Doyes
TBD
I figured I'd review the demo since I already laid out my thoughts on the original game (which you can read here.). I won't be giving a score for it, seeing as the full update isn't out yet, but from what Ackk Studios have shown so far with Nameless Psychosis, I've been pretty impressed. I have my doubts that this update will fix all of YIIK's problems, but at the very least I see this game becoming something that is fun to play.
The most immediate thing I noticed was the updated presentation. YIIK is doubling down on the weird imagery, now aided with more inventive camera angles. It still comes off as the developers trying way too hard to tell an abstract narrative, but I can at least appreciate what they're going for this time around. It's a notable improvement without veering too far away from their original art style. The UI also got a massive overhaul. What was once barren and a horrible slog to navigate, has now turned into something that I would describe as not only functional, but also imbued with much-needed character. This might sound like a back handed compliment, and in some respects it is, but I do appreciate the effort they put in reworking the UI. The only thing I wasn't a fan of was the new opening sequence. The visuals are fine, but the musical choice doesn't compliment the editing and it creates a disconnect. It seems like they were trying to recreate an anime opening, but they should have probably opted for a more energetic song than the one they ended up going with.
On the subject of music, Nameless Psychosis features some new tracks and I dig them quite a bit. The menu theme was the stand out track to me, going for a lounge type song that for some reason reminds me of The Cardigans. Maybe it's the lead singer that heavily reminds me of the Swedish pop group. The new tracks are much more subdued compared to the game's original tracks, which I think works in YIIK's benefit. They also seem to be more thematically consistent, instead of the "try out whatever the fuck we want" approach the original game went for.
The biggest upgrade that YIIK received in the demo is easily the combat. Gone are the days of having to play the most frustrating mini-games only to do minuscule amounts of damage. Instead, we get the Karta system. Characters now work with three card slots in which they can equip unique cards that give them battle abilities, stats and passive abilities. They also act as a shield from damage, and once they've been destroyed you'll eventually start taking regular damage. Once you get it with an attack with no more cards, you will enter a bleed state, where you begin to lose health as a battle progresses. The Karta system feels like a direct response to the criticism that the original combat system was incredibly slow and tenuous, and it at the very least makes combat much faster and more engaging. I worry that the system can become a bit overwhelming, as I don't think I had fully grasped it by the time I was done with the demo, but I at least came out of it much more positively. There's also the issue of readability when in the bleed state, as it was hard to figure out when your health would tick a point of HP or not. Hopefully they improve on this aspect of the combat, and if they do, they might have something special on their hands.
If there's anything that I wasn't sold on is the story. Many of the issues I had with the original story are still present here, with an added layer of abstract story telling. They seem to be setting something up with Rory's sister, possibly hinting that foul play was a foot, but the way it's been told is so far isn't winning me over. Alex is still the same, overly verbose and long-winded character that he was in the original, but this time they use a framing device when he's monologuing, having him essentially do so on a stand-up stage. I see this as both reinforcing the fact that he is this self-centered character, as he literally becomes the center of attention, as well as adding some visual flare to when he just rambles on and on. I feel this was a misguided attempt at conveying this idea to the player, but they do use these moments to deliver some genuine laughs (at least I think that's what they're doing). They seem to be leaning more into the fact that Alex has become a giant meme online, which does do a decent job at conveying that we probably shouldn't be taking him so seriously all the time.
I liked what I played, but I'm not entirely convinced that this will be the update that radically changes the perception of the game, at least from a story telling perspective. At most, I think this will be the best version of this story. Maybe I'm wrong, and the new story updates will blow me away and will dramatically change the quality of the story, but I'm somewhat doubtful of that. At least the game is fun to play this time around, which is already a massive improvement over the original.
The most immediate thing I noticed was the updated presentation. YIIK is doubling down on the weird imagery, now aided with more inventive camera angles. It still comes off as the developers trying way too hard to tell an abstract narrative, but I can at least appreciate what they're going for this time around. It's a notable improvement without veering too far away from their original art style. The UI also got a massive overhaul. What was once barren and a horrible slog to navigate, has now turned into something that I would describe as not only functional, but also imbued with much-needed character. This might sound like a back handed compliment, and in some respects it is, but I do appreciate the effort they put in reworking the UI. The only thing I wasn't a fan of was the new opening sequence. The visuals are fine, but the musical choice doesn't compliment the editing and it creates a disconnect. It seems like they were trying to recreate an anime opening, but they should have probably opted for a more energetic song than the one they ended up going with.
On the subject of music, Nameless Psychosis features some new tracks and I dig them quite a bit. The menu theme was the stand out track to me, going for a lounge type song that for some reason reminds me of The Cardigans. Maybe it's the lead singer that heavily reminds me of the Swedish pop group. The new tracks are much more subdued compared to the game's original tracks, which I think works in YIIK's benefit. They also seem to be more thematically consistent, instead of the "try out whatever the fuck we want" approach the original game went for.
The biggest upgrade that YIIK received in the demo is easily the combat. Gone are the days of having to play the most frustrating mini-games only to do minuscule amounts of damage. Instead, we get the Karta system. Characters now work with three card slots in which they can equip unique cards that give them battle abilities, stats and passive abilities. They also act as a shield from damage, and once they've been destroyed you'll eventually start taking regular damage. Once you get it with an attack with no more cards, you will enter a bleed state, where you begin to lose health as a battle progresses. The Karta system feels like a direct response to the criticism that the original combat system was incredibly slow and tenuous, and it at the very least makes combat much faster and more engaging. I worry that the system can become a bit overwhelming, as I don't think I had fully grasped it by the time I was done with the demo, but I at least came out of it much more positively. There's also the issue of readability when in the bleed state, as it was hard to figure out when your health would tick a point of HP or not. Hopefully they improve on this aspect of the combat, and if they do, they might have something special on their hands.
If there's anything that I wasn't sold on is the story. Many of the issues I had with the original story are still present here, with an added layer of abstract story telling. They seem to be setting something up with Rory's sister, possibly hinting that foul play was a foot, but the way it's been told is so far isn't winning me over. Alex is still the same, overly verbose and long-winded character that he was in the original, but this time they use a framing device when he's monologuing, having him essentially do so on a stand-up stage. I see this as both reinforcing the fact that he is this self-centered character, as he literally becomes the center of attention, as well as adding some visual flare to when he just rambles on and on. I feel this was a misguided attempt at conveying this idea to the player, but they do use these moments to deliver some genuine laughs (at least I think that's what they're doing). They seem to be leaning more into the fact that Alex has become a giant meme online, which does do a decent job at conveying that we probably shouldn't be taking him so seriously all the time.
I liked what I played, but I'm not entirely convinced that this will be the update that radically changes the perception of the game, at least from a story telling perspective. At most, I think this will be the best version of this story. Maybe I'm wrong, and the new story updates will blow me away and will dramatically change the quality of the story, but I'm somewhat doubtful of that. At least the game is fun to play this time around, which is already a massive improvement over the original.
The Halo series is one of those franchises that's reputation sort of overshadows the actual quality of the gameplay and narrative. For the longest time it was seen as the dude bro shooter (before getting dethroned by Call of Duty in that respect), which is a shame because this series under Bungie's direction was quite ambitious. You don't really see these sorts of stories in first-person shooters anymore. I've long since fallen off with the franchise, but the Bungie led entries will always occupy a certain corner of my brain.
Halo CE has a really strange start to its story when you think about it. You're already well into the convenant war, and it doesn't really explain what exactly is happening outside the most pressing matter. The Pillar of Autumn is on the run from a Convenant fleet, and eventually crash-land onto the ring world known as Halo. There you discover more secrets about the ring as the story and danger unravels in front of you. The game isn't especially long, but it utilizes its short run time to tell a pretty compelling story, while also planting the seeds of stuff that wouldn't get developed until much later. It's simple and effective, while also keeping a lot of the intrigue that Bungie's older games had.
Halo is arguably the game that made FPSs on consoles viable and incredibly popular, and for good reason. It laid the groundwork for a ton of mechanics that other games would implement in an attempt to capture even a fraction of Halo's success. Regenerating shields, once a novelty and very innovative, are basically the default nowadays and so many games use them. I can't imagine what the gaming landscape would look like without this game's existence. But that isn't the only reason why this game was successful. This game's first half is incredibly strong, with a good sense of escalation and forward momentum. The level design alone and approach to combat is what makes this game, and the rest of the Bungie led games, so special. Levels are open-ended enough where you can approach combat scenarios in a multitude of ways. The enemy AI is really something to behold, and on higher difficulties always keeps you on your toes with how aggressive and tactical they can be. The arsenal presented to you is diverse enough where most guns will provide a unique role, however some guns kind of feel underpowered and redundant. The Assault Rifle is especially guilty of this. Meant to be the human mid range weapon, your more often then not better off replacing it with the Covenant Plasma Rifle, or even the Plasma Pistol, which in this game is absurdly powerful. I'd also be remiss to not mention the Magnum Pistol, a gun so powerful that you're almost always happy to have one on hand, and that completely invalidates an enemy type. I'd say where the game falters is in the second half of the game. Once the new enemy type is introduced into the game, the levels become a horrible slog to go through and the difficulty spikes up quite intensely. It's somewhat redeemed by a very memorable final mission, but getting to that point can be an exercise in frustration.
The human character models look pretty outdated, even by 2001 standards. Stiff animation, puppet like mouth flaps, it's the one thing that holds this game back visually, which is a shame because the rest of the game still looks quite good. The Covenant designs are truly excellent, with great animations and audio barks. The environmental designs are also great, even if some of the textures can look outdated. At its worst, it looks of the time, but at its best I would think I was playing a modern game. On that note, I wouldn't recommend playing this game with the remastered graphics. While the attempt is noble, its way too overdesigned and often times would kill the mood of a given level. They make everything way too bright, and would add unnecessary flora to certain levels that actually has gameplay ramifications, as certain lines of sight become unusable,
The music in this game is simply put, legendary. Martin O'Donnell's score is at this point iconic, and once you hear it, it won't be leaving your head. There's a good reason why Gregorian choirs are so heavily associated with this game. It'd be one thing if the music was simply excellent, but the way it's implemented is what really elevates it. Bungie knew exactly when to play his score, so when you hear Truth And Reconciliation Suite kick in, you knew the moment was important.
Halo CE remains a really great first attempt at a 3D FPS by Bungie. They had years of experience with Marathon to get this right, and it paid off big time. It would launch them into levels of success beyond their wildest imaginations, and would lay the groundwork for their trajectory as a company. A lot of the ideas they had for the first game would be later refined in future entries, and while it might not always shine in the context of modern gaming sensibilities, I still think even more than 20 years it holds up.
Halo CE has a really strange start to its story when you think about it. You're already well into the convenant war, and it doesn't really explain what exactly is happening outside the most pressing matter. The Pillar of Autumn is on the run from a Convenant fleet, and eventually crash-land onto the ring world known as Halo. There you discover more secrets about the ring as the story and danger unravels in front of you. The game isn't especially long, but it utilizes its short run time to tell a pretty compelling story, while also planting the seeds of stuff that wouldn't get developed until much later. It's simple and effective, while also keeping a lot of the intrigue that Bungie's older games had.
Halo is arguably the game that made FPSs on consoles viable and incredibly popular, and for good reason. It laid the groundwork for a ton of mechanics that other games would implement in an attempt to capture even a fraction of Halo's success. Regenerating shields, once a novelty and very innovative, are basically the default nowadays and so many games use them. I can't imagine what the gaming landscape would look like without this game's existence. But that isn't the only reason why this game was successful. This game's first half is incredibly strong, with a good sense of escalation and forward momentum. The level design alone and approach to combat is what makes this game, and the rest of the Bungie led games, so special. Levels are open-ended enough where you can approach combat scenarios in a multitude of ways. The enemy AI is really something to behold, and on higher difficulties always keeps you on your toes with how aggressive and tactical they can be. The arsenal presented to you is diverse enough where most guns will provide a unique role, however some guns kind of feel underpowered and redundant. The Assault Rifle is especially guilty of this. Meant to be the human mid range weapon, your more often then not better off replacing it with the Covenant Plasma Rifle, or even the Plasma Pistol, which in this game is absurdly powerful. I'd also be remiss to not mention the Magnum Pistol, a gun so powerful that you're almost always happy to have one on hand, and that completely invalidates an enemy type. I'd say where the game falters is in the second half of the game. Once the new enemy type is introduced into the game, the levels become a horrible slog to go through and the difficulty spikes up quite intensely. It's somewhat redeemed by a very memorable final mission, but getting to that point can be an exercise in frustration.
The human character models look pretty outdated, even by 2001 standards. Stiff animation, puppet like mouth flaps, it's the one thing that holds this game back visually, which is a shame because the rest of the game still looks quite good. The Covenant designs are truly excellent, with great animations and audio barks. The environmental designs are also great, even if some of the textures can look outdated. At its worst, it looks of the time, but at its best I would think I was playing a modern game. On that note, I wouldn't recommend playing this game with the remastered graphics. While the attempt is noble, its way too overdesigned and often times would kill the mood of a given level. They make everything way too bright, and would add unnecessary flora to certain levels that actually has gameplay ramifications, as certain lines of sight become unusable,
The music in this game is simply put, legendary. Martin O'Donnell's score is at this point iconic, and once you hear it, it won't be leaving your head. There's a good reason why Gregorian choirs are so heavily associated with this game. It'd be one thing if the music was simply excellent, but the way it's implemented is what really elevates it. Bungie knew exactly when to play his score, so when you hear Truth And Reconciliation Suite kick in, you knew the moment was important.
Halo CE remains a really great first attempt at a 3D FPS by Bungie. They had years of experience with Marathon to get this right, and it paid off big time. It would launch them into levels of success beyond their wildest imaginations, and would lay the groundwork for their trajectory as a company. A lot of the ideas they had for the first game would be later refined in future entries, and while it might not always shine in the context of modern gaming sensibilities, I still think even more than 20 years it holds up.
I hesitate to give Master Duel a rating by nature of it being both 1) a live service game and 2) a card game that constantly evolves. Any rating that I give now can just as quickly be made irrelevant by a future update that changes the in game economy or the introduction and removal of cards that can change the meta in a moment. For that reason, I'm going to keep this to the current state of the game, while ignoring format specific issues. Lord knows how many people love to complain about the current meta threat.
So I'm going to get this out of the way right now, the biggest issue with Master Duel is the existence of Maxx "C". I have no idea why Konami is seemingly so in love with this card, but it's incredibly unhealthy for the game and warps deck building. You basically have to dedicate a quarter of your deck list to account for this card. While banning it won't solve all the games issues, it would do a lot to lessen the impact of them.
The game is also not very good at onboarding new players. Yu-Gi-Oh is an incredibly complicated game to learn and master, and Master Duel does a very inadequate job at teaching people how to play the game. The tutorial will teach you very basic stuff about the game, but beyond that you're shit out of luck. Solo Mode can maybe provide a better learning experience for certain archetypes, but if none of them interest you, then that's that. The best thing you can do to learn is find a deck that interests you and look up a guide on Youtube on how best to play it. In my experience, it doesn't take that long for me to learn the fundamentals of a new deck, but this will vary wildly from person to person.
The best of one format is also not an ideal way to play a game, especially in a ladder format. I get why that's the case, as games would drag on for much longer if ladder was in a BO3 format with side decking, but it would do a lot to encourage skilful play and deck building instead of simply building a deck that can generate a 51% win rate.
So does Master Duel anything good compared to paper play. Shockingly, yes. In a strange turn of events, Konami created a game with one of the most generous economies I've experienced. You can make competitively viable decks without ever needing to spend a dime to do so. This is made easier by the fact that the game has a crafting system, where you can just craft the cards you need for any strategy and dismantle cards you'll never use. Don't want to spend hundreds if not thousands of gems in the hopes to pull a one of UR? Just craft that sucker. It also helps that a lot of the expensive cards are staples that you'll run across many decks, so the true cost to build a new deck is never as high as it might seem. Master Duel also only uses one type of currency, and that currency can be easily earned by just playing the game. In a world where the TCG can often times be prohibitively expensive, it's nice to see a way to play these decks without needing to remortgage your house.
Another feature that keeps the level of investment low is the game's various starter decks. For 1500 gems, you can run some pretty decent decks. They aren't Tier 1 meta threats, mind you, but some of the Starter Decks on offer are at the very least viable to play on the ladder, which means that you don't need to invest all that much to get a head start on your climb up the ladder. Just do your due diligence and do some research on which decks are worth getting before taking the plunge.
I can't say whether Master Duel is a good way to experience Yu-Gi-Oh as it's so heavily dependent on the type of person you are. If you're looking for a way to just do pick up and play type Yu-Gi-Oh, this is not the product for you. If you're looking to more seriously get into the game while also not wanting to break the bank on cardboard, Master Duel could provide a good alternative for that itch.
So I'm going to get this out of the way right now, the biggest issue with Master Duel is the existence of Maxx "C". I have no idea why Konami is seemingly so in love with this card, but it's incredibly unhealthy for the game and warps deck building. You basically have to dedicate a quarter of your deck list to account for this card. While banning it won't solve all the games issues, it would do a lot to lessen the impact of them.
The game is also not very good at onboarding new players. Yu-Gi-Oh is an incredibly complicated game to learn and master, and Master Duel does a very inadequate job at teaching people how to play the game. The tutorial will teach you very basic stuff about the game, but beyond that you're shit out of luck. Solo Mode can maybe provide a better learning experience for certain archetypes, but if none of them interest you, then that's that. The best thing you can do to learn is find a deck that interests you and look up a guide on Youtube on how best to play it. In my experience, it doesn't take that long for me to learn the fundamentals of a new deck, but this will vary wildly from person to person.
The best of one format is also not an ideal way to play a game, especially in a ladder format. I get why that's the case, as games would drag on for much longer if ladder was in a BO3 format with side decking, but it would do a lot to encourage skilful play and deck building instead of simply building a deck that can generate a 51% win rate.
So does Master Duel anything good compared to paper play. Shockingly, yes. In a strange turn of events, Konami created a game with one of the most generous economies I've experienced. You can make competitively viable decks without ever needing to spend a dime to do so. This is made easier by the fact that the game has a crafting system, where you can just craft the cards you need for any strategy and dismantle cards you'll never use. Don't want to spend hundreds if not thousands of gems in the hopes to pull a one of UR? Just craft that sucker. It also helps that a lot of the expensive cards are staples that you'll run across many decks, so the true cost to build a new deck is never as high as it might seem. Master Duel also only uses one type of currency, and that currency can be easily earned by just playing the game. In a world where the TCG can often times be prohibitively expensive, it's nice to see a way to play these decks without needing to remortgage your house.
Another feature that keeps the level of investment low is the game's various starter decks. For 1500 gems, you can run some pretty decent decks. They aren't Tier 1 meta threats, mind you, but some of the Starter Decks on offer are at the very least viable to play on the ladder, which means that you don't need to invest all that much to get a head start on your climb up the ladder. Just do your due diligence and do some research on which decks are worth getting before taking the plunge.
I can't say whether Master Duel is a good way to experience Yu-Gi-Oh as it's so heavily dependent on the type of person you are. If you're looking for a way to just do pick up and play type Yu-Gi-Oh, this is not the product for you. If you're looking to more seriously get into the game while also not wanting to break the bank on cardboard, Master Duel could provide a good alternative for that itch.
2007
The Mass Effect series is one of missed potential. A series that started off so strong would end up a complete mess by the end of it. It's a series I think back to often on what made it so great, and what EA and Bioware did to salt the earth and ensure no one could do anything interesting with this franchise. As of writing this, Bioware are already working on a new Mass Effect game, but the enthusiasm the series had more than a decade ago is just not the same. To understand why that is, I think it would make sense to go back to the beginning and see why this series was so beloved and where it all went wrong.
Mass Effect is set in the 22nd century. They discover an artifact on Mars called a "mass relay", which allowed faster than light travel. This allowed humanities technology hundreds of years into the future. After a hostile first encounters with the alien species known as the Turians (which led to the First Contact War), relations eventually cool down enough for humanity to be allowed in the greater galactic community. You play as Shepard, who is tasked with recovering a Prothean beacon from an excavation site. The mission goes sour fast as the Geth attack the colony where the beacon was found, led by the traitorous Saren. Shepard is then tasked with taking him down while trying to bring Saren to justice and uncovering his plans.
Right off the bat, I'd say the game's biggest strength is its setting. It's always impressive to see such a detailed world populated by a variety of different alien species, with their unique designs, cultures and attitudes. I'd wager to say that the alien species that litter the Mass Effect universe are some of the most unique and memorable aliens we've gotten since Star Trek. I think there's a reason why original sci-fi is less common in the AAA space. Unlike in say fantasy, where they have the works of Tolkien as a solid foundational ground to work from, sci-fi I feel doesn't have that one foundational work to go off of. Not to say that Mass Effect doesn't take inspiration from other works. Like I alluded to earlier, it's easily apparent that Mass Effect takes a lot of inspiration from Star Trek, going as far as to litter cameos across the trilogy from Star Trek alumni. All this is to say that Mass Effect put a ton of effort and thought into the world building of its universe.
What really helps sell the setting is the games' soundtrack. Perhaps a controversial opinion, but the orchestral tracks never really appealed to me. Perhaps this is a retrospective opinion, as the series would lean more and more into its orchestral pieces to match its more dramatic and action packed tone, but the electronic and synth heavy tracks are the ones that I found to be the most representative of the series. The Main Menu and Galaxy Map theme are the tracks that, to me, embody the Mass Effect series. They give off the feeling of discovery and curiosity to the galaxy at large, and have a more contemplative tone to them. It's a shame that this tone would slowly get chipped away as the series progressed, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
Mass Effect is a series that is defined by its characters, particularly your squad mates. If you're starting from the first game, you might be confused as to why. Not to suggest that your squad mates or even that they are poorly defined. It's just that they mostly exist as a means to flesh out the setting, and not necessarily to flesh them out as people. Characters such as Tali, Garrus, Wrex, Liara and Kaiden serve a mostly utilitarian role by giving more insight to the world of Mass Effect, rather than getting to know them. They're still well-defined with pretty clear personalities, but the things that make them beloved by fans won't crop up until later in the series. Funnily enough, the one squad mate that I think buck this trend is Ashley Williams. Often maligned as "the racist one", she's the one squad mate that feels the most well-rounded. She offers insight into humanities relationship with other aliens and into her own insight as someone who grew up in a military family, hopping from colony to colony, and how that shaped her as a person. Her story is also the most thematically relevant in the game, where you get to challenge her on her position that humanity should stick up for themselves rather than cooperating with the other races to form a more unified galaxy.
While the main cast may be lacking in ways that the sequels would improve, the one aspect it did nail were its antagonists. Saren starts off as your generically evil villain motivated by his racism towards humans, but as you confront him, you learn that he's misguided in trying to align with the Reapers, an ancient race that were believed to have wiped out the Protheans 50,000 years ago. He truly believes that by allying with the Reapers, he can save life in the galaxy, but he eventually unravels as the flaws in his plan are pointed out to him. Saren by no means is a good person, but there is a tragedy to a character that tried to do good by the galactic community be misled and manipulated. On the subject of the Reapers, Sovereign still stands as the best twist in the series. What was once thought as simply a spaceship, you eventually learn that it's actually a live Reaper. All of a sudden, we get a nice dose of Lovecraftian horror, as we're put face to face with a threat that we can't possibly comprehend. Surely this will be something that the series won't squander, right?
Despite all the praise I've given it, unfortunately the game is held back by its gameplay. Some elements get improved upon and future games, while others remain the same throughout. For starters, the combat does not feel great to play. Even with the improvements made in the Legendary Edition, it remains very awkward and floaty to play. There's a lack of feedback and punchiness to it that makes it really odd to play. It wants to play like a third-person shooter, but it's not nearly polished to feel good to play. The one saving grace is that depending on the type of character you build, you can become absurdly powerful. Adepts, Mass Effect's equivalent to mages, are insanely fun to play and the way they take control of the battlefield is something that the other classes can't hope to match.
This issue is made worse by the uninteresting level design. While the main quest avoids this issue for the most part, side quests are littered with re-used and uninteresting levels. Which is a shame because a lot of the side quests have really good stories attached to them, and do a great job at fleshing out the world. Get used to going through the same ship, bunker and lab layouts over and over.
Finally, I'd be remiss to not mention Mass Effect's most defining and influential features, the dialogue wheel and the Paragon/Renegade system. When these were first introduced, it was seen as a breath of fresh air. Gone were the text boxes and binary morality of old, and what came in to replace it was a responsive and snappy dialogue wheel and a morality system that in theory was meant to act as a way to more appropriately act and react to different situations. The reality was very different, sadly. The Paragon/Renegade system still felt like a good and evil system, with many Renegade actions coming off as comically evil for no real good reason. It also didn't help that the system was designed in such a way that you'd get punished for trying to mix and match your answers. You were heavily encouraged to stick with one alignment or another, otherwise you could be locked out of making some very consequential story choices down the road. The dialogue wheel was an attempt to make conversations flow more naturally in a console environment, when in truth it actually limited what the player could do. Sure, you'd still get the ability to investigate a topic in more detail, but it also meant that the devs were limited in the actual choices one could make given the limited real estate the wheel provided. This is unfortunately a problem that would only get worse as the games would progress.
While far from a perfect game, the first Mass Effect game provided a great starting point and blueprint for future instalments. The future looked bright for Bioware, as this was the game that launched the studio to a level of prestige it had yet to see. In three years, they would release Mass Effect 2, a game in which many elements from the first game were improved, but also a game where the cracks began to form, and set the course of the series in a direction it would never truly recover from.
Mass Effect is set in the 22nd century. They discover an artifact on Mars called a "mass relay", which allowed faster than light travel. This allowed humanities technology hundreds of years into the future. After a hostile first encounters with the alien species known as the Turians (which led to the First Contact War), relations eventually cool down enough for humanity to be allowed in the greater galactic community. You play as Shepard, who is tasked with recovering a Prothean beacon from an excavation site. The mission goes sour fast as the Geth attack the colony where the beacon was found, led by the traitorous Saren. Shepard is then tasked with taking him down while trying to bring Saren to justice and uncovering his plans.
Right off the bat, I'd say the game's biggest strength is its setting. It's always impressive to see such a detailed world populated by a variety of different alien species, with their unique designs, cultures and attitudes. I'd wager to say that the alien species that litter the Mass Effect universe are some of the most unique and memorable aliens we've gotten since Star Trek. I think there's a reason why original sci-fi is less common in the AAA space. Unlike in say fantasy, where they have the works of Tolkien as a solid foundational ground to work from, sci-fi I feel doesn't have that one foundational work to go off of. Not to say that Mass Effect doesn't take inspiration from other works. Like I alluded to earlier, it's easily apparent that Mass Effect takes a lot of inspiration from Star Trek, going as far as to litter cameos across the trilogy from Star Trek alumni. All this is to say that Mass Effect put a ton of effort and thought into the world building of its universe.
What really helps sell the setting is the games' soundtrack. Perhaps a controversial opinion, but the orchestral tracks never really appealed to me. Perhaps this is a retrospective opinion, as the series would lean more and more into its orchestral pieces to match its more dramatic and action packed tone, but the electronic and synth heavy tracks are the ones that I found to be the most representative of the series. The Main Menu and Galaxy Map theme are the tracks that, to me, embody the Mass Effect series. They give off the feeling of discovery and curiosity to the galaxy at large, and have a more contemplative tone to them. It's a shame that this tone would slowly get chipped away as the series progressed, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
Mass Effect is a series that is defined by its characters, particularly your squad mates. If you're starting from the first game, you might be confused as to why. Not to suggest that your squad mates or even that they are poorly defined. It's just that they mostly exist as a means to flesh out the setting, and not necessarily to flesh them out as people. Characters such as Tali, Garrus, Wrex, Liara and Kaiden serve a mostly utilitarian role by giving more insight to the world of Mass Effect, rather than getting to know them. They're still well-defined with pretty clear personalities, but the things that make them beloved by fans won't crop up until later in the series. Funnily enough, the one squad mate that I think buck this trend is Ashley Williams. Often maligned as "the racist one", she's the one squad mate that feels the most well-rounded. She offers insight into humanities relationship with other aliens and into her own insight as someone who grew up in a military family, hopping from colony to colony, and how that shaped her as a person. Her story is also the most thematically relevant in the game, where you get to challenge her on her position that humanity should stick up for themselves rather than cooperating with the other races to form a more unified galaxy.
While the main cast may be lacking in ways that the sequels would improve, the one aspect it did nail were its antagonists. Saren starts off as your generically evil villain motivated by his racism towards humans, but as you confront him, you learn that he's misguided in trying to align with the Reapers, an ancient race that were believed to have wiped out the Protheans 50,000 years ago. He truly believes that by allying with the Reapers, he can save life in the galaxy, but he eventually unravels as the flaws in his plan are pointed out to him. Saren by no means is a good person, but there is a tragedy to a character that tried to do good by the galactic community be misled and manipulated. On the subject of the Reapers, Sovereign still stands as the best twist in the series. What was once thought as simply a spaceship, you eventually learn that it's actually a live Reaper. All of a sudden, we get a nice dose of Lovecraftian horror, as we're put face to face with a threat that we can't possibly comprehend. Surely this will be something that the series won't squander, right?
Despite all the praise I've given it, unfortunately the game is held back by its gameplay. Some elements get improved upon and future games, while others remain the same throughout. For starters, the combat does not feel great to play. Even with the improvements made in the Legendary Edition, it remains very awkward and floaty to play. There's a lack of feedback and punchiness to it that makes it really odd to play. It wants to play like a third-person shooter, but it's not nearly polished to feel good to play. The one saving grace is that depending on the type of character you build, you can become absurdly powerful. Adepts, Mass Effect's equivalent to mages, are insanely fun to play and the way they take control of the battlefield is something that the other classes can't hope to match.
This issue is made worse by the uninteresting level design. While the main quest avoids this issue for the most part, side quests are littered with re-used and uninteresting levels. Which is a shame because a lot of the side quests have really good stories attached to them, and do a great job at fleshing out the world. Get used to going through the same ship, bunker and lab layouts over and over.
Finally, I'd be remiss to not mention Mass Effect's most defining and influential features, the dialogue wheel and the Paragon/Renegade system. When these were first introduced, it was seen as a breath of fresh air. Gone were the text boxes and binary morality of old, and what came in to replace it was a responsive and snappy dialogue wheel and a morality system that in theory was meant to act as a way to more appropriately act and react to different situations. The reality was very different, sadly. The Paragon/Renegade system still felt like a good and evil system, with many Renegade actions coming off as comically evil for no real good reason. It also didn't help that the system was designed in such a way that you'd get punished for trying to mix and match your answers. You were heavily encouraged to stick with one alignment or another, otherwise you could be locked out of making some very consequential story choices down the road. The dialogue wheel was an attempt to make conversations flow more naturally in a console environment, when in truth it actually limited what the player could do. Sure, you'd still get the ability to investigate a topic in more detail, but it also meant that the devs were limited in the actual choices one could make given the limited real estate the wheel provided. This is unfortunately a problem that would only get worse as the games would progress.
While far from a perfect game, the first Mass Effect game provided a great starting point and blueprint for future instalments. The future looked bright for Bioware, as this was the game that launched the studio to a level of prestige it had yet to see. In three years, they would release Mass Effect 2, a game in which many elements from the first game were improved, but also a game where the cracks began to form, and set the course of the series in a direction it would never truly recover from.
2024
Persona 3 Reload was always going to be a subject of debate amongst fans for one simple reason; for many people, it failed to answer the question of "Which version of Persona 3 is the definitive version to play?". Short answer: barring a re-release, Persona 3 Reload will be the version to recommend moving forward to new fans of the series. Long answer: let's break down what Reload provides over other versions of the game, as well as where it lacks.
Visually speaking, this game looks great. The character models look better than ever, and the new UI gives the game a unique flair that I felt the original didn't have. Some people might argue that the visual presentation goes too far in the Persona 5 direction, undercutting the game's more sombre atmosphere. While I do get where people are coming from with this critique, I don't think it's true. The game does take some visual cues from Persona 5, but also maintains a more minimalist approach to the UI, similar to that of the original UI. Most people are going to go for this game's visual presentation over FES' and Portable's.
The soundtrack is a little more contentious. The game remixes all the songs and adds a few new ones for good measure. All the new additions have been really great, and I keep revisiting them. The remixes are hit-and-miss. I think the new Mass Destruction has worse instrumentation, particularly with the synth, which is very prominent and sounds like a frog got stuck in the song. In combat, it's less noticeable, but when I listen to it in isolation, my ear perks up when I hear that really loud synth. On the flip side, there are some remixes that I actually prefer over the original. The highlight being Changing Seasons. The added chorus adds a boppiness (for lack of a better term) to the song that the original is lacking, to the point where I can't see myself going back to it. The rest of the tracks are basically more or less equivalent to the original, where I don't have such strong feelings that I prefer one over the other. If you know anything about the original soundtrack, this is the good thing, seeing as that soundtrack is a favourite within the fan base.
The gameplay has been revamped from the original. Long over are the days of uncontrollable party members. This was one of the biggest criticisms of the original, and it would have been insane of Atlus had they kept it in. If that was the only thing they had changed up relating to the combat then most fans would be happy, but they also added two new features to spice up combat. The first one being the Shift mechanic. Think of it as a nerfed version of Persona 5 Royal's baton pass. It's a welcome addition that adds more depth to encounters without making them too easy. The same maybe can't be said about Theurgy. These are essentially character super moves that can be triggered when you meet certain criteria. These are incredibly powerful moves and can make certain encounters trivial. They are fun to use, so there is that. It's also the mechanic that replaces the fusion spell mechanic from FES and Portable. Instead of needing the personas in question in your party to perform the spell, you just need to have acquired them at some point and have them in your compendium.
One of the other much wanted changes is to Tartarus itself. Often derided as a boring slog in the original, it's been changed and updated in ways to make traversal more interesting and less frustrating. Some fans might be disappointed that it wasn't revamped more dramatically, but I can't see how they'd do so without ruining the core conceit of Tartarus. Have someone play Reload's version of Tartarus, then FES's, and you'll find out pretty quickly which version they'd rather go through.
All of this is nice and all, but to me the biggest improvement to the Social Links. Two big improvements were made. Firstly, all Social Links are now fully voiced. This does a lot to improve the overall experience. Previously great Social Links have been made even better with the new voice acting (shout-outs to the Hanged Man social links), while other less remarkable ones have been noticeably improved. The Magician Social Link is still very weird, though, and the voice acting just highlights how bizarre that whole link is. The second big improvement is the addition of Link Episodes. Previously, you weren't able to hang out with your male party members, which limited how much character development they could get. The Link Episodes completely rectify this and give the male party members some much-needed screen time. Ken and Shinji especially benefitted from this, as I always felt they were undercooked in the original release.
While these additions make for a much smoother and cohesive experience compared to FES, it does fail to address one criticism that I've had that exists in both versions. The way social links are spread out makes it so that the game will have bouts of the player doing pretty much nothing. Unless you're following a guide, they'll be long stretches of game where you can't hang out with anyone, which makes for a really annoying experience. This would be an element that gets improved in future games, but as it stands remains a relic from the game's original design that I wish they had fixed.
People might opine that the lack of the playable in The Answer and the absence of the FeMC make it so that we still don't have a definitive version, I think focusing in on these elements misses the forest for the trees. Reload, as of writing this, is the way to go in terms of which version to recommend to new players. You might have your preference of version, but trying to convince someone to play FES or Portable when they have a polished, beautiful looking version of the game in Reload right in front of them, you're fighting a losing battle.
Visually speaking, this game looks great. The character models look better than ever, and the new UI gives the game a unique flair that I felt the original didn't have. Some people might argue that the visual presentation goes too far in the Persona 5 direction, undercutting the game's more sombre atmosphere. While I do get where people are coming from with this critique, I don't think it's true. The game does take some visual cues from Persona 5, but also maintains a more minimalist approach to the UI, similar to that of the original UI. Most people are going to go for this game's visual presentation over FES' and Portable's.
The soundtrack is a little more contentious. The game remixes all the songs and adds a few new ones for good measure. All the new additions have been really great, and I keep revisiting them. The remixes are hit-and-miss. I think the new Mass Destruction has worse instrumentation, particularly with the synth, which is very prominent and sounds like a frog got stuck in the song. In combat, it's less noticeable, but when I listen to it in isolation, my ear perks up when I hear that really loud synth. On the flip side, there are some remixes that I actually prefer over the original. The highlight being Changing Seasons. The added chorus adds a boppiness (for lack of a better term) to the song that the original is lacking, to the point where I can't see myself going back to it. The rest of the tracks are basically more or less equivalent to the original, where I don't have such strong feelings that I prefer one over the other. If you know anything about the original soundtrack, this is the good thing, seeing as that soundtrack is a favourite within the fan base.
The gameplay has been revamped from the original. Long over are the days of uncontrollable party members. This was one of the biggest criticisms of the original, and it would have been insane of Atlus had they kept it in. If that was the only thing they had changed up relating to the combat then most fans would be happy, but they also added two new features to spice up combat. The first one being the Shift mechanic. Think of it as a nerfed version of Persona 5 Royal's baton pass. It's a welcome addition that adds more depth to encounters without making them too easy. The same maybe can't be said about Theurgy. These are essentially character super moves that can be triggered when you meet certain criteria. These are incredibly powerful moves and can make certain encounters trivial. They are fun to use, so there is that. It's also the mechanic that replaces the fusion spell mechanic from FES and Portable. Instead of needing the personas in question in your party to perform the spell, you just need to have acquired them at some point and have them in your compendium.
One of the other much wanted changes is to Tartarus itself. Often derided as a boring slog in the original, it's been changed and updated in ways to make traversal more interesting and less frustrating. Some fans might be disappointed that it wasn't revamped more dramatically, but I can't see how they'd do so without ruining the core conceit of Tartarus. Have someone play Reload's version of Tartarus, then FES's, and you'll find out pretty quickly which version they'd rather go through.
All of this is nice and all, but to me the biggest improvement to the Social Links. Two big improvements were made. Firstly, all Social Links are now fully voiced. This does a lot to improve the overall experience. Previously great Social Links have been made even better with the new voice acting (shout-outs to the Hanged Man social links), while other less remarkable ones have been noticeably improved. The Magician Social Link is still very weird, though, and the voice acting just highlights how bizarre that whole link is. The second big improvement is the addition of Link Episodes. Previously, you weren't able to hang out with your male party members, which limited how much character development they could get. The Link Episodes completely rectify this and give the male party members some much-needed screen time. Ken and Shinji especially benefitted from this, as I always felt they were undercooked in the original release.
While these additions make for a much smoother and cohesive experience compared to FES, it does fail to address one criticism that I've had that exists in both versions. The way social links are spread out makes it so that the game will have bouts of the player doing pretty much nothing. Unless you're following a guide, they'll be long stretches of game where you can't hang out with anyone, which makes for a really annoying experience. This would be an element that gets improved in future games, but as it stands remains a relic from the game's original design that I wish they had fixed.
People might opine that the lack of the playable in The Answer and the absence of the FeMC make it so that we still don't have a definitive version, I think focusing in on these elements misses the forest for the trees. Reload, as of writing this, is the way to go in terms of which version to recommend to new players. You might have your preference of version, but trying to convince someone to play FES or Portable when they have a polished, beautiful looking version of the game in Reload right in front of them, you're fighting a losing battle.
YIIK is one of those games that for better and (mostly) for worse is going to leave the player speechless. It blurs the line between what is being done deliberately to annoy and frustrate the player and what is actually just a bad idea implemented terribly. It's a game that's endlessly fun to talk about, but actually playing through the game is an exercise in patience. Its inspirations are obvious and plentiful, but they don't do anything interesting with them. It takes so much of its time to say things to the player, but in the end doesn't say anything of interest.
The story starts off simple enough; Alex Eagleston comes back home after graduating from college, and very quickly gets himself embroiled in the disappearance of a woman named Semi Pak (or Park, the game appears to not pronounce this name correctly). The first thing the player is going to notice is how fucking wordy this game is. Alex keeps constantly monologuing about stuff that is only tangentially related to what's happening. It gets tiring very quickly and it never stops. I get that Alex is meant to be unlikable, but the worst part is that its verboseness is not a trait unique to him. Everyone just does not stop talking, and they just keep going on and on and on. This has the undesired effect of making the story difficult to follow, since the game throws so much uninteresting dialogue at you that you start to mentally check out. You get the impression that the devs would have rather written a book than make a game, which isn't terribly surprising seeing as they've often cited the works of Haruki Murakami as inspiration for the game. Deciphering what's actually happening in the game is the hard part, but the actual themes of the game are pretty easy to grasp. Themes of self-improvement and standing by your friends are pretty obvious, but they aren't very convincing coming from our main character, who doesn't seem to change all that much throughout the game. Also, the fact that he has any friends to begin with is hard to believe in it of itself, but I digress. The story is easily the worst part of the game and is the main reason why the game is as infamous as it is.
That isn't to say it's the only thing bad with it. The gameplay might be the worst I've played from a JRPG, and I've played quite a few of them. For reference, I played this game after the combat rebalance patch they put out, and if it actually improved anything I'd be terrified to know how the game played beforehand. The combat takes inspiration from the Paper Mario and Mario and Luigi games, where your attacks will have inputs that you can do to increase your damage. The main issue with this is that you have to do the minigames if you want to do any sort of damage, and they are way too long for what they are. It also doesn't help that battles themselves last forever. A battle with random enemies can easily take several minutes to complete, where in a better game they wouldn't even last a minute. The game would probably be several hours shorter if they made regular enemy encounters take a reasonable amount of time to beat. I get the feeling that they didn't playtest their own game, because how one person plays it and comes out saying "Ya, this is perfectly fine" is beyond me.
The only thing I'd say that succeeds in any sort of capacity is the soundtrack and art direction, and even then there are some massive caveats. The character portraits are generally well drawn, and the main cast have some pretty appealing designs, but it's held back by some characters having only a handful of expressions, making some scenes play out very awkwardly. I generally like the games' art style, and some of the dungeons can be quite nice to look at. It feels like one of the few things that had a lot of thought put into it. The soundtrack has some decent tracks to them, with Alex's theme being an especially catchy music. I was actually surprised to see his leitmotif used pretty frequently throughout the game. Unfortunately, the soundtrack also comes with a lot of bloat. The game has an ungodly amount of battle themes, and the quality of them vary wildly from pretty good to unlistenable garbage. It reminded me of Shin Megami Tensei V, in that that game also had a ton of battle themes. But unlike that game, where it spread out its battle themes and placed them in appropriate parts of the story, YIIK just throws them willy-nilly in any battle, regardless of context. This makes it that these themes just blend in with each other and lose any sense of identity they have. Even when the game succeeds, it finds a way to fail in some way.
I played YIIK because it was a game that fascinated me from the outside looking in because of how people talked about it. I'm still debating whether it was worthwhile to play it. There were moments where I was trying to figure out what the author was going for, if a certain narrative or gameplay choice had purpose behind it, or if they were simply doing a bad job. With the I.V story update coming soon, I might get a better understanding of what they were trying to go for. Or maybe it'll be a similar exercise in futility.
The story starts off simple enough; Alex Eagleston comes back home after graduating from college, and very quickly gets himself embroiled in the disappearance of a woman named Semi Pak (or Park, the game appears to not pronounce this name correctly). The first thing the player is going to notice is how fucking wordy this game is. Alex keeps constantly monologuing about stuff that is only tangentially related to what's happening. It gets tiring very quickly and it never stops. I get that Alex is meant to be unlikable, but the worst part is that its verboseness is not a trait unique to him. Everyone just does not stop talking, and they just keep going on and on and on. This has the undesired effect of making the story difficult to follow, since the game throws so much uninteresting dialogue at you that you start to mentally check out. You get the impression that the devs would have rather written a book than make a game, which isn't terribly surprising seeing as they've often cited the works of Haruki Murakami as inspiration for the game. Deciphering what's actually happening in the game is the hard part, but the actual themes of the game are pretty easy to grasp. Themes of self-improvement and standing by your friends are pretty obvious, but they aren't very convincing coming from our main character, who doesn't seem to change all that much throughout the game. Also, the fact that he has any friends to begin with is hard to believe in it of itself, but I digress. The story is easily the worst part of the game and is the main reason why the game is as infamous as it is.
That isn't to say it's the only thing bad with it. The gameplay might be the worst I've played from a JRPG, and I've played quite a few of them. For reference, I played this game after the combat rebalance patch they put out, and if it actually improved anything I'd be terrified to know how the game played beforehand. The combat takes inspiration from the Paper Mario and Mario and Luigi games, where your attacks will have inputs that you can do to increase your damage. The main issue with this is that you have to do the minigames if you want to do any sort of damage, and they are way too long for what they are. It also doesn't help that battles themselves last forever. A battle with random enemies can easily take several minutes to complete, where in a better game they wouldn't even last a minute. The game would probably be several hours shorter if they made regular enemy encounters take a reasonable amount of time to beat. I get the feeling that they didn't playtest their own game, because how one person plays it and comes out saying "Ya, this is perfectly fine" is beyond me.
The only thing I'd say that succeeds in any sort of capacity is the soundtrack and art direction, and even then there are some massive caveats. The character portraits are generally well drawn, and the main cast have some pretty appealing designs, but it's held back by some characters having only a handful of expressions, making some scenes play out very awkwardly. I generally like the games' art style, and some of the dungeons can be quite nice to look at. It feels like one of the few things that had a lot of thought put into it. The soundtrack has some decent tracks to them, with Alex's theme being an especially catchy music. I was actually surprised to see his leitmotif used pretty frequently throughout the game. Unfortunately, the soundtrack also comes with a lot of bloat. The game has an ungodly amount of battle themes, and the quality of them vary wildly from pretty good to unlistenable garbage. It reminded me of Shin Megami Tensei V, in that that game also had a ton of battle themes. But unlike that game, where it spread out its battle themes and placed them in appropriate parts of the story, YIIK just throws them willy-nilly in any battle, regardless of context. This makes it that these themes just blend in with each other and lose any sense of identity they have. Even when the game succeeds, it finds a way to fail in some way.
I played YIIK because it was a game that fascinated me from the outside looking in because of how people talked about it. I'm still debating whether it was worthwhile to play it. There were moments where I was trying to figure out what the author was going for, if a certain narrative or gameplay choice had purpose behind it, or if they were simply doing a bad job. With the I.V story update coming soon, I might get a better understanding of what they were trying to go for. Or maybe it'll be a similar exercise in futility.