Playing this game, like, two months after release seems to have resulted in me playing a completely different game to what we all saw upon release. It's not perfect, there's still framerate issues and texture quality and pop-in in still a huge mess. However, now that most of the major bugs have been patched out, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet is one of the best mainline Pokémon games I've ever played, the world is well laid out, it provides the kind of structured freedom many games struggle to capture, the world is varied and interesting and the story is easily one of the best in the series, as medium-height a bar as that is.

Most importantly though is that, for the first time since the DS or even before, this is actually a balanced game, I actually had to think and strategise and try when battling trainers and bosses. I started playing this series at XY, and whilst I've played plenty of these games now, every mainline game that's released in this series since I've started has been a cakewalk and I always end up beating them within 48 hours of getting them. Here, however, it took me almost a week, I needed to actually grind (which is much less of a pain thanks to the let's go feature), and it was so satisfying!

Will definitely keep playing this as time goes on, good to see that this series is finally on the up for the first time in years.

God, there's so much I like here but the whole thing just feels half-baked. I like the combat but it never meaningfully evolves past the first hour, I like the enemies but they show you all the interesting ones in the first third then just throw basic ones at you for the rest of the game (the final boss is just a boring bullet sponge you shoot for ten minutes until it falls over), the world and environments are atmospheric but feel like such a generic sci-fi setting with nothing interesting or unique about it, and worst of all is the story.

It genuinely feels like entire hours of story must have been cut from the game, every single character has one trait each, 0 seconds of development, and there are entire visual motifs that feel like holdovers from cut content (the jack-in-the-box HAS to have been a bigger part of the game in cut content, and the co-pilot that appears like twice and has no bearing on anything), it just feels like there were all these ideas and they either had to cut them or couldn't be bothered to do more than the bare minimum, not just with the story but with every single aspect of the game. The combat, progression, music and story all just feel like entire teams were just doing the absolute minimum to justify calling itself a AAA-style game.

It's not all bad, the types of levels have plenty of variety, the combat feels satisfying when you hit and dodge and block, and the gameplay is well paced, it's just a shame the story is not because it largely doesn't exist.

Was hoping I'd like this more on a replay, and I mostly feel the same, it's worth playing if you can get it on sale for like 20, but other than that I just can't recommend it in good faith. I will say that the PS5 is preferable over PC, it looks better (other than the shadows) and the controller additions from the Dualsense are... Cool.

I hope in future this studio takes their clear dev talent and puts it toward something they actually care about.

Damn I forgot this game is great. Other than the lacklustre story it's got a bustling and storyful world that's brimming with content, some of the side-content is top-notch and the DLC, particularly Far Harbour, is outstanding!

Played the game modded from the start this time, played Whispering Hills, Fallout London, The Machine and Her and a few other DLC campaigns and loved all of it! Whispering hills really creates a totally different atmosphere to the game that still totally fits the art design, Fallout London is a great world that feels like vanilla content in its quality, and there was so much more great content I got to see!

Even four playthroughs through I still found new vanilla content in the open world that I've never seen before, and I think I might just keep going on this current save on-and-off for as long as I can!

The atmosphere is great, the character and enemy designs are GREAT, it's been a good year for awesome protag designs, this is a great modernisation of classic survival horror, this is very kinned with the Resident Evil remake, both aesthetically and in the gameplay. The gameplay is, however, where it falls apart a bit. Whilst the puzzles are always fun, the combat is unresponsive and unsatisfying, and the gameplay gets very repetitive, too repetitive.

It's also a shame, because I've been spoiled for the entire year by SIGNALIS, which is just a masterclass in survival horror.

This is fine
The gameplay has enough fun mechanics to keep it going and knows when to add new ones. The dialogue is annoying but not unbearable, there are some funny jokes, one in a hundred. Every Squanch game feels like the Devs came up with a good game and just asked Roiland to riff over the top.
There are some minor bugs but nothing game breaking, I do wish it was more difficult but I don't know if the gameplay has enough to it to make it being any more difficult still feel fun.

Anyway, won't be playing this again as I didn't realise there's no steam cloud saves for it so I've now lost all my progress.

It's FINE, good even! But only when it wants to be.

First, technicals, I played switching between a Steam Deck and a PC running an RTX 4090 Ti, surprisingly I feel like I had a better time on deck, this game is not well optimised for PC, stuttering that I assumed was the deck not being able to run the game turned out to just be something present in the game, it's constant and random and any time you're not in combat the game will stutter and pause, it's a real issue. On deck with some quick settings tweaks the game runs between 30-60 frames really consistently. I was adamant about playing this on deck as I planned to use it as a litmus test for Deck's longevity, if it can run this new AAA title then it surely has at least a couple of years ahead of it. And the deck passed! What a score.

Now, the game, The Callisto Protocol wildly flies from unbearable to pretty great, and I can tell you where that occurs. The cutscenes in this game are borderline embarassing, with flat, empty characters who have no arcs, outside of the main character who has an arc in the final 20 minutes of the game that comes across as entirely hollow because it's based on something he did that he actually didn't do and the game doesn't address that. The script is a dull amalgam of the worst of resident evil and Dead Space 3, some of it genuinely being laughable even in the final moments. The story and characters of this game would not feel out of place in a resident evil light gun game or call of duty side-mode story, it's really underwhelming, especially considering the big selling point of this game was being a follow up to Dead Space 2, which has great, interesting characters, a storyful and meaty world, and a story that keeps you on the edge of your seat. It does not help that this game really tries to ape that game, multiple times just taking scenes verbatim directly from it.

When you're not suffering through the story, though, this is actually alright! Albeit marred by some design issues. I actually like what they've done with the combat. Once I learned the timings on the dodge, proper times to block, when to use ranged and melee attacks and adjusted my perception of what the kinesis module (sorry, GRP module) is used for, it all really clicked. The problem is that it's entirely designed for one-on-one enemy encounters. The weapons all pack a punch, feel satisfying to use, as do all the combat mechanics, and the upgrades all feel meaningful and ask you to choose your playstyle a bit, but it can't avoid the overwhelming fact that the combat just isn't designed for the game it's in. When one on one you get just enough time to find a place to heal, switch weapons (takes longer than you think) or pick up items, but with more than one you don't get a moment, if you didn't have the right weapons already equipped and full health before an encounter you're already f*cked. And it doesn't help that this game is TOUGH. I played through on normal and it was brutal, frustratingly brutal, sometimes detracts-from-the-game hard.

It's strange, I'd actually recommend this, I'd you don't care about the story and for the love of god play on easy mode, but do wait for a sale, or better yet, just play Dead Space 2, one of the best games of all time.

I'm going to replay this at Christmas and see if I feel any different, here's hoping the season pass makes a difference.

Glad I got to replay this on PC because I now realise that honestly? Even though there's a lot less IN this experience, there's a lot more TO this experience. It's a stripped down version of the previous game that only hasts 6-8 hours in it's campaign, and it works really well, mostly thanks to how amazingly the venom and camoflage abilities work in combat. it adds a lot of varitety and the combat is just enough for an experience of this length. In fact, I'd probably recommend this over the original if someone just wanted to play for the game and not the story.

The snowy version of new york we see here will for-sure be my go-to in future if I ever get a hankering just to play some spider-man.

I would have taken any excuse to play this, honestly, this is an excellent game, Arkane have an unparalelled grip of game and level design, they're unmatched in the whole industry. It's a shame they can't write stories that are good, Dishonored was generic and bland, Prey had some great ideas that it forgets about, and this is unsatisfying and crosses the border into annoying dialogue a few too many times. But it doesn't even matter because the game is so fun to play, and so phenomenally made, it's unbelievably satisfying to do anything, and it feels like there's tens of ways to approach every situation, it's an impressive feat rendered in a great design style. Can't wait for redfall!

Whilst still falling into the trappings of narrative exploration titles (why do I still have to shimmy here, push the stick to climb, quick time event action cutscene there? It's 2022?) This game absolutely sets a new standard for video game storytelling and character action pacing, progression and combat variety.

It's not perfect, there are a slew of strange technical issues; some mechanics, such as the tunic arrows and their puzzle applications, are temperamental due to their interactions with the game's physics systems, and are often unreliable. There's considerable pop-in at seemingly random points and when moving between different map areas on PS5, and combat music can sometimes cut off abruptly. These are all minor issues though that can easily be fixed in a small patch. Larger issues, however, are mostly just decisions aimed at trying to appeal to the widest possible audience. First, much like the 2018 game, it takes exactly two hours before the game actually gives you all of the basic combat tools. In the 2018 game this makes sense, you're playing an aging character who has not been in a real fight in maybe decades and needs to re-learn the ropes. Here it just feels like... It wanted to do the same as that game. Another issue comes in the puzzles. They're some of the best in the series! And miles above the simple affairs of the 2018 game, but you'd be forgiven for not noticing as the moment you get into a puzzle room in this game, your companion NPC will instantly, without any hesitation, tell you the solution to the puzzle in no uncertain terms. Again, toward the end of the 2018 game this made sense to show how Atreus is opening up and becoming more confident, but here, much like holding back giving you combat mechanics, it's only happening because it happened in the last game and they expect you to be nine years old.

Negatives aside, though, let's go into that combat! From the get-go you have everything Kratos had at the end of the previous game, and whilst I was at first disappointed that unlocked abilities didn't carry over (the character action game curse strikes again), it soon made total sense, because combat has been completely re-worked and rebalanced here. The camera now sits further away from Kratos, there's an even greater emphasis on combos as opposed to pure timing and speed as in the previous game, though that is still there. There is also a greater variety than ever before in the series. New types of elemental shielded enemies, more enemy types than every other entry in the series put together, different types of attacks and ways to approach them (I'm an especially big fan of the changes to shield bashing and interruptions, making them a much more integral part of combat). Of course, there are also many more ways to fight, and instead of just giving you little things at a moderate pace, this game slowly drips out powerful abilities that change how you use each weapon in your arsenal. It's a great pacing and momentum keeper. There are also much more satisfying and varied bosses here, instead of fighting the same trolls fifty times each boss here is unique, often even minibosses are completely unique, which is insane considering what the next section of this review is about.

The open world is leagues above the last game. Where that was mostly just a proof of concept for side quests and post-gsme content, this game encourages you to scour nine huge realms for tons of meaningful and impactful side content that genuinely adds to the world and story of the game in a way few other games have achieved before.

And speaking of the story, what a treat. For the 25-30 hour runtime of the main story of this game, it's paced more like a movie. Now, someone just read that and raised an eyebrow, I don't mean it's all cutscenes, that's insane, why would you have got that from what I said? No, I mean it's not the usual video game 'it takes you an hour long mission to learn basic information'; here it feels like every conversation, every interaction, and every moment you're learning something new, strengthening character bonds, and meaningfully progressing. The pace never slows, never takes a break, there's always a new setpiece or boss fight around the corner, always a new twist coming up, and you'll hang on every word. And they're not empty words either, even the new characters feel rich and juicy, not nearly to the extent of the main cast and returning characters, but still interesting to watch and play with nonetheless. I would have perhaps liked more from Odin, his primary motivation felt only-just not well enough established, but it was no major detractor.

As always happens with Sony exclusives and highly-rated games, a lot of people are criticising the game, but the only reasons you wouldnt like this game would be if you don't like narrative action-adventure and don't like fantastic character action. If you like either or both of those genres, then this is for you!
I'm very glad this is a duology, and this game ties everything up in a neat bow, it works perfectly, and I can't wait to keep exploring the nine realms to see everything they have to offer!