No amount of timing was helping me there. Its a shame because that fight had a lot of potential.
if Baldur's Gate 3 didn't come out in the same year, this would def have been my GOTY for 2023.
The game knows when to be funny and when to just stop and let the gameplay take over. The characters are fun and goofy without being annoying. The story itself isn't anything really special but the characters made it entertaining.
The music goes unimaginably hard. The original tracks are all good and it has an interesting selection of licensed music that manage to fit the scenes where they play very well. It is fitting that the first and last boss fight themes are Nine Inch Nail songs.
My one complaint would be the last fight which somehow fails at two aspects of the gameplay that the game had done so well until that point. The last fight is a mess in terms of visual clarity and audio clarity which is horrible for a rhythm action game. At some point I left that fight to the gods and got through by being lucky. No amount of timing was helping me there. Its a shame because that fight had a lot of potential.
if Baldur's Gate 3 didn't come out in the same year, this would def have been my GOTY for 2023.
So Shadowrun Returns feels like a game made by devs who are making a video game for the first time in their life. The budget is quite clearly not that much and the balancing is just off. Most of the fights are either steamrolling or getting steamrolled. The final fight is one of the few that I think has something going for it.
Despite those issues I think its a good game. The atmosphere is very well done. The music fits the tone. The story was also good tho I wish we had some actual freedom. Its a very linear game due to the low budget.
The setting is def my favorite part of the game. Urban Fantasy and Cyberpunk is an interesting mix.
I like the leveling up system. I made a blaster mage with some investment in rifles and some extra points in charisma. spells are fun to use.
Despite those issues I think its a good game. The atmosphere is very well done. The music fits the tone. The story was also good tho I wish we had some actual freedom. Its a very linear game due to the low budget.
The setting is def my favorite part of the game. Urban Fantasy and Cyberpunk is an interesting mix.
I like the leveling up system. I made a blaster mage with some investment in rifles and some extra points in charisma. spells are fun to use.
This review contains spoilers
So from a story perspective I liked it. I do think the abysmal pacing brings it down more than a fair bit. It is pretty nothing for at least half of the game and it only really starts 2/3rds through. Now some stories do start slow or need to take some time to set things up but I don't think P3R's story is one that really needs all that time which is nothing but SOL.
It does use the 'second year of high school environment' well overall tho its not the kind of story I tend to prefer. I'm def not the target audience here.
We see the characters learning to grow and get ready for the future through their experiences while trying to solve the dark hour. The aspect of accepting the transient nature of life while still finding meaning in continuing to persist is not one I was expecting in a high school environment. The game ends up being 'positive nihilism' vs 'straw nihilism'. My favorite parts of the game were probably just after the reveal that the world is ending and it can't be stopped as the characters have to grapple with that apparent fact.
I think the things involving the protagonist could have been better done if they were less of a blank slate. They have some characteristics but they're fairly subdued in favor of making them the vehicle for the player. I think the game would have been better if it wasn't like that but I guess that's just not what the game is going for.
The visuals are a mixed bag. Its very stylized, especially the UI but the very flat lighting hurts it overall. When the lighting does work it looks good but that sadly isn't often.
The soundtrack's good. Not the sort of thing I tend to listen to usually but good. Especially the tracks towards the end of the game. The one track I disliked was the default dorm theme. Its 'fine' but after having to listen to it for so long I've ended up disliking it.
The gameplay feels like a good combat system that is purposefully hamstrung? weaknesses, buffs and debuffs. It has the three basics that can make up a good turn based system while also giving some extra options to the player like theurgys but you really just do so much damage that you just steamroll through everything.
I wasn't even looking up shit or planning ahead and I got the final boss first try, making them change their Arcana nearly every turn(only twice that it took me two turns to get them to change their Arcana).
It does use the 'second year of high school environment' well overall tho its not the kind of story I tend to prefer. I'm def not the target audience here.
We see the characters learning to grow and get ready for the future through their experiences while trying to solve the dark hour. The aspect of accepting the transient nature of life while still finding meaning in continuing to persist is not one I was expecting in a high school environment. The game ends up being 'positive nihilism' vs 'straw nihilism'. My favorite parts of the game were probably just after the reveal that the world is ending and it can't be stopped as the characters have to grapple with that apparent fact.
I think the things involving the protagonist could have been better done if they were less of a blank slate. They have some characteristics but they're fairly subdued in favor of making them the vehicle for the player. I think the game would have been better if it wasn't like that but I guess that's just not what the game is going for.
The visuals are a mixed bag. Its very stylized, especially the UI but the very flat lighting hurts it overall. When the lighting does work it looks good but that sadly isn't often.
The soundtrack's good. Not the sort of thing I tend to listen to usually but good. Especially the tracks towards the end of the game. The one track I disliked was the default dorm theme. Its 'fine' but after having to listen to it for so long I've ended up disliking it.
The gameplay feels like a good combat system that is purposefully hamstrung? weaknesses, buffs and debuffs. It has the three basics that can make up a good turn based system while also giving some extra options to the player like theurgys but you really just do so much damage that you just steamroll through everything.
I wasn't even looking up shit or planning ahead and I got the final boss first try, making them change their Arcana nearly every turn(only twice that it took me two turns to get them to change their Arcana).