DustyVita
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Gone Home
2013
Gone Home is v difficult to talk about divorced from the context it came out in and the upheaval that surrounded it shortly after. And honestly I really wouldn't like to, as now it ends up being a formative part of why this game is important to talk about still. Said underpinnings of that upheaval being marred in seriously toxic rhetoric and extremely tred-on ground prevents me from really talking about the history of the game's release though, and it's better I just skip right ahead to the point I want to make with this. And it's that ground hasn't really ever ended, as sincerely as some people would like to hope.
If the negative reviews of this game aren't already an implication of this, reading them will kinda reveal that the romantic pairing and overbearing levels of emphasis on such might've not been without reason today. While I wouldn't ever prop-up Gone Home's narrative as a fantastic success especially even compared to its peers of today in the same genre, it certainly was one that struck me enough back then and proves to me that lgbt acceptance is still a long way to go, especially for me. I didn't come out as enby until very recently, or coming out as being bisexual until a few years after this game's release, but looking back on this now that 'feeling' of what I could come out as being monstrous and haunting to those unfamiliar with it definitely bounced in my head back then.
Not to imply that's the intent of the house being somewhat terrifying when you walk in, but exploring through nooks and crannies in the dark and desolate to find out truths about who you are is a lot more relatable and passionately strung together than a lot of things I could name. Even still, if that kind of narrative slides off you, I'd argue Gone Home is a pretty effective puzzle thread game, even if the structure is a bit linear! So to continuously see its reputation tarnished most definitely for the fences it made, and the comments made to it being so snide and without much understanding for what it is, I end up defending it for the simulacra it stands for me. And idk that's definitely some individualist toxic cross to bear, but i don't care.
If the negative reviews of this game aren't already an implication of this, reading them will kinda reveal that the romantic pairing and overbearing levels of emphasis on such might've not been without reason today. While I wouldn't ever prop-up Gone Home's narrative as a fantastic success especially even compared to its peers of today in the same genre, it certainly was one that struck me enough back then and proves to me that lgbt acceptance is still a long way to go, especially for me. I didn't come out as enby until very recently, or coming out as being bisexual until a few years after this game's release, but looking back on this now that 'feeling' of what I could come out as being monstrous and haunting to those unfamiliar with it definitely bounced in my head back then.
Not to imply that's the intent of the house being somewhat terrifying when you walk in, but exploring through nooks and crannies in the dark and desolate to find out truths about who you are is a lot more relatable and passionately strung together than a lot of things I could name. Even still, if that kind of narrative slides off you, I'd argue Gone Home is a pretty effective puzzle thread game, even if the structure is a bit linear! So to continuously see its reputation tarnished most definitely for the fences it made, and the comments made to it being so snide and without much understanding for what it is, I end up defending it for the simulacra it stands for me. And idk that's definitely some individualist toxic cross to bear, but i don't care.
The Medium
2021
I played the majority of this in a day, most of that day was spent with a migraine so maybe I missed the really problematic stuff but I thought this was pretty good. It looks beautiful, it's atmospheric and the music is bloody great too.
Would I feel differently if I'd paid £40 for it? Probably, as it can get a bit tedious at time but I played it on Game Pass so I suppose I don't judge it so harshly for that.
Would I feel differently if I'd paid £40 for it? Probably, as it can get a bit tedious at time but I played it on Game Pass so I suppose I don't judge it so harshly for that.
Demon's Souls
2020
I've only ever played Bloodborne before in the Soulsborne series, and after starting this my immediate reaction was just how little the developers have evolved these games, at least from 2009-2015. Obviously that's not this games fault since it was the first of the kind. To be fair though this game does make shields useful which was nice, even though they become a bit useless near the end (at least the shield I was using, I never got a chance to use a huge one because my equipment limit wouldn't allow it).
For the first 2 or 3 hours of this game I was frustrated to no end, the lack of ability to level up before beating the first boss was infuriating when you got stuck on a section because there was no way to actually improve, and with each run your healing items would keep decreasing making it harder and harder. It didn't help that I chose what is apparently the worst starting class without realising. But once I beat the boss and the game opened up, I started enjoying it. There were times I had fun, there were times I enjoyed the challenge, and there were times I was angry. But as I kept playing the flaws started seeping through and it felt like with every new obstacle I came to resent the game more and more.
Anyway Demon's Souls is at its best when you're fighting one on one, and, funnily enough, in the boss fights. The game is at its worst almost every other time. I think it'll just be easier to give a full list of things I didn't like about the game:
-Combat is absolutely not suited for fighting multiple enemies at once. While using your chance to attack one enemy (and it's a pretty rare chance in later enemies), the other 5 enemies around you will be on your ass before your first sword swing animation has hit. Plus there's an amount of time after performing a parry or backstab where your character is finishing their animation but you can still be attacked. So... even when you get rewarded for a perfect parry the game still punishes you. It's also possible to be stunlocked after getting hit once, as then the next enemy will hit you and stun you, and while he recovers from his animation another enemy will do it and so on. I'm sure there are builds that can tackle multiple enemies, but it feels like you'd need advance knowledge of the games mechanics, weapons and spells to plan for that.
-Many of the locations aren't suitable for fighting, particular on stairs and bridges where you have no room to roll. And god help you if you're somewhere with no barriers. I remember trying to get to one specific boss room, but it was up a huge flight of stairs with no barriers, and half way up was a magician that had this AOE blast spell that would just knock you off to your death every time. It killed me more than the boss ever could.
-The game is VERY unintuitive and doesn't explain anything. In many cases this can be as little as missing out on a ton of items and content because the thing you need to do is so obscure you'd never work it out without looking it up (swapping items with the crow, wearing a specific outfit to unlock some stairs). But in some cases the game progress is even blocked behind a specific thing you need to do that is never told to you, such as a boss that will infinitely respawn if you don't kill a specific NPC first. Even the world and character tendency, something the entire game is built around and has an entire tab for in the menu, goes unexplained in-game.
-The above also applies to the level design, it's not unusual for the game to introduce new enemy types, or stage hazards in a non-safe environment, leaving you no time to work out what they can do and how to counter it.
-Just like Bloodborne (and I assume Dark Souls), other players can come into your world and just kill you. It once happened to me right after beating a boss and before I could go to the nexus, so basically I lost some world tendency without being able to do anything about it. A mechanic that lets uninvited players come and grief you just sucks ass.
-Just like Bloodborne the visuals are dull. It's just dark grey colours everywhere. They do have some pretty cool location concepts, such as mines and a prison, but it all just looks so bland in practice. Level layouts themselves were a mixed bag. Sometimes they were pretty good and offered shortcuts to reward the player for getting through them, or otherwise were a straight line to the boss but offered side-routes for exploration. Other times they were just a labyrinth where everything looked the same and if you died there was no fast way to get back to where you were (such as the tunnels or Valley of Defilement). You just generally spend waaaaaay too much time retreading the same parts over and over.
-There's this very annoying thing where I'd try to hit an enemy with the usual attack button but he'd just nudge the enemy instead. I never managed to figure out what caused this, even after looking it up, and everytime it happened it just screwed me over.
-The non-linearity of levels creates an incredibly unbalanced difficulty curve. I did 1-1, 1-2, then 2-1, 2-2 and 2-3, then went back to 1-3. After beating 1-3, the first stage of each remaining world was incredibly easy to the point where I'd often just make it to the boss and beat it in a single try. But then the second stage of each world would be a mix of enemies I could easily tank and big enemies that could kill me in 2 shots (and then the boss in x-2 would always be super easy and would do less damage than the big mooks for some reason?). When you let the player do stages in any order you really aren't able to balance the game with their progression.
-The swamp stage exists. I think that's my least favourite stage from any video game ever.
-And then there's the last thing that pissed me off. I was debating whether to give the game a 2 or a 2.5 for a while, but then I fought the 1-4 boss and I saw the message "Soul level drained". There's a boss that can literally undo your progress - multiple hours of your life - and you don't even get the levels back if you die, meaning that the boss you just lost to will now be even harder because you've just lost some levels.
-Equipment weight limit means you realistically only have 50% of what it says you have if you want to have any kind of chance. Also the world tendency thing, if you wanna do it right, means playing the game with 50% health the whole way through.
Basically I just don't like this game because it's boring to look at and its difficulty comes from ignoring game design 101; creating battles that are massively against the players odds by making the enemies attack much faster and stronger than you ever could. Throwing a thousand newb death traps everywhere so that players will often have to spend their time trekking back to their old spot, with the huge risk of losing their souls if they die on the way. Putting battles on stages that go against your defense mechanics, like making rolling impossible, making enemies that can't be blocked by a shield (and getting hit will stun you and turn your stamina to 0).
Weirdly even though Bloodborne is the technically harder game (I can at least say I never needed a co-op partner to beat any of this games bosses), this one felt way more frustrating with its unfairness.
There are definitely times when the game hits the sweet spot of being hard without just punching the player in the face and pissing on their corpse, but damn are they overshadowed.
For the first 2 or 3 hours of this game I was frustrated to no end, the lack of ability to level up before beating the first boss was infuriating when you got stuck on a section because there was no way to actually improve, and with each run your healing items would keep decreasing making it harder and harder. It didn't help that I chose what is apparently the worst starting class without realising. But once I beat the boss and the game opened up, I started enjoying it. There were times I had fun, there were times I enjoyed the challenge, and there were times I was angry. But as I kept playing the flaws started seeping through and it felt like with every new obstacle I came to resent the game more and more.
Anyway Demon's Souls is at its best when you're fighting one on one, and, funnily enough, in the boss fights. The game is at its worst almost every other time. I think it'll just be easier to give a full list of things I didn't like about the game:
-Combat is absolutely not suited for fighting multiple enemies at once. While using your chance to attack one enemy (and it's a pretty rare chance in later enemies), the other 5 enemies around you will be on your ass before your first sword swing animation has hit. Plus there's an amount of time after performing a parry or backstab where your character is finishing their animation but you can still be attacked. So... even when you get rewarded for a perfect parry the game still punishes you. It's also possible to be stunlocked after getting hit once, as then the next enemy will hit you and stun you, and while he recovers from his animation another enemy will do it and so on. I'm sure there are builds that can tackle multiple enemies, but it feels like you'd need advance knowledge of the games mechanics, weapons and spells to plan for that.
-Many of the locations aren't suitable for fighting, particular on stairs and bridges where you have no room to roll. And god help you if you're somewhere with no barriers. I remember trying to get to one specific boss room, but it was up a huge flight of stairs with no barriers, and half way up was a magician that had this AOE blast spell that would just knock you off to your death every time. It killed me more than the boss ever could.
-The game is VERY unintuitive and doesn't explain anything. In many cases this can be as little as missing out on a ton of items and content because the thing you need to do is so obscure you'd never work it out without looking it up (swapping items with the crow, wearing a specific outfit to unlock some stairs). But in some cases the game progress is even blocked behind a specific thing you need to do that is never told to you, such as a boss that will infinitely respawn if you don't kill a specific NPC first. Even the world and character tendency, something the entire game is built around and has an entire tab for in the menu, goes unexplained in-game.
-The above also applies to the level design, it's not unusual for the game to introduce new enemy types, or stage hazards in a non-safe environment, leaving you no time to work out what they can do and how to counter it.
-Just like Bloodborne (and I assume Dark Souls), other players can come into your world and just kill you. It once happened to me right after beating a boss and before I could go to the nexus, so basically I lost some world tendency without being able to do anything about it. A mechanic that lets uninvited players come and grief you just sucks ass.
-Just like Bloodborne the visuals are dull. It's just dark grey colours everywhere. They do have some pretty cool location concepts, such as mines and a prison, but it all just looks so bland in practice. Level layouts themselves were a mixed bag. Sometimes they were pretty good and offered shortcuts to reward the player for getting through them, or otherwise were a straight line to the boss but offered side-routes for exploration. Other times they were just a labyrinth where everything looked the same and if you died there was no fast way to get back to where you were (such as the tunnels or Valley of Defilement). You just generally spend waaaaaay too much time retreading the same parts over and over.
-There's this very annoying thing where I'd try to hit an enemy with the usual attack button but he'd just nudge the enemy instead. I never managed to figure out what caused this, even after looking it up, and everytime it happened it just screwed me over.
-The non-linearity of levels creates an incredibly unbalanced difficulty curve. I did 1-1, 1-2, then 2-1, 2-2 and 2-3, then went back to 1-3. After beating 1-3, the first stage of each remaining world was incredibly easy to the point where I'd often just make it to the boss and beat it in a single try. But then the second stage of each world would be a mix of enemies I could easily tank and big enemies that could kill me in 2 shots (and then the boss in x-2 would always be super easy and would do less damage than the big mooks for some reason?). When you let the player do stages in any order you really aren't able to balance the game with their progression.
-The swamp stage exists. I think that's my least favourite stage from any video game ever.
-And then there's the last thing that pissed me off. I was debating whether to give the game a 2 or a 2.5 for a while, but then I fought the 1-4 boss and I saw the message "Soul level drained". There's a boss that can literally undo your progress - multiple hours of your life - and you don't even get the levels back if you die, meaning that the boss you just lost to will now be even harder because you've just lost some levels.
-Equipment weight limit means you realistically only have 50% of what it says you have if you want to have any kind of chance. Also the world tendency thing, if you wanna do it right, means playing the game with 50% health the whole way through.
Basically I just don't like this game because it's boring to look at and its difficulty comes from ignoring game design 101; creating battles that are massively against the players odds by making the enemies attack much faster and stronger than you ever could. Throwing a thousand newb death traps everywhere so that players will often have to spend their time trekking back to their old spot, with the huge risk of losing their souls if they die on the way. Putting battles on stages that go against your defense mechanics, like making rolling impossible, making enemies that can't be blocked by a shield (and getting hit will stun you and turn your stamina to 0).
Weirdly even though Bloodborne is the technically harder game (I can at least say I never needed a co-op partner to beat any of this games bosses), this one felt way more frustrating with its unfairness.
There are definitely times when the game hits the sweet spot of being hard without just punching the player in the face and pissing on their corpse, but damn are they overshadowed.
Downwell
2015
downwell is the best mobile game that should probably never be played on a mobile device. while the pick up and play nature of the game suits the mobile format quite nicely, the necessity for massive digital buttons on-screen could easily be a hinderance to play. the last thing you'd want would be for a run to fail due to not seeing what's down below or fumbling with the controls. that's not to say the game requires high dexterity, it only has 3 inputs after all, but in my experience it's better to use any controller you can get your hands on. in some ways, downwell feels even closer to an arcade game than a mobile game. the vertical screen space reminds me of overhead shoot-em-ups and in general the pace of the game is comparable to old arcade games that held about 30 minutes of content. for how tightly designed the game is, it's a marvel that the game is only $1, even on pc. while it may not be the most content rich game in the world, it's commendable for making the most out of the platform it's built for and managing to avoid any preconceived notions around the soulless void of the mobile market.
Mafia III
2016
While I completely understand and even agree with the complaints of this games repetitive nature, I never found myself not having a good time with it. Just rolling through New Bordeaux with a youtube video on in the background made for some of the most fun evenings I've had with a game in a while. The characters were quite fun too and I truly think it earned it's ending.
(You can refer to the plethora of negative reviews across the internet to see the things I didn't like. I just wanted to say some nice things about this game for a change)
(You can refer to the plethora of negative reviews across the internet to see the things I didn't like. I just wanted to say some nice things about this game for a change)
Destrega
1998
Destrega strikes me as very ambitious, especially for its time.
To start with: some people say that fighting game story modes make no sense and are just an excuse to get people to beat each other up. This is not something that can be applied to Destrega. The story mode is quite well-done, with a tropey but effective premise that feels more like it belongs in a JRPG. While it's pretty entertaining watching the characters ham it up in early-voice-acting-era glory, I have some issues with the story mode. There are way too many 'filler' fights against generic enemies at the beginning, something like 80% of it is taken up by cutscenes with very long load times, and there are strange 'scripted' fights where you are supposed to lose.
The meat of the gameplay is also ambitious, taking place in large 3D arenas with both short and long-distance fighting (projectiles featuring a rock-paper-scissors system). Close combat isn't very deep, but the long-range fights are quite interesting - every projectile has a split-second charge time, and characters call out the name of their attack (speed, power or spread) while charging, which means experienced players can respond to audio cues and counter with moves of their own that are effective against the incoming attack. The mechanics are solid enough, though the characters end up feeling rather samey and it's often possible to beat all but the best opponents with button mashing.
Criticisms aside, I largely had fun playing the game. It did a lot of things differently from other games of its time and deserves credit for it, even if the execution wasn't always the best.
To start with: some people say that fighting game story modes make no sense and are just an excuse to get people to beat each other up. This is not something that can be applied to Destrega. The story mode is quite well-done, with a tropey but effective premise that feels more like it belongs in a JRPG. While it's pretty entertaining watching the characters ham it up in early-voice-acting-era glory, I have some issues with the story mode. There are way too many 'filler' fights against generic enemies at the beginning, something like 80% of it is taken up by cutscenes with very long load times, and there are strange 'scripted' fights where you are supposed to lose.
The meat of the gameplay is also ambitious, taking place in large 3D arenas with both short and long-distance fighting (projectiles featuring a rock-paper-scissors system). Close combat isn't very deep, but the long-range fights are quite interesting - every projectile has a split-second charge time, and characters call out the name of their attack (speed, power or spread) while charging, which means experienced players can respond to audio cues and counter with moves of their own that are effective against the incoming attack. The mechanics are solid enough, though the characters end up feeling rather samey and it's often possible to beat all but the best opponents with button mashing.
Criticisms aside, I largely had fun playing the game. It did a lot of things differently from other games of its time and deserves credit for it, even if the execution wasn't always the best.
Heaven Will Be Mine
2018
If there's anything out there, it's not going to be something we understand. We already have enough trouble at home defining ourselves, constantly pushed and pulled by gravitational forces we can't free ourselves from. A society crafted around making sure our culture is rigidly defined so that we can understand ourselves for what is human. But what is humanity, really? We keep pushing the ceiling of what that can be, and we project what is "alien" on things that are certainly human-like, because we have nothing else to draw from.
These are esoteric and difficult questions to answer, and even harder to do so when we're still stuck here shifting through our job yearning to free ourselves. Heaven Will Be Mine is queer, in every sense of the word. Queer in that it breaks me from my shell, liberating me and driving me to tears as it helps me understand my own way of expression and why I refuse to be circumvented by this "gravity." Queer in that it breaks between the line of reality to understand what seems strange, and help us transcend the grounded narratives we spin to keep us center. It's deeply personal too, with characters that each deal with their own traumas and flimsily work to try to understand each other in relationships that draw between romantic, heartfelt, and deeply serious.
For hours after I finished the route of Saturn I was in tears, and the route itself took me more time than it should've because I had to take a break to sit there in silence. I had to wrestle with phantoms of if I truly felt liberated, or if I really have grown out of the cage and pull of culture that people craft for me so that I may live. Am I really living my life here?
The discordant thoughts cross around for a while, and Pluto brings me back to center.
Saturn: "And you'd like that, right? Cutting loose with no gravity to tie you down?"
Pluto: "I think about that every day. It's so tempting.
You've got to be ginger with the universe, you know, Saturn.
Now that you're this strong, you've got to be careful. So much can go wrong."
Saturn: "I'll make sure to be very careful with the universe you love."
In another excerpt, Mercury asks "That's just it. Are we too attached? I want to be something new, and share it with everyone. Am I too heavy for this apple?"
The reading is dense, and it might not have to be. But it enraptures me and brings me close. I feel lost and I'm being given the proper guide to truly learn, even if I have to take every paragraph at a time, slowly. I'm shivering by the ending as I feel like I'm reaching a true understanding of why I'm queer, why I identify in the way I do. Why I WANT to live in the way I CHOOSE.
Saturn: "I don't owe them anything but, there's one more thing I can't stand.
Not being seen for what I am.
So, choose to come with us, or choose to stay.
But I won't be happy without them knowing what they're missing out on.
Look up in the sky, and see all the weird stuff we get to do with each other!"
And then I ascend, too.
These are esoteric and difficult questions to answer, and even harder to do so when we're still stuck here shifting through our job yearning to free ourselves. Heaven Will Be Mine is queer, in every sense of the word. Queer in that it breaks me from my shell, liberating me and driving me to tears as it helps me understand my own way of expression and why I refuse to be circumvented by this "gravity." Queer in that it breaks between the line of reality to understand what seems strange, and help us transcend the grounded narratives we spin to keep us center. It's deeply personal too, with characters that each deal with their own traumas and flimsily work to try to understand each other in relationships that draw between romantic, heartfelt, and deeply serious.
For hours after I finished the route of Saturn I was in tears, and the route itself took me more time than it should've because I had to take a break to sit there in silence. I had to wrestle with phantoms of if I truly felt liberated, or if I really have grown out of the cage and pull of culture that people craft for me so that I may live. Am I really living my life here?
The discordant thoughts cross around for a while, and Pluto brings me back to center.
Saturn: "And you'd like that, right? Cutting loose with no gravity to tie you down?"
Pluto: "I think about that every day. It's so tempting.
You've got to be ginger with the universe, you know, Saturn.
Now that you're this strong, you've got to be careful. So much can go wrong."
Saturn: "I'll make sure to be very careful with the universe you love."
In another excerpt, Mercury asks "That's just it. Are we too attached? I want to be something new, and share it with everyone. Am I too heavy for this apple?"
The reading is dense, and it might not have to be. But it enraptures me and brings me close. I feel lost and I'm being given the proper guide to truly learn, even if I have to take every paragraph at a time, slowly. I'm shivering by the ending as I feel like I'm reaching a true understanding of why I'm queer, why I identify in the way I do. Why I WANT to live in the way I CHOOSE.
Saturn: "I don't owe them anything but, there's one more thing I can't stand.
Not being seen for what I am.
So, choose to come with us, or choose to stay.
But I won't be happy without them knowing what they're missing out on.
Look up in the sky, and see all the weird stuff we get to do with each other!"
And then I ascend, too.
My Friend Pedro
2019
MY FRIEND PEDRO REVIEW
Note: I give spoiler warnings for spoilers.
I didn't know much about My Friend Pedro before picking it up; I just saw that it was leaving Gamepass soon, and was drawn in by its undeniably interesting cover. I'd been looking for a good in-between game - a relatively short timesink - which is basically what I expected from it. Well, it definitely turned out to be a timesink! I ended up playing it for days on end last week, struggling to get 100% of the achievements before it was gone. I did it, though, and I'm glad I did. Those hours really helped to refine my opinions of it, both in what it does well, and what it doesn't.
Right off the bat, I was pleasantly surprised to stumble upon something that scratched my Hotline Miami itch (and I was unsurprised to learn that they were published by the same company.) MFP unashamedly draws a lot of inspiration from that duology - particularly with its gameplay, its music, and its narrative themes. In regards to the former two, it uses that inspiration very well, which is commendable; it's very difficult to live up to HLM, at least in my eyes. However, in the story department - both in what it borrows and in what is original - it completely flops.
I know some people might disagree with me making so many comparisons. I'm of the opinion, though, that when you use something as a blueprint for your own creation, it's completely fair for your work to be held up to it. There will be multiple points throughout this review where I talk about this further.
SHORT REVIEW
Visuals: 3.5/5
Sound: 4.5/5
Story: 1/5
Gameplay: 4.5/5
Worldbuilding: 2.5/5
Achievements (Does not count toward overall score.): 2/5
Overall score: 3/5
IN-DEPTH REVIEW
Visuals:
The graphics are pretty good, especially by indie standards. The 3D sidescroller aesthetic is really cool. I particularly like the way the game plays with camera angles. Besides that, I don't think there's many particularly memorable things about the art direction. However, I DO think the choices made fit very well with the core mechanics of the game. There's tight passages connected to larger rooms that accentuate the combos and platforming. There's a mundane color scheme that makes the enemies and bullets pop against the gray/brown backgrounds. I nearly always prefer vibrant and/or contrasting settings (I especially love colorful ones), but I do understand why it's more subdued here.
There are some very neat visuals, which are typically reserved for boss fights/final levels. Given the game's relatively short length, I think that's forgivable. You're not going TOO long without seeing something interesting. I especially love [SPOILERS] the level where you've fallen out of a skyscraper and are approaching the ground rapidly, as well as the train level. [SPOILER ENDING]
Overall, 3.5/5.
Sound:
I honestly wasn't paying close attention to the soundtrack my first playthrough. It was often drowned out by noise going on around me, so I simply wrote it off as generic dubstep. While I was collecting s-ranks, though, I realized that the music was a LOT better than I'd given it credit for. It's a tradition for me to listen to the soundtrack of whatever I'm reviewing, and I can definitely see myself coming back to this one in my free time. I wish I had been able to hear it clearly while I played. I feel like I missed out on a real strength of the game because of it. I seriously recommend playing with headphones (or at least without anything else going on around you.)
I also need to compliment the way I feel the soundtrack contributes to the gameplay, too. The inspiration from Hotline Miami shines here - the music is a big atmosphere creator, and a motivating factor in egging you through the levels, just like in HLM.
The gun sound effects are satisfying. I also really like how everything (except the music) distorts when you go into slowmo.
Overall, 4.5/5.
Story:
Oh good lord, I don't even know where to start. Nearly every element at play within the story is executed atrociously bad.
I will say this - there is an interesting foundation. Like I mentioned before, there are definitely some cool moments with the bosses/final levels, but even these are moreso contributable to the visuals, sound, and level design than anything to do with the plot. The last few minutes of the game were done particularly well, too, especially the ones leading up to the final boss. I believe that something really fun could have been done here if put in the hands of competent storytellers.
Before I go any further, I also want to acknowledge that the plot was obviously never meant to be the main focus here. That's absolutely okay. You can still make something great while honing in on specific aspects of it. My problem isn't that the story is simple, or a backdrop, or anything like that. My problem is that what IS here is AWFUL. It makes it even more appalling when you realize that it tries for similar themes that HLM uses. MFP feels like it's trying for 'comedic commentary', but it falls so short of it - in both the 'comedy' and the 'commentary' - that it's sad.
The writing is cringe-worthy. MFP attempts to make up for its lack of serious depth by deploying humor, but that hardly works when your comedy is awful. It's less funny than dad shit. Here's an example:
"I can't believe it's Christmas again already. I didn't buy you any present this year. But I wrote you a poem! Rose are red... Violets are blue... Grass is green... Eggs are white... But yellow inside... ... Weird. It's still a work in progress."
What does this even mean? It's certainly not a joke. You can't qualify something as a joke when there's no punchline! This is just the tip of the iceberg, too. Be prepared to be bombarded with this kind of thing at least every few levels.
There are some minor spoilers in this paragraph, but I promise you that it's all so stupid it won't matter. One of the antagonists is the 'Dictator of the Internet'. Yep, that's her title, and there's no explanation for her character beyond it. In fact, there's almost no explanation for anything going on - in the story or the worldbuilding. Here's another direct quote:
"I guess being the dictator of The Internet is the ultimate power in this day and age. People's world view is built on what content they see online. If you can control what content is shown, you can control the minds of the people."
Wow. Thank you for such amazing social commentary, told to me directly, with no room for smart or nuanced writing.
I specifically want to draw attention to the way HLM and MFP both comment on "violence in video games." Hotline Miami is specifically designed to create discomfort in the player as they murder indiscriminately. Jacket, the protagonist, is actively condemned for his actions. Let's not forget that the most infamous line from the game is him being pointedly asked,"Do you like hurting other people?" HLM has a lot to say about the gore that it's built around, and it says those things exceptionally well. Its themes are one of its greatest strengths.
Now, in contrast, take the way MFP chooses to broach this topic. Again, I know it's not as narrative-driven as HLM is. I also know that since it's comedy-based, it won't handle this the same way. There are good ways to use humor to make observations about serious topics. It just has to be written well, and as I've already said, this game really isn't.
MFP satirizes the larger public's perception of video games in The Sewer levels. Pedro tells you that the 'gamers' you encounter in this area have basically gone insane from the violence they've been exposed to. He also says that they now live in the sewers, because... Well, MFP doesn't even know. Pedro makes a lame joke about how it's probably because of all the sewer levels in video games, so they must feel right at home. Are sewer levels even common?! I feel like they're literally making that up. Let's also not pretend that using "ZOMG" and "n00b", even ironically, is anything but cringy.
Now, I do think it's really cool to talk about the stereotypes associated with a certain type of media within said media. Parodying the way society has portrayed games in the past is certainly a fun idea for a game - making fun of the extreme that people pushed, that gamers would turn into violent murderers, and showing how stupid that extreme actually is. However, the way MFP does it falls completely flat. Again, because the jokes aren't at all funny, but also because the game has nothing smart to say about the topic beyond that. Your own player character is murdering hundreds upon hundreds of people - in fact, you are being influenced to do so by a talking banana. And yet, there's never much said THAT. It's just THERE. The two points could have easily been tied together, but it doesn't even try.
On top of all that, the pacing is all over the place. There's an entire chapter near the middle that just takes a break from the main story for no reason. This was a novel idea for the first two levels that changed things up a bit, but it got old after that. Especially when there's almost nothing going on in the first place.
I want to clarify that this isn't an experience-ruining fault. Thankfully, the dialogue is skippable, and I honestly wouldn't blame someone for not reading one sentence of it. You can completely ignore this trash heap and enjoy what MFP excels at - the music and the gameplay. Speaking of which...
Overall, 1/5.
Gameplay:
Damn, this game is fun though. The fast-paced, combo-based level design and combat are impressively polished. It's really difficult to pull off those long combos, but when you do, it feels amazing. Plus, kicking a skateboard at someone's head or ricocheting bullets off of a frying pan to kill three guys will always be sick.
There are a lot of neat mechanics based around both your character and the environment - slowing down time, swinging from ropes, kicking, riding skateboards, backflipping off enemies, and dodging bullets, for example. That's just breaching the surface. The idea behind them is to kill in creative and flashy ways, which will earn you more points. However, as cool as this idea is, a lot of the mechanics (with the exceptions of slowing time and dodging bullets) become pretty much obsolete when you go for s-ranks. It doesn't matter if you kill everyone in the most mundane way possible, as long as you keep your combo going. The points that a giant combo provide overshadow any extra points you could be getting for all of that stuff. These smaller mechanics DO become more relevant again when you're trying to get to the top of the leaderboard. Every point counts then. Let's be honest, though, with how difficult getting an s-rank is in the first place, I think most people will just be happy to get one at all.
Since the game is a sidescroller, it also chooses to employ platforming and environmental puzzles. I think that, mostly, this is executed very well. I like the platforming, and a majority of the puzzles are fine. However, it's difficult to overlook the way that some of these sections slow down the important part of the gameplay - to put it bluntly, the killing - and mess with the pacing a bit.
On top of that, MFP overstays its welcome for a little bit too long. It's fun, but anything fun can become tiresome after too much of it. They could have definitely cut a few levels toward the end and I would not have missed them. The finished product would have been much more concise if they had.
Overall, 4.5/5.
Worldbuilding:
None of the lore here makes much sense at all. There's little scope of the world beyond the enemies you encounter and a very small bit of dialogue from Pedro. Politicians are mentioned offhandedly one time, I think, as having argued over a font for a sign.
The environmental design is good most of the time. Despite there not being anything too complicated going on visually, everything does what it needs to. I do think that some of the settings become bland when put next to each other, because of how similar they can be. Like I mentioned before though, the music contributes a lot.
Overall, 2.5/5.
Extra Category - Achievements:
If you want to 100% MFP, be prepared to invest way more time than just one playthrough would take you. I'm sure it will vary based on your skill level with games like this in general, but it took me over 38 hours to get all of the s-ranks I needed.
Overall, 2/5.
Overall game score: 3/5. My Friend Pedro is a good timesinker with really fun gameplay and very cool bossfights. The story is atrocious, but that can (mostly) be skipped over in favor of focusing on ridiculous combos and flashy murders. It runs a little too long, and has some pacing issues, but its 4 hour playtime makes that forgivable. It is absolutely worth picking up, despite the faults.
Note: I give spoiler warnings for spoilers.
I didn't know much about My Friend Pedro before picking it up; I just saw that it was leaving Gamepass soon, and was drawn in by its undeniably interesting cover. I'd been looking for a good in-between game - a relatively short timesink - which is basically what I expected from it. Well, it definitely turned out to be a timesink! I ended up playing it for days on end last week, struggling to get 100% of the achievements before it was gone. I did it, though, and I'm glad I did. Those hours really helped to refine my opinions of it, both in what it does well, and what it doesn't.
Right off the bat, I was pleasantly surprised to stumble upon something that scratched my Hotline Miami itch (and I was unsurprised to learn that they were published by the same company.) MFP unashamedly draws a lot of inspiration from that duology - particularly with its gameplay, its music, and its narrative themes. In regards to the former two, it uses that inspiration very well, which is commendable; it's very difficult to live up to HLM, at least in my eyes. However, in the story department - both in what it borrows and in what is original - it completely flops.
I know some people might disagree with me making so many comparisons. I'm of the opinion, though, that when you use something as a blueprint for your own creation, it's completely fair for your work to be held up to it. There will be multiple points throughout this review where I talk about this further.
SHORT REVIEW
Visuals: 3.5/5
Sound: 4.5/5
Story: 1/5
Gameplay: 4.5/5
Worldbuilding: 2.5/5
Achievements (Does not count toward overall score.): 2/5
Overall score: 3/5
IN-DEPTH REVIEW
Visuals:
The graphics are pretty good, especially by indie standards. The 3D sidescroller aesthetic is really cool. I particularly like the way the game plays with camera angles. Besides that, I don't think there's many particularly memorable things about the art direction. However, I DO think the choices made fit very well with the core mechanics of the game. There's tight passages connected to larger rooms that accentuate the combos and platforming. There's a mundane color scheme that makes the enemies and bullets pop against the gray/brown backgrounds. I nearly always prefer vibrant and/or contrasting settings (I especially love colorful ones), but I do understand why it's more subdued here.
There are some very neat visuals, which are typically reserved for boss fights/final levels. Given the game's relatively short length, I think that's forgivable. You're not going TOO long without seeing something interesting. I especially love [SPOILERS] the level where you've fallen out of a skyscraper and are approaching the ground rapidly, as well as the train level. [SPOILER ENDING]
Overall, 3.5/5.
Sound:
I honestly wasn't paying close attention to the soundtrack my first playthrough. It was often drowned out by noise going on around me, so I simply wrote it off as generic dubstep. While I was collecting s-ranks, though, I realized that the music was a LOT better than I'd given it credit for. It's a tradition for me to listen to the soundtrack of whatever I'm reviewing, and I can definitely see myself coming back to this one in my free time. I wish I had been able to hear it clearly while I played. I feel like I missed out on a real strength of the game because of it. I seriously recommend playing with headphones (or at least without anything else going on around you.)
I also need to compliment the way I feel the soundtrack contributes to the gameplay, too. The inspiration from Hotline Miami shines here - the music is a big atmosphere creator, and a motivating factor in egging you through the levels, just like in HLM.
The gun sound effects are satisfying. I also really like how everything (except the music) distorts when you go into slowmo.
Overall, 4.5/5.
Story:
Oh good lord, I don't even know where to start. Nearly every element at play within the story is executed atrociously bad.
I will say this - there is an interesting foundation. Like I mentioned before, there are definitely some cool moments with the bosses/final levels, but even these are moreso contributable to the visuals, sound, and level design than anything to do with the plot. The last few minutes of the game were done particularly well, too, especially the ones leading up to the final boss. I believe that something really fun could have been done here if put in the hands of competent storytellers.
Before I go any further, I also want to acknowledge that the plot was obviously never meant to be the main focus here. That's absolutely okay. You can still make something great while honing in on specific aspects of it. My problem isn't that the story is simple, or a backdrop, or anything like that. My problem is that what IS here is AWFUL. It makes it even more appalling when you realize that it tries for similar themes that HLM uses. MFP feels like it's trying for 'comedic commentary', but it falls so short of it - in both the 'comedy' and the 'commentary' - that it's sad.
The writing is cringe-worthy. MFP attempts to make up for its lack of serious depth by deploying humor, but that hardly works when your comedy is awful. It's less funny than dad shit. Here's an example:
"I can't believe it's Christmas again already. I didn't buy you any present this year. But I wrote you a poem! Rose are red... Violets are blue... Grass is green... Eggs are white... But yellow inside... ... Weird. It's still a work in progress."
What does this even mean? It's certainly not a joke. You can't qualify something as a joke when there's no punchline! This is just the tip of the iceberg, too. Be prepared to be bombarded with this kind of thing at least every few levels.
There are some minor spoilers in this paragraph, but I promise you that it's all so stupid it won't matter. One of the antagonists is the 'Dictator of the Internet'. Yep, that's her title, and there's no explanation for her character beyond it. In fact, there's almost no explanation for anything going on - in the story or the worldbuilding. Here's another direct quote:
"I guess being the dictator of The Internet is the ultimate power in this day and age. People's world view is built on what content they see online. If you can control what content is shown, you can control the minds of the people."
Wow. Thank you for such amazing social commentary, told to me directly, with no room for smart or nuanced writing.
I specifically want to draw attention to the way HLM and MFP both comment on "violence in video games." Hotline Miami is specifically designed to create discomfort in the player as they murder indiscriminately. Jacket, the protagonist, is actively condemned for his actions. Let's not forget that the most infamous line from the game is him being pointedly asked,"Do you like hurting other people?" HLM has a lot to say about the gore that it's built around, and it says those things exceptionally well. Its themes are one of its greatest strengths.
Now, in contrast, take the way MFP chooses to broach this topic. Again, I know it's not as narrative-driven as HLM is. I also know that since it's comedy-based, it won't handle this the same way. There are good ways to use humor to make observations about serious topics. It just has to be written well, and as I've already said, this game really isn't.
MFP satirizes the larger public's perception of video games in The Sewer levels. Pedro tells you that the 'gamers' you encounter in this area have basically gone insane from the violence they've been exposed to. He also says that they now live in the sewers, because... Well, MFP doesn't even know. Pedro makes a lame joke about how it's probably because of all the sewer levels in video games, so they must feel right at home. Are sewer levels even common?! I feel like they're literally making that up. Let's also not pretend that using "ZOMG" and "n00b", even ironically, is anything but cringy.
Now, I do think it's really cool to talk about the stereotypes associated with a certain type of media within said media. Parodying the way society has portrayed games in the past is certainly a fun idea for a game - making fun of the extreme that people pushed, that gamers would turn into violent murderers, and showing how stupid that extreme actually is. However, the way MFP does it falls completely flat. Again, because the jokes aren't at all funny, but also because the game has nothing smart to say about the topic beyond that. Your own player character is murdering hundreds upon hundreds of people - in fact, you are being influenced to do so by a talking banana. And yet, there's never much said THAT. It's just THERE. The two points could have easily been tied together, but it doesn't even try.
On top of all that, the pacing is all over the place. There's an entire chapter near the middle that just takes a break from the main story for no reason. This was a novel idea for the first two levels that changed things up a bit, but it got old after that. Especially when there's almost nothing going on in the first place.
I want to clarify that this isn't an experience-ruining fault. Thankfully, the dialogue is skippable, and I honestly wouldn't blame someone for not reading one sentence of it. You can completely ignore this trash heap and enjoy what MFP excels at - the music and the gameplay. Speaking of which...
Overall, 1/5.
Gameplay:
Damn, this game is fun though. The fast-paced, combo-based level design and combat are impressively polished. It's really difficult to pull off those long combos, but when you do, it feels amazing. Plus, kicking a skateboard at someone's head or ricocheting bullets off of a frying pan to kill three guys will always be sick.
There are a lot of neat mechanics based around both your character and the environment - slowing down time, swinging from ropes, kicking, riding skateboards, backflipping off enemies, and dodging bullets, for example. That's just breaching the surface. The idea behind them is to kill in creative and flashy ways, which will earn you more points. However, as cool as this idea is, a lot of the mechanics (with the exceptions of slowing time and dodging bullets) become pretty much obsolete when you go for s-ranks. It doesn't matter if you kill everyone in the most mundane way possible, as long as you keep your combo going. The points that a giant combo provide overshadow any extra points you could be getting for all of that stuff. These smaller mechanics DO become more relevant again when you're trying to get to the top of the leaderboard. Every point counts then. Let's be honest, though, with how difficult getting an s-rank is in the first place, I think most people will just be happy to get one at all.
Since the game is a sidescroller, it also chooses to employ platforming and environmental puzzles. I think that, mostly, this is executed very well. I like the platforming, and a majority of the puzzles are fine. However, it's difficult to overlook the way that some of these sections slow down the important part of the gameplay - to put it bluntly, the killing - and mess with the pacing a bit.
On top of that, MFP overstays its welcome for a little bit too long. It's fun, but anything fun can become tiresome after too much of it. They could have definitely cut a few levels toward the end and I would not have missed them. The finished product would have been much more concise if they had.
Overall, 4.5/5.
Worldbuilding:
None of the lore here makes much sense at all. There's little scope of the world beyond the enemies you encounter and a very small bit of dialogue from Pedro. Politicians are mentioned offhandedly one time, I think, as having argued over a font for a sign.
The environmental design is good most of the time. Despite there not being anything too complicated going on visually, everything does what it needs to. I do think that some of the settings become bland when put next to each other, because of how similar they can be. Like I mentioned before though, the music contributes a lot.
Overall, 2.5/5.
Extra Category - Achievements:
If you want to 100% MFP, be prepared to invest way more time than just one playthrough would take you. I'm sure it will vary based on your skill level with games like this in general, but it took me over 38 hours to get all of the s-ranks I needed.
Overall, 2/5.
Overall game score: 3/5. My Friend Pedro is a good timesinker with really fun gameplay and very cool bossfights. The story is atrocious, but that can (mostly) be skipped over in favor of focusing on ridiculous combos and flashy murders. It runs a little too long, and has some pacing issues, but its 4 hour playtime makes that forgivable. It is absolutely worth picking up, despite the faults.
Bulletstorm
2011
All you do is kick people into shit all day, a revolution of the FPS genre.
The most fun to be had is definitely in the early stages, after you've accepted the awkward combat, animations, character models, writing, etc. A powerful video game hero brought low by using their detective powers to help local townsfolk in oddball mysteries: fine. Fun, even. But the game gradually discourages this by assigning levels to quests, keeping you on the rails of the main plot. And Jesus Christ, what a slog. No wonder most don't even finish it.
It's not like the pursuit of the MacGuffin-y missing person is an uncommon plot device. But this is hardly The Searchers - it's a wild goose chase. I haven't played the previous two games, so it's possible there's an emotional element I'm missing - although as far as I'm aware, Ciri and Yennifer don't even appear in those, as Geralt suffers from amnesia. Perhaps the point is that our main character has finally pieced together his life, and needs that illusive final piece to feel whole again.
But where is that in the writing? There's so much of it here, so much stuff, and almost none of it amounts to anything. Sure, you can get a different cutscene here, a romance there, but the nature of the game is that it wants to flatter you at every turn, give you a chance to try everything. That is, unless you don't play catch enough with your boring daughter - a moral choice that doesn't announce itself as such, which could be bold if there was any attempt at complex human psychology. But no: getting the "bad" ending is a "gotcha!", a conservative scolding that punishes you for supposedly thinking of yourself as the hero, even though the game encourages that line of thinking with Geralt's increasingly cop-like domination over quests with very limited outcomes.
The characters move like mannequins - they repeat themselves, they phase through each other, they whine and curse but seldom feel particularly real. They're all part of the game's arrogance, which uses constant cutscenes and a sat-nav of a minimap to make sure the player does everything they're supposed to. And even if they do, the game might crash or bug out. I'm not surprised that Cyberpunk is bad - this seems to be the accepted state of the open world by this point, something that tells the player to stand in awe of its grand design while resolutely underwhelming on a moment-by-moment basis; until the sloppiness becomes accepted, even routine.
One final thought: what is going on with all the female character designs? It's so blatantly misogynistic that I'm almost surprised there wasn't more uproar. The female soldier who gets told off for continually wearing her blouse open - what is this, the 1960s? Rancid.
It's not like the pursuit of the MacGuffin-y missing person is an uncommon plot device. But this is hardly The Searchers - it's a wild goose chase. I haven't played the previous two games, so it's possible there's an emotional element I'm missing - although as far as I'm aware, Ciri and Yennifer don't even appear in those, as Geralt suffers from amnesia. Perhaps the point is that our main character has finally pieced together his life, and needs that illusive final piece to feel whole again.
But where is that in the writing? There's so much of it here, so much stuff, and almost none of it amounts to anything. Sure, you can get a different cutscene here, a romance there, but the nature of the game is that it wants to flatter you at every turn, give you a chance to try everything. That is, unless you don't play catch enough with your boring daughter - a moral choice that doesn't announce itself as such, which could be bold if there was any attempt at complex human psychology. But no: getting the "bad" ending is a "gotcha!", a conservative scolding that punishes you for supposedly thinking of yourself as the hero, even though the game encourages that line of thinking with Geralt's increasingly cop-like domination over quests with very limited outcomes.
The characters move like mannequins - they repeat themselves, they phase through each other, they whine and curse but seldom feel particularly real. They're all part of the game's arrogance, which uses constant cutscenes and a sat-nav of a minimap to make sure the player does everything they're supposed to. And even if they do, the game might crash or bug out. I'm not surprised that Cyberpunk is bad - this seems to be the accepted state of the open world by this point, something that tells the player to stand in awe of its grand design while resolutely underwhelming on a moment-by-moment basis; until the sloppiness becomes accepted, even routine.
One final thought: what is going on with all the female character designs? It's so blatantly misogynistic that I'm almost surprised there wasn't more uproar. The female soldier who gets told off for continually wearing her blouse open - what is this, the 1960s? Rancid.
FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY'S 3 REVIEW
Note: I give spoiler warnings for spoilers.
I think there's something to be said about my own willpower - or perhaps my mental state - that I continue playing (AND reviewing) this franchise. There is absolutely no reason for me to. Yet I trek on, as this is my solemn duty, apparently.
Every time I pick up any FNaF game, I find myself thinking about all the better things I could be playing instead. I think that perfectly summarizes my feelings on the series. It's an absolute time-waster that no one should bother with.
Now, that's not to say that it doesn't have cool lore... But how much does that lore count for, when most of it is completely absent from the games themselves? Why do they insist on barely using their strongest talking point? It baffles me.
FNaF 3 is definitely my least favorite so far. Like the first two, I think that there's some decent groundwork that could have led to something good... But it doesn't. It never does with FNaF. Nothing ever goes anywhere; anything of substance is buried under lackluster worldbuilding and mediocre - or outright bad - mechanics. It's frustrating how something of such low quality became so popular in the mainstream. It's not even like there was one good game, and then terrible sequels to cash in on the success - even the first one wasn't good!
Ugh, thinking about it makes my head hurt.
SHORT REVIEW
Visuals: 1/5
Sound: 1/5
Story: 1/5
Gameplay: 1/5
Worldbuilding: 1.5/5
Achievements (Does not count toward overall score.): 1/5
Overall score: 1/5
IN-DEPTH REVIEW
Visuals:
I'll admit, grittier visuals in a FNaF setting is a neat idea. It is almost immediately ruined, though, by how badly that idea was executed. That's what this series does best, after all.
To start with, FNaF 3 looks so bad. The graphics continue to be barely passable at best, and downright ugly at worst.
That's not even the most atrocious fault here, though - that lays within the cameras. The rooms are ridiculously dark and shadowy. This, along with the staggering amount of static overlay, makes it extremely tough to actually see anything. It was so bad that I had to look up pictures to figure out where Springtrap was in some rooms. On that note, I don't think I need to explain that knowing where the animatronic is is an INTEGRAL part of the gameplay! It makes an already frustrating experience even more difficult to enjoy.
Springtrap's jumpscare is 10x weaker than the ones from the previous games, and those already weren't good. For all the tension FNaF 3 attempts to build up, when he finally jumps out at you, it's so underwhelming that it's laughable. I didn't react at all the first time I died to him. The phantom jumpscares are okay, but get stale quickly, too.
Springtrap has a nifty design, but the phantoms are completely uninteresting and uninspired.
The one other positive thing I will say is that the visual style of the minigames is better.
Overall, 1/5.
Sound:
[SPOILERS] Phone Dude is super annoying. I'm so glad he disappeared after night 2. He says 'like' even more than me, which is an accomplishment. [SPOILER END] Phone Guy continues to be the only actually entertaining and fun part of these games. Even he's nearly ruined in this one, though. His role goes from talking to the player naturally, to reading off pre-written instructions. It takes away a lot of his personality and what makes him enjoyable.
Everything else here is totally unnoteworthy.
Overall, 1/5.
Story:
I will not be swayed to give FNaF games higher scores based on lore that's not actually in the games themselves.
The story as a whole IS interesting. It'S the strong suit in this series, and yet it's barely present at all. It's totally ridiculous. That's is why I think they'd work better as movies. Someone even suggested to me that they're basically an ARG at this point, which I can see. The stupidly hidden lore is much more akin to an ARG than an actual game.
The minigame you play after each completed night is cool at first, but gets stale very quickly. There's never anything new in it.
The 'true ending' is actually pretty good, but I hate the way it's executed. The best part of the franchise's plot so far is buried behind an impossible sequence of inputs that you'd never figure out on your own. That is absolutely counter-productive.
Besides that one hidden ending, FNaF 3 is totally forgettable and unneeded. A single cool thing is not enough to make it good.
Overall, 1/5.
Gameplay:
FNaF continues to get more needlessly complicated and less fun with its gameplay. I really didn't think it could get worse after FNaF 2, but at least there, you could actually understand the patterns of the animatronics. Springtrap seems to be totally random for a majority of the nights. You can learn how to counter him, sure, but I didn't really figure out his AI until I was going for aggressive nightmare. All of my wins before that were literally just dumb luck. Nothing is properly explained, there's way too much to figure out, and it makes for an extremely messy experience.
I will say, that once I had really gotten into the groove of things right at the end, I ALMOST found the gameplay at least average. Still, I cannot give a good rating for how I felt during the last 5 minutes.
Overall, 1/5.
Worldbuilding:
I do really like the idea behind this setting. A horror attraction built around FNaF 1, 30 years later, is just meta enough to be fun. But, of course, it is ruined by doing absolutely nothing of note (aside from the true ending, which again, you'll never discover on your own.)
The night minigames are way more lackluster than 2's. 2's were more annoying to slog through once they got old, but at least there was variety within them.
On their own, the secret minigames do add a little flavor. I actually enjoy them and the way you have to glitch them out. It's cool. Too bad most players will never see them.
Overall, 1.5/5.
Extra Category - Achievements:
Absolutely not worth it. Still easier than FNaF 2 though, to my surprise. I suppose that's because there's only one animatronic to keep track of. Once you watch playthroughs on YouTube, and learn how to counter Springtrap, it's not nearly as difficult as it seems like it will be. Still, absolutely not worth it.
Overall, 1/5.
Overall game score: 1/5. This series continues to go downhill in terms of gameplay, and also takes a dive here with the visuals, too. Anything that could have been good is underdeveloped or way too secret.
I highly recommend you skip this one, and just watch a YouTube video of the true ending if you care about the lore. That's literally the only thing that slightly matters here.
Note: I give spoiler warnings for spoilers.
I think there's something to be said about my own willpower - or perhaps my mental state - that I continue playing (AND reviewing) this franchise. There is absolutely no reason for me to. Yet I trek on, as this is my solemn duty, apparently.
Every time I pick up any FNaF game, I find myself thinking about all the better things I could be playing instead. I think that perfectly summarizes my feelings on the series. It's an absolute time-waster that no one should bother with.
Now, that's not to say that it doesn't have cool lore... But how much does that lore count for, when most of it is completely absent from the games themselves? Why do they insist on barely using their strongest talking point? It baffles me.
FNaF 3 is definitely my least favorite so far. Like the first two, I think that there's some decent groundwork that could have led to something good... But it doesn't. It never does with FNaF. Nothing ever goes anywhere; anything of substance is buried under lackluster worldbuilding and mediocre - or outright bad - mechanics. It's frustrating how something of such low quality became so popular in the mainstream. It's not even like there was one good game, and then terrible sequels to cash in on the success - even the first one wasn't good!
Ugh, thinking about it makes my head hurt.
SHORT REVIEW
Visuals: 1/5
Sound: 1/5
Story: 1/5
Gameplay: 1/5
Worldbuilding: 1.5/5
Achievements (Does not count toward overall score.): 1/5
Overall score: 1/5
IN-DEPTH REVIEW
Visuals:
I'll admit, grittier visuals in a FNaF setting is a neat idea. It is almost immediately ruined, though, by how badly that idea was executed. That's what this series does best, after all.
To start with, FNaF 3 looks so bad. The graphics continue to be barely passable at best, and downright ugly at worst.
That's not even the most atrocious fault here, though - that lays within the cameras. The rooms are ridiculously dark and shadowy. This, along with the staggering amount of static overlay, makes it extremely tough to actually see anything. It was so bad that I had to look up pictures to figure out where Springtrap was in some rooms. On that note, I don't think I need to explain that knowing where the animatronic is is an INTEGRAL part of the gameplay! It makes an already frustrating experience even more difficult to enjoy.
Springtrap's jumpscare is 10x weaker than the ones from the previous games, and those already weren't good. For all the tension FNaF 3 attempts to build up, when he finally jumps out at you, it's so underwhelming that it's laughable. I didn't react at all the first time I died to him. The phantom jumpscares are okay, but get stale quickly, too.
Springtrap has a nifty design, but the phantoms are completely uninteresting and uninspired.
The one other positive thing I will say is that the visual style of the minigames is better.
Overall, 1/5.
Sound:
[SPOILERS] Phone Dude is super annoying. I'm so glad he disappeared after night 2. He says 'like' even more than me, which is an accomplishment. [SPOILER END] Phone Guy continues to be the only actually entertaining and fun part of these games. Even he's nearly ruined in this one, though. His role goes from talking to the player naturally, to reading off pre-written instructions. It takes away a lot of his personality and what makes him enjoyable.
Everything else here is totally unnoteworthy.
Overall, 1/5.
Story:
I will not be swayed to give FNaF games higher scores based on lore that's not actually in the games themselves.
The story as a whole IS interesting. It'S the strong suit in this series, and yet it's barely present at all. It's totally ridiculous. That's is why I think they'd work better as movies. Someone even suggested to me that they're basically an ARG at this point, which I can see. The stupidly hidden lore is much more akin to an ARG than an actual game.
The minigame you play after each completed night is cool at first, but gets stale very quickly. There's never anything new in it.
The 'true ending' is actually pretty good, but I hate the way it's executed. The best part of the franchise's plot so far is buried behind an impossible sequence of inputs that you'd never figure out on your own. That is absolutely counter-productive.
Besides that one hidden ending, FNaF 3 is totally forgettable and unneeded. A single cool thing is not enough to make it good.
Overall, 1/5.
Gameplay:
FNaF continues to get more needlessly complicated and less fun with its gameplay. I really didn't think it could get worse after FNaF 2, but at least there, you could actually understand the patterns of the animatronics. Springtrap seems to be totally random for a majority of the nights. You can learn how to counter him, sure, but I didn't really figure out his AI until I was going for aggressive nightmare. All of my wins before that were literally just dumb luck. Nothing is properly explained, there's way too much to figure out, and it makes for an extremely messy experience.
I will say, that once I had really gotten into the groove of things right at the end, I ALMOST found the gameplay at least average. Still, I cannot give a good rating for how I felt during the last 5 minutes.
Overall, 1/5.
Worldbuilding:
I do really like the idea behind this setting. A horror attraction built around FNaF 1, 30 years later, is just meta enough to be fun. But, of course, it is ruined by doing absolutely nothing of note (aside from the true ending, which again, you'll never discover on your own.)
The night minigames are way more lackluster than 2's. 2's were more annoying to slog through once they got old, but at least there was variety within them.
On their own, the secret minigames do add a little flavor. I actually enjoy them and the way you have to glitch them out. It's cool. Too bad most players will never see them.
Overall, 1.5/5.
Extra Category - Achievements:
Absolutely not worth it. Still easier than FNaF 2 though, to my surprise. I suppose that's because there's only one animatronic to keep track of. Once you watch playthroughs on YouTube, and learn how to counter Springtrap, it's not nearly as difficult as it seems like it will be. Still, absolutely not worth it.
Overall, 1/5.
Overall game score: 1/5. This series continues to go downhill in terms of gameplay, and also takes a dive here with the visuals, too. Anything that could have been good is underdeveloped or way too secret.
I highly recommend you skip this one, and just watch a YouTube video of the true ending if you care about the lore. That's literally the only thing that slightly matters here.