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Monster Hunter is a popular series by Capcom. As the name implies, the main bulk of the gameplay loop is to hunt monsters and use their corpses to create armor and weapons. Many of the monsters resemble real life creatures, with some major inspirations from series like Jurassic Park and The Lord of the Rings. During the hunts, you can explore the wilderness to uncover new spots, campsites, and items to harvest. With a strong focus on the environment and ecology, it provides an experience that is uncommon in many other series, especially at the time it was released.
One aspect of Monster Hunter's iconic formula is the 14 different weapons you can choose from. Each weapon caters to a specific style of play. Do you want something slow and methodical? Use the Greatsword. Would you like to mash your face on your controller? Use the Dual Blades. Do you like the idea of being completely useless? Use the Insect Glaive. All of the weapons have an extensive move list with attacks for any occasion. After a few dozen hours, you'll likely know the moveset down to the motion values and timing you need for your weapon's strong attacks.
Alongside the expressive and personal combat, there are many armor sets in the game. Each monster has its own line of armor and weapons (most of the time). You can see your Hunter's progress by just looking at them, because unlike many RPGs, Monster Hunter's progress completely changes how your character looks. You can either decide to wear a full set for fashion or a clown suit to maximize the amount of damage you produce. Some of these sets provide bonuses that certain weapons might favor, and thus, there is a specific look to the hunters and their weapons.
Monster Hunter is also very well known for its multiplayer. You can play with up to four hunters on a single quest. Load into a lobby, greet the other players, put up a quest, and happy hunting! Now, it might be a bit of a stretch to call it this, but Monster Hunter is another example of a genre that exists, but not really. Monster Hunter is a Pseudo-MMO, which I can't really quantify, but it has a lot of systems that aren't out of place in games like Lost Ark or FFXIV. Things like weapon augments, the gem system, or the actual raids in World and Iceborne—Kulve Taroth and Safi'Jiiva, to be exact. Just like a normal MMO, the endgame systems are so complex—so much so that I don't really want to talk about them. Another aspect is personalization. I personally spent a ton of time making my character all nice and pretty. I was one of the weirdos who avatar-posted in /mhg/ when Iceborne was still getting updates. That too, this game was live service, so there were a lot of mechanics meant to keep player retention high, if you enjoyed minmaxxing, of course. A few popular examples of this false MMO phenomenon are Destiny 2, Path of Exiles, and Diablo.
What does this have to do with Granblue Fantasy: Relink? Simple, Granblue Fantasy Relink is the culmination of the faults found in the aforementioned games.
Granblue Fantasy, originally a mobile game developed by Cygames known for its legendary grind-heavy nature, has an action game spin-off under the name "Granblue Fantasy: Relink." The game has been in development for a staggering 7 years, and it's had a rather tumultuous development phase considering the departure of the original developers.
I actually played this game before the release date at Anime Expo 2023. Cygames was holding a booth dedicated to showcasing this game in the entertainment hall, and I just so happened to be waiting for someone. And so I stood in line and talked to some of the employees. One employee kept giving me more Vyrn paper crowns, another employee was shilling the mobage and a VPN to accompany it, and the last one at the front of the line talked to me about FFXIV raiding. Looking back at it, that last employee gave me a strong sense of what kind of game this was (she was a savage tier Sage main, btw).
As for my actual impressions of the game, I would consider them generally positive. I pushed a button, my character moved, I pushed another button, and my character exploded in a million effects, and the boss died. The game was pretty, and that's all that I could comprehend with 20 or so people staring at the back of my head. Although the first thing I told someone after playing was, "It had a ton of cutscenes."
My senses did not fail me.
The most important aspect of an action RPG would be its controls. Does the character move responsively? Are you constantly locked into animations with no proper recourse? Does the camera function as intended? Is the gameplay system fun? I'm glad to say that it does most of these right, with some caveats. The player's characters move as you'd expect in an action game. They are fast, they are snappy, and they are able to react to most of the sudden attacks you'd face. Not to mention that the abilities are colorful and vibrant, making for a really pretty light show (to the dismay of said viewer). The animations for attacks are generally long, but you can roll out of the majority of them and retain the skill cooldown given that the action hasn't fully completed.
As for the caveats, the lock on system is horrendous. In this game, you can lock onto multiple parts of a boss, sort of like Monster Hunter. Be it their arm or their head, all of your attacks will naturally incline towards the direction of the part you are locked into. Now, I'm not sure how the developers have done it, but the lock on system never seems to lock onto the right thing. It always locks onto the body part you don't want or the trash mob all the way across the arena. I genuinely believe that somewhere in the code, it is programmed to force the player to change it for an extra lot of "interaction." Another issue with the camera is when it doesn't know what to do. Allow me to lay the stage out. You are fighting a giant golem, and the golem inexplicitly targets the Rackam (gun character) all the way in the corner of the stage. You make the correct call and use your gap closer, but the rest of your attacks move you forward, so much so that you end up between the two invisible walls. Now, your camera will lock in place and make it impossible to view the boss (or too much of the boss) and even your player character. This adds another level of irritation and forces the players to wrestle with the camera in order to actually see what's happening on the screen. In some cases, the game will do this on purpose and force the camera to look in the direction of a huge spectacle of an attack. It's no surprise that taking away control from the players is annoying, especially when the camera is locked (on purpose, mind you) in a way that makes the raid AOEs hard to see. The camera work in this game is almost as bad as in an old XBOX game, namely Ninja Gaiden Black.
The gameplay system consists of basic attacks, unique attacks, link attacks, an ultimate, and four skills. Each of the characters has specific gimmicks built into their moveset that are unique: Narmaya's Butterflies and Sheathing, Charlotta's Noble Stance, and Rackam's Heat Gauge, just to name a few. It sounds like a good amount of player ability, right?
Not quite, especially in a game that incentivizes you to choose a single character. The basic attacks tend to be the last option, and they're a distinctly boring option too. During your skills downtime, you just mash the left mouse button to do minimal damage until you can press your big buttons again, like an MMO.
The unique attacks are different for every character because of their gimmicks, but from what I've seen… It doesn't add another level of depth or versatility to the kits. In the case of my main, all it does is make her jump and choose from a few different attacks. One of these attacks is your highest DPS move, meaning that you'll spam it at every given moment.
Link attacks are a team wide mechanic that everyone needs to partake in for "Link Time." Basically, when you hit the boss and deal a certain percentage of their health, a bar fills up, and you are able to get a free hit that refills the majority of your resources. Link Time slows the boss down to a fault and gives you a free DPS phase.
The ultimate is a cutscene that everyone has to look at that forces the boss to stand completely still during its animation. You build this meter up by attacking or using skills. One of the most common ways to use this attack is to force out a third cutscene to allow your team to whale on the boss. Use two ultimate skills to proc the duo ultimate explosion, and then have the other two party members do the same thing for a total of six instances of the boss doing nothing but sitting there. You begin to see a pattern through it's gameplay.
The four skills you are allotted are adequate at a cursory glance, but after spending as much time with a single character, you'd come to the conclusion that they simply aren't enough. In the case of actual MMOs like Lost Ark, you are given a multitude of abilities to use that aren't just DPS buttons, but more buttons for your monkey brain to press. This game has a severe lack of APM, and playing the game "correctly" ages me to the point where I deserve a pension. All of your skills are down. Press a single button repeatedly. That's as far as the gameplay goes. You get bored of playing this game in less than 30 minutes; anything more feels like a full-time job. Somehow, even the different characters with all of their gimmicks feel the exact same to me after 2-3 quests on them. There's a particular moratorium that permeates this game.
I think the developers know that the combat loop is tired and boring. To circumvent this, most of these systems work together to force the boss into submission, aka push buttons on a giant block of HP. Nobody wants to engage with the boss because the bosses are terrible. Nobody wants a slow clear because grinding is stupid and tedious, yet people still play. Everyone wants an infinite DPS phase, and it's incredibly boring. All you do is do your highest DPS combo during Link Time or the Ultimate cutscenes. You can't even make the argument that you'd play and not abuse the stupid mechanics, because none of these bosses want to fight you either.
In an incredibly strange twist of design, most, if not every single boss, goes completely untargetable. The developers at Cygames curmudgeonly tuned every single encounter to go into a phase where it cannot be crowd controlled nor can it be attacked with an ultimate. To make matters even more tedious, they take 50% less damage during those phases. It's a love letter from the designers to make us watch the beautiful mechanics the bosses have. I can't fault them completely because the graphics and particle effects are half of this game's draw. But again, taking away player agency throws away all of the respect you might have for beauty. I cannot understate how insanely boring these phases are. The mechanics are neither complex nor interesting enough to warrant dedicating downtime to them. It all comes down to whether you're able to dodge an AOE or meet a DPS check. The most complicated mechanic to date is a simple color matching game. The bosses are designed to be boring, and the game's mechanics incentivize you to treat the encounters like meat bags. Do tell me, why should I even play then?
All you really do is mash your face on your cooldowns, use your team wide abilities to keep the boss stagnant and skip its mechanics, and run around like a headless chicken due to AOE spam. The characters are a waste of potential, with interesting gimmicks and no good bosses to use them on, nor an moveset that expands on the ideas past a typical Musou fighter. Record your hands playing the game, and I can almost assure you that most characters play the exact same down to the button presses. Not to mention that each subsequent boss encounter plays exactly like the last.
But I have a bright idea that will save this game. It will save the player base and even tie back to the roots of this franchise. Let's create an endgame system. Let's take some inspiration from our sister RPG and some from Monster Hunter. We already have a four-player limit and a bulletin board.
This game's endgame is absolutely horrendous. It pads gameplay to an extent insane given the flaws of it's gameplay. Playing for short bursts feels fine, but anymore feels boring. Creating a system like sigils and awakenings just feels like a slap in the face.
Proto-Bahamut is a repeat boss from the beginning of the game. For most of the encounter, he flies around and shoots fireballs at you while random ADS spawn on the ship. Eventually, you crash the ship into him, and you get a DPS phase. You watch a total of three cutscenes of the boss transforming or going into a big raid ending attack. The fight generally lasts for about 5 minutes with a relatively geared group, or 3 minutes if everyone is on top of their game.
But this fight gatekeeps important progression for your character's gearing to inflate playtime and create a sunkcost fallacy. It has a chance to drop a weapon. There are a total of 20 playable characters, meaning that it can drop one of each of these characters. There is a 10% chance it will drop a weapon in the first place, and a 5% chance it will be the weapon you want for your main. You need this weapon in order to fight the next endgame raid. It can easily take you 100+ hours to get the single drop you need in order to play the next available raid. The fight isn't even fun; none of the boss fights are fun. There is no other reason for this grind other than padding playtime. This isn't "where the real game begins." This is where you put down the game and give it 1 star on Backloggd.
Sigils function the exact same as Gems did in Monster Hunter World, but worse in this game's case because the majority of gems were relatively easy to come across. But in the case of Relink, each sigil can come with another sigil that may or may not be useful. If you want to speedrun the bosses, you need good gear. To get good gear, you need to grind. To grind faster, you need better drops. It's an ouroboros where the only way to win is to not interact with it at all, or just cheat engine the good stuff in.
Granblue Fantasy is a game that overstays its welcome. The game actively gets worse the longer you play, and partaking in the "real game" is a fruitless endeavor that just inflates both player damage and steam playtime. It's not as bad as the likes of Destiny 2 or Monster Hunter's grinding, but this game is far more tedious. This game fucking sucks, and no, do not try to argue that "bring grindy is just a granblue thing." It just sounds like you love wasting time.
1/5
https://coconatsu.moe/2024/03/i-fucking-love-wasting-time-gbfrelink/
One aspect of Monster Hunter's iconic formula is the 14 different weapons you can choose from. Each weapon caters to a specific style of play. Do you want something slow and methodical? Use the Greatsword. Would you like to mash your face on your controller? Use the Dual Blades. Do you like the idea of being completely useless? Use the Insect Glaive. All of the weapons have an extensive move list with attacks for any occasion. After a few dozen hours, you'll likely know the moveset down to the motion values and timing you need for your weapon's strong attacks.
Alongside the expressive and personal combat, there are many armor sets in the game. Each monster has its own line of armor and weapons (most of the time). You can see your Hunter's progress by just looking at them, because unlike many RPGs, Monster Hunter's progress completely changes how your character looks. You can either decide to wear a full set for fashion or a clown suit to maximize the amount of damage you produce. Some of these sets provide bonuses that certain weapons might favor, and thus, there is a specific look to the hunters and their weapons.
Monster Hunter is also very well known for its multiplayer. You can play with up to four hunters on a single quest. Load into a lobby, greet the other players, put up a quest, and happy hunting! Now, it might be a bit of a stretch to call it this, but Monster Hunter is another example of a genre that exists, but not really. Monster Hunter is a Pseudo-MMO, which I can't really quantify, but it has a lot of systems that aren't out of place in games like Lost Ark or FFXIV. Things like weapon augments, the gem system, or the actual raids in World and Iceborne—Kulve Taroth and Safi'Jiiva, to be exact. Just like a normal MMO, the endgame systems are so complex—so much so that I don't really want to talk about them. Another aspect is personalization. I personally spent a ton of time making my character all nice and pretty. I was one of the weirdos who avatar-posted in /mhg/ when Iceborne was still getting updates. That too, this game was live service, so there were a lot of mechanics meant to keep player retention high, if you enjoyed minmaxxing, of course. A few popular examples of this false MMO phenomenon are Destiny 2, Path of Exiles, and Diablo.
What does this have to do with Granblue Fantasy: Relink? Simple, Granblue Fantasy Relink is the culmination of the faults found in the aforementioned games.
Granblue Fantasy, originally a mobile game developed by Cygames known for its legendary grind-heavy nature, has an action game spin-off under the name "Granblue Fantasy: Relink." The game has been in development for a staggering 7 years, and it's had a rather tumultuous development phase considering the departure of the original developers.
I actually played this game before the release date at Anime Expo 2023. Cygames was holding a booth dedicated to showcasing this game in the entertainment hall, and I just so happened to be waiting for someone. And so I stood in line and talked to some of the employees. One employee kept giving me more Vyrn paper crowns, another employee was shilling the mobage and a VPN to accompany it, and the last one at the front of the line talked to me about FFXIV raiding. Looking back at it, that last employee gave me a strong sense of what kind of game this was (she was a savage tier Sage main, btw).
As for my actual impressions of the game, I would consider them generally positive. I pushed a button, my character moved, I pushed another button, and my character exploded in a million effects, and the boss died. The game was pretty, and that's all that I could comprehend with 20 or so people staring at the back of my head. Although the first thing I told someone after playing was, "It had a ton of cutscenes."
My senses did not fail me.
The most important aspect of an action RPG would be its controls. Does the character move responsively? Are you constantly locked into animations with no proper recourse? Does the camera function as intended? Is the gameplay system fun? I'm glad to say that it does most of these right, with some caveats. The player's characters move as you'd expect in an action game. They are fast, they are snappy, and they are able to react to most of the sudden attacks you'd face. Not to mention that the abilities are colorful and vibrant, making for a really pretty light show (to the dismay of said viewer). The animations for attacks are generally long, but you can roll out of the majority of them and retain the skill cooldown given that the action hasn't fully completed.
As for the caveats, the lock on system is horrendous. In this game, you can lock onto multiple parts of a boss, sort of like Monster Hunter. Be it their arm or their head, all of your attacks will naturally incline towards the direction of the part you are locked into. Now, I'm not sure how the developers have done it, but the lock on system never seems to lock onto the right thing. It always locks onto the body part you don't want or the trash mob all the way across the arena. I genuinely believe that somewhere in the code, it is programmed to force the player to change it for an extra lot of "interaction." Another issue with the camera is when it doesn't know what to do. Allow me to lay the stage out. You are fighting a giant golem, and the golem inexplicitly targets the Rackam (gun character) all the way in the corner of the stage. You make the correct call and use your gap closer, but the rest of your attacks move you forward, so much so that you end up between the two invisible walls. Now, your camera will lock in place and make it impossible to view the boss (or too much of the boss) and even your player character. This adds another level of irritation and forces the players to wrestle with the camera in order to actually see what's happening on the screen. In some cases, the game will do this on purpose and force the camera to look in the direction of a huge spectacle of an attack. It's no surprise that taking away control from the players is annoying, especially when the camera is locked (on purpose, mind you) in a way that makes the raid AOEs hard to see. The camera work in this game is almost as bad as in an old XBOX game, namely Ninja Gaiden Black.
The gameplay system consists of basic attacks, unique attacks, link attacks, an ultimate, and four skills. Each of the characters has specific gimmicks built into their moveset that are unique: Narmaya's Butterflies and Sheathing, Charlotta's Noble Stance, and Rackam's Heat Gauge, just to name a few. It sounds like a good amount of player ability, right?
Not quite, especially in a game that incentivizes you to choose a single character. The basic attacks tend to be the last option, and they're a distinctly boring option too. During your skills downtime, you just mash the left mouse button to do minimal damage until you can press your big buttons again, like an MMO.
The unique attacks are different for every character because of their gimmicks, but from what I've seen… It doesn't add another level of depth or versatility to the kits. In the case of my main, all it does is make her jump and choose from a few different attacks. One of these attacks is your highest DPS move, meaning that you'll spam it at every given moment.
Link attacks are a team wide mechanic that everyone needs to partake in for "Link Time." Basically, when you hit the boss and deal a certain percentage of their health, a bar fills up, and you are able to get a free hit that refills the majority of your resources. Link Time slows the boss down to a fault and gives you a free DPS phase.
The ultimate is a cutscene that everyone has to look at that forces the boss to stand completely still during its animation. You build this meter up by attacking or using skills. One of the most common ways to use this attack is to force out a third cutscene to allow your team to whale on the boss. Use two ultimate skills to proc the duo ultimate explosion, and then have the other two party members do the same thing for a total of six instances of the boss doing nothing but sitting there. You begin to see a pattern through it's gameplay.
The four skills you are allotted are adequate at a cursory glance, but after spending as much time with a single character, you'd come to the conclusion that they simply aren't enough. In the case of actual MMOs like Lost Ark, you are given a multitude of abilities to use that aren't just DPS buttons, but more buttons for your monkey brain to press. This game has a severe lack of APM, and playing the game "correctly" ages me to the point where I deserve a pension. All of your skills are down. Press a single button repeatedly. That's as far as the gameplay goes. You get bored of playing this game in less than 30 minutes; anything more feels like a full-time job. Somehow, even the different characters with all of their gimmicks feel the exact same to me after 2-3 quests on them. There's a particular moratorium that permeates this game.
I think the developers know that the combat loop is tired and boring. To circumvent this, most of these systems work together to force the boss into submission, aka push buttons on a giant block of HP. Nobody wants to engage with the boss because the bosses are terrible. Nobody wants a slow clear because grinding is stupid and tedious, yet people still play. Everyone wants an infinite DPS phase, and it's incredibly boring. All you do is do your highest DPS combo during Link Time or the Ultimate cutscenes. You can't even make the argument that you'd play and not abuse the stupid mechanics, because none of these bosses want to fight you either.
In an incredibly strange twist of design, most, if not every single boss, goes completely untargetable. The developers at Cygames curmudgeonly tuned every single encounter to go into a phase where it cannot be crowd controlled nor can it be attacked with an ultimate. To make matters even more tedious, they take 50% less damage during those phases. It's a love letter from the designers to make us watch the beautiful mechanics the bosses have. I can't fault them completely because the graphics and particle effects are half of this game's draw. But again, taking away player agency throws away all of the respect you might have for beauty. I cannot understate how insanely boring these phases are. The mechanics are neither complex nor interesting enough to warrant dedicating downtime to them. It all comes down to whether you're able to dodge an AOE or meet a DPS check. The most complicated mechanic to date is a simple color matching game. The bosses are designed to be boring, and the game's mechanics incentivize you to treat the encounters like meat bags. Do tell me, why should I even play then?
All you really do is mash your face on your cooldowns, use your team wide abilities to keep the boss stagnant and skip its mechanics, and run around like a headless chicken due to AOE spam. The characters are a waste of potential, with interesting gimmicks and no good bosses to use them on, nor an moveset that expands on the ideas past a typical Musou fighter. Record your hands playing the game, and I can almost assure you that most characters play the exact same down to the button presses. Not to mention that each subsequent boss encounter plays exactly like the last.
But I have a bright idea that will save this game. It will save the player base and even tie back to the roots of this franchise. Let's create an endgame system. Let's take some inspiration from our sister RPG and some from Monster Hunter. We already have a four-player limit and a bulletin board.
This game's endgame is absolutely horrendous. It pads gameplay to an extent insane given the flaws of it's gameplay. Playing for short bursts feels fine, but anymore feels boring. Creating a system like sigils and awakenings just feels like a slap in the face.
Proto-Bahamut is a repeat boss from the beginning of the game. For most of the encounter, he flies around and shoots fireballs at you while random ADS spawn on the ship. Eventually, you crash the ship into him, and you get a DPS phase. You watch a total of three cutscenes of the boss transforming or going into a big raid ending attack. The fight generally lasts for about 5 minutes with a relatively geared group, or 3 minutes if everyone is on top of their game.
But this fight gatekeeps important progression for your character's gearing to inflate playtime and create a sunkcost fallacy. It has a chance to drop a weapon. There are a total of 20 playable characters, meaning that it can drop one of each of these characters. There is a 10% chance it will drop a weapon in the first place, and a 5% chance it will be the weapon you want for your main. You need this weapon in order to fight the next endgame raid. It can easily take you 100+ hours to get the single drop you need in order to play the next available raid. The fight isn't even fun; none of the boss fights are fun. There is no other reason for this grind other than padding playtime. This isn't "where the real game begins." This is where you put down the game and give it 1 star on Backloggd.
Sigils function the exact same as Gems did in Monster Hunter World, but worse in this game's case because the majority of gems were relatively easy to come across. But in the case of Relink, each sigil can come with another sigil that may or may not be useful. If you want to speedrun the bosses, you need good gear. To get good gear, you need to grind. To grind faster, you need better drops. It's an ouroboros where the only way to win is to not interact with it at all, or just cheat engine the good stuff in.
Granblue Fantasy is a game that overstays its welcome. The game actively gets worse the longer you play, and partaking in the "real game" is a fruitless endeavor that just inflates both player damage and steam playtime. It's not as bad as the likes of Destiny 2 or Monster Hunter's grinding, but this game is far more tedious. This game fucking sucks, and no, do not try to argue that "bring grindy is just a granblue thing." It just sounds like you love wasting time.
1/5
https://coconatsu.moe/2024/03/i-fucking-love-wasting-time-gbfrelink/
I just finished Lies of P, and decided to go and give Dark Souls Remastered a new try, maybe the game ain’t as bad as I remember it…Spoiler alert it was and still shit.
Gameplay is slow compared to other souls games and some what a hassle to just go and fight normal enemies. I don’t care if it’s an old game or not it is a remaster version of the original so they should’ve at least made the gameplay fun in this.
Bosses most of them are lame and not even good whether it was in the design or actual fighting. I used to love Gwyn, but going back to it made me realize how garbage of a fight it was and as final boss they really didn’t put any that much work into him compared to Smough and Ornstein and other actual good bosses (which are probably 2) there are semi-gimmick bosses like Sif, Moonlight Butterfly and Chaos Bed boss. And other lame bosses that aren’t fun, and their ost isn’t good to listen to in my opinion.
Visuals in this game for a remastered version… IS GARBAGE. Who in their mind would actually say that this game’s graphics is peak??? Or even decent, it’s garbage.
Osts, trash all of them except for 2 I don’t care what anyone says.
World, it’s a connected world… and it’s trash. Progression in this game is a hassle cause it’s a fucking connected world, and you can’t possibly warp until you get to Gwyn’s dumb daughter. Trash trash I don’t care if your world is connected or not. I come to play and have fun and not to waste my time trying to figure out how can I backtrack to the areas before. Such a waste of time.
Thank you fromsoft.
Gameplay is slow compared to other souls games and some what a hassle to just go and fight normal enemies. I don’t care if it’s an old game or not it is a remaster version of the original so they should’ve at least made the gameplay fun in this.
Bosses most of them are lame and not even good whether it was in the design or actual fighting. I used to love Gwyn, but going back to it made me realize how garbage of a fight it was and as final boss they really didn’t put any that much work into him compared to Smough and Ornstein and other actual good bosses (which are probably 2) there are semi-gimmick bosses like Sif, Moonlight Butterfly and Chaos Bed boss. And other lame bosses that aren’t fun, and their ost isn’t good to listen to in my opinion.
Visuals in this game for a remastered version… IS GARBAGE. Who in their mind would actually say that this game’s graphics is peak??? Or even decent, it’s garbage.
Osts, trash all of them except for 2 I don’t care what anyone says.
World, it’s a connected world… and it’s trash. Progression in this game is a hassle cause it’s a fucking connected world, and you can’t possibly warp until you get to Gwyn’s dumb daughter. Trash trash I don’t care if your world is connected or not. I come to play and have fun and not to waste my time trying to figure out how can I backtrack to the areas before. Such a waste of time.
Thank you fromsoft.
Lies of P
2023
Lies of P, is the perfect example of a perfect game and is literally better than all of Fromsoft’s by so much, and also the game that people dislike just because it “copies” Fromsoft’s games… These people are truly blind and stupid cause of fake nostalgia. This game did what Fromsoft couldn’t do. Which is making a consistently good game until the end and never fails to do so! It took all of the good things from the Souls games and combined them together to this masterpiece.
The OSTs, Gameplay, World Design, NPCs and their stories and characters, Bosses, Side Quests, Story, Weapons and making changes to them. And other stuff that I probably forgot making this game perfect.
Gameplay, Gameplay in Lies of P is a mix of Sekiro’s guarding but harder to pull off since the parry (perfect guard) window is very small compared to Sekiro’s… there’s also rolling that can be used, but I recommend everyone to just use the guard system more than the dodging system because of how important it is, you can stagger the bosses or the enemies way faster, and you’re also able to break their weapons depending on how much perfect guard you can do while he attack you. If you weren’t able to parry the enemy, you’re going to get the effect of a normal guard which is: having your health taken, but you can get it back by hitting the enemy or wait for it to heal by itself (it’ll take too much time for it to heal). There are also Legion Arms which have different abilities, some of them can be used as a hook to pull enemies to you or pull yourself to them, other make you attach landmine to the floor and it’ll blow up when an enemy gets near it, a very good use to speedrun bosses or cheese them. There’s the shield legion arm that as the name suggest it’s a shield for beginners and it’s very useful too, there are other legion arms, that it’ll take time to mention and say what they do, but you’ll have to trust me when I say they’re all useful and the upgrades too! Gameplay is as fun as Sekiro nothing much to add for it, other than it doesn’t have that nice guard sound as Sekiro, but that’s not important. Also it’s better than Dark Souls and bloodborne.
NPCs, NPCs in this game are one of the best NPCs I’ve ever interacted with! The NPCs have their own character and stories, and it’s not some just a robot with no emotions and character. NPCs here show actual fear, happiness, sadness, regret and having the most important thing in a Souls game which is “hope”.
Sophia as an example, telling us she awakened us so we can save Krat, but truth is she wanted us to save her. She even told us how scared she is because of what Simon did to listeners like her. She fears death, but at the same time doesn’t want to feel the pain anymore. I genuinely was attached to Sophia as a character and her role too, it broke me when I saw her at that state and I didn’t know what to pick when I did my first Playthrough, but in the end I let her go in peace.
Another example is Lady Antonia, we little of her, but we know she was there for you (when you were a human), for Venigni and Polendina loved her when he awakened his “ego”. She showed how happy she was after you gave her the cure.
Gemini in this game is a 100% must have and I know that no one hates him, everyone loves him. He’s the guide for your run, gives you some lore, and he doesn’t make you feel lonely at all. He sometimes does some jokes or comments on some stuff in a funny way…Having Gemini is an essential part of the game to make the players not feel lonely or get bored at all! I love Gemini and I hope in the DLC and the sequel he’ll have more dialogues.
Red Fox and The Black Cat, these two when you first encounter them seem like some scumbags, the Red Fox being the leader/boss and the young Cat being a follower, they seem like sister and brother, and turns out when you play through the game they are actually siblings! The Black Cat is a young kid from, you can tell that when tells you that he is tired of everything, tired of kidnapping, tired of killing, tired of surviving. This just shows how much they have been running together and how they no longer want any of this. The Red Fox seems as a nice sister too, thanking you and wished for us to be friends. We don’t know what happened to them after the ending, but they probably live in another country and living a normal and decent life. It’s these little details that make you attached to these “simple” NPCs.
Riddler! Oh boy this guy is so important and having him adds a lot to the plot… Every single question he keeps on asking us and having two answers, sometimes one of the answers is blatantly wrong which indicates that you’re an actual puppet, other indicates you’re a human being. Without the help of Riddler you (Carlo aka Pinocchio) won’t realize sooner that you’re actually a human being… well until you defeat Romeo (King of Puppets) and you will awaken to Carlo.
There are other NPCs like the cat, when you try to pet it, it would hiss you, but if you have humanity on you it’ll recognize it and actually let you pet it… again details like this are nice to have.
Bosses, Bosses in this game I have mix feelings about them(in a good way), I would compare them to Dark Souls 3’s bosses. And see how I fight them and it’s difficulty… In Lies of P, The difficulty sometimes spikes from easy to hard and then go easy, that’s actually not a bad thing to be honest… When a new player get in here he’d probably think the game is too easy, and then he’ll get shocked of the hard bosses + helps people to try and actually learn the perfect guard (parry) system. The bosses have their own story too…Romeo (King of the Puppets) is Carlo’s best friend and when he says “I’m Romeo, Carlo’s best friend” hits very hard and without him you might’ve not been able to awaken yourself…
Scrapped Watchman in NG+ with Venigni’s tool you can understand what he was saying… Turns out he was and still tries to protect his friends and the children that the people (adults) took away from him. Same thing a small detail like that is nice to have too.
The Black Rabbit Brotherhood, is an easy boss that I’ve seen people struggle with, and I don’t understand why…They’re fairly easy, you just need to focus only on one person and that’s it easy win… why are people complaining about them so much???? Even thought they’re bunch of scums, they still care about each other.
Nameless Puppet as a final boss works very good just like the Soul of Cinder, and the cutscenes were very good and hit hard, the fight is surprisingly easily and fun too!
There are other NPC bosses that have gone insane, because of either the disease or surviving was too much for them… shows how cruel life is there.
Story in this game unlike all of Fromsoft's games, you can actually understand it without any trouble. The way it tells the story from characters or even from some of the books or letters you find is very nice and isn't tiring to read like Fromsoft's games... When I said this game is perfect I meant it was perfect in every way! Including the story.
World design in this game is incredible some would say they copied it from Bloodbrone, but I say the opposite… this game’s world design compared to Bloodborne is laughable in my opinion. This game beats Bloodborne in everything! The world design is very good, that’s all.
OSTs in this game are incredible, you have a collection of disc music that can be played, and they’re all so good. I LOVE ALL OF THEM… KRAT’S HOTEL THEM, THE FINAL CHAPTER OSTS, ATTACKED KRAT HOTEL OST, SOPHIA’S OST, AND ALL OF THE BOSSES! MY GOD THEY’RE SO GOOD AND THE COLLECTION OH MY GOD SO GOOD TOO.
To sum up, Lies of P is better than all of Fromsoft’s games and the fans are blinded by their stupid “loyalty” so that’s why they dislike the game, other than that any other sane person who actually uses his brain can tell it’s better.
The OSTs, Gameplay, World Design, NPCs and their stories and characters, Bosses, Side Quests, Story, Weapons and making changes to them. And other stuff that I probably forgot making this game perfect.
Gameplay, Gameplay in Lies of P is a mix of Sekiro’s guarding but harder to pull off since the parry (perfect guard) window is very small compared to Sekiro’s… there’s also rolling that can be used, but I recommend everyone to just use the guard system more than the dodging system because of how important it is, you can stagger the bosses or the enemies way faster, and you’re also able to break their weapons depending on how much perfect guard you can do while he attack you. If you weren’t able to parry the enemy, you’re going to get the effect of a normal guard which is: having your health taken, but you can get it back by hitting the enemy or wait for it to heal by itself (it’ll take too much time for it to heal). There are also Legion Arms which have different abilities, some of them can be used as a hook to pull enemies to you or pull yourself to them, other make you attach landmine to the floor and it’ll blow up when an enemy gets near it, a very good use to speedrun bosses or cheese them. There’s the shield legion arm that as the name suggest it’s a shield for beginners and it’s very useful too, there are other legion arms, that it’ll take time to mention and say what they do, but you’ll have to trust me when I say they’re all useful and the upgrades too! Gameplay is as fun as Sekiro nothing much to add for it, other than it doesn’t have that nice guard sound as Sekiro, but that’s not important. Also it’s better than Dark Souls and bloodborne.
NPCs, NPCs in this game are one of the best NPCs I’ve ever interacted with! The NPCs have their own character and stories, and it’s not some just a robot with no emotions and character. NPCs here show actual fear, happiness, sadness, regret and having the most important thing in a Souls game which is “hope”.
Sophia as an example, telling us she awakened us so we can save Krat, but truth is she wanted us to save her. She even told us how scared she is because of what Simon did to listeners like her. She fears death, but at the same time doesn’t want to feel the pain anymore. I genuinely was attached to Sophia as a character and her role too, it broke me when I saw her at that state and I didn’t know what to pick when I did my first Playthrough, but in the end I let her go in peace.
Another example is Lady Antonia, we little of her, but we know she was there for you (when you were a human), for Venigni and Polendina loved her when he awakened his “ego”. She showed how happy she was after you gave her the cure.
Gemini in this game is a 100% must have and I know that no one hates him, everyone loves him. He’s the guide for your run, gives you some lore, and he doesn’t make you feel lonely at all. He sometimes does some jokes or comments on some stuff in a funny way…Having Gemini is an essential part of the game to make the players not feel lonely or get bored at all! I love Gemini and I hope in the DLC and the sequel he’ll have more dialogues.
Red Fox and The Black Cat, these two when you first encounter them seem like some scumbags, the Red Fox being the leader/boss and the young Cat being a follower, they seem like sister and brother, and turns out when you play through the game they are actually siblings! The Black Cat is a young kid from, you can tell that when tells you that he is tired of everything, tired of kidnapping, tired of killing, tired of surviving. This just shows how much they have been running together and how they no longer want any of this. The Red Fox seems as a nice sister too, thanking you and wished for us to be friends. We don’t know what happened to them after the ending, but they probably live in another country and living a normal and decent life. It’s these little details that make you attached to these “simple” NPCs.
Riddler! Oh boy this guy is so important and having him adds a lot to the plot… Every single question he keeps on asking us and having two answers, sometimes one of the answers is blatantly wrong which indicates that you’re an actual puppet, other indicates you’re a human being. Without the help of Riddler you (Carlo aka Pinocchio) won’t realize sooner that you’re actually a human being… well until you defeat Romeo (King of Puppets) and you will awaken to Carlo.
There are other NPCs like the cat, when you try to pet it, it would hiss you, but if you have humanity on you it’ll recognize it and actually let you pet it… again details like this are nice to have.
Bosses, Bosses in this game I have mix feelings about them(in a good way), I would compare them to Dark Souls 3’s bosses. And see how I fight them and it’s difficulty… In Lies of P, The difficulty sometimes spikes from easy to hard and then go easy, that’s actually not a bad thing to be honest… When a new player get in here he’d probably think the game is too easy, and then he’ll get shocked of the hard bosses + helps people to try and actually learn the perfect guard (parry) system. The bosses have their own story too…Romeo (King of the Puppets) is Carlo’s best friend and when he says “I’m Romeo, Carlo’s best friend” hits very hard and without him you might’ve not been able to awaken yourself…
Scrapped Watchman in NG+ with Venigni’s tool you can understand what he was saying… Turns out he was and still tries to protect his friends and the children that the people (adults) took away from him. Same thing a small detail like that is nice to have too.
The Black Rabbit Brotherhood, is an easy boss that I’ve seen people struggle with, and I don’t understand why…They’re fairly easy, you just need to focus only on one person and that’s it easy win… why are people complaining about them so much???? Even thought they’re bunch of scums, they still care about each other.
Nameless Puppet as a final boss works very good just like the Soul of Cinder, and the cutscenes were very good and hit hard, the fight is surprisingly easily and fun too!
There are other NPC bosses that have gone insane, because of either the disease or surviving was too much for them… shows how cruel life is there.
Story in this game unlike all of Fromsoft's games, you can actually understand it without any trouble. The way it tells the story from characters or even from some of the books or letters you find is very nice and isn't tiring to read like Fromsoft's games... When I said this game is perfect I meant it was perfect in every way! Including the story.
World design in this game is incredible some would say they copied it from Bloodbrone, but I say the opposite… this game’s world design compared to Bloodborne is laughable in my opinion. This game beats Bloodborne in everything! The world design is very good, that’s all.
OSTs in this game are incredible, you have a collection of disc music that can be played, and they’re all so good. I LOVE ALL OF THEM… KRAT’S HOTEL THEM, THE FINAL CHAPTER OSTS, ATTACKED KRAT HOTEL OST, SOPHIA’S OST, AND ALL OF THE BOSSES! MY GOD THEY’RE SO GOOD AND THE COLLECTION OH MY GOD SO GOOD TOO.
To sum up, Lies of P is better than all of Fromsoft’s games and the fans are blinded by their stupid “loyalty” so that’s why they dislike the game, other than that any other sane person who actually uses his brain can tell it’s better.
Elden Ring
2022
Had high hopes for Elden Ring when I first played it, but turned out to be such a let down. whether it was from the boring gameplay, OST, bosses, dungeons and exploration.
Might as well just turn off the OST, cause most of the time you'll get bored of it and it gets repetitive, for example when you explore areas it's really not good. Same thing with bosses why bother listening to their crap, I personally didn't like any of the OSTs of this game and much liked other Fromsoft's OST.
The dungeons are so repetitive and most of them lack good loot/runes + all of the bosses are either not fun to fight or not worth the hassle to go in. Shows how much work was put onto these dungeons which is little and stupid.
Bosses in this game either have a good attack patterns that you'll have to try and dodge the right moment otherwise he'll just combo you out of the fight...or they can be utterly garbage and very boring to fight, that sometimes using a 100% guard shield and counterattack them with a heavy sword. There is no between either it's decent or trash. the OSTs are pretty mid same thing said before and better just to play DS3's OST. I'd like to also mention there are duo bosses in it, and they're very bad! something that was implemented good in DS3 has been utterly crushed in here, Godskin duo and Crucified Knight duo are trash by all means.
I wished if they implemented Sekiro's fight style to this game, the gameplay would be very good to fight of bosses + it'll be fun, but no. Sadly they just used the same Souls gameplay mechanic and added a jump button with two attacks. I was devastated when I knew the gameplay mechanic wasn't the same as Sekiro's, I still wish it was.
World and it's exploration... Some places and areas are very well made and nice to look at, the rest are meh. Exploration is below decent, other games made exploration better and fun, and didn't have the same OST play every single time. + Some areas are not even worth exploring at all and just skip them to reach the boss, or to reach the upgrade stones or weapons. Still could've been better in my opinion.
Game could've been better but meh what do you expect, people are going to by hyped about it. + the DLC is 45$ nice one Fromsoft.
1.0/5
Might as well just turn off the OST, cause most of the time you'll get bored of it and it gets repetitive, for example when you explore areas it's really not good. Same thing with bosses why bother listening to their crap, I personally didn't like any of the OSTs of this game and much liked other Fromsoft's OST.
The dungeons are so repetitive and most of them lack good loot/runes + all of the bosses are either not fun to fight or not worth the hassle to go in. Shows how much work was put onto these dungeons which is little and stupid.
Bosses in this game either have a good attack patterns that you'll have to try and dodge the right moment otherwise he'll just combo you out of the fight...or they can be utterly garbage and very boring to fight, that sometimes using a 100% guard shield and counterattack them with a heavy sword. There is no between either it's decent or trash. the OSTs are pretty mid same thing said before and better just to play DS3's OST. I'd like to also mention there are duo bosses in it, and they're very bad! something that was implemented good in DS3 has been utterly crushed in here, Godskin duo and Crucified Knight duo are trash by all means.
I wished if they implemented Sekiro's fight style to this game, the gameplay would be very good to fight of bosses + it'll be fun, but no. Sadly they just used the same Souls gameplay mechanic and added a jump button with two attacks. I was devastated when I knew the gameplay mechanic wasn't the same as Sekiro's, I still wish it was.
World and it's exploration... Some places and areas are very well made and nice to look at, the rest are meh. Exploration is below decent, other games made exploration better and fun, and didn't have the same OST play every single time. + Some areas are not even worth exploring at all and just skip them to reach the boss, or to reach the upgrade stones or weapons. Still could've been better in my opinion.
Game could've been better but meh what do you expect, people are going to by hyped about it. + the DLC is 45$ nice one Fromsoft.
1.0/5
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown (Immortal Difficulty)
Off the bat this is easily one of the best if not the best metroidvania currently out on the market. I don’t know how Ubisoft of all companies, the company that has an assembly line that pushes out the most smelly dirt chewing Assassin’s Creed titles, managed to make this game or even decided to have a dedicated division work on it with a budget.
As usual I’ll split the game into pros and cons,
(+) Bosses
There are mainline bosses then there are fodder (mini) bosses, and honestly the mini-bosses are just fine. Of all of them Alternate Sargon was the only one I genuinely liked because it really got me to learn how to play more aggressively and utilize launchers (which greatly help in the Menolias fight), others like the Prisoner that swings a pillar and the giant possum (Elrik?) are there to teach how to get behind enemies to maximize your damage.
The funniest one is the crab which is also a boss for a side-quest… why does this boss exist again?
(+) Mainline Bosses
(-) Jahandar is extremely mediocre
(+) Kiana just blew my mind, the fight feels like a dance where you’re constantly making decisions by parrying, dodging, jumping and the like. Kiana is one of the best early game fights I have EVER played
(+) Azdaha follows up with a very similar style to Kiana’s gameplay albeit this fight felt way easier and the switch-ups are very fun to learn, the music of this fight is fucking phenomenal as well
(+) Menolias is the first skill-check in the game where you really need to be fast on your feet, the fight requires you to clear the field and keep Menolias on his toes since he really doesn’t like to stick in one spot but he’s susceptible to launchers which puts the fight greatly in your favor
(+) Orod was the hardest fight in the game for me, the switch-ups threw me SO off, and he hits VERY, VERY hard, with large AoEs.
(+) Vahram was the one I thought I’d have the most trouble with but since he’s also susceptible to some aggressive gameplay it was smooth sailing for me, easily the best fight in the game bar none, not only because it has responsive gameplay elements that are fun to learn but also because the fight IN context is just.. fucking cool
(+) King Darius is the best use of grappling for a boss and even though I got a little frustrated and annoyed at first, given that I played this on the Yuzu Emulator with a keyboard and mouse, his tells are so easily distinguishable from phase to phase that it makes the fight just as enjoyable as Kiana and Azdaha
(---------------) Final Boss, I HATE. THIS. FIGHT. THIS FIGHT DRAGS BEYOND BELIEF. IF I COULD REMOVE ONE THING FROM THIS GAME IT’S THIS FIGHT. HOLY SHIT THIS FIGHT IS ANNOYING TO LEARN. This fight has 4 phases (where the 4th phase is le MC powertrip), so essentially you have to survive 3 phases, if you die you do all the phases over again and its fucking grating. There are switch-ups in this fight I straight up did not care about as it added to my irritation and for each phase you have to hit this random ball to transition to the next phase like are you serious? This is a fucking waste of time. GARBAGE.
(+) Utility
PoP has this utility for exploration where it can explicitly mark the next objective on the map and this is just SUCH a relief I cannot even imagine playing the game without this, additionally you can add pins on the map and even screenshots for certain points-of-interest.
(+/-) The World Design
The way the abilities are used to flesh out a lot of the platforming segments is fantastic, some are better than others (mostly ones that involved the time mechanic), the areas where I truly hated the trial and error platforming is the desert and the snow area which are just ATROCIOUS.
Metroidvanias, by design, are meant to be annoying, the genre insists on walkbacks and opening shortcuts, which can honestly become insanely formulaic and often tedious. The early game is absolutely brutal in this regard since you’re working with a limited health pool and on Immortal if you’re facing two enemies on screen it can turn into a life and death scenario real quick. One important thing I want to mention is how beautifully interconnected the levels are.
What I can honestly say about exploration in PoP, however, is that… it isn’t that rewarding, I feel like I grew more and more exhausted as the game progressed because of the chorelike nature of the traversal, even with an entourage of enemies with carefully telegraphed movesets at best I just hated fighting them most of the time. It isn’t FUN to do additional platforming challenges in PoP, if what awaits me are Xerxes or gems. The collectibles aren’t interesting enough to warrant extra exploration unless you’re a completionist.
To compare it with HK’s world design, on the design and the interconnectivity of the layout PoP smokes HK, but HK does more with less complexity, and it also utilizes the world to tell the story of the game. HK’s areas are MEMORABLE, even if you’re in the pits of the abyss, each area has a distinct soundtrack, so walking into something like the City of Tears has a lasting impression. A complaint of HK has always been the grid like nature of the map making every single map feel the same, and while I agree with the reskinned map critique, traversal in HK just doesn’t feel as Trial and Error as PoP on Immortal sometimes.
With a challenging difficulty mode, comes challenging traversal, and I for one think that it tanked my enjoyment outside of the bosses.
(+) Gameplay
All the individual mechanics are fantastic… besides clairvoyance which was strangely never used in a boss fight, the teleportation mechanic is the most unique one and each time the game encouraged me to use it I was just thrilled. The game is also very intuitive so often times if a puzzles involves a certain mechanic its very easy to tell which one. Grappling is another one which I really enjoyed in late game despite hating the area where it is used the most (the ice area).
Athra Surges are just….damage bursts, not much to say about these but they do have different customizability options for levels of surge batteries.
Amulets are honestly great despite many of them being complete garbage (as is with other games). The amulet that I never took off was actually the one that healed me for every parry I did successfully, despite not healing a lot it made it easier to not use the heal for the any of the boss fights since that just instantly recovers 3 bars and you feel like you’re over-rejuvenated.
(+) Story
I like the story! I think its super basic but it works really well and it positions the protagonist in the story quite well, I feel like PoP wasn’t interested in pushing the narrative in any complicated direction which is for the better, and by fighting and besting most of the bosses I actually felt a sense of victory and accomplishment as I laid them to rest, more than any direct story-telling could accomplish.
(+/-) OST
I liked some OSTs
(+) Conclusion
Fantastic bosses except mini-bosses, Jahandar and the final CANCER boss, well worth it to play the game. I’m hot and cold on the exploration but the work they’ve put into carefully connecting multiple branching paths is no joke and I can only respect it. This is a game made with a lot of love for the genre, even though I find it funny the devs said they took inspiration from games like DMC5 which is one of the worst games ever made.
Amazing game. Also I think Vahram is hot.
Off the bat this is easily one of the best if not the best metroidvania currently out on the market. I don’t know how Ubisoft of all companies, the company that has an assembly line that pushes out the most smelly dirt chewing Assassin’s Creed titles, managed to make this game or even decided to have a dedicated division work on it with a budget.
As usual I’ll split the game into pros and cons,
(+) Bosses
There are mainline bosses then there are fodder (mini) bosses, and honestly the mini-bosses are just fine. Of all of them Alternate Sargon was the only one I genuinely liked because it really got me to learn how to play more aggressively and utilize launchers (which greatly help in the Menolias fight), others like the Prisoner that swings a pillar and the giant possum (Elrik?) are there to teach how to get behind enemies to maximize your damage.
The funniest one is the crab which is also a boss for a side-quest… why does this boss exist again?
(+) Mainline Bosses
(-) Jahandar is extremely mediocre
(+) Kiana just blew my mind, the fight feels like a dance where you’re constantly making decisions by parrying, dodging, jumping and the like. Kiana is one of the best early game fights I have EVER played
(+) Azdaha follows up with a very similar style to Kiana’s gameplay albeit this fight felt way easier and the switch-ups are very fun to learn, the music of this fight is fucking phenomenal as well
(+) Menolias is the first skill-check in the game where you really need to be fast on your feet, the fight requires you to clear the field and keep Menolias on his toes since he really doesn’t like to stick in one spot but he’s susceptible to launchers which puts the fight greatly in your favor
(+) Orod was the hardest fight in the game for me, the switch-ups threw me SO off, and he hits VERY, VERY hard, with large AoEs.
(+) Vahram was the one I thought I’d have the most trouble with but since he’s also susceptible to some aggressive gameplay it was smooth sailing for me, easily the best fight in the game bar none, not only because it has responsive gameplay elements that are fun to learn but also because the fight IN context is just.. fucking cool
(+) King Darius is the best use of grappling for a boss and even though I got a little frustrated and annoyed at first, given that I played this on the Yuzu Emulator with a keyboard and mouse, his tells are so easily distinguishable from phase to phase that it makes the fight just as enjoyable as Kiana and Azdaha
(---------------) Final Boss, I HATE. THIS. FIGHT. THIS FIGHT DRAGS BEYOND BELIEF. IF I COULD REMOVE ONE THING FROM THIS GAME IT’S THIS FIGHT. HOLY SHIT THIS FIGHT IS ANNOYING TO LEARN. This fight has 4 phases (where the 4th phase is le MC powertrip), so essentially you have to survive 3 phases, if you die you do all the phases over again and its fucking grating. There are switch-ups in this fight I straight up did not care about as it added to my irritation and for each phase you have to hit this random ball to transition to the next phase like are you serious? This is a fucking waste of time. GARBAGE.
(+) Utility
PoP has this utility for exploration where it can explicitly mark the next objective on the map and this is just SUCH a relief I cannot even imagine playing the game without this, additionally you can add pins on the map and even screenshots for certain points-of-interest.
(+/-) The World Design
The way the abilities are used to flesh out a lot of the platforming segments is fantastic, some are better than others (mostly ones that involved the time mechanic), the areas where I truly hated the trial and error platforming is the desert and the snow area which are just ATROCIOUS.
Metroidvanias, by design, are meant to be annoying, the genre insists on walkbacks and opening shortcuts, which can honestly become insanely formulaic and often tedious. The early game is absolutely brutal in this regard since you’re working with a limited health pool and on Immortal if you’re facing two enemies on screen it can turn into a life and death scenario real quick. One important thing I want to mention is how beautifully interconnected the levels are.
What I can honestly say about exploration in PoP, however, is that… it isn’t that rewarding, I feel like I grew more and more exhausted as the game progressed because of the chorelike nature of the traversal, even with an entourage of enemies with carefully telegraphed movesets at best I just hated fighting them most of the time. It isn’t FUN to do additional platforming challenges in PoP, if what awaits me are Xerxes or gems. The collectibles aren’t interesting enough to warrant extra exploration unless you’re a completionist.
To compare it with HK’s world design, on the design and the interconnectivity of the layout PoP smokes HK, but HK does more with less complexity, and it also utilizes the world to tell the story of the game. HK’s areas are MEMORABLE, even if you’re in the pits of the abyss, each area has a distinct soundtrack, so walking into something like the City of Tears has a lasting impression. A complaint of HK has always been the grid like nature of the map making every single map feel the same, and while I agree with the reskinned map critique, traversal in HK just doesn’t feel as Trial and Error as PoP on Immortal sometimes.
With a challenging difficulty mode, comes challenging traversal, and I for one think that it tanked my enjoyment outside of the bosses.
(+) Gameplay
All the individual mechanics are fantastic… besides clairvoyance which was strangely never used in a boss fight, the teleportation mechanic is the most unique one and each time the game encouraged me to use it I was just thrilled. The game is also very intuitive so often times if a puzzles involves a certain mechanic its very easy to tell which one. Grappling is another one which I really enjoyed in late game despite hating the area where it is used the most (the ice area).
Athra Surges are just….damage bursts, not much to say about these but they do have different customizability options for levels of surge batteries.
Amulets are honestly great despite many of them being complete garbage (as is with other games). The amulet that I never took off was actually the one that healed me for every parry I did successfully, despite not healing a lot it made it easier to not use the heal for the any of the boss fights since that just instantly recovers 3 bars and you feel like you’re over-rejuvenated.
(+) Story
I like the story! I think its super basic but it works really well and it positions the protagonist in the story quite well, I feel like PoP wasn’t interested in pushing the narrative in any complicated direction which is for the better, and by fighting and besting most of the bosses I actually felt a sense of victory and accomplishment as I laid them to rest, more than any direct story-telling could accomplish.
(+/-) OST
I liked some OSTs
(+) Conclusion
Fantastic bosses except mini-bosses, Jahandar and the final CANCER boss, well worth it to play the game. I’m hot and cold on the exploration but the work they’ve put into carefully connecting multiple branching paths is no joke and I can only respect it. This is a game made with a lot of love for the genre, even though I find it funny the devs said they took inspiration from games like DMC5 which is one of the worst games ever made.
Amazing game. Also I think Vahram is hot.
Dark Souls III
2016
Dark Souls 3 is by far the best Souls game Fromsoft ever released, whether it's in the gameplay, world design, PVP, Bosses or even the OSTs. I heavily recommend people to play this game first more than any other Fromsoft game.
(Just a heads-up, I'll heavily compare DS3 to DS1).
Starting Area (Tutorial)
DS3's starting area compared to DS1's starting area is laughable, whether it was the design of the area or the tutorial boss that's in it. Iudex Gundyr as a tutorial boss works perfect with the way DS3 is, since you have different gameplay mechanics such as: Parrying, Magic, Pyromancies and Melee. Gundyr unlike DS1's tutorial boss (Asylum Demon) you can use the Parry system against him, something that DS1 doesn't use on any of it's bosses (only the last one, but you probably going to 3 shot him any way), also Gundyr has a second phase something that Asylum Demon doesn't have and not to forget that Asylum Demon's attacks are really slow/easy to read and has limited attacks/combos. Where Gundyr in the other hand as a tutorial boss has lots of different attacks even in phase two his attacks change and so does his form. Lets not forget the OST! Gundyr's OST is very good to listen to unlike Asylum Demon's OST, I'm 100% sure no one listens to that.
Something that I didn't like about DS1's firelink shrine is that sometimes the Firekeeper sometimes disappears/died and need to bring her back, for me it was such hassle and annoying. In DS3 that doesn't happen thankfully.
Bosses
Bosses on DS3 compared to DS1 is way faster; because now bosses are actually difficult and somewhat difficult to read their move set until you get used to them where in DS1 you can just kill most of its bosses with ease first try; because of how slow they are and easily predict their move sets (except for Stray Demon fuck him). Something that I've always wanted to know about DS1 is, what's even the point of the parry mechanic if there's only one boss that you can use it on (it's the final boss) where in DS3 there are a total of 6 bosses that you can parry and they're scattered through start-mid-late game. Another thing that I've liked about DS3's bosses is the OST! I loved every single OST the bosses have on DS3 (except for the Curse-Rotted Greatwood Tree boss, fuck that OST) other than that all OSTs are very good and let's not forget the DLC bosses in DS3 they're very good and have top OSTs. Oh, not to forget the bosses on DS3 are hard but that doesn't mean they're not balanced.No, they are balanced and there are no RNG based bosses (Fuck you The Bed of Chaos from DS1) and they're all fair to go against.
Just compare some of the early bosses to DS1's bosses most of the time you'll love DS3's bosses more; because they're more fun to go against and there's actual challenge on fighting them and not just some crappy boss with dumb pathetic attacks. Here it's more challenging and more fun. I want you to also compare the final boss of each game, you'll see that Soul of Cinder is 10x harder than Gwyn in DS1, Gwyn isn't even that hard of a boss to kill too and you'll probably kill him before even seeing all of his attacks.
Gameplay
Gameplay on DS3 is same as DS1 but faster and more difficult, difficult like it's now harder to parry unlike in DS1 and also now you have Mana stats that gets consumed when you use Weapon Art Attacks or Using Magic attacks. It has its own flask, so now you have to balance between Estus Flask and Ashen Estus Flask. One used for healing and other to regenerate Mana. There are lots of parry able bosses too as mentioned before. Playing with friends is also fun or getting invaded by randoms never gets old and always good to have/get. Sadly, same as DS1 Magic is boring to use/do unlike how it is in Elden Ring so don't expect much from it and Pyromancy of having fun.
World Design and Progression
The World Design and Progression is a lot different from each game, but I'll just say my personal opinion. Personally, I see that DS3's world progression is better than DS1's progression; because no matter how you see it or how connected the world of DS1 is, you can't tell me that I have to backtrack from fricking BlightTown to Firelink Shrine and there are no warps until you get to Gwyn's daughter, this...is a hassle and very annoying. In DS3 however you get the warp system immediately and can travel to every single bonfire unlike in DS1 not all can be warped. Yes, the world is not connected in any way, but I really do not care as long as I can play without knowing I have to backtrack and get annoyed.
DLCs
DS3's DLCs are better, also DS1's DLC is better than the main itself.DS3's DLCs are worth to get trust me, a lot of rememberable bosses are from the DLCs too Slave Knight Gael (The Goat), Twin Demons, Midir and Sister Freide are all bosses that are challenging to fight and very fun to go against. I highly recommend having the DLCs in your first playthrough.
In summary DS3 is a very good game in all meaning and enjoyable with the vast majority of bosses all good (except for the Rotten Wood boss) and the OSTs oh my god the OSTs I love them so much, there are also NPCs and quests you can do and covenants but meh not worth mentioning.
(Just a heads-up, I'll heavily compare DS3 to DS1).
Starting Area (Tutorial)
DS3's starting area compared to DS1's starting area is laughable, whether it was the design of the area or the tutorial boss that's in it. Iudex Gundyr as a tutorial boss works perfect with the way DS3 is, since you have different gameplay mechanics such as: Parrying, Magic, Pyromancies and Melee. Gundyr unlike DS1's tutorial boss (Asylum Demon) you can use the Parry system against him, something that DS1 doesn't use on any of it's bosses (only the last one, but you probably going to 3 shot him any way), also Gundyr has a second phase something that Asylum Demon doesn't have and not to forget that Asylum Demon's attacks are really slow/easy to read and has limited attacks/combos. Where Gundyr in the other hand as a tutorial boss has lots of different attacks even in phase two his attacks change and so does his form. Lets not forget the OST! Gundyr's OST is very good to listen to unlike Asylum Demon's OST, I'm 100% sure no one listens to that.
Something that I didn't like about DS1's firelink shrine is that sometimes the Firekeeper sometimes disappears/died and need to bring her back, for me it was such hassle and annoying. In DS3 that doesn't happen thankfully.
Bosses
Bosses on DS3 compared to DS1 is way faster; because now bosses are actually difficult and somewhat difficult to read their move set until you get used to them where in DS1 you can just kill most of its bosses with ease first try; because of how slow they are and easily predict their move sets (except for Stray Demon fuck him). Something that I've always wanted to know about DS1 is, what's even the point of the parry mechanic if there's only one boss that you can use it on (it's the final boss) where in DS3 there are a total of 6 bosses that you can parry and they're scattered through start-mid-late game. Another thing that I've liked about DS3's bosses is the OST! I loved every single OST the bosses have on DS3 (except for the Curse-Rotted Greatwood Tree boss, fuck that OST) other than that all OSTs are very good and let's not forget the DLC bosses in DS3 they're very good and have top OSTs. Oh, not to forget the bosses on DS3 are hard but that doesn't mean they're not balanced.No, they are balanced and there are no RNG based bosses (Fuck you The Bed of Chaos from DS1) and they're all fair to go against.
Just compare some of the early bosses to DS1's bosses most of the time you'll love DS3's bosses more; because they're more fun to go against and there's actual challenge on fighting them and not just some crappy boss with dumb pathetic attacks. Here it's more challenging and more fun. I want you to also compare the final boss of each game, you'll see that Soul of Cinder is 10x harder than Gwyn in DS1, Gwyn isn't even that hard of a boss to kill too and you'll probably kill him before even seeing all of his attacks.
Gameplay
Gameplay on DS3 is same as DS1 but faster and more difficult, difficult like it's now harder to parry unlike in DS1 and also now you have Mana stats that gets consumed when you use Weapon Art Attacks or Using Magic attacks. It has its own flask, so now you have to balance between Estus Flask and Ashen Estus Flask. One used for healing and other to regenerate Mana. There are lots of parry able bosses too as mentioned before. Playing with friends is also fun or getting invaded by randoms never gets old and always good to have/get. Sadly, same as DS1 Magic is boring to use/do unlike how it is in Elden Ring so don't expect much from it and Pyromancy of having fun.
World Design and Progression
The World Design and Progression is a lot different from each game, but I'll just say my personal opinion. Personally, I see that DS3's world progression is better than DS1's progression; because no matter how you see it or how connected the world of DS1 is, you can't tell me that I have to backtrack from fricking BlightTown to Firelink Shrine and there are no warps until you get to Gwyn's daughter, this...is a hassle and very annoying. In DS3 however you get the warp system immediately and can travel to every single bonfire unlike in DS1 not all can be warped. Yes, the world is not connected in any way, but I really do not care as long as I can play without knowing I have to backtrack and get annoyed.
DLCs
DS3's DLCs are better, also DS1's DLC is better than the main itself.DS3's DLCs are worth to get trust me, a lot of rememberable bosses are from the DLCs too Slave Knight Gael (The Goat), Twin Demons, Midir and Sister Freide are all bosses that are challenging to fight and very fun to go against. I highly recommend having the DLCs in your first playthrough.
In summary DS3 is a very good game in all meaning and enjoyable with the vast majority of bosses all good (except for the Rotten Wood boss) and the OSTs oh my god the OSTs I love them so much, there are also NPCs and quests you can do and covenants but meh not worth mentioning.
Have NOT played the dlc case (i will after writing) EDIT: i played the dlc case and it was the best case in the game by a long shot i actually enjoyed the one-off murder mystery with entertaining characters and a good mystery but its still filler for a bad game
Just barely above utter drivel. Every case is boring, original trilogy case 3 tier, easy, and bloated. I could go on about them all individually but my main complaints can be boiled down to 4 points:
1. Phoenix wright has no reason to be in this game. Him being the main character adds nothing, and subtracts from everything 4 tried to accomplish. This is not the same phoenix that purposely gave apollo faulty evidence in order to prove how the courts needed to change, possibly damning an innocent girl in the process. This is the phoenix wright from case 2-3, for an entire game, but now with trucy. He goes through nothing, and is only there to allow the (shitty, pointless) apollo melodrama to go through easier.
2. The dark age of the law is inherently stupid. It sounds corny in the opposite way that these games are supposed to. “Victory in the courts is now all that matters eeeek!” Yeah haha anyways remember 1-2s prosecutors being obsessed with results and having to confront the fact that this was a disgusting egotistical perversion of the legal system, and theyve been trying to damn innocent people?
3. The main twist is stupid and obvious. This would work as a case 1 twist, not something built up over the whole game
4. Widget is also pure nonsense in any context. Literally only the main villain points out that the robot “therapy” session only makes sense to the defense and blackquill, and they just get away with it because they didnt think of how to actually legitimize it to a third party. This is a series where they cross examine a parrot, and this is still so much of a shark jump that it completely breaks any immersion i could have had every time. (Very little because these cases are all boring and i guessed every aspect perfectly halfway through the day one investigation periods every time)
I heard 6 is good so I’m keeping my hopes up for that one, but damn this game is easily the worst one
Just barely above utter drivel. Every case is boring, original trilogy case 3 tier, easy, and bloated. I could go on about them all individually but my main complaints can be boiled down to 4 points:
1. Phoenix wright has no reason to be in this game. Him being the main character adds nothing, and subtracts from everything 4 tried to accomplish. This is not the same phoenix that purposely gave apollo faulty evidence in order to prove how the courts needed to change, possibly damning an innocent girl in the process. This is the phoenix wright from case 2-3, for an entire game, but now with trucy. He goes through nothing, and is only there to allow the (shitty, pointless) apollo melodrama to go through easier.
2. The dark age of the law is inherently stupid. It sounds corny in the opposite way that these games are supposed to. “Victory in the courts is now all that matters eeeek!” Yeah haha anyways remember 1-2s prosecutors being obsessed with results and having to confront the fact that this was a disgusting egotistical perversion of the legal system, and theyve been trying to damn innocent people?
3. The main twist is stupid and obvious. This would work as a case 1 twist, not something built up over the whole game
4. Widget is also pure nonsense in any context. Literally only the main villain points out that the robot “therapy” session only makes sense to the defense and blackquill, and they just get away with it because they didnt think of how to actually legitimize it to a third party. This is a series where they cross examine a parrot, and this is still so much of a shark jump that it completely breaks any immersion i could have had every time. (Very little because these cases are all boring and i guessed every aspect perfectly halfway through the day one investigation periods every time)
I heard 6 is good so I’m keeping my hopes up for that one, but damn this game is easily the worst one
Sekimeiya: Spun Glass
I’ve been waiting for a trapped in a facility game that would actually have a solid mystery for nearly a decade since I touched Ever17 as a kid, there’s been so many variations on the formula: E17,R11, Root Double, 999, VLR, death-game variants like the Danganronpa-universe, Raging Loop all the way to nukige variants like Room No. 9, DEA, Euphoria. Even though there have been a lot of different mixes with the trapped genre, Sekimeiya blows them all out of the water.
This is singlehandedly THE most complex VN I have ever read, it’s the only VN where the game will spell out the solution and you have to spend a long time in the backlog to just understand how the solution even works. There is an art to misdirection and foreshadowing that shouldn’t feel very cheap and (for the most part) Sekimeiya manages to present sound solutions to the insane clusterfuck it paints with its first route. Before I ramble more about why I like the game, I have to start with some of the negatives:
Cons
(-) Production
Considering how much 3D work/ Hand-painting/ Photography that was done for the backgrounds, I’m surprised at the lack of actual character CGs in the game, most of them featuring Shiroya (which either works for promotional reasons or just because she’s the main pillar for the MC and poster child for the game.) There’s a reason why the CGs are limited which plays into a specific factor of the game but even then I think other moments definitely deserved more CGs.
(-) Character Writing
This is a popular complaint against the game, and I agree and disagree with it. Mainly, I have no problems if the VN puts center-focus on the mystery but sometimes the characters would behave in such a way that felt way so ridiculous in service of the mystery, there’s so many moments of confusion in the game which would have been perfect instances to add dramatic elements, and even though some exist they also feel robotic and too calculated in placement and design.
Often times characters would leave to the bathroom or go on one of the upper floors and would just not get chased because they insisted on not being followed, character “N” can just pull character “K” to a separate room with esper levels of convincing and keep the others upstairs, character “S” can just say “don’t follow me” and run to the attic, there was a funny moment where character “E” asks the time and the MC remarks that she was better off just saying she was guilty.
I have no qualms about the lack of character depth I seriously don’t care that hard about what plagues the minds of Erina etc outside the confines of the building, and if the game wants to use the characters as vessels to deliver an impactful story I can’t fault it really, it’s the way it executes the story that’s the fundamental issue.
(-) Schizoid Protagonist – Deduction Bot (The first 4-5 hours)
The issue of the game is in the first few hours, the MC is a deduction machine, the game doesn’t draw its first breath and he starts printing out theories after theories about stuff that aren’t all the interesting. The writing is dense, but it bleeds everywhere and it feels like its going to hard before the actual mechanics of the plot are introduced. Several reviewers voiced complaints about how everyone turns into theory-crafters, and I don’t align with this issue at all, I like the fact that the game likes showing you all the playing cards before it pulls its sleight-of-hand to fool you and it does this with heavy internal and external dialogue.
This problem however disappears very fast when there’s actually interesting stuff to monologue about.
Pros:
(+) The Mechanics
The trapped genre’s more forgotten priced jewel should always be the solution but I have never been satisfied with an overarching explanation in many of the games the genre is defined by. “I read this in phenomenon in a journal once and turned it as a plot-device for the game” was always Uchikoshi’s vibe and I’ve hated it for so long, another hallmark of his explanations is done by abusing bootstrap paradoxes and I cannot emphasis how much I HATE these explanations, especially in the ZE universe.
Sekimeiya has hands down, the most complex, well-thought out mechanics I have ever seen in a sci-fi mystery. I appreciate the fact that the origin of the mechanics is irrelevant which is another Uchikoshi weakness as he goes into page-length explanations about quantum-mechanics and the like. Sekimeiya only cares enough to have mechanics that works within the internal logic of the story, and its able to conceal the actual mechanics with so many cool misdirections. I was able to make some assumptions that were right on the mark but the way they are executed just completely obliterated me.
Unmatched, just WOW, I am honestly a bit disgusted how do you even write something this technical and then manage to even rationalize it completely with the events of the story?
(+) Sai
When I say character writing is scuffed, I leave Sai out of that equation. He’s one of my favorite versions of the “fucking up the game” characters in the trapped genre. Whenever he was on screen it was always so juicy to the extent that I was disappointed when he didn’t have a dedicated route (I would have loved for Sai to do the explanation part in Chapter 5).
LOVED. THIS. CHARACTER.
(+) Story
(+) Chapter 1:
Starts off too polarizing but then it turns into my favorite “question” arc of any VN I’ve ever played, manages to pile on the most confusing chain of mysteries for a brilliant cluster-fuck in this lengthy chapter.
(+/-) Chapter 2:
I liked the twist, the chapter is quite short and isn’t THAT interesting to me personally and sort of demystifies the story a little bit since it makes one of the mechanics very obvious.
(+/-) Chapter 3:
I saw a reviewer like this chapter and all I’ll say is the first half was so boring I dreaded having to read through it, but then I enjoyed when it picked up on where the story had previously halted. I really liked a lot of the reveals of what actually happened and a huge “wtf” ending reveal.
(+/-) Chapter 4:
Just an overview of what went down at the start, barely a chapter.
(+) Chapter 5:
As much as I HATE END-OF-GAME INFODUMPS, the mystery of the game was genuinely so complex and intriguing that I didn’t mind the wizardry by which the MC whisked together all the complex plot-threads. Additionally, this chapter kind of proves the point that the whole game is more centered on the you – the player, figuring out how everything fell into place, with a “MCQ”-esque segment where just before the reveal it will give you the chance to prove that you understood the greater complexities of the game.
Chapter 5 at one point just goes outside the MC POV and straight up you are being directly talked to in order to figure out the greater plot points. This is insanely polarizing but I have to really dock points for just having a 5-6 hour long explanation-to-explanation narration where I didn’t even have a moment to breathe and digest anything.
The explanations are just, fantastic, if someone said it took them a decade to write this game I’d believe them with the effortless-ness of how its able to explain every insane thing. But its done in such an inorganic way that it almost felt like I was being lectured with a powerpoint presentation by the devs themselves.
I like to imagine since this is an indie project they really were strained on developmental resources that might have impacted how they approached to tell the story of this VN, which ultimately I can’t fault them too hard for.
TL;DR: The best explanation for a clusterfuck I have ever read in a VN, very polarizing execution.
(-) Ending
There is none, when the game wraps up all the knots the game doesn’t really care to tell you what awaits the fates of people outside the building, and since the center-focus of the game WAS the mystery, at the very most it manages to clean-house on that front. It does feel disappointing that there is no ENDING-ENDING.
(+) UI
The fact that an indie team managed to make such an interactive and helpful UI where VNs in the genre can’t even bother to add this level of accessibility just proves how much love was put into the game. Hats off to the team for going above and beyond, I love the added chart that’s probably gonna be super helpful when I might dive into the game again in the future.
(+) Soundtrack
I was iffy on the soundtrack at first, to the extent that I almost thought it was a bit funny and its very evident that these are not tracks that belong to the same album, but once my ears got used to all the tracks playing I actually ended up REALLY really enjoying them. A lot of ear worms that I’m not gonna manage to shake out any time soon despite these being licensed pieces.
(+) Conclusion
If I haven’t exhausted my compliments for the mystery of this game, absolutely jaw-dropping game with the most insane “question” and “answer” arcs. Starts off too wordy but once the mechanics come into play the game transforms into an unforgettable experience. I wish Trinitite keep working on newer titles so they can just polish up the character writing since they’ve already edged out every other VN in the trapped genre.
Shockingly impressively and an extremely memorable game, but with a botched execution in the writing department and a lack of an ending.
I’ve been waiting for a trapped in a facility game that would actually have a solid mystery for nearly a decade since I touched Ever17 as a kid, there’s been so many variations on the formula: E17,R11, Root Double, 999, VLR, death-game variants like the Danganronpa-universe, Raging Loop all the way to nukige variants like Room No. 9, DEA, Euphoria. Even though there have been a lot of different mixes with the trapped genre, Sekimeiya blows them all out of the water.
This is singlehandedly THE most complex VN I have ever read, it’s the only VN where the game will spell out the solution and you have to spend a long time in the backlog to just understand how the solution even works. There is an art to misdirection and foreshadowing that shouldn’t feel very cheap and (for the most part) Sekimeiya manages to present sound solutions to the insane clusterfuck it paints with its first route. Before I ramble more about why I like the game, I have to start with some of the negatives:
Cons
(-) Production
Considering how much 3D work/ Hand-painting/ Photography that was done for the backgrounds, I’m surprised at the lack of actual character CGs in the game, most of them featuring Shiroya (which either works for promotional reasons or just because she’s the main pillar for the MC and poster child for the game.) There’s a reason why the CGs are limited which plays into a specific factor of the game but even then I think other moments definitely deserved more CGs.
(-) Character Writing
This is a popular complaint against the game, and I agree and disagree with it. Mainly, I have no problems if the VN puts center-focus on the mystery but sometimes the characters would behave in such a way that felt way so ridiculous in service of the mystery, there’s so many moments of confusion in the game which would have been perfect instances to add dramatic elements, and even though some exist they also feel robotic and too calculated in placement and design.
Often times characters would leave to the bathroom or go on one of the upper floors and would just not get chased because they insisted on not being followed, character “N” can just pull character “K” to a separate room with esper levels of convincing and keep the others upstairs, character “S” can just say “don’t follow me” and run to the attic, there was a funny moment where character “E” asks the time and the MC remarks that she was better off just saying she was guilty.
I have no qualms about the lack of character depth I seriously don’t care that hard about what plagues the minds of Erina etc outside the confines of the building, and if the game wants to use the characters as vessels to deliver an impactful story I can’t fault it really, it’s the way it executes the story that’s the fundamental issue.
(-) Schizoid Protagonist – Deduction Bot (The first 4-5 hours)
The issue of the game is in the first few hours, the MC is a deduction machine, the game doesn’t draw its first breath and he starts printing out theories after theories about stuff that aren’t all the interesting. The writing is dense, but it bleeds everywhere and it feels like its going to hard before the actual mechanics of the plot are introduced. Several reviewers voiced complaints about how everyone turns into theory-crafters, and I don’t align with this issue at all, I like the fact that the game likes showing you all the playing cards before it pulls its sleight-of-hand to fool you and it does this with heavy internal and external dialogue.
This problem however disappears very fast when there’s actually interesting stuff to monologue about.
Pros:
(+) The Mechanics
The trapped genre’s more forgotten priced jewel should always be the solution but I have never been satisfied with an overarching explanation in many of the games the genre is defined by. “I read this in phenomenon in a journal once and turned it as a plot-device for the game” was always Uchikoshi’s vibe and I’ve hated it for so long, another hallmark of his explanations is done by abusing bootstrap paradoxes and I cannot emphasis how much I HATE these explanations, especially in the ZE universe.
Sekimeiya has hands down, the most complex, well-thought out mechanics I have ever seen in a sci-fi mystery. I appreciate the fact that the origin of the mechanics is irrelevant which is another Uchikoshi weakness as he goes into page-length explanations about quantum-mechanics and the like. Sekimeiya only cares enough to have mechanics that works within the internal logic of the story, and its able to conceal the actual mechanics with so many cool misdirections. I was able to make some assumptions that were right on the mark but the way they are executed just completely obliterated me.
Unmatched, just WOW, I am honestly a bit disgusted how do you even write something this technical and then manage to even rationalize it completely with the events of the story?
(+) Sai
When I say character writing is scuffed, I leave Sai out of that equation. He’s one of my favorite versions of the “fucking up the game” characters in the trapped genre. Whenever he was on screen it was always so juicy to the extent that I was disappointed when he didn’t have a dedicated route (I would have loved for Sai to do the explanation part in Chapter 5).
LOVED. THIS. CHARACTER.
(+) Story
(+) Chapter 1:
Starts off too polarizing but then it turns into my favorite “question” arc of any VN I’ve ever played, manages to pile on the most confusing chain of mysteries for a brilliant cluster-fuck in this lengthy chapter.
(+/-) Chapter 2:
I liked the twist, the chapter is quite short and isn’t THAT interesting to me personally and sort of demystifies the story a little bit since it makes one of the mechanics very obvious.
(+/-) Chapter 3:
I saw a reviewer like this chapter and all I’ll say is the first half was so boring I dreaded having to read through it, but then I enjoyed when it picked up on where the story had previously halted. I really liked a lot of the reveals of what actually happened and a huge “wtf” ending reveal.
(+/-) Chapter 4:
Just an overview of what went down at the start, barely a chapter.
(+) Chapter 5:
As much as I HATE END-OF-GAME INFODUMPS, the mystery of the game was genuinely so complex and intriguing that I didn’t mind the wizardry by which the MC whisked together all the complex plot-threads. Additionally, this chapter kind of proves the point that the whole game is more centered on the you – the player, figuring out how everything fell into place, with a “MCQ”-esque segment where just before the reveal it will give you the chance to prove that you understood the greater complexities of the game.
Chapter 5 at one point just goes outside the MC POV and straight up you are being directly talked to in order to figure out the greater plot points. This is insanely polarizing but I have to really dock points for just having a 5-6 hour long explanation-to-explanation narration where I didn’t even have a moment to breathe and digest anything.
The explanations are just, fantastic, if someone said it took them a decade to write this game I’d believe them with the effortless-ness of how its able to explain every insane thing. But its done in such an inorganic way that it almost felt like I was being lectured with a powerpoint presentation by the devs themselves.
I like to imagine since this is an indie project they really were strained on developmental resources that might have impacted how they approached to tell the story of this VN, which ultimately I can’t fault them too hard for.
TL;DR: The best explanation for a clusterfuck I have ever read in a VN, very polarizing execution.
(-) Ending
There is none, when the game wraps up all the knots the game doesn’t really care to tell you what awaits the fates of people outside the building, and since the center-focus of the game WAS the mystery, at the very most it manages to clean-house on that front. It does feel disappointing that there is no ENDING-ENDING.
(+) UI
The fact that an indie team managed to make such an interactive and helpful UI where VNs in the genre can’t even bother to add this level of accessibility just proves how much love was put into the game. Hats off to the team for going above and beyond, I love the added chart that’s probably gonna be super helpful when I might dive into the game again in the future.
(+) Soundtrack
I was iffy on the soundtrack at first, to the extent that I almost thought it was a bit funny and its very evident that these are not tracks that belong to the same album, but once my ears got used to all the tracks playing I actually ended up REALLY really enjoying them. A lot of ear worms that I’m not gonna manage to shake out any time soon despite these being licensed pieces.
(+) Conclusion
If I haven’t exhausted my compliments for the mystery of this game, absolutely jaw-dropping game with the most insane “question” and “answer” arcs. Starts off too wordy but once the mechanics come into play the game transforms into an unforgettable experience. I wish Trinitite keep working on newer titles so they can just polish up the character writing since they’ve already edged out every other VN in the trapped genre.
Shockingly impressively and an extremely memorable game, but with a botched execution in the writing department and a lack of an ending.
Rabi-Ribi
2016
Its just not very fun, dodging bullets feels inconsistent because it is unclear exactly where your character's hitbox actually is.
Combat is just holding down the ranged attack button then doing a full melee combo once the boss stops attacking. No way to heal without using consumables or finding a bonfire is actually awful.
Combat is just holding down the ranged attack button then doing a full melee combo once the boss stops attacking. No way to heal without using consumables or finding a bonfire is actually awful.
This game is an incredible metroidvania with very fun combat and fluid movement that feels great even without every upgrade. The mechanics feel very fun, each new upgrade improving both movement and combat felt very good as more and more of the map unlocked. I love games that push the extents of their movement abilities, so the constant sets of platforming challenges were also incredibly fun. Enemies were plenty varied and fun to fight. Bosses had varied mechanics and interactions with combat that felt really fun to fight, even if initially a bit difficult. The plentiful quality of life was appreciated, especially with the memory shards helping with backtracking.
My main issues with the game were the environments, backtracking, and ending (spoiler free). While stunning to look at with nicely varied environments to explore, there were often rooms that felt empty. Sometimes there were just rooms that served no real purpose or even the lack of objects like pots and stuff to break made it less interesting to backtrack a lot. Small wish that I could have interacted with the environment a bit more, but not a huge issue. In regards to backtracking, I wish the fast travel system wasn't as inconvenient to get around. The fast travel points ranged from being in okay spots to being not very useful to backtrack to. I found myself running through the same rooms too often just to get to a new part of the map or come back to something I had marked. Lastly, the ending and resolution to the story didn't feel particularly satisfying to me. I felt like there were bits that were unresolved, or if they were, did not feel executed well.
Admittedly, most of my issues were pretty minor in the grand scheme of things, only the ending being my biggest let down from an otherwise fantastic game. I would love to be able to refight all the bosses too, so a replay might be warranted in the future.
My main issues with the game were the environments, backtracking, and ending (spoiler free). While stunning to look at with nicely varied environments to explore, there were often rooms that felt empty. Sometimes there were just rooms that served no real purpose or even the lack of objects like pots and stuff to break made it less interesting to backtrack a lot. Small wish that I could have interacted with the environment a bit more, but not a huge issue. In regards to backtracking, I wish the fast travel system wasn't as inconvenient to get around. The fast travel points ranged from being in okay spots to being not very useful to backtrack to. I found myself running through the same rooms too often just to get to a new part of the map or come back to something I had marked. Lastly, the ending and resolution to the story didn't feel particularly satisfying to me. I felt like there were bits that were unresolved, or if they were, did not feel executed well.
Admittedly, most of my issues were pretty minor in the grand scheme of things, only the ending being my biggest let down from an otherwise fantastic game. I would love to be able to refight all the bosses too, so a replay might be warranted in the future.