I know I'm still in the middle of another marathon (Kirby) but I've decided to also go through every Zelda game I own and can emulate because I've been in a big Zelda mood lately. Not only that, some other Backloggd members have also decided to join this marathon as well. Namely QuentTheSlayer, Ptcremisi,Steinco,Phantasm and a couple others. The four I mentioned plan on playing pretty much every game like I am, while the others plan on picking and choosing games they want to play. Either way, be sure to check out their accounts because they plan on putting out reviews for all the games too!

Anyways, The Legend of Zelda. I first played this game years ago on my brother's 3DS XL. He randomly bought this off the eShop and when he wasn't using his 3DS, I decided to actually try the first Zelda game out. I don't think I got far, and I didn't love it but it was neat finally trying this game out. Fast forward to 2020, I was trying to beat some games I started but never finished. Since I still had NSO, and I knew this game was on it, I decided to finally beat it once and for all. I did, and yeah I didn't like it all too much. I think I had to use save states, and definitely had to use a guide for most of it and that hampered my experience a lot. Coming back to it today tho, I say I still don't really like it all too much but it has its merits.

I guess I'll first go into the story of this game. Most future Zelda games also go by this same story structure as well, so get used to what I'm about to say. You play as Link, a young boy from the kingdom of Hyrule. You must rescue the princess of Hyrule, Zelda, from the big bad of this series, Ganon. You must collect the pieces of Triforce, which are used to stop Ganon, and they are split into 8 shards and are all found at the end of dungeons. The three pieces are the Triforce of Courage, Wisdom and Power. The specific pieces don't really come into play until later games, because that's if. That's the entire story of the first Zelda game. It's incredibly simple but it works, and these story details are the backbone of the entire Zelda series.

When you first start the actual game, the first thing you see on the first screen you're on, is an empty cave. You meet an old man, and he utters the now famous dialogue "It's dangerous to go alone, take this!". He hands you a sword and with that, you're free to explore the world of Hyrule. Exploring Hyrule can be pretty fun and frustrating on your first playthrough. On one hand, you'll be exploring everywhere trying to find each dungeon and trying to find any secrets you can. That can be very fun for people that just love to explore with almost zero direction, this is a game from 1986 so the best direction you'd get back then were vague hints or using an issue of Nintendo Power for help. This is 2024 tho, and you've been able to just look up a guide online for a while now, so that's what most players will do. And honestly, that's what I did and it's the best way to get through the overworld portions at least. See, this game's overworld relies on you finding random secrets you would only find by randomly guessing their locations or by using a guide. This game loves random bombable walls or random bushes you can burn, and while this only affects actually dungeons near the end, this is used for required items and also several rupee locations (that you WILL need) and so I think this is an unfun part of the overworld. If there was any indication the walls or bushes had secrets, it would be fine, but there isn't unless you find some very vague dialogue in game. That, plus just bombing a wall or burning a bush isn't really puzzle-like, which I would prefer in my Zelda overworlds. This is something future Zelda games improved on, but here, you might as well just use a guide to get most of the overworld stuff done first and then move onto the dungeons (that's what I did). I can see why some other people might find it more fun to constantly replay this game and actually memorize all the secrets, however I just don't think that's good game design and so I decided to do the whole overworld with a guide.

The dungeons themselves, while not great, are definitely the best part of this game. They are way less cryptic than the overworld, and thus are more fun. They can get pretty brutal near the end of the game, and also more confusing (they start to rely on bombable walls too) so I had to use a guide for the last couple as well. But in general, despite the simplicity, the dungeons are pretty fun. The bosses at the end of each dungeon are pretty easy but with this type of game, I'm fine with that since the bulk of the game is exploration. Something I didn't like, and I'm mentioning it here because it happens mostly in dungeons, is the fact you start with 3 health when you die. No matter how many heart containers you have, you'll always just start the game with 3 health and it's my biggest issue in the game because it's tedious having to get more health to have a fighting chance (since it's so easy to get hit in this game). Luckily, there are a couple fairy fountains that restore your health fully throughout the world, and there are caves that give you potions (believe me you will need these) so they make that whole health system a bit more tolerable. Going back to "since it's so easy to get hit in this game" whenever you get hid, there enemy pushes you back a bunch and because the invincibility frames are relatively short, it's not hard to get comboed by enemies and die. Now this didn't happen too much in my playthrough, but it can still be annoying. Outside of getting hit tho, Link plays well otherwise.

Inside the dungeons, and also outside in caves, you can collect different items that aid you in your adventure. You have some iconic items like the boomerang, bombs, a bow and arrows and ofc the iconic Rupees. You also have heart containers in this game, that you will want to find in all the caves and after each dungeon boss. There aren't heart pieces in this game, only containers, so each of them is super valuable. I won't get into all the main dungeon items, just know they're all pretty solid, but I will get into the clock. Sometimes when you kill an enemy, it drops a clock. When you pick up the clock, it stops every enemy in place if they're on the same screen you collected it on. This can be SO helpful in later encounters if you somehow are able to get one, it's very random tho so you better hope you get lucky. I also will say, one time during my playthrough, I killed three of these boomerang enemies and got three fairies at once from them. Idk how lucky that is but it seemed pretty insane.

The music in this game is simply iconic. The Title Theme(yes I shared the Famicom version, it's the best version) is probably my favorite song in the game and is the main theme of the entire franchise which makes sense since it's amazing. The overworld also uses a version of these theme and it's also very good. Picking up items and finding secrets also play jingles and they've been in pretty much every Zelda game since this one as well. If this game does anything super well, it's the sound design. There's a reason so much of it was reused for future titles lol.

While I don't care for the first Legend of Zelda all too much, due to the exploration secrets not being great and the 3 heart after death thing, I can't deny it's an iconic game and was very important in the grand scheme of things for the Zelda series. I don't love playing it, but I can certainly appreciate it for what it is.

Now that Zelda 1 is done, Zelda 2 is next. I actually have never played that one, and I haven't heard great things, so I'm worried I won't like it much but I guess we'll see. Look forward to that next.

Also, when I get to the 3D Zelda titles, I'll try to sprinkle in some smaller games in between but more importantly, I'll try to mix some Kirby games in between. Basically, I'll be doing a mix of Kirby and Zelda eventually. Just letting you know now since you'll eventually notice, I'm sure.

This was actually the last mainline DKC game I played. My first was returns, as I said in my DKC1 review. I played 1 and 3 shortly after that and I played Tropical Freeze the day it released. I didn't play 2 until years later in 2018 where an Instagram account I was following was selling a CIB copy for $35. That sounded like a good deal back then, and considering it's almost $90 now it's even better now, so I bought it off them. I really enjoyed my time with it, but it wasn't until replaying it in 2022, where I truly saw it as a masterpiece. Do I still think that now? Look at my score to find out (that means yes).

Let's start with the gameplay changes. The thing you'll notice when you first start the game is you don't play as Donkey Kong anymore. You still play as Diddy Kong but replacing Donkey is newcomer Dixie Kong. The main plot this time is King K Rool is back, he has kidnapped Donkey Kong and you must team-up as Diddy and Dixie to defeat him and save DK. Pretty simple but it works. Anyways, Diddy plays pretty much the same but Dixie is a bit different. Her main gameplay change is the fact that she can glide by using her hair. This is incredibly helpful with certain segments throughout the game and because of this plus being more fun to control, I definitely prefer this duo over the first game's. I still think Diddy feels better to play as since he's still faster here and has a better roll (Dixie's roll sucks if you're trying to roll jump off a cliff) so he was my go to Kong when I had both but Dixie is still very fun to play as here due to her glide. This game did add another new big mechanic that plays a part in a bunch of levels. By pressing the A button, if you have both Kongs, you can perform a Team Up. This basically lets you throw the kong upwards in whatever direction you want, and it lets you get up to high places you normally couldn't get to or collect items up high. It's nice and quick to pull off and just adds that much more depth to the levels.

The levels themselves are better than ever here. The level design is improved, with each level feeling pretty distinct from each other. One moment you'll be riding air balloons over a pit of lava and the next you'll be racing enemies in a haunted amusement park. Levels have gimmicks but they never feel intrusive or annoying to me. The level themes are also way more interesting this time. The mains setting here is pirates and that first world makes great use of it. You had levels where you run on top of a ship, levels where you are swimming inside the ship itself and then levels where you're climbing up the top of a pirate ship. That's all the first world, and even tho it's all pirate themed, they all feel distinct. Besides that, you have typical lava stages tho they're visually appealing in this game, you have these beehive stages where honey stops you dead in your tracks, you have bayou stages..just all the level themes in this game are so much more unique compared to the 1st game. Honestly, the backgrounds used in these levels are better than the 1st game's as well, they made them really clean looking this time around.

As for the collectables, you still collect bananas..and KONG letters. Animal Friend tokens are gone which is nice because they could kinda be annoying at times. Instead of finding a bunch of random bonus rooms to 100% the game, this time you must collect Kremkoins and DK coins. Kremkoins are all found in bonus barrels, or sometimes secret walls. These both lead to the bonus area, which instead of being all lax and random like in DKC1, you have to play a bonus game whether it's collecting all the stars or defeating every enemy or just getting to the coin itself. This is more unified than how it was in DKC1 and I prefer it this way. The DK coins are always only in levels once, and they're usually just in the stages and not in the bonus rooms. Anyways, collecting every Kremcoin and every DK coin, and completing every level, gets you 102% in this game. I much prefer this over the bonus rooms in DKC1. They are much easier to find without a guide, tho I still had to look up some but that's better than almost all of them like in DKC1, and it's better for it.

Animal buddies are back and you have some returning ones plus some new ones. Winky and Expresso are gone but Rambi, Enguarde and Squawks are back. Rambi and Enguarde are exactly the same except they have a charge move you can perform to go super fast and kill any enemies in your path or to open up secret bonus rooms. You can now ride with Squawks and shoot nuts out of his mouth at enemies, so he's changed drastically. There's a new animal buddy called Quawks who is only used in one level and is purple, cannot fly upwards (only glide down) and cannot shoot nuts. He's not worth getting into since it's just a downgrade of Squawks, but the other two animal buddies are. Rattly the rattlesnake, is basically Winky but better. He can jump high, jump on normally dangerous enemies like Winky but you can also charge him up to perform a super jump. The other new animal buddy, Squitter the Spider is awesome and is my favorite buddy in the series. You cannot jump on enemies as him but you can shoot projectile webs out of his mouth and if you press the A button, you can shoot a different type of web and if you press A again..you can create a web platform to jump on. They use this a good amount in some of the stages and this mechanic just makes him super fun and interesting to use. Along with all this, there are also these animal buddy barrels that let you transform into just the animal buddy.

The bosses in this game are also a big improvement from 1. Gone are very easy bosses that feel like a big version of a normal enemy. Every boss in this game feels distinct (besides the zinger fight tho his fight was pretty fun) and aren't piss easy and also aren't super quick. They feel like actual bosses, with the K Rool fight being a standout. Definitely my favorite fight in the trilogy. While not too difficult, he's still really fun.

If you had gotten 15 Kremcoins per world, you could pay them to this fella named Klubba. Once you do, you can access a level from the Lost World, a secret super hard bonus world. These are definitely some of the hardest levels in the game, tho I must brag and say it only took me two tries to beat Animal Antics this time around. Going back to the difficulty, yeah this game can be quite tough. It's not like bullshit hard, just the levels themselves can have some very tough portions and honestly, I welcome it. I still died a bunch in this game but I think the difficulty curve is very nice. It doesn't start off hard at all, it gradually start's getting pretty tough by world 4.

The OST is a big upgrade from the first game I think and is honestly amazing. Some of my favorites were Mining Melancholy, In A Snow-Bound Land, LockJaw's Saga,Hot Head Bop, and Forest Interlude. That is not even mentioning the absolute fucking goated song that is Stickerbush Symphony which is honestly a top 5 song for me from any video game ever. It's that amazing and I've loved it before I even played this game. This is a top tier OST I think and may be the best SNES soundtrack of all time.

If I had any little nitpick about this game, it's the fact you have to use banana coins to save and move to other worlds freely. I forgot to mention this in the collectables section, but you also collect bananas throughout the stages, they're plentiful, but after saving once or using Funky's Flights in a world, you must pay each Kong coins to do either action again. Because coins are super easy to get, this wasn't an issue for me but if you reset the game, you lose all your coins (and lives) so I can see where it would be an annoying mechanic to some people.

This is peak Donkey Kong Country imo. Everything from 1 was perfected in this game and then some, and it easily has the best soundtrack in the entire series, which does play a big part in me loving this game. I have more nostalgia for Super Mario World but I cannot deny the fact that this is the better platformer on the Super Nintendo. Because of this, I do think this is the best SNES game I've played period. It's just a masterpiece through and through. Do yourself a favor and play it!

I'm going to get back to the Kirby marathon now but I do plan on replaying DKC3 in the near future so stay tuned for that whenever I decide to play it!

Veredito: bonito e íntimo pra caralho, e janky até o talo.

Já digo logo que sou suspeito pra falar de Sable. Eu curto demais cel-shade, adoro jogos contemplativos, sou platinador por natureza e tenho uma queda ENORME por histórias sobre amadurecimento e sobre a chegada da vida adulta. Sable tem tudo isso, ele mira em cheio nos meus pontos fracos. Então talvez seja prudente você ler esta análise com um pé atrás. O que eu falar corre altos riscos de ser tendencioso pra caralho, e muito diferente do que vai ser quando você jogar.

Também tenho uma tolerância meio exagerada a "defeitos técnicos". Sable é recheado deles: a colisão é estranha, a câmera é uma merda, a taxa de quadros não pára quieta um minuto (tá tudo fluindo bem e aí do nada você tá jogando uma apresentação do Powerpoint, e vice-versa) e a física é toda esquisita. Tudo é bugado demais, defeituoso demais, os controles nem sempre obedecem, parece que nada funciona direito.

Mas é nessas horas que eu dou graças pela minha tolerância a isso. Faltou sim uma testagem e uma programação mais caprichadas. Mas sobrou visão artística e carinho dos criadores pela obra.

Você é Sable, uma adolescente dos nômades Ibex, um dos muitos clãs do planeta desértico de Midden. Seguindo o costume do seu clã, você está prestes a começar a "plainagem", o Avoo, um rito de passagem para largar a infância pra trás e entrar na adultisse. Você deixará seu lar, família e amigos e vai viajar o mundo conhecendo todos os lugares que puder, todos os costumes que quiser, todos os conhecimentos e sabedorias que couberem na sua maturidade. A partir daí... você é livre pra ir aonde seu coração desejar.

Sable não tem combate. Não existe barra de vida, não tem o medo de dar game over e precisar voltar. Só existe a exploração, e o mundo a ser conhecido. Midden é enorme e tudo é um deserto, mas não falta variedade e beleza. Das paisagens salinas e abandonadas dos Lixões Sódicos ao oásis perto da metrópole de Eccria, passando por cavernas de insetos luminosos e um ninho de um besouro gigante, existe muita coisa pra se ver. Os cartógrafos, isolados em seus balões, são mais do que vendedores de mapas: eles são personagens próprios, com personalidades próprias, que te contam histórias sobre o que tem de interessante nessa ou naquela região, e pra isso você precisa achar algum caminho até o lugar alto onde eles se encontram.

Essa é a essência da jogabilidade de Sable: explorar o mundo e conhecer os personagens. Tudo é uma missãozinha no menu, tudo é fazer favores para outras pessoas em troca de recompensas: resgatar Fulano que machucou o pé e ficou preso, interrogar suspeitos e achar um culpado pela sabotagem do sistema de energia, brincar com um grupo de crianças, pegar tal coisa em tal lugar e levar para Beltrano. Nem dá pra esconder a influência descarada de Zelda Breath of the Wild: escalar, planar, barra de stamina, viagens longas.

Mas ao contrário do se espera dos jogos de mundo aberto, todas as quests voltam ao ponto central do jogo: descobrir seu lugar no mundo. Encontrar sua vocação. Aproveitar a jornada. Descobrir que tipo de ser humano você quer ser.

Alguma hora o seu Avoo vai ter que acabar, alguma hora você vai ter que concluir o rito de passagem e voltar ao seu clã como mulher adulta. Você pode pedir ajuda, orientação, fazer perguntas, mas não dá pra prolongar para sempre a busca pelas respostas. E tudo bem. Nenhuma adulta tem todas as respostas, ninguém vira uma pessoa 100% sábia e crescida só porque deixou a infância pra trás. Você não precisa ser a primeira.

Sable não é um jogo sobre o quanto os adultos são sempre maduros e responsáveis. Não é sobre ganhar algum tipo de conhecimento fodão que as crianças e adolescentes não têm. É sobre uma jornada íntima, pessoal e intransferível que todos nós fazemos. E é sobre entender que isso é normal. Crescer é normal, conhecer pessoas diferentes e expandir a nossa visão de mundo é normal, sair do ninho é normal. Pode até parecer solitário, assustador e perigoso, e algumas vezes é mesmo. Mas enquanto você estiver seguindo seu próprio caminho - mesmo que não tenha certeza dele, mesmo que se sinta insegura - você está no caminho certo. Você pode errar, você pode mudar de rumo, você pode se arrepender. Tudo bem, isso faz parte da vida. Não importa qual caminho você escolhe. O que importa é que seja seu.

Um clássico atemporal, enquanto jogava havia duas perspectivas sobre a obra, uma visão onde essa franquia já está consolidada e teve recentemente um revitalização, e a outra visão olhando a obra de forma separada sem consta suas continuações e o peso que elas tiveram, e nas duas perspectivas esse jogo se demonstra excelente, onde o hack n slash não entra apenas como gameplay mas como narrativa, um homem consumido pelo ódio e vingança, onde a sede por poder o consumiu, e ainda que o tenha consumido foi o que fez ele tomar o renome de Deus da Guerra, isso sempre abriu margem para uma continuação desse desenvolvimento perfeito de personagem, ainda que a primeira historia seja extremamente bem fechada, onde passamos por altos e baixo, entendemos motivações e os vilões e eh tudo tão perfeitamente encaixado durante a gameplay, que se esse jogo não tivesse se tornado uma franquia, ainda seria lembrado com tanto apreço, vcs DEVEM jogar God of War

MATOU minha vontade de jogar.

Eu consigo entender muito bem a importância desse jogo para sua época, realmente em 94 isso daqui deveria ser ouro.

Porém sem dúvidas envelheceu muito mal. O jogo tem controles super duros e travados, um ritmo super lento e uma IA totalmente desbalanceada (Tem que ser muito brabo pra zerar esse jogo na raça).

Tirando o fator nostalgia (Que no meu caso não existe já que conheci o game recentemente) eu não vejo nenhum outro motivo plausível ou válido para alguém gostar desse jogo.

PRÓS:
- Revolucionário para sua época.
- Personagens interessantes.

CONTRAS:
- Controles "duros"
- Ritmo de gameplay lerdo.
- Envelheceu mal.

O segundo Mario que eu zero, com o grupo das mesmas pessoas, esse grupo sempre foi brincalhão onde uma risada já era motivo para outra risada desencadeando em 3 pessoas rindo por literal motivo nenhum, mas não é sempre que isso acontece, Mario Wonder chegou para mudar isso, toda nova fase, todo novo mundo era um motivo para uma piada boba com a localização perfeita desse jogo, ou uma competitividade constante para vê quem conseguiria chega no topo do mastro, enquanto essa competitividade reinava, a cooperação era inevitavel, não por opção nossa, mas pelo excelente game designe, esse jogo acerta tanto em sua gameplay cooperativa que as vezes algumas fases aparenta serem feitas justamente para esse modo de jogo
Em geral tudo aqui foi muito gostoso, bonito, diversificado e extremamente divertido, joguem Mario Wonder, e se puderem, acompanhados

Dragon Ball: Advanced Adventure is one of the most beautiful games from the Game Advance. Nobody can say otherwise.

The gameplay is near perfect. It’s really enjoyable fight against regular enemies or bosses.

Something I also have to say is: this game is really hard. The stages are huge and if you die, you’ll have to go back to a certain point and lost almost everything you did. It’s a classic ‘00 game and today I think it’s almost impossible to finish it without save state.

The story is the same one of the Dragon Ball anime. You’ll see the fist steps of Goku when he was I child.

Dragon Ball: Advanced Adventure is a really fun game but really hard in its original hardware. I say that you have to give it a chance only if you are able to play it on a emulator.

Veredito: Maduro e fácil de empatizar, mas todas as rotas são iguais.

Tematicamente, Catherine é exatamente o que eu esperava. Não um jogo erótico, não um hentaizão cheio de sexo, e sim um jogo sobre sexo. Um jogo sobre relacionamentos românticos, sexuais, e tudo o que existe entre essas duas coisas. O visual e todo o estilo do jogo puxam MUITO pro erotismo e romantismo, mas nunca como um pornô, e sim como algo importante pra ajudar a dar o recado.

Todo mundo já sabe a premissa: você é Vincent, está tendo problemas no seu namoro e, quando se dá conta, acorda pelado na cama com uma mulher que acabou de conhecer. Você não se lembra de nada, mas ao que parece tu acabou de meter um chifre na sua namorada de longa data. A partir daí você que se vire pra lidar com a situação.

O dia é praticamente uma visual novel: você conversa com seus amigos, vai pro bar, recebe nudes da sua amante e ligações da sua namorada, e decide o que fazer em cada situação. De noite, você e vários desconhecidos compartilham do mesmo pesadelo: tem que escalar uma torre enorme, e quem cair não acorda mais vivo. Pense num plataforma de labirinto a la Donkey Kong clássico ou Pushmo, só que muito mais complexo e com um limite de tempo no seu pescoço, pronto pra te guilhotinar no menor errinho.

Ao mesmo tempo que não passa pano pro adultério (o texto deixa bem claro que os homens no pesadelo são pessoas horríveis que estão pagando por isso, inclusive você, que fica procurando desculpas pra não resolver o problema que criou) o roteiro se preocupa em mostrar várias outras facetas do problema.

Catherine, que você conhece no bar e que te leva pra cama, não sabe que está sendo uma amante. Katherine, sua namorada, não tem te tratado nada bem ultimamente e não tem facilitado sua vida, chegando a dizer que ela é que vai cuidar da sua conta bancária. Rin, que você conhece logo antes do jogo começar, faz o que pode para ser uma boa pessoa e para ajudar os outros, apesar de estar ela mesma cheia de problemas.

Existe um ótimo trabalho aqui para desenvolver as personagens. Ao longo do jogo você vai vendo como o namoro de Vincent foi amadurecendo e depois desmoronando, como tanto Catherine quanto Katherine lidam com os comportamentos estranhos do rapaz, como Rin vai se recuperando da amnésia que está sofrendo. Todos os homens no pesadelo passam por sentimentos pesados de culpa, e Vincent faz o máximo para ensinar eles a escalar para sobreviver mais uma noite. E se esforça pra aprender a ser uma pessoa melhor a partir dos próprios erros e dos erros dos colegas.

Minha única crítica é que as rotas são uma ilusão muito frágil: basta rejogar. Ao invés de te dar uma única escolha direta, o jogo te dá um milhão de pequenas escolhas que vão preenchendo uma barrinha, e essa barrinha em tese determina o rumo da história e eventualmente o final. Mas as diferenças são ínfimas. Você pode fazer de tudo pra terminar o seu namoro, ou fazer de tudo pra salvar ele, e meio que tanto faz. Os diálogos nunca mudam nada, os cenários vão ser sempre os mesmos. Isso não seria um problema se o jogo não fizesse tanta questão de enfatizar "cuidado com as suas escolhas, heim, elas afetam a história". Afetam porra nenhuma. Tá, o final muda, mas é só isso.

Jogo bem cinematográfico, história é bem impactante, não tem muita coisa na parte de gameplay, a proposta do jogo é diferente.

As riviravoltas são interessantes, mas há muitos diálogos desnecessários, no caso que mais enrolam a história, e a falta de opção para pular diálogos meio que atrapalha, principalmente quando você ouve sem querer o diálogo que já tinha ouvido antes.

É um jogo bem inclusivo, trata muito questões sobre mudanças de gênero, problemas familiares, suicídio, entre outras coisas.

Eu achei que era somente escolher diálogos, mas pode ser que seja o primeiro jogo com mini game onde você controla a crise de pânico de uma personagem.

Tem momentos muito "Malhação"? Tem, mas fazer o que? O ritmo lento de algumas animações e alguns momentos enrroscando o seu personagem com outro durante o gameplay me incomodaram.

Aconselho a jogar dublado, mesmo não curtindo muito a dublagem, para você entender a história e resolver os puzzles, que não são difíceis.

Back in 2017, I bought this game alongside the Digital Devil Saga duology and Vagrant Story. I happened to find it at a convention and knowing I had just played Automata that year and loved that, I figured I'd pick it up. I honestly didn't even know there was a NieR game before Automata at the time, so I was pretty surprised. I started playing it, got up to seafront and had no idea how to fish and then promptly dropped it. Fast-forward to 2021, I see that a remake of the version with Brother NieR was releasing soon and I decided to go back and actually beat this game. I play through the entirety of it (besides ending D) and thought it was great, though I did have some issues with it that held it back from me loving it more than Automata. Fast-forward again to this year, I had planned to replay Automata for a while now and decided that November would be the month to do so. Before that though, I decided I wanted to replay Gestalt and see if I ended up liking it more now. Well seeing my updated rating, I'm sure you can see how I felt. This game is honestly not objectively perfect but it does certain things so well and I love it so much, that I can't give it anything less than a 10/10.

So the thing people like about NieR the most is the story. When I played it in 2021, I thought the story was good but overrated. I also somehow missed the gestalt documents at the end of the game, so that plus appreciating the story as a whole a lot more, made me realize it really is peak. A big part of the story being amazing too, are the different endings you can get. Ending A is great but the game really comes together when you go through route B. Some things get revealed to you at the end of Route A, and so there's a bunch of little changes in Route B that flip your perspective on what was going on and I just love it. You're basically replaying the 2nd half of the game all over again but because of all those little changes, I had no issue with it. There's also ending C and D and the route for those is basically the exact same as B, only the ending changes. The endings for those are great (especially ending D, holy shit does that ending feel impactful) however I can see how it would get tedious for someone playing considering it's pretty much all of the same content as route B. Either way, the story is just fantastic I think and definitely better than I once thought.

Though, the story is not actually my favorite aspect of the game. My favorite aspect is the main cast. Honestly may be my favorite cast in any game ever tbh, I love all of the main 4 so much and think they complement each other perfectly.
Weiss and Kaine are always throwing insults at each other, Weiss is always complaining about NieR's tendency to just help someone no matter what, Emil has a great affection towards NieR as seen later in the game, Emil and Kaine get along well because they both see themselves as outcasts...there's a lot of different character dynamics going on and when it's all 4 of them together they just make the perfect JRPG team imo.

The other big thing I absolutely loved was the OST. When I initially beat the game, I realized that the OST was really good but as time passed, I kept coming back to certain songs. I was listening to Gestalt's soundtrack more than Automata's and now that I've beaten it again, I can confidently say I 100% like it more than Automata. It's honestly just perfect and probably in my like top 3 Game OST's ever now. Stand out songs for me are Grandma, Emil Karma and it's other variant, Song of the Ancients, Shadowlord and more. The music is just top tier.

Another thing I really love is the gameplay changes that happen throughout the game. Besides your normal combat, there's also little sections that change things up. There's several 2D sections throughout, there's a forest area that plays out like a Visual Novel, the first visit to Emil's Mansion is basically Resident Evil with its semi-spookiness and fixed camera angles, Emil's Mansion's basement gives you this top down view that plays like Diablo, not to mention most of the bosses area bullet hells. There's just a lot of variety in the gameplay and really makes the game feel fresh.

Speaking of the core gameplay though, let's talk about the combat and the other "flaws" I see this game having. The combat...compared to more flashier, fast paced action games is lackluster. I remember it was a big issue to me when I initially played the game, but honestly it grew on me a bunch and I learned to enjoy it now. I don't think the game ever really needed super flashy complex combat and so I think it gets the job done. Plus there's something I enjoy about how chunky the combat can feel, idk I said the same thing about Yakuza 1 and the same thing applies here too.

My other biggest issue back then, and this was purely just a me thing, was I didn't like the world and it's aesthetic nearly as much as Automata's. The post-apocalyptic world in that game was my absolute favorite aspect when I played, and so to go from that to this was disappointing back then. I still much prefer Automata's world but I honestly do enjoy Gestalt's now. It's far from my favorite gaming world, though I also don't play it for that so it also gets the job done I think.

A couple small issues I did actually have with the game this time around were the bloom effects in some areas and the Exp system. I think the bloom in seafront and the fog effect in the northern plains can look kinda ugly at times, I'm sure that's probably fixed in the remake so that's really only a Gestalt issue. I also disliked how if Kaine or Emil got the finishing blow on a normal enemy, you missed out on any Exp. I hope that got changed in the remake because it can kind stink when playing here. I can also see why people would dislike all the backtracking, hell I was getting a bit burnt out myself going for ending C and D lol. But overall, I think the backtracking to old areas isn't as bad as people say. The area you go back through the most is the junk heap and even then, that area isn't too long and has banger music so I had no problem going through it several times.

Last time I played, I only did a few of the side quests that were needed to get every weapon for the latter endings. This time around, I did every single one...and while they could get very fetch-questy, I enjoyed them overall. A lot of the time there's some voiced Weiss/NieR dialogue that makes the entire quest worth it imo. The best quests overall were I Facade I thought. Most of those were very memorable, alongside the lighthouse lady ones of course.

I did also get a chunk of the trophies I was missing before, the big one being the Lunar Tear one. That definitely took a bit of effort on my part but once I finally got it, it was pretty satisfying. I still have the speedrun trophy and the weapon upgrade trophies to get so maybe I'll do those on my next replay who knows.

So yeah, is the game perfect? As I pointed out, there are some issues I can see others having and there are even some things I still wasn't a fan of in this game. But the absolutely peak story and especially peak cast and OST, just makes me want to give it a 10 and that's what I'll do for the time being. The game has a lot of heart and I think it's worth playing if you haven't already.

Anyways, next is Automata and it's been even longer since I last played that so I'm hyped to see if I'll still love it as much as I did six years ago!


Also sorry if this review is incoherent at all, writing this at 3 AM randomly lole.

História maluca, com muitos toques de humor negro, só que com uma jogabilidade ainda mais problemática do que o jogo original.

Enfrentei muito mais bugs e glitches aqui, a parte bacana é o que o "dead eye" é muito mais explorado aqui, e o jogo meio que te obriga a usar todas as armas que ele oferece, isso porque sua munição pode acabar muito facilmente.

Ai é que vem a parte chata dessa DLC, para obter munição você precisa matar os zumbis que atacam as cidades ou completar os eventos aleatórios no mundo, mas já vou dizendo que você ganha muito pouca munição e as vezes para armas que você nem vai usar, tipo uma sniper.

Além disso, o jogo oferece desafios, 4 cavalos místicos para domar, entre alguns novos mistérios paranormais, mas fica muito cansativo quando toda hora você precisa salvar uma cidade de um ataque dos zumbis.

É uma DLC que para mim não soma em nada na trama, mas se você é fã de Resident Evil pode ser que goste.