549 reviews liked by FirefIy


It was hard to have high expectations of a free Silent Hill game put out by Konami after their numerous gaming crimes - losing Kojima, cashing in on pachinko, Ascension, to name a few - but Silent Hill: The Short Message, a game about grief, suicide and abuse, is WAY better than it has any right to be.

I will admit that the game pinches from P.T and a little Serial Experiments Lain, with a trashy J-emo script that has all the subtlety of.. well, a corridor covered in abusive post-it notes. But I don't hate that, I vibe with it. Sure, I think it could've benefited from being in its native Japanese language rather than English, let alone even the illusion of being set in bloody Germany, as some of the bullying language feels cliche. But the handling of the heavy themes and conclusion it reaches about the victims have a strong emotional impact, and, I must add, a much healthier take than Bloober's offensive The Medium.

But now for the game's main strengths. The boys are back! Akira Yamaoka's score is understated but stirring, the sound design creepy and enhancing the presence of Masahiro Ito's menacing new monster that hobbles after you down corridors with a stop-motion jitteriness. The pursuit sections are reminiscent of Shattered Memories but much more effective, claustrophobic and panic-inducing - they can be difficult and sometimes frustrating but get by on their short length. There’s not a great deal else in terms of gameplay beyond wandering a dilapidated apartment block, but the grimy design and atmosphere are enough to enjoy just moving through the eerie space, uncovering the story in various gameplay ‘loops.’

Of course, it can veer into amateur territory - the drawings are tad too Tumblr, the acting is mostly strong but occasionally a bit off, those sections in school corridors are a bit too 2013 for my liking - but I suppose the game is not made by a bunch of Kojima’s.

However, for the first effort in a couple decades from a Konami-led Japanese team, it’s a rather satisfying return to form for Silent Hill. It’s not perfect, but it didn’t need to be, especially not when it had Ascension’s act to follow.

Some of the imagery and ideas were good but shortfalls in the game design and some particularly on-the-nose writing made for an ultimately mediocre experience.
Honestly I'm mostly upset that they had a cute actress in the live-action scenes and forcefully dubbed over her😔

Shame the concepts weren't executed better, even bigger shame that such a large part of the response to it is to ridicule teenagers for being depressed over dumb things🙃

Probably the most bizarre Mario game to date. I wish we got more stuff like this.

Devil May Cry 2 was a bit of a letdown for me. The plot felt weak, the combat got tiresome, especially when bosses pushed me to rely heavily on ranged weapons. Dante, who was so cool in the first game, felt kinda bland this time around. It's not all bad – I did have some fun playing as Lucia and tackling missions felt pretty rewarding. Yet, I can't help but feel they missed the mark with her character. The potential was there, but the execution fell short, leaving me wanting a deeper exploration of her story and capabilities. It's a missed opportunity that adds to my overall disappointment of the game. Looking forward to the other games in the series.

A lot of fun for a spinoff, good new characters and fun gameplay.

Fire Emblem Persona is all I've ever wanted. instead we got Mario Rabbids Persona but thats really good too

Perhaps too faithful of a remake, but just proves the game was just about perfect to begin with

Devil May Cry 1 provided a nostalgic journey into the simplicity of classic games. The straightforward gameplay, where progression meant acquiring stronger weapons and enhancing personal abilities, was a refreshing departure from the information overload and busywork prevalent in contemporary titles. It's a reminder of a gaming era where the focus was on the core experience of playing and growing stronger, a sentiment often missed in today's more complex gaming landscape.

Sure the combat could be better but if you think its bad clearly you've never impulse mega flare permafrost dancing steel into stagger will-o-the-wykes lightning rod gigaflare zantetsuken level 5-ed before and it shows :/

I struggled a good bit throughout my playthroughs of Final Fantasy XVI. It is now the third mainline game in the series I've beaten but at the time I started it I had intended it to be my first. Its a series I've always known i needed to try to get into, and the demo of this game was absolutely amazing, it completely blew me away. I was very unexpectedly hyped for this. And playing it I was like oh yeah this is def 5/5 material, after the Garuda fight I was so sold on the game. The music is fucking fantastic and I've never seen such awesome boss fights. But then after that the game felt like it had already peaked. There are still great boss fights through the rest of the game but they never were as impactful as the first 10 or so hours were for me. I felt myself increasingly disinterested in the plot and all the lore and by extension - the game itself.

All that changed near the end when I finally actually started doing side missions. I surprisingly ended up becoming quite fond of all the side characters in the Hideaway and to a much lesser extent the different characters out in the various towns and villages. The game has a pretty damn good cast. It was around that point that I was pretty hype for the end. And for the most part the finale delivers. Its plenty epic, and I was having a great time. But in the end, I was a bit disappointed in how everything wrapped up. That's not to say that there's really anything wrong with the ending, it just wasn't what I was wanting. How i feel about that is how I feel about Final Fantasy XVI as a whole. Plenty of great moments, but in the end still just a little disappointing.

Now that I've explained that I still think FFXVI is great, I have a lot more to complain about. Mostly minor things but it all added up over my 90 hours spent with the game. Some minor annoyances like enemy phases being tied to health bars so sometimes when you set up a stagger and start unleashing, the game just lets them sit there and recover without taking damage and you being unable to do anything for like 20 seconds before the next phase begins. There's also some battles in the wild where if the fight naturally goes a little further than where it started, enemies may just become immune and run back to their spawn point at full health. There's also without fail after every big boss, a main quest that's meant to let things settle but it just kills the pacing and feels like the game is wasting your time by dishing out forced side quests, sometimes several in a row. In the more dungeon-y areas the game is also pretty bad at leading the player along, there were several times I ran completely in the wrong direction because it doesn't make it clear what doors you can open unless you're right next to them. My final complaint is that Final Fantasy mode, the supposed hard mode for NG+, is a complete joke. Now I'm sort of glad it wasn't hard because it made the platinum obtainable for me and now that i have one for a mainline game in the series I don't ever have to bother again. But like, the games idea of hard is give every enemy 50x as much HP. For normal enemies it ain't nothin a level 5 Zantetsuken can't solve but any enemy with a stagger bar doesn't actually feel harder to fight, they just take ages to fucking kill. Even though i skipped every cutscene and did minimal side content, my FF playthrough felt longer than my first where I did basically everything. It just isn't very fun.

So that's about all of my thoughts with Final Fantasy XVI. But to end on a more positive note: Jill is hot and Titanic Block + Counter is one of the most satisfying moves of all time.

Thanks for reading <3

-----TLDR----
+ Great cast
+ Amazing soundtrack
+ Awesome boss fights throughout
- Story quality and pacing is wildly inconsistent
- Didn't like the way it ended
- Too many little gameplay grievances that add up

Nancymeter - 85/100
Trophy Completion - 100% (Platinum #278)
Time Played: 92 hours
Completion #6 of November
Completion #210 of 2023

It’s a nice bonus that the intricate and politically charged murder mystery plot is as thoroughly intriguing as it is; but for you, the protagonist of Disco Elysium, the main villain is yourself, specifically your (Ancient Reptilian) brain.
It’s an RPG in which the biggest obstacles can be just not saying the stupidest thing to a suspect, done through chance-based engagement with corners of your mind - logic, empathy, authority, volition, ‘inland empire’ (one of many Lynchian influences throughout) and many more.

Alongside the gorgeous painterly art style, the game’s key strength is its impeccable writing: the funny parts are funny, the narrator’s vivid descriptions are stirring, the characters and relationships feel incredibly real. It’s a game for people who love a really really really good book. Fuck it, Disco Elysium is literature.

Lastly, it’s just a gripping detective game in which piecing information together bares deeply satisfying results, and taking risks are, more often than not, met with rewards. A must play.