2017
Fight'N Rage is the perfect example of how to ruin a moderately decent combat system with absolute incompetent enemy placement that edges on artificial difficulty.
I finished the campaign on hard using the default character and this game's way of providing any semblance of challenge is by ganking you with multiple bosses at once or rather having you go long stretches with barely any health upgrades or items. And to top it off the difficulty curve is also extremely inconsistent because the game is mostly a cakewalk where you basically fight the same three or four variants of the same mobs but as soon as you get to the last two chapters the game increases the enemy density to almost an autistic level where the game simply spams ganks after ganks almost ruining the whole point of the parry mechanic.
As for the presentation, it's ugly. The pixel art is hideous to look at and it meshes in with the background almost way too often. The music is also lame and forgettable.
If there's any reason anyone would ever recommend this incompetent excuse of a beatemup is because of the constant comparison to Streets of Rage 4 while failing to understand what actually makes it a masterpiece and this one a hot pile of steamy garbage
I finished the campaign on hard using the default character and this game's way of providing any semblance of challenge is by ganking you with multiple bosses at once or rather having you go long stretches with barely any health upgrades or items. And to top it off the difficulty curve is also extremely inconsistent because the game is mostly a cakewalk where you basically fight the same three or four variants of the same mobs but as soon as you get to the last two chapters the game increases the enemy density to almost an autistic level where the game simply spams ganks after ganks almost ruining the whole point of the parry mechanic.
As for the presentation, it's ugly. The pixel art is hideous to look at and it meshes in with the background almost way too often. The music is also lame and forgettable.
If there's any reason anyone would ever recommend this incompetent excuse of a beatemup is because of the constant comparison to Streets of Rage 4 while failing to understand what actually makes it a masterpiece and this one a hot pile of steamy garbage
[[ Note that the game is played on Immortal difficulty with roughly 60 hours of playtime. This review doesn't apply to easier difficulties ]]
I've always seen Metroidvania as that dated sub-genre that indie devs latch onto desperately to put out barrage of middling quality video games with a rare few exceptions. And one of those exceptions turned out to be a Ubisoft title that somehow dethroned Hollow Knight to become my new favorite
Alright so I'll be drawing direct comparisons to Hollow Knight quite a lot in this review just to use it as a point of reference as to how this game is the better Metroidvania in every conceivable way possible while also looking at it through an objective lens
The Lost Crown manages to pull off what every other title in this sub-genre fails and that is having a consistent break-neck pacing throughout the entirety of its playthrough to the point I wasn't bored even once during the 58 hours I spent on the game. That's largely due to the abilities you unlock being tied to the main quest thus reducing the need to backtrack around the map a gazillion times fishing for upgrades integral to the core progression. And then you look at Hollow Knight where it has a botched pacing for pretty much the entirety of its first half where you're just fishing for upgrades while providing barely any content of substance only to hide most of its meaty part after you're done doing all the time-wastey chores
This game while staying consistent to its time focused theme delivers some of the most fun and creative abilities I've seen, deviating from the sub-genre's oversaturation of the usual double jump, dash and different projectiles that function the same way and absolutely nothing else. The abilities you gain access to aren't simply a means to get access to newer areas, the game goes out of its way to design bosses, mobs, encounters and even large chunk of the map. For example, the last area is designed entirely around the grapple hook and it has some of the most seamless traversal I've seen in any games of this kind. There's also no need to upgrade your abilities once you get them, that is it, you're done, now you can go and try them out on enemies in the overworld and bosses and some abilities even has unique interactions with specific enemies. Then there's Hollow Knight that even ties something basic as a downward slash/dive/whatever as an unlockable ability (which you get from the get go in this game) that also needs to be upgraded to deal any substantial amount of damage, if this isn't the most shameless example of padding I don't know what is. HK repeatedly pulls this with other rudimentary abilities such as the dash, the projectile and the upward slash where upgrading them gives the abilities a change of color and a slight increase in DPS and AoE. Then again this isn't even my main gripe with these barebones nothing power ups you get for playing through the game, it's just how unsubstantial they are to the core combat, you can basically ignore them and waltz through every encounter just fine. On the other hand in The Lost Crown, the abilities are INTEGRAL to every major boss fights, you simply can not beat a boss without properly utilizing every single ability at your disposal.
The combat here is surprisingly really good despite the limitations set by the sub-genre. It has some obvious hack and slash genes to its DNA but not the yucky kind where you basically ignore the enemy's moves and juggle them to death, there's a massive emphasis on parrying which sets it apart from the likes of DMC. Here you're forced to pay attention to most enemies' moves to earn the opportunity to do your typical hack and slash combos but as you gradually progress through the game (especially near the end game) you can trivialize every encounter if you're skilled enough in hack and slashes. There are also flashy supers you can do for dealing a good amount of damage but they're not just flashy for the sake of being flashy, you have to play well to earn those supers. They're like your rewards for playing the game well and it's because of how the meter works. It's called Athra meter and the way it works is quite simple but effective, the more you land parries the more your meter fills up and the more you get hit the more your meter decreases. And the athra supers can also be used to iframe some tricky to time boss attacks. The abilities are also put on a cooldown so that you can't mindlessly spam them, which is a good thing.
Complimentary to the combat system is the game's absurd variety in enemies that aren't just visual differences it's also how they interact with the core combat and the arsenal of different abilities at your disposal. A huge amount of effort went into designing the enemies and the further you progress the more obvious it becomes. Throughout the playthrough as you unlock more power ups there will be several different enemies and minibosses designed around the ability you've just unlocked, which helps the combat from growing stale. Then there's Hollow Knight where the enemy variety basically boils down to visual differences since the same approach works for quite literally everything in the game, there's no real enemy variety except for the bosses in that game is what I'm trying to say.
I could've thrown in the bosses (major ones) in the same paragraph as the enemy variety but the bosses are way too good and deserves a separate section. These are the key milestones of your progress in the game and they're all very well designed providing a consistent curve of difficulty. Throughout my time with the game I was at legit disbelief at how consistent also the quality of these bosses are, I was expecting the game to drop the ball at one point when it comes down to the bosses but the game never did, in fact it kept getting better and better with each major encounter. Definitely the cream of the crop and the best part of the game
The story is there. There are a ton of funny plot-twists but the narrative can largely be ignored since the focus of this game is on the gameplay for the most part, which is how video games should be.
The presentation of this game is phenomenal, the game both looks and sounds amazing. The visual direction makes up for the lack of any fancy graphics with some amazing usage of colors and vfx I've seen that makes everything pop. And the sound effects for mundane things like grappling, parrying or even your slashes making contact with the enemies just adds to the already fantastic gameplay. The major boss fights also has some incredible tracks accompanying them but the fact that the music is synced with the bosses' different phases is what elevates the presentation to god-tier level
Some grievances include:
-Some platforming segments can go on for way too long with barely any mobs to fight. I wouldn't bring this up at all if the combat wasn't amazing but it is so that makes it feel a bit underutilized at some points
-Backtracking. Too much unnecessary backtracking is why I'll forever dislike this sub-genre. The fast travel point being separated from the checkpoints only adds more insult to injury.
-The checkpoints aka bench aka bonfire aka whatever are spaced out way too far away from one another which makes the runbacks to enemies or platforming segments UNBEARABLY long
-Charms/Amulets needing upgrades is plain out stupid and only exists to pad out playtime
-Some optional minibosses are painfully limited in their moveset pool but the combat is so good that it's a non-issue
Overall it's undoubtedly clear that this game is a full on masterpiece but I'm still hesitant to call it one of my all time favorites because of how much I dislike this sub-genre that loves to waste your time for no reason. But if you do, then this is THE best game you'll ever play, period.
I've always seen Metroidvania as that dated sub-genre that indie devs latch onto desperately to put out barrage of middling quality video games with a rare few exceptions. And one of those exceptions turned out to be a Ubisoft title that somehow dethroned Hollow Knight to become my new favorite
Alright so I'll be drawing direct comparisons to Hollow Knight quite a lot in this review just to use it as a point of reference as to how this game is the better Metroidvania in every conceivable way possible while also looking at it through an objective lens
The Lost Crown manages to pull off what every other title in this sub-genre fails and that is having a consistent break-neck pacing throughout the entirety of its playthrough to the point I wasn't bored even once during the 58 hours I spent on the game. That's largely due to the abilities you unlock being tied to the main quest thus reducing the need to backtrack around the map a gazillion times fishing for upgrades integral to the core progression. And then you look at Hollow Knight where it has a botched pacing for pretty much the entirety of its first half where you're just fishing for upgrades while providing barely any content of substance only to hide most of its meaty part after you're done doing all the time-wastey chores
This game while staying consistent to its time focused theme delivers some of the most fun and creative abilities I've seen, deviating from the sub-genre's oversaturation of the usual double jump, dash and different projectiles that function the same way and absolutely nothing else. The abilities you gain access to aren't simply a means to get access to newer areas, the game goes out of its way to design bosses, mobs, encounters and even large chunk of the map. For example, the last area is designed entirely around the grapple hook and it has some of the most seamless traversal I've seen in any games of this kind. There's also no need to upgrade your abilities once you get them, that is it, you're done, now you can go and try them out on enemies in the overworld and bosses and some abilities even has unique interactions with specific enemies. Then there's Hollow Knight that even ties something basic as a downward slash/dive/whatever as an unlockable ability (which you get from the get go in this game) that also needs to be upgraded to deal any substantial amount of damage, if this isn't the most shameless example of padding I don't know what is. HK repeatedly pulls this with other rudimentary abilities such as the dash, the projectile and the upward slash where upgrading them gives the abilities a change of color and a slight increase in DPS and AoE. Then again this isn't even my main gripe with these barebones nothing power ups you get for playing through the game, it's just how unsubstantial they are to the core combat, you can basically ignore them and waltz through every encounter just fine. On the other hand in The Lost Crown, the abilities are INTEGRAL to every major boss fights, you simply can not beat a boss without properly utilizing every single ability at your disposal.
The combat here is surprisingly really good despite the limitations set by the sub-genre. It has some obvious hack and slash genes to its DNA but not the yucky kind where you basically ignore the enemy's moves and juggle them to death, there's a massive emphasis on parrying which sets it apart from the likes of DMC. Here you're forced to pay attention to most enemies' moves to earn the opportunity to do your typical hack and slash combos but as you gradually progress through the game (especially near the end game) you can trivialize every encounter if you're skilled enough in hack and slashes. There are also flashy supers you can do for dealing a good amount of damage but they're not just flashy for the sake of being flashy, you have to play well to earn those supers. They're like your rewards for playing the game well and it's because of how the meter works. It's called Athra meter and the way it works is quite simple but effective, the more you land parries the more your meter fills up and the more you get hit the more your meter decreases. And the athra supers can also be used to iframe some tricky to time boss attacks. The abilities are also put on a cooldown so that you can't mindlessly spam them, which is a good thing.
Complimentary to the combat system is the game's absurd variety in enemies that aren't just visual differences it's also how they interact with the core combat and the arsenal of different abilities at your disposal. A huge amount of effort went into designing the enemies and the further you progress the more obvious it becomes. Throughout the playthrough as you unlock more power ups there will be several different enemies and minibosses designed around the ability you've just unlocked, which helps the combat from growing stale. Then there's Hollow Knight where the enemy variety basically boils down to visual differences since the same approach works for quite literally everything in the game, there's no real enemy variety except for the bosses in that game is what I'm trying to say.
I could've thrown in the bosses (major ones) in the same paragraph as the enemy variety but the bosses are way too good and deserves a separate section. These are the key milestones of your progress in the game and they're all very well designed providing a consistent curve of difficulty. Throughout my time with the game I was at legit disbelief at how consistent also the quality of these bosses are, I was expecting the game to drop the ball at one point when it comes down to the bosses but the game never did, in fact it kept getting better and better with each major encounter. Definitely the cream of the crop and the best part of the game
The story is there. There are a ton of funny plot-twists but the narrative can largely be ignored since the focus of this game is on the gameplay for the most part, which is how video games should be.
The presentation of this game is phenomenal, the game both looks and sounds amazing. The visual direction makes up for the lack of any fancy graphics with some amazing usage of colors and vfx I've seen that makes everything pop. And the sound effects for mundane things like grappling, parrying or even your slashes making contact with the enemies just adds to the already fantastic gameplay. The major boss fights also has some incredible tracks accompanying them but the fact that the music is synced with the bosses' different phases is what elevates the presentation to god-tier level
Some grievances include:
-Some platforming segments can go on for way too long with barely any mobs to fight. I wouldn't bring this up at all if the combat wasn't amazing but it is so that makes it feel a bit underutilized at some points
-Backtracking. Too much unnecessary backtracking is why I'll forever dislike this sub-genre. The fast travel point being separated from the checkpoints only adds more insult to injury.
-The checkpoints aka bench aka bonfire aka whatever are spaced out way too far away from one another which makes the runbacks to enemies or platforming segments UNBEARABLY long
-Charms/Amulets needing upgrades is plain out stupid and only exists to pad out playtime
-Some optional minibosses are painfully limited in their moveset pool but the combat is so good that it's a non-issue
Overall it's undoubtedly clear that this game is a full on masterpiece but I'm still hesitant to call it one of my all time favorites because of how much I dislike this sub-genre that loves to waste your time for no reason. But if you do, then this is THE best game you'll ever play, period.
2023
Brief P review before the year ends
After only two complete playthroughs Lies of P already made it into one of my all time favorites and I don't plan on stopping here given the sheer amount of replayability present with genuine weapon (unlike most souls games) variety and without a shadow of a doubt the most impressive enemy variety I've seen in any game ever and not just in souls.
Though the main draw for me is how the game juggles so much variety while keeping the combat fresh every single encounter even into repeat playthroughs. For example, by simply switching out a weapon will add well needed novelty to an encounter you've already beaten and the the various Legion Arms if correctly implemented during the fight will have you strategizing in a completely different light. The unforgiving difficulty, if you decide to not cheese through the game, is also cathartic to master. And this is exactly what I've been craving in a souls game for the longest time and to my surprise a completely random developer from Korea delivered whereas even Fromsoft failed with Elden Ring.
Even though there are a few hiccups here and there but observing the bigger picture makes it quite apparent that this game is a borderline masterpiece
After only two complete playthroughs Lies of P already made it into one of my all time favorites and I don't plan on stopping here given the sheer amount of replayability present with genuine weapon (unlike most souls games) variety and without a shadow of a doubt the most impressive enemy variety I've seen in any game ever and not just in souls.
Though the main draw for me is how the game juggles so much variety while keeping the combat fresh every single encounter even into repeat playthroughs. For example, by simply switching out a weapon will add well needed novelty to an encounter you've already beaten and the the various Legion Arms if correctly implemented during the fight will have you strategizing in a completely different light. The unforgiving difficulty, if you decide to not cheese through the game, is also cathartic to master. And this is exactly what I've been craving in a souls game for the longest time and to my surprise a completely random developer from Korea delivered whereas even Fromsoft failed with Elden Ring.
Even though there are a few hiccups here and there but observing the bigger picture makes it quite apparent that this game is a borderline masterpiece
2007
Compared to Super Mario 64 Galaxy is more akin to a series of self-contained fairly engaging platforming challenges rather than having its identity blurred being a borderline collectathon.
One thing this game has going for itself over 64 is its sheer amount of variety in the gameplay and its presentation. Every single level offers new mechanics while staying true to the core gravity gimmick of the game which makes it hard to get bored. The janky camera of 64 is also gone and is replaced with a far wider fov and a mostly static camera in turn giving the players far more agency over what's on the screen. But artificial annoyances such as the game's overreliance on motion controls is there and takes a long time getting used to and the overall variety seems to diminish near the end with reused mechanics, bosses and sometimes entire levels.
Either way this game aged surprisingly well compared to its predecessor.
One thing this game has going for itself over 64 is its sheer amount of variety in the gameplay and its presentation. Every single level offers new mechanics while staying true to the core gravity gimmick of the game which makes it hard to get bored. The janky camera of 64 is also gone and is replaced with a far wider fov and a mostly static camera in turn giving the players far more agency over what's on the screen. But artificial annoyances such as the game's overreliance on motion controls is there and takes a long time getting used to and the overall variety seems to diminish near the end with reused mechanics, bosses and sometimes entire levels.
Either way this game aged surprisingly well compared to its predecessor.
2019
Now this is a game I'm entirely on the fence about. On one hand I think how the game is structured in tandem with the unique interactive mechanics and its overall non-linearity is downright brilliant (with a few hiccups, of course) And on the other hand I absolutely despise the unsatisfying and rushed finale that literally renders most of what you do in the game completely pointless.
Alright, so the beginning stretch of this game can be tad bit confusing and overwhelming but after sinking in a few hours and getting accustomed to all the mechanics and skills it's very easy to get hooked in and fast. The different skills aka the various parts of your psyche that affects the dialogues and how you interact with the world is unarguably the best part of this game. Depending on what part of your psyche you put the most points in you will get VASTLY different outcomes of little tasks like getting a hanged body down from a tree, while also affecting your abilities to pick up on certain leads. Which ultimately ends up giving the game a lot more variety and replay value than it'd initially have if it stuck to the more linear and rigid story telling formula of most other CRPGs. Also the way all the seemingly pointless and insignificant side quests loop back into main quests in the most unexpected way imaginable is done competently and can lead to a lot of "ah ha" moments. I also appreciate the fact that despite the game being entirely reliant on texts the dialogues are delivered in a digestible manner with everything fully voice acted and the voice acting is surprisingly top notch. At first when I was trying to read through every single line of text I thought the dialogues felt dense but that's objectively the wrong way to go about playing the game as you're punished for picking too many options. Once you start playing the game as it is intended you start to appreciate how well written the character interactions are with a lot of genuinely funny banters that don't feel forced. But there is something else entirely that can actually interfere the with the game's pacing and it's the constant DnD skill checks which forces you to do a lot of backtracking and chore-ish tasks just to have a higher chance of succeeding and even then you can fail. Which I can see being the main contributor behind putting off a lot of people and rightfully so and it's objectively a bad game design approach when most people playing the game save scum repeatedly to get past them.
Now onto my main gripe with the game and it's the ending. The finale is flat out terrible with absolutely zero thought put behind and it contradicts the whole investigation this game revolves around. Without delving too deep into spoiler territory, it's the whodunnit. It's entirely detached from everything you do throughout most of the game, from every lead you gather throughout your entire investigation. And to address all the idiotic copium takes I see defending this god awful ending like "oh no but it's supposed to be meta! it fits the themes! it was never about the murder mystery", The game quite literally frames itself as a murder mystery that is LITERALLY your entire objective throughout the whole thing and the game failing to deliver a proper satisfying conclusion shouldn't be above criticism, it's objectively bad and if you can't see that you lack critical thinking skills. Also if there ever was a game that would benefit from having several different endings that vary vastly from one another it'd be THIS but what the game delivered was the exact opposite an extremely linear final segment which contradicts the rest of the game's open-ended nature.
Disco Elysium is a game that has a lot of never-before-seen unique mechanics in a narrative game with a lot of entertainment value but all of it is bogged down by a HORRIBLY botched ending.
Alright, so the beginning stretch of this game can be tad bit confusing and overwhelming but after sinking in a few hours and getting accustomed to all the mechanics and skills it's very easy to get hooked in and fast. The different skills aka the various parts of your psyche that affects the dialogues and how you interact with the world is unarguably the best part of this game. Depending on what part of your psyche you put the most points in you will get VASTLY different outcomes of little tasks like getting a hanged body down from a tree, while also affecting your abilities to pick up on certain leads. Which ultimately ends up giving the game a lot more variety and replay value than it'd initially have if it stuck to the more linear and rigid story telling formula of most other CRPGs. Also the way all the seemingly pointless and insignificant side quests loop back into main quests in the most unexpected way imaginable is done competently and can lead to a lot of "ah ha" moments. I also appreciate the fact that despite the game being entirely reliant on texts the dialogues are delivered in a digestible manner with everything fully voice acted and the voice acting is surprisingly top notch. At first when I was trying to read through every single line of text I thought the dialogues felt dense but that's objectively the wrong way to go about playing the game as you're punished for picking too many options. Once you start playing the game as it is intended you start to appreciate how well written the character interactions are with a lot of genuinely funny banters that don't feel forced. But there is something else entirely that can actually interfere the with the game's pacing and it's the constant DnD skill checks which forces you to do a lot of backtracking and chore-ish tasks just to have a higher chance of succeeding and even then you can fail. Which I can see being the main contributor behind putting off a lot of people and rightfully so and it's objectively a bad game design approach when most people playing the game save scum repeatedly to get past them.
Now onto my main gripe with the game and it's the ending. The finale is flat out terrible with absolutely zero thought put behind and it contradicts the whole investigation this game revolves around. Without delving too deep into spoiler territory, it's the whodunnit. It's entirely detached from everything you do throughout most of the game, from every lead you gather throughout your entire investigation. And to address all the idiotic copium takes I see defending this god awful ending like "oh no but it's supposed to be meta! it fits the themes! it was never about the murder mystery", The game quite literally frames itself as a murder mystery that is LITERALLY your entire objective throughout the whole thing and the game failing to deliver a proper satisfying conclusion shouldn't be above criticism, it's objectively bad and if you can't see that you lack critical thinking skills. Also if there ever was a game that would benefit from having several different endings that vary vastly from one another it'd be THIS but what the game delivered was the exact opposite an extremely linear final segment which contradicts the rest of the game's open-ended nature.
Disco Elysium is a game that has a lot of never-before-seen unique mechanics in a narrative game with a lot of entertainment value but all of it is bogged down by a HORRIBLY botched ending.
2023
honestly more devs should just rip off sekiro's combat system
2023
This is a game that had quite literally everything laid out for itself on the 'idea board' to be a successful soulslike and even carve out an identity for itself in the sea of mediocre copycats. But unfortunately this is made by a bunch of incompetent "soul" jerking apes thus the end result turned out to be one of the worst games made this whole year
Let's get the pros out of the way first as there isn't that many and they get overshadowed quite easily by the myriad of cons
‣ I hear all this nonsense about this game's world/map design being on par with DS1 which flat out isn't true because it's leagues better. The interconnectivity of LoTF remains consistent from start to finish constantly looping you back to the start of the game through various different shortcuts that would leave you surprised while remaining actually cohesive. On the other hand, DS1's interconnected design of the map doesn't extend past the halfway point and is all random starting from Anor Londo till the end of the game.
‣ The levels REQUIRE you to explore every nooks and cranny to progress and having to switch between two different dimensions to find your way through them can be frustrating since you'll spend a good chunk of time being lost but it's also rewarding at the same time. It's obvious that a lot of the work went to crafting the physical space for the levels and having them constantly loop back and making new shortcuts
‣ Even though the combat is largely clunky I appreciate the fact that the posture bar is visible on the lock on. Which might not seem like a big deal at first but once you realize that it's one of the core mechanics to these games, hiding it makes absolutely no sense and honestly more devs should make it visible instead of hiding it for "oh no my immersion" or whatever
I wasn't lying when I said the cons easily outweigh the pros, you'll see why
‣ The game will quite often show off its world through pretty vistas which should make you appreciate its competently designed world and the pretty artstyle, right? But, no. That's not the case. You're left with utter disdain and disgust at the fact that you had to sit through some of the worst areas/levels ever made in any soulslike ever. Which bring me to my second biggest gripe with the game
‣ The levels in this game are absolutely ATROCIOUS to the point going through them made me physically sick at times. I like the fact that the levels are designed in a way that encourages exploration where you have to switch between dimensions but the enemy density and the worthless eyeball mechanics work counter-intuitive and basically kills the whole point of the non-linear and more interconnected layout. The incompetent enemy placement along with the constant fodder spawns due to the eyeball mechanic incentivizes running through the levels instead of engaging in combat as there's no point in doing so since more and more zombies will pop out of nowhere and overwhelm you to death. Putting a timer on exploration in and of itself is extremely hypocritical and only leads to more time being wasted. Speaking of wasted time, the game BARELY gives you any major checkpoints and instead gives you custom ones that you have a limited access to that you can place on certain areas. You have very little access to these at the start of the game and you're left with no choice but to run across the whole area everytime you die. To make things worse sometimes the way the game loops back to the main checkpoints is through elevators and the elevators in this game are so ridiculously SLOW to the point it becomes frustrating to sit through, especially when you have to sit through them repeatedly. Also the custom checkpoints not being permanent is also dumb as you'll be needing to run through the whole level yet again in case you miss a route or some significant items to make progress which is quite common in this game given the non-linear world design. Also, why in the world is platforming a thing? It adds nothing of value to the levels and only makes them more annoying to go through.
Bottom line being, the areas/levels just LOVE to waste your time for no reason at all while simultaneously making you feel sick to your stomach. And what is your reward for sitting through some of the most miserable areas ever designed?
‣ You should be rewarded with a fun fight at the end of a level that has a satisfying learning curve to it, right? Wrong, all you'll get is more misery. The boss fights are incontestably the worst part of this game and it's not even close. The fights are mostly all mobs slapped on with boss HP or ganks that make no logical sense at all or plain out annoying gimmick fights. Even the ones that you'd think are decent by this game's standards are completely ruined by stupid design choices like slapping on an AoE that is completely desynced with the actual moveset and last for so long that it becomes a genuine annoyance. I've also noticed movesets of major bosses getting recycled with dual phase bosses with identical movesets with little to no difference in how you approach the fight except for the fact that it's suddenly far tankier which drags the fight to an unbearable length. The run back to the bosses can be quite insufferable if you're out of custom checkpoints and sometimes you're forced to clear out mobs every single time you face off against the bosses as there are certain mobs can one shot you from 200 miles away
‣ Enemy variety in this game is quite literally non-existent the only way this game can overwhelm the players is through spamming the same worthless zombie mobs or to reuse the mini bosses as fodders with bloated HP only to add to the overall misery of going through the already cramped levels with 500 different zombies spawning on your ass
‣ As you'd expect from a soulslike there isn't really much to its combat but the implementation of parrying is done in such an incompetent way that it leaves you questioning why they even added it to begin which is why I couldn't help but bring it up. Making lighter weapons parry better than the heavier ones make absolutely no sense as you already have a weight advantage when it comes down to lighter weapons and nothing when it comes down to heavier weapons. It should've been the other way around then parrying would legitimately be a viable playstyle despite the lackluster presentation with god awful sound effects
‣ I've respecced in this game 3 different times and the conclusion I came to is that this game is biased towards spell casting magic builds while making melee builds utterly useless especially when you're going through the god awful areas which is like 90% of the game. Even against the complete excuse of "bosses" spells can make the fights somewhat less miserable as you can quickly deal with dogs in one hit that the game LOVES to spam for whatever reason. Basically, build variety is non-existent go with either inferno/radiance build or suffer
‣ The lock-on in this game screwed me over way too many times than I could even bother to remember. It'd automatically remove itself or move onto another object in the area causing you to die. And when the platforming segments that require you to use the lock on most of the time never works if there are enemies nearby in turn making running past everything not a viable option.
‣ The requirements to get different endings are beyond idiotic. The fact that you get locked into the worst ending possible with the Deacons of The Deep final boss only makes it worse as from what I've seen the other endings reward you with far better finale
There are some things I'm on the fence about or simply don't care for and these are
‣ Art direction is quite strong with plenty of variety in its visuals with the different biomes and all but I honestly couldn't careless when the levels individually look quite samey especially in the umbral realm where everything just has a blue tint
‣ Music is nothing I'll go out of my way to listen to but they aren't offensively bad either
‣ the NPC quests are extremely convoluted but so is the case with every Fromsoft souls game so I'll cut them some slack here
Lords of the Fallen is an incompetent title made by a group of incompetent devs.
Steer clear of this game at all cost
0/5
Let's get the pros out of the way first as there isn't that many and they get overshadowed quite easily by the myriad of cons
‣ I hear all this nonsense about this game's world/map design being on par with DS1 which flat out isn't true because it's leagues better. The interconnectivity of LoTF remains consistent from start to finish constantly looping you back to the start of the game through various different shortcuts that would leave you surprised while remaining actually cohesive. On the other hand, DS1's interconnected design of the map doesn't extend past the halfway point and is all random starting from Anor Londo till the end of the game.
‣ The levels REQUIRE you to explore every nooks and cranny to progress and having to switch between two different dimensions to find your way through them can be frustrating since you'll spend a good chunk of time being lost but it's also rewarding at the same time. It's obvious that a lot of the work went to crafting the physical space for the levels and having them constantly loop back and making new shortcuts
‣ Even though the combat is largely clunky I appreciate the fact that the posture bar is visible on the lock on. Which might not seem like a big deal at first but once you realize that it's one of the core mechanics to these games, hiding it makes absolutely no sense and honestly more devs should make it visible instead of hiding it for "oh no my immersion" or whatever
I wasn't lying when I said the cons easily outweigh the pros, you'll see why
‣ The game will quite often show off its world through pretty vistas which should make you appreciate its competently designed world and the pretty artstyle, right? But, no. That's not the case. You're left with utter disdain and disgust at the fact that you had to sit through some of the worst areas/levels ever made in any soulslike ever. Which bring me to my second biggest gripe with the game
‣ The levels in this game are absolutely ATROCIOUS to the point going through them made me physically sick at times. I like the fact that the levels are designed in a way that encourages exploration where you have to switch between dimensions but the enemy density and the worthless eyeball mechanics work counter-intuitive and basically kills the whole point of the non-linear and more interconnected layout. The incompetent enemy placement along with the constant fodder spawns due to the eyeball mechanic incentivizes running through the levels instead of engaging in combat as there's no point in doing so since more and more zombies will pop out of nowhere and overwhelm you to death. Putting a timer on exploration in and of itself is extremely hypocritical and only leads to more time being wasted. Speaking of wasted time, the game BARELY gives you any major checkpoints and instead gives you custom ones that you have a limited access to that you can place on certain areas. You have very little access to these at the start of the game and you're left with no choice but to run across the whole area everytime you die. To make things worse sometimes the way the game loops back to the main checkpoints is through elevators and the elevators in this game are so ridiculously SLOW to the point it becomes frustrating to sit through, especially when you have to sit through them repeatedly. Also the custom checkpoints not being permanent is also dumb as you'll be needing to run through the whole level yet again in case you miss a route or some significant items to make progress which is quite common in this game given the non-linear world design. Also, why in the world is platforming a thing? It adds nothing of value to the levels and only makes them more annoying to go through.
Bottom line being, the areas/levels just LOVE to waste your time for no reason at all while simultaneously making you feel sick to your stomach. And what is your reward for sitting through some of the most miserable areas ever designed?
‣ You should be rewarded with a fun fight at the end of a level that has a satisfying learning curve to it, right? Wrong, all you'll get is more misery. The boss fights are incontestably the worst part of this game and it's not even close. The fights are mostly all mobs slapped on with boss HP or ganks that make no logical sense at all or plain out annoying gimmick fights. Even the ones that you'd think are decent by this game's standards are completely ruined by stupid design choices like slapping on an AoE that is completely desynced with the actual moveset and last for so long that it becomes a genuine annoyance. I've also noticed movesets of major bosses getting recycled with dual phase bosses with identical movesets with little to no difference in how you approach the fight except for the fact that it's suddenly far tankier which drags the fight to an unbearable length. The run back to the bosses can be quite insufferable if you're out of custom checkpoints and sometimes you're forced to clear out mobs every single time you face off against the bosses as there are certain mobs can one shot you from 200 miles away
‣ Enemy variety in this game is quite literally non-existent the only way this game can overwhelm the players is through spamming the same worthless zombie mobs or to reuse the mini bosses as fodders with bloated HP only to add to the overall misery of going through the already cramped levels with 500 different zombies spawning on your ass
‣ As you'd expect from a soulslike there isn't really much to its combat but the implementation of parrying is done in such an incompetent way that it leaves you questioning why they even added it to begin which is why I couldn't help but bring it up. Making lighter weapons parry better than the heavier ones make absolutely no sense as you already have a weight advantage when it comes down to lighter weapons and nothing when it comes down to heavier weapons. It should've been the other way around then parrying would legitimately be a viable playstyle despite the lackluster presentation with god awful sound effects
‣ I've respecced in this game 3 different times and the conclusion I came to is that this game is biased towards spell casting magic builds while making melee builds utterly useless especially when you're going through the god awful areas which is like 90% of the game. Even against the complete excuse of "bosses" spells can make the fights somewhat less miserable as you can quickly deal with dogs in one hit that the game LOVES to spam for whatever reason. Basically, build variety is non-existent go with either inferno/radiance build or suffer
‣ The lock-on in this game screwed me over way too many times than I could even bother to remember. It'd automatically remove itself or move onto another object in the area causing you to die. And when the platforming segments that require you to use the lock on most of the time never works if there are enemies nearby in turn making running past everything not a viable option.
‣ The requirements to get different endings are beyond idiotic. The fact that you get locked into the worst ending possible with the Deacons of The Deep final boss only makes it worse as from what I've seen the other endings reward you with far better finale
There are some things I'm on the fence about or simply don't care for and these are
‣ Art direction is quite strong with plenty of variety in its visuals with the different biomes and all but I honestly couldn't careless when the levels individually look quite samey especially in the umbral realm where everything just has a blue tint
‣ Music is nothing I'll go out of my way to listen to but they aren't offensively bad either
‣ the NPC quests are extremely convoluted but so is the case with every Fromsoft souls game so I'll cut them some slack here
Lords of the Fallen is an incompetent title made by a group of incompetent devs.
Steer clear of this game at all cost
0/5
2020
Alright I'll keep the review brief but one thing's for sure this is hands down one of the better games I've played this year
For me this game is split into two halves, first half being consistently good like every stage introducing new enemies that need to be countered in unique ways with intelligent enemy placement that actually makes you use your brain plus lots of variety in the presentation to keep things fresh. But as soon as you move past the 6th stage which is the halfway point of the game all of that gets thrown out of the window as it becomes more and more apparent that the devs ran out of creative juices, pinning you up against reskinned mobs and reused bosses turned gank from earlier stages and artificially inflating the difficulty by randomly throwing in more tougher enemies that can easily interrupt your combos in hordes. Basically, the game takes a nose dive in overall quality in the latter half compared to the first half
Despite the lackluster second half I still think this game has tons of replay value because of the competently designed plus satisfying combat with a surprising amount of depth and the roster of 8 different playable characters that each have substantially different playstyle which can make every playthrough after the initial one feel like a completely new campaign. I can vouch for the replayability as I've beaten the game 4 times (once on hardest and three times on mania)
And my god the music in this game can be REALLY good at times
For me this game is split into two halves, first half being consistently good like every stage introducing new enemies that need to be countered in unique ways with intelligent enemy placement that actually makes you use your brain plus lots of variety in the presentation to keep things fresh. But as soon as you move past the 6th stage which is the halfway point of the game all of that gets thrown out of the window as it becomes more and more apparent that the devs ran out of creative juices, pinning you up against reskinned mobs and reused bosses turned gank from earlier stages and artificially inflating the difficulty by randomly throwing in more tougher enemies that can easily interrupt your combos in hordes. Basically, the game takes a nose dive in overall quality in the latter half compared to the first half
Despite the lackluster second half I still think this game has tons of replay value because of the competently designed plus satisfying combat with a surprising amount of depth and the roster of 8 different playable characters that each have substantially different playstyle which can make every playthrough after the initial one feel like a completely new campaign. I can vouch for the replayability as I've beaten the game 4 times (once on hardest and three times on mania)
And my god the music in this game can be REALLY good at times
2022
This game is absolute trash even for its measly 3 hours playtime
First off metal plus rhythm game is inherently such an awful match since the genre itself is extremely syncopated in nature which leads to the actual rhythm getting muddied by the loud instruments. Even though the game did try to rectify the issue by throwing in a crap ton of visual cues but it only adds to unnecessary visual clutter and in turn making the gameplay far less intuitive. But that's not the only issue the game has it also suffers from contradictory mechanics, cheap vfx and the environment/enemies around you barely reacting to the overall rhythm and yes that includes the bosses as well
Ultimately if you strip down the rhythmic nature (which it barely capitalizes on) of the game it just feels like a clunky clone of Doom Eternal
First off metal plus rhythm game is inherently such an awful match since the genre itself is extremely syncopated in nature which leads to the actual rhythm getting muddied by the loud instruments. Even though the game did try to rectify the issue by throwing in a crap ton of visual cues but it only adds to unnecessary visual clutter and in turn making the gameplay far less intuitive. But that's not the only issue the game has it also suffers from contradictory mechanics, cheap vfx and the environment/enemies around you barely reacting to the overall rhythm and yes that includes the bosses as well
Ultimately if you strip down the rhythmic nature (which it barely capitalizes on) of the game it just feels like a clunky clone of Doom Eternal
2020
Nioh 2 + All 3 DLCs
Before I say anything even remotely positive, let me preface this by saying that the first 60% of this game is irredeemably bad with contrived artificial difficulty that mostly stems from the fact that you're deprived off rudimentary abilities of your overall kit while simultaneously put up against incompetently designed boss encounters that don't take all the handicaps into account and can often lead to a one/two shot. But once you're past the pit of garbage that is the early to mid game you'll find one of the best souls-likes ever made with a quite solid boss roster (except for the deluge of NPC fights) that rivals even DS3
- Combat -
Compared to other Team Ninja titles (FF Origins and Wo Long) I've played combat here is far more polished and balanced out which is tied to the fact that the enemies were designed with the stamina/ki depleting system in mind unlike in the other games where they just slapped Nioh enemies in a deflection based combat
Also for the longest time I held quite the negative preconceived notion about this game's combat system because of the stance mechanic but after finally playing through the entirety of the game the stance switching aspect of it sold the combat to me since the weapon of choice for me was the Switch Glaive. I've messed around with the other weapons a bit at the start but stance switching feels gimmicky at best unless you're using the weapon the mechanic was intended for. Switching between stances here is quite seamless and there's a practicality to the whole thing instead of just being meant for meaningless style points like in DMC
But there's a massive caveat to ALL of this. That is, by the point you get to the actual meaty part of the game's combat system you'll quite literally be done with the game. By the time the combat clicked with me (I unlocked the mystic arts for my main weapon) I was well into the DLCs. And that is all because of the gazillion different skill trees that take FOREVER to progress
- Skill Trees -
The skill trees are one of the major contributors as to why early to mid game feels like absolute torture to sit through. So you get 4 different main skill trees and each for the 11 different weapon types which houses significant gameplay and QoL improvements. So, without those you're handicapped to the point most of the early content becomes exasperated to sit through. To make things even worse the more useful upgrades are intentionally hidden behind dozens of utterly useless ones. So basically without prior knowledge about the skill trees it can take a huge chunk of your playtime to the point you'd unlock the ones that are actually useful.
- Levels -
The areas are all extremely one note to the point all of them look and play out exactly the same. It's always either a forest or a city ruins that loops back to the checkpoints through ladders or doors. Visually and Mechanically the level designs are as repetitive as they come. Definitely one of the worst aspects of the game
- Bosses -
If there's ever an incentive to come back to this game or play through the NG+ cycles it's because of the boss fights. Even though a huge chunk of the bosses are human-type punching bags that you can stunlock into oblivion the boss roster houses some extremely fun fights such as Otakemaru, Shibata Katsuie, Ushiwakamaru, Raikou and Tate Eboshi. And Tate Eboshi single handedly being one of the best bosses ever made, genuinely had the time of my life mastering the fight
- Music -
The music in this game is surprisingly strong. It's consistently good and keeps getting progressively better and better. Some tracks like Raikou/Ushiwakamaru, Otakemaru, Azai Nagamasa and Tate Eboshi's themes are consistently on loop for me these days. The metric I use to judge video game music is that if I listen to the tracks outside of the game they're good if I don't they're garbage and Nioh 2 definitely falls into the former category
Closing thoughts:
If you're into soulslikes Nioh 2 is a game that will give you the highest of highs while simultaneously giving you lowest of lows leaving you conflicted on whether you even like the game or not
2/5
Before I say anything even remotely positive, let me preface this by saying that the first 60% of this game is irredeemably bad with contrived artificial difficulty that mostly stems from the fact that you're deprived off rudimentary abilities of your overall kit while simultaneously put up against incompetently designed boss encounters that don't take all the handicaps into account and can often lead to a one/two shot. But once you're past the pit of garbage that is the early to mid game you'll find one of the best souls-likes ever made with a quite solid boss roster (except for the deluge of NPC fights) that rivals even DS3
- Combat -
Compared to other Team Ninja titles (FF Origins and Wo Long) I've played combat here is far more polished and balanced out which is tied to the fact that the enemies were designed with the stamina/ki depleting system in mind unlike in the other games where they just slapped Nioh enemies in a deflection based combat
Also for the longest time I held quite the negative preconceived notion about this game's combat system because of the stance mechanic but after finally playing through the entirety of the game the stance switching aspect of it sold the combat to me since the weapon of choice for me was the Switch Glaive. I've messed around with the other weapons a bit at the start but stance switching feels gimmicky at best unless you're using the weapon the mechanic was intended for. Switching between stances here is quite seamless and there's a practicality to the whole thing instead of just being meant for meaningless style points like in DMC
But there's a massive caveat to ALL of this. That is, by the point you get to the actual meaty part of the game's combat system you'll quite literally be done with the game. By the time the combat clicked with me (I unlocked the mystic arts for my main weapon) I was well into the DLCs. And that is all because of the gazillion different skill trees that take FOREVER to progress
- Skill Trees -
The skill trees are one of the major contributors as to why early to mid game feels like absolute torture to sit through. So you get 4 different main skill trees and each for the 11 different weapon types which houses significant gameplay and QoL improvements. So, without those you're handicapped to the point most of the early content becomes exasperated to sit through. To make things even worse the more useful upgrades are intentionally hidden behind dozens of utterly useless ones. So basically without prior knowledge about the skill trees it can take a huge chunk of your playtime to the point you'd unlock the ones that are actually useful.
- Levels -
The areas are all extremely one note to the point all of them look and play out exactly the same. It's always either a forest or a city ruins that loops back to the checkpoints through ladders or doors. Visually and Mechanically the level designs are as repetitive as they come. Definitely one of the worst aspects of the game
- Bosses -
If there's ever an incentive to come back to this game or play through the NG+ cycles it's because of the boss fights. Even though a huge chunk of the bosses are human-type punching bags that you can stunlock into oblivion the boss roster houses some extremely fun fights such as Otakemaru, Shibata Katsuie, Ushiwakamaru, Raikou and Tate Eboshi. And Tate Eboshi single handedly being one of the best bosses ever made, genuinely had the time of my life mastering the fight
- Music -
The music in this game is surprisingly strong. It's consistently good and keeps getting progressively better and better. Some tracks like Raikou/Ushiwakamaru, Otakemaru, Azai Nagamasa and Tate Eboshi's themes are consistently on loop for me these days. The metric I use to judge video game music is that if I listen to the tracks outside of the game they're good if I don't they're garbage and Nioh 2 definitely falls into the former category
Closing thoughts:
If you're into soulslikes Nioh 2 is a game that will give you the highest of highs while simultaneously giving you lowest of lows leaving you conflicted on whether you even like the game or not
2/5
2016
Thumper
is undoubtedly my game of the year and made its way into one of my all time favorites
Despite identifying as a Rhythm game, I'd argue that it's far similar to reaction intensive action game because of the sheer amount of mechanics and the freedom of choice the game provides in terms of how you play it while remaining obscenely simple and satisfying to play
But the game's simplicity doesn't undermine the game's difficulty at all. In fact, this is one of the hardest games I've played and no it's not because it's a rhythm game and rhythm games are supposedly "hard". The difficulty of this game LITERALLY stems from each and every one of the 9 levels having increasingly more and more difficult tempos. For example, level 6 has a time signature of 6/8 and the successive levels all increase the time signatures to sync up with the level number thus providing a consistent challenge to overcome. So even if you're rhythmically adept this game will definitely still be challenging regardless since it's not just a countless notes falling down in the same tempo which is most rhythm game's way of making things artificially more difficult which I find revolting
Now onto the elephant in the room or more like the lack of one, the music in this game is a whole bunch of nothing. It's all abstract noise but that is intentionally done as it's up to the player to find the rhythm through the gameplay and it's far more intuitive than you might think. I myself was guilty of thinking this was stupid but once I beat a few levels and got accustomed all the different mechanics, it all clicked. Music would only hamper the structure of the game and I'm glad there's none
One of my biggest gripes with your regular rhythm games is the fact that those games constantly shove these obnoxious "Perfect/Great/Good/Okay" text pop up in your screen during gameplay but in Thumper you're either right or you're wrong, no annoying text pop ups cluttering your screen it's all you and the gameplay
This is one game I pretty much have nothing really negative to say simply because of the fact that there's no padding and the game is relatively short. But if I had to squeeze out some nitpicks I'd say the visuals can be a tad bit overwhelming at times and can obfuscate SOME notes but that's rarely an issue and a complete non-issue when you learn to play with the rhythm
As far as Rhythm games go I doubt there will be another game like this, ever. Genuine masterpiece, play it or miss out.
is undoubtedly my game of the year and made its way into one of my all time favorites
Despite identifying as a Rhythm game, I'd argue that it's far similar to reaction intensive action game because of the sheer amount of mechanics and the freedom of choice the game provides in terms of how you play it while remaining obscenely simple and satisfying to play
But the game's simplicity doesn't undermine the game's difficulty at all. In fact, this is one of the hardest games I've played and no it's not because it's a rhythm game and rhythm games are supposedly "hard". The difficulty of this game LITERALLY stems from each and every one of the 9 levels having increasingly more and more difficult tempos. For example, level 6 has a time signature of 6/8 and the successive levels all increase the time signatures to sync up with the level number thus providing a consistent challenge to overcome. So even if you're rhythmically adept this game will definitely still be challenging regardless since it's not just a countless notes falling down in the same tempo which is most rhythm game's way of making things artificially more difficult which I find revolting
Now onto the elephant in the room or more like the lack of one, the music in this game is a whole bunch of nothing. It's all abstract noise but that is intentionally done as it's up to the player to find the rhythm through the gameplay and it's far more intuitive than you might think. I myself was guilty of thinking this was stupid but once I beat a few levels and got accustomed all the different mechanics, it all clicked. Music would only hamper the structure of the game and I'm glad there's none
One of my biggest gripes with your regular rhythm games is the fact that those games constantly shove these obnoxious "Perfect/Great/Good/Okay" text pop up in your screen during gameplay but in Thumper you're either right or you're wrong, no annoying text pop ups cluttering your screen it's all you and the gameplay
This is one game I pretty much have nothing really negative to say simply because of the fact that there's no padding and the game is relatively short. But if I had to squeeze out some nitpicks I'd say the visuals can be a tad bit overwhelming at times and can obfuscate SOME notes but that's rarely an issue and a complete non-issue when you learn to play with the rhythm
As far as Rhythm games go I doubt there will be another game like this, ever. Genuine masterpiece, play it or miss out.
Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon is an
incredibly flawed title that people will eat up regardless, because it carries the Fromsoft name while outright ignoring or brushing over the absurdly stupid and contradictory design approach present in the game
Now sit down and let me explain what I mean by the hypocrisy in its design approach
Despite the series crafting its whole identity around the very idea of customization the game actually allows for very little experimentation in terms of any meaningful customization. The main culprit here is how game constantly incentivizes or hell even outright forces you to stick to the most damage dealing tools at your disposal since most of the bosses from the halfway point onward are all pretty shameless DPS rushdowns utterly devoid of any skill expression whatsoever. And, that's further exasperated because of the absolute incompetent balancing that's present in the game which pretty much discourages any experimentation with all the weapons you're given only to use the same broken build just to meet the constant DPS check the game throws at the player. Also, a lot and I mean A LOT of the tools are downright useless such as parry/block shield and various different gun types because of the game constantly demanding you to deal a staggering amount of damage in short bursts. And 9 times out of 10 a lot of the weapons are meaningless stat modifiers with nothing meaningful to offer in terms of the actual combat
Other than the inherently contradicting nature of the game there's not much to say other than the fact than the game is pretty much below subpar with unbelievably lazy level designs where you basically just interact with several different points in the map while killing a few mobs with occasional AC (NPC) boss fights with full fledged bosses being very few and far in between. Thus the gameplay structure ends up being extremely repetitive and boring 90% of the time. But in terms of presentation the game is also quite lacking with the exception of the last few hours and the music is so dull and forgettable to the point that I had to put it on mute
Things I liked (Crazy!)
+ Movement in this game feels extremely seamless and satisfying once you get the hang of it all, which is pretty much why I stuck with a lightweight mech build throughout most of the game
+ The full blown bosses (except Ayre) were somewhat entertaining to fight with Ibis Cel 240 being the cream of the crop
+ Arena challenges started out fun but soon got repetitive once I got to A rank and beyond
+ Despite most people hating the UI I actually think it works out for this game surprisingly well as everything you need to constantly manage are displayed on the lock-on which you're always looking at
+ Yeah I can't think of anymore if I'm gonna be honest lmao
Nitpicks
- The lock on in this game on Keyboard and Mouse is atrocious especially against the final boss of the bad ending
- Not being able to equip parts right after buying and having to go back to the main menu to do it is annoying, especially given the fact that you have to do it a LOT
- Melee attacks can be pretty janky and outright not hit whatever you're fighting despite attacking point blank range
- The NPCs constantly yelling at you if you take hits or do quite literally anything gets tiring super fast
- The sound cues with the red indicator is super lazy and unintuitive
Fromsoft's laziest title so far, I genuinely can't bring myself to give it a score any higher than 1/5
incredibly flawed title that people will eat up regardless, because it carries the Fromsoft name while outright ignoring or brushing over the absurdly stupid and contradictory design approach present in the game
Now sit down and let me explain what I mean by the hypocrisy in its design approach
Despite the series crafting its whole identity around the very idea of customization the game actually allows for very little experimentation in terms of any meaningful customization. The main culprit here is how game constantly incentivizes or hell even outright forces you to stick to the most damage dealing tools at your disposal since most of the bosses from the halfway point onward are all pretty shameless DPS rushdowns utterly devoid of any skill expression whatsoever. And, that's further exasperated because of the absolute incompetent balancing that's present in the game which pretty much discourages any experimentation with all the weapons you're given only to use the same broken build just to meet the constant DPS check the game throws at the player. Also, a lot and I mean A LOT of the tools are downright useless such as parry/block shield and various different gun types because of the game constantly demanding you to deal a staggering amount of damage in short bursts. And 9 times out of 10 a lot of the weapons are meaningless stat modifiers with nothing meaningful to offer in terms of the actual combat
Other than the inherently contradicting nature of the game there's not much to say other than the fact than the game is pretty much below subpar with unbelievably lazy level designs where you basically just interact with several different points in the map while killing a few mobs with occasional AC (NPC) boss fights with full fledged bosses being very few and far in between. Thus the gameplay structure ends up being extremely repetitive and boring 90% of the time. But in terms of presentation the game is also quite lacking with the exception of the last few hours and the music is so dull and forgettable to the point that I had to put it on mute
Things I liked (Crazy!)
+ Movement in this game feels extremely seamless and satisfying once you get the hang of it all, which is pretty much why I stuck with a lightweight mech build throughout most of the game
+ The full blown bosses (except Ayre) were somewhat entertaining to fight with Ibis Cel 240 being the cream of the crop
+ Arena challenges started out fun but soon got repetitive once I got to A rank and beyond
+ Despite most people hating the UI I actually think it works out for this game surprisingly well as everything you need to constantly manage are displayed on the lock-on which you're always looking at
+ Yeah I can't think of anymore if I'm gonna be honest lmao
Nitpicks
- The lock on in this game on Keyboard and Mouse is atrocious especially against the final boss of the bad ending
- Not being able to equip parts right after buying and having to go back to the main menu to do it is annoying, especially given the fact that you have to do it a LOT
- Melee attacks can be pretty janky and outright not hit whatever you're fighting despite attacking point blank range
- The NPCs constantly yelling at you if you take hits or do quite literally anything gets tiring super fast
- The sound cues with the red indicator is super lazy and unintuitive
Fromsoft's laziest title so far, I genuinely can't bring myself to give it a score any higher than 1/5
This game despite being only 6 hours long bored the ever living crap out of me as I had to take MULTIPLE breaks from it just to see the credits roll. It has a severe identity crisis as it tries to be a puzzle platformer, a collectathon and a third person shooter all at the same time and manages to be hot garbage at all 3. Basically, a hodge-podge of nothingness meant to showcase the power of a next-gen console and its graphical/technical competency
The artstyle is extremely bland to the point its detrimental to the actual gameplay as breakable items easily blend in with the environment. And of course the game shares the obnoxious trait of every other playstation exclusives, relying too much on presentation and restricting the player freedom to a mere button input
Garbage game, can't even be called "popcorn entertainment"
Just don't play it
The artstyle is extremely bland to the point its detrimental to the actual gameplay as breakable items easily blend in with the environment. And of course the game shares the obnoxious trait of every other playstation exclusives, relying too much on presentation and restricting the player freedom to a mere button input
Garbage game, can't even be called "popcorn entertainment"
Just don't play it
2023
Dredge is at heart an exploration focused horror adventure title in the guise of a cozy fishing game. And the way it manages to set itself apart from the deluge of uninspiring and flat out boring indie adventure titles is through its FANTASTIC way of juggling between the actual horror bits and its inherent cozy gameplay loop. Where neither part overstays its welcome thus reducing the possibility of overwhelming or boring the player to death. Its atmospheric nature along with the gradual build up of the overall mystery works as incentive to stick with it till the very end but the meat of this game lies within its satisfying progression loop that just keeps you engaged
Although the game could cut back on some unnecessary padding to extend the overall playtime, it was still entertaining and short enough for me to not feel bored or burnt out as I finished the game in merely two sittings
Outer Wilds, learn.
Although the game could cut back on some unnecessary padding to extend the overall playtime, it was still entertaining and short enough for me to not feel bored or burnt out as I finished the game in merely two sittings
Outer Wilds, learn.
Despite playing through mostly everything, completing every single shrine and lighting up entirety of the depths along with most of the important side quests, I still find myself super torn on this game, part of me really likes the mechanical freedom it allows and just how fun and convenient it is to simply get from point A to point B while another part of me absolutely despises how little the open world has changed even though it's a full blown sequel to BoTW (which lead me to stall finishing the game for quite some time)
Pros (I'll mostly just be comparing and contrasting to its direct predecessor)
(+) The new abilities are hands down the best part of this game. The amount of freedom Ultrahand, Fuse and Ascend gives to the player is absolutely unparalleled. Compared to these three BoTW's abilities feel useless and yes that includes stasis which everyone would abuse to solve shrines with endless trial and error
(+) This game takes the most tedious part of BoTW and turns it into the most fun part of the game, flying over Hyrule feels like the intended way of traversing its messy and uneven topography. A simple hoverbike with 2 fans can take you anywhere and everywhere in this game pretty efficiently unlike BoTW where your only method of travelling faster was using the stupid horse which was a genuine nightmare to control
(+) The sky Islands aren't ground breaking or anything but still a decent addition to the open world and the puzzles deeply implement the newer mechanics making it feel something exclusive to the game unlike the other addition to the map I'll be talking about later
(+) ToTK fixes most of the issues in BoTW and amplifies all of its positives in the most unorthodox way imagineable. Prime example of this would be how the combat in this game is still pretty bad and the weapon durability system is just as obnoxious as ever but the inclusion of zonai devices here actually incentivizes you to come up with multiple different ways of massacring mobs instead of just avoiding them all together because you might break your weapons
(+) The shrines here are actually varied enough to justify hunting for every single one and there are plenty of ones that actually have you interact with the surrounding environment to solve the shrines, which is an infinitely better approach than having them be completely removed from the open world. The combat shrines here are basically miniature edition of Eventide Island where you have to survive with limited equipment which is also a drastic improvement over fighting the same one mob 50 different times
(+) Exploration in general feels way more rewarding here than in BoTW and because of the gazillion different indicators helping you discover caves shrine or anything remotely hidden plus the fact that you can get to everywhere in the map just from the towers that instantly shoot you into the stratosphere alone also makes it far more convenient and not a stupid chore
(+) The main dungeons are way less of a headache and you're given plenty of freedom to solve them however you wish just like most of the dungeons
Cons (New issues plus ones that roughly remained the same from BoTW)
(-) Depths is an absolute worthless addition to Hyrule, it's a bloated whole bunch of nothing which has no right to be as massive as the entire map as hyrule. The most fatigued I was ever playing this game is when I was trying to explore the entirety of the map, it contains absolutely nothing of interest, the entire reason you'd ever go into the depths is to farm for zonaite which is directly tied to the most fun part of the game, which leads me to my second biggest gripe with this game
(-) This game will constantly in every opportunity blue ball you from having fun and forcing you to go into the depths and mine zonaite whenever you run out and trust me you run out a lot. At one point I got so fed up that I started exploiting the dupe glitch, I can't be assed to go into the depths and mine the same place just so I can make a hovercraft
(-) The major boss fights in this game are just shameless interactive movies with ONE gimmick and that's it
(-) The open world bosses remained roughly the same as BoTW with few new additions which are also extremely boring to fight and are spread out throughout the map way too many times
(-) The major bosses get reused several times in the Depths only to lose their uniqueness
(-) The durability system became much worse because of the introduction of decayed/pristine weapons but I won't give them too much slack here since zonai devices can pretty much kill every single mob in the game with ease but then again tying the pristine weapons to RNG and in the DEPTHS was one of the worst decisions they made, would have made so much more sense if they were chest/quest rewards
(-) Just like BoTW the main dungeons all play out exactly the same giving the whole game a sense of repetitiveness in the process
I enjoyed my time with the game but I also found myself burnt out on multiple different occasions. BoTW truly is a shitty tech demo compared to ToTK
Pros (I'll mostly just be comparing and contrasting to its direct predecessor)
(+) The new abilities are hands down the best part of this game. The amount of freedom Ultrahand, Fuse and Ascend gives to the player is absolutely unparalleled. Compared to these three BoTW's abilities feel useless and yes that includes stasis which everyone would abuse to solve shrines with endless trial and error
(+) This game takes the most tedious part of BoTW and turns it into the most fun part of the game, flying over Hyrule feels like the intended way of traversing its messy and uneven topography. A simple hoverbike with 2 fans can take you anywhere and everywhere in this game pretty efficiently unlike BoTW where your only method of travelling faster was using the stupid horse which was a genuine nightmare to control
(+) The sky Islands aren't ground breaking or anything but still a decent addition to the open world and the puzzles deeply implement the newer mechanics making it feel something exclusive to the game unlike the other addition to the map I'll be talking about later
(+) ToTK fixes most of the issues in BoTW and amplifies all of its positives in the most unorthodox way imagineable. Prime example of this would be how the combat in this game is still pretty bad and the weapon durability system is just as obnoxious as ever but the inclusion of zonai devices here actually incentivizes you to come up with multiple different ways of massacring mobs instead of just avoiding them all together because you might break your weapons
(+) The shrines here are actually varied enough to justify hunting for every single one and there are plenty of ones that actually have you interact with the surrounding environment to solve the shrines, which is an infinitely better approach than having them be completely removed from the open world. The combat shrines here are basically miniature edition of Eventide Island where you have to survive with limited equipment which is also a drastic improvement over fighting the same one mob 50 different times
(+) Exploration in general feels way more rewarding here than in BoTW and because of the gazillion different indicators helping you discover caves shrine or anything remotely hidden plus the fact that you can get to everywhere in the map just from the towers that instantly shoot you into the stratosphere alone also makes it far more convenient and not a stupid chore
(+) The main dungeons are way less of a headache and you're given plenty of freedom to solve them however you wish just like most of the dungeons
Cons (New issues plus ones that roughly remained the same from BoTW)
(-) Depths is an absolute worthless addition to Hyrule, it's a bloated whole bunch of nothing which has no right to be as massive as the entire map as hyrule. The most fatigued I was ever playing this game is when I was trying to explore the entirety of the map, it contains absolutely nothing of interest, the entire reason you'd ever go into the depths is to farm for zonaite which is directly tied to the most fun part of the game, which leads me to my second biggest gripe with this game
(-) This game will constantly in every opportunity blue ball you from having fun and forcing you to go into the depths and mine zonaite whenever you run out and trust me you run out a lot. At one point I got so fed up that I started exploiting the dupe glitch, I can't be assed to go into the depths and mine the same place just so I can make a hovercraft
(-) The major boss fights in this game are just shameless interactive movies with ONE gimmick and that's it
(-) The open world bosses remained roughly the same as BoTW with few new additions which are also extremely boring to fight and are spread out throughout the map way too many times
(-) The major bosses get reused several times in the Depths only to lose their uniqueness
(-) The durability system became much worse because of the introduction of decayed/pristine weapons but I won't give them too much slack here since zonai devices can pretty much kill every single mob in the game with ease but then again tying the pristine weapons to RNG and in the DEPTHS was one of the worst decisions they made, would have made so much more sense if they were chest/quest rewards
(-) Just like BoTW the main dungeons all play out exactly the same giving the whole game a sense of repetitiveness in the process
I enjoyed my time with the game but I also found myself burnt out on multiple different occasions. BoTW truly is a shitty tech demo compared to ToTK