Geram
13 reviews liked by Geram
When Handler Walter slides into my DMs asking me if I want to be tossed around by different corpos just looking for another mech jockey to fly in and spray bullets, the answer is always yes.
At first, it's just to get another chance to jump into your insane death robot. Piloting your mech feels crisp and responsive, the mission environments absolutely whip in a dystopian kind of way, and there's an endless swiss army knife of weaponry and kit options waiting for you back at the garage that promise to make your next excursion feel fresh. Each new mission sells you further on the rules of Rubicon. You're sold to the highest corpo bidder, often times it'll be the execs who saw you tear through their wage slaves in the previous mission and want to strike back at your former masters. Even when you're hired by the rebel forces who want to kick the parasitic corpos off Rubicon, you'll find that they still have to buy their guns from their enemies because everything in this world costs credits. Even the ammo you spend each mission gets deducted from your paycheck.
Eventually, those shiny bits of gameplay start to grow stale. Almost all of the weapon loadouts can be reduced to holding down L2 + R2 to mow down waves of trivial mobs and even when you hit those insane boss battle difficulty spikes, most of the challenge there is just trying to keep them on screen long enough to pump lead. Because of that, the missions end up feeling like stretches of filler to get you to the next set piece boss encounter.
Still finished the game though because I ended up caring about how this story and its characters would end up. And I would never ever let down my road dawg V.IV Rusty.
At first, it's just to get another chance to jump into your insane death robot. Piloting your mech feels crisp and responsive, the mission environments absolutely whip in a dystopian kind of way, and there's an endless swiss army knife of weaponry and kit options waiting for you back at the garage that promise to make your next excursion feel fresh. Each new mission sells you further on the rules of Rubicon. You're sold to the highest corpo bidder, often times it'll be the execs who saw you tear through their wage slaves in the previous mission and want to strike back at your former masters. Even when you're hired by the rebel forces who want to kick the parasitic corpos off Rubicon, you'll find that they still have to buy their guns from their enemies because everything in this world costs credits. Even the ammo you spend each mission gets deducted from your paycheck.
Eventually, those shiny bits of gameplay start to grow stale. Almost all of the weapon loadouts can be reduced to holding down L2 + R2 to mow down waves of trivial mobs and even when you hit those insane boss battle difficulty spikes, most of the challenge there is just trying to keep them on screen long enough to pump lead. Because of that, the missions end up feeling like stretches of filler to get you to the next set piece boss encounter.
Still finished the game though because I ended up caring about how this story and its characters would end up. And I would never ever let down my road dawg V.IV Rusty.
Objectively speaking, this is an absolute step up from 1 in scope, themes, visuals, and soundtrack. But Jesus the gameplay, what did they do to you?
Instead of the focus system from the first it has this weird risk vs reward system where you need to stay closer to the enemy to get the Fatal Frame ™ (get it?) but it's more like jank vs reward given how there were plenty of times where the ghost was in the frame but it didn't registered arbitrarily, which is not a problem since they spam you with healing items and film to the point where it's impossible to die until the late game where they start spamming enemies and the instakilling Sae to balance out the difficulty spike.
You really feel the padded out game time since there are only so many times they can write "And then Mio and Mayu got separated again" without it feeling contrived. Aside from that the ending is the most rawest moment in horror and you should check it out just for that alone.
Instead of the focus system from the first it has this weird risk vs reward system where you need to stay closer to the enemy to get the Fatal Frame ™ (get it?) but it's more like jank vs reward given how there were plenty of times where the ghost was in the frame but it didn't registered arbitrarily, which is not a problem since they spam you with healing items and film to the point where it's impossible to die until the late game where they start spamming enemies and the instakilling Sae to balance out the difficulty spike.
You really feel the padded out game time since there are only so many times they can write "And then Mio and Mayu got separated again" without it feeling contrived. Aside from that the ending is the most rawest moment in horror and you should check it out just for that alone.
Shadow Of The Colossus is an example of a game that overstays its welcome; it's a lot of fun to scale giant creatures and the orchestral score gives a sense of grand scale to the fights. However, after 16 of these, only broken up by traversing the map in horseriding sections, it gets tedious. I don't think there should've been other sections in between; I like the singular focus on boss fights. However, there really should only be like 10 of them with more focus given to making them feel more distinct (especially when one of them is a previous colossus reused in a different arena).
There's a truly amazing game hidden in here somewhere, with a beautiful world and fantastical atmosphere complementing the grand scope of the colossi fights. Unfortunately, it's bogged down by too many frustrating sections (such as confusing boss weaknesses and a compass that doesn't account for dead ends) and a padded playtime that keep it from quite achieving this greatness.
There's a truly amazing game hidden in here somewhere, with a beautiful world and fantastical atmosphere complementing the grand scope of the colossi fights. Unfortunately, it's bogged down by too many frustrating sections (such as confusing boss weaknesses and a compass that doesn't account for dead ends) and a padded playtime that keep it from quite achieving this greatness.
Clocking in at 120 hours or so…I dunno. It’s awesome that so many people love this game this much but I wasn’t THAT impressed. Is it an improvement over BoTW? In a lot of ways, yeah. I liked the ultra hand and the amount of stuff you could do with it. Ascend was useful too.
The bigger side quests and adventures were mostly a good addition too.
These things kept the world fresh and the changes to the various towns was surprisingly enough to warrant keeping the overworld the same as BoTW.
…But it only lasts for so long. I definitely think that this game is still affected by that open world syndrome where grinding eventually gets stale and side quests become a chore. You’ll be doing a lot of the same things, fighting the same enemies, teleporting to the same places, so on and so forth. The good thing is that you can just progress through the story whenever this happens, but I don’t think that excuses the issue entirely.
Then there’s the depths. This area was pretty miserable. I don’t quite understand what I was meant to enjoy here. You can try out inventions in the many open spaces I guess, but the rest of it is constant Zoanite hunting and looking for the next root. The various costume parts hidden here were not really enough to satiate any desire I had for more content to be in this area either.
Still, it was fun sometimes, other times it wasn’t. I definitely can say it’s one of the weaker Zelda experiences I’ve had though. Guess I’d prefer they go back to the classic 3D Zelda format.
Also feel a bit inclined to mention that the story disappointed me, but I was likely just expecting too much out of it. The scattered memory format just barely worked here, and I felt no connection towards the characters of the past including King Rauru and Queen Sonia. Was also a bit bothered by a lack of any mentions of the deceased sages connected to Sidon, Yunobo and Riju. It just felt weird having them only be casually mentioned in optional conversation.
Then there was Ganondorf, who just didn’t do it for me and probably bothered me way too much. His design was certainly cool, but both the voice acting (no offense Matthew Mercer) and his presentation didn’t do it for me. This incarnation was more similar to OoT’s with a Japanese samurai inspired costume. He wasn’t comically evil like WW’s, but still had a few moments that reminded me of that one. Maybe what I really wanted from this final incarnation was a Ganondorf that retained the memories of his past incarnations and used those to his advantage instead of more of the same. Acknowledging how many Links he’s faced. How many times he’s been thwarted. Maybe he’d appear more tired. More unruly, teetering between the line of calm and calculated but also displaying the unruly hunger and anger only usually seen in his Ganon incarnations. I guess with the lore they ended up using this wouldn’t have worked, but TP and WW Ganondorf were somewhat on their way to this, being more calculated and definitely showing noticeable change from the OoT one. The final boss we got was cool don’t get me wrong, we sort of got something with him giving himself up and swallowing the tear to once again become a beast (basically just another Ganon scenario though) but I just felt like there was way more potential for something more elaborate here.
The lore itself felt cookie cutter as well, especially with how much potential this cumulative entry offers. Mineru seems like a good character, but her struggle wasn’t necessarily believable with how little she appeared. She was barely seen even interacting with her brother Rauru, who she is supposedly close to. Again it just wasn’t elaborated on as much as I wanted it to. The rest is the standard “save the world from evil” Zelda plot, which despite literally depicting the Imprisoning War, does not manage to stand out past that, unlike other entires. I could microanalyze specific scenes here, but instead l’ll just say that I found Twilight Princess to be much better presentation and writing-wise.
I don’t fault the game for its story TOO much (the Ganondorf thing is very clearly a personal gripe) but it definitely could’ve been better in more ways than one. It’s a good entry, but not mind-blowingly amazing.
The bigger side quests and adventures were mostly a good addition too.
These things kept the world fresh and the changes to the various towns was surprisingly enough to warrant keeping the overworld the same as BoTW.
…But it only lasts for so long. I definitely think that this game is still affected by that open world syndrome where grinding eventually gets stale and side quests become a chore. You’ll be doing a lot of the same things, fighting the same enemies, teleporting to the same places, so on and so forth. The good thing is that you can just progress through the story whenever this happens, but I don’t think that excuses the issue entirely.
Then there’s the depths. This area was pretty miserable. I don’t quite understand what I was meant to enjoy here. You can try out inventions in the many open spaces I guess, but the rest of it is constant Zoanite hunting and looking for the next root. The various costume parts hidden here were not really enough to satiate any desire I had for more content to be in this area either.
Still, it was fun sometimes, other times it wasn’t. I definitely can say it’s one of the weaker Zelda experiences I’ve had though. Guess I’d prefer they go back to the classic 3D Zelda format.
Also feel a bit inclined to mention that the story disappointed me, but I was likely just expecting too much out of it. The scattered memory format just barely worked here, and I felt no connection towards the characters of the past including King Rauru and Queen Sonia. Was also a bit bothered by a lack of any mentions of the deceased sages connected to Sidon, Yunobo and Riju. It just felt weird having them only be casually mentioned in optional conversation.
Then there was Ganondorf, who just didn’t do it for me and probably bothered me way too much. His design was certainly cool, but both the voice acting (no offense Matthew Mercer) and his presentation didn’t do it for me. This incarnation was more similar to OoT’s with a Japanese samurai inspired costume. He wasn’t comically evil like WW’s, but still had a few moments that reminded me of that one. Maybe what I really wanted from this final incarnation was a Ganondorf that retained the memories of his past incarnations and used those to his advantage instead of more of the same. Acknowledging how many Links he’s faced. How many times he’s been thwarted. Maybe he’d appear more tired. More unruly, teetering between the line of calm and calculated but also displaying the unruly hunger and anger only usually seen in his Ganon incarnations. I guess with the lore they ended up using this wouldn’t have worked, but TP and WW Ganondorf were somewhat on their way to this, being more calculated and definitely showing noticeable change from the OoT one. The final boss we got was cool don’t get me wrong, we sort of got something with him giving himself up and swallowing the tear to once again become a beast (basically just another Ganon scenario though) but I just felt like there was way more potential for something more elaborate here.
The lore itself felt cookie cutter as well, especially with how much potential this cumulative entry offers. Mineru seems like a good character, but her struggle wasn’t necessarily believable with how little she appeared. She was barely seen even interacting with her brother Rauru, who she is supposedly close to. Again it just wasn’t elaborated on as much as I wanted it to. The rest is the standard “save the world from evil” Zelda plot, which despite literally depicting the Imprisoning War, does not manage to stand out past that, unlike other entires. I could microanalyze specific scenes here, but instead l’ll just say that I found Twilight Princess to be much better presentation and writing-wise.
I don’t fault the game for its story TOO much (the Ganondorf thing is very clearly a personal gripe) but it definitely could’ve been better in more ways than one. It’s a good entry, but not mind-blowingly amazing.
Hello Charlotte
This game is raw, and at a lot of times, very uncomfortable. I think, all in all, I prefer the 2nd game, but I think about that, and I think about this game and I can't help but sit uncomfortably with that. This game isn't written to be liked. In fact, it feels written to be disliked. Like the creator, etherane, wants you to stop, or to be mad, or uncomfortable, or even hate the game. I think in that regard the story is highly effective.
I'm glad I played this series.
Goodbye Charlotte.
This game is raw, and at a lot of times, very uncomfortable. I think, all in all, I prefer the 2nd game, but I think about that, and I think about this game and I can't help but sit uncomfortably with that. This game isn't written to be liked. In fact, it feels written to be disliked. Like the creator, etherane, wants you to stop, or to be mad, or uncomfortable, or even hate the game. I think in that regard the story is highly effective.
I'm glad I played this series.
Goodbye Charlotte.
Pokémon Go
2016
Still fully convinced that pokemon go to the polls lost Hilary the election
“Come gather, both the young and the old!
Come enjoy the show
A show of lies and gods”
It’s as existential as horror can get and, in the ocean of indie top-down horror RPG, it’s the only trilogy worth the entry price from beginning to end. This time, the world is broken from the very start, every wish for everyone to be happy has failed and death is destined to come no matter what. After three games of journey through etherane’s personal hell-scape, we are addressed directly to accept that nothing in it is alright, and probably can never be as long as we think of it as a story. Individuality is questioned to rationalize the game logic that make it possible to treat people and feelings as items. It is worthless. The only normalcy that can be achieved is to recognize ourselves as individuals that need to be together.
It’s corny to treat your own story as a parasite, to see it being carried over into the world outside, trying to scare the viewer with the idea of being endlessly, helplessly seen, to no end. Stuck is a world soaked in ugly colours, being tainted, incapable of achieving the pure white. It’s a world of regrets, but it’s also a world where we can inject love. Because, all this time, we have listened.
Come enjoy the show
A show of lies and gods”
It’s as existential as horror can get and, in the ocean of indie top-down horror RPG, it’s the only trilogy worth the entry price from beginning to end. This time, the world is broken from the very start, every wish for everyone to be happy has failed and death is destined to come no matter what. After three games of journey through etherane’s personal hell-scape, we are addressed directly to accept that nothing in it is alright, and probably can never be as long as we think of it as a story. Individuality is questioned to rationalize the game logic that make it possible to treat people and feelings as items. It is worthless. The only normalcy that can be achieved is to recognize ourselves as individuals that need to be together.
It’s corny to treat your own story as a parasite, to see it being carried over into the world outside, trying to scare the viewer with the idea of being endlessly, helplessly seen, to no end. Stuck is a world soaked in ugly colours, being tainted, incapable of achieving the pure white. It’s a world of regrets, but it’s also a world where we can inject love. Because, all this time, we have listened.
Elden Ring
2022
If you put a gun to my head and asked me my opinion on Elden Ring and if I liked it or not I'd tell you to shoot, because honestly, I don't know what to make of this game.
Elden Ring was my first FromSoft game. Clearly, I liked it enough to spend upwards of 120 hours on it. The world and art direction are breathtaking, the music is excellent, the build variety is nearly endless. There's a lot to love about Elden Ring.
On the other hand, the game's balance is rather poor, the endgame sucks ass, the open world is bloated with repeated bosses for often barely any reward. There's a lot to not like about Elden Ring. The guy on the box is just farting around in some evergaol. A wise man once asked, "What's the deal with Vyke?"
Elden Ring is a game that kept be captivated throughout, yet was also endlessly frustrating.I guess the lands between is the perfect setting for this game. Beautiful, but ultimately kind of fucked.
Arise now, ye Tarnished. Ye dead, who yet live. The call of open world video gaming speaks to us.
-Elden Ring Opening Guy
When I first started Elden Ring, I was like a silly little kitten in a new place. It was just my bandit YIIKGirl (couldn't think of a good name) against the world. Everything was so exciting and interesting to poke around. So much exciting, new stuff to discover. The tension of fighting an enemy camp, discovering catacombs and caves, every enemy was something new.
Around level 18, I ran into Margitt. I got my ass beat, but found more new content to teeth on and power up. I thought I had explored most of Limgrave, but was shocked to find out how much more there was. Elden Ring is certainly big. Eventually, I returned, and I was the one beating his ass. I rode that high to Godrick, and by the end of Stormveil, I was feeling very positively about the game. The luster of the lands between had not yet worn out.
As the game progressed, I started seeing more repeated content. I started encountering bosses that, instead of feeling epic, or a struggle, just more shit for my thumbs to do. "Oh wow, it's Adam, the thief of fire!" Is anyone excited to discover a bitch named Adam?
Catacombs stopped being interesting to find, it was usually just more Imp shit. As the game kept going, less and less of my experiences were unique anymore, they were just more shit in the game.
One example I want to bring up is my experience with the Runebear in the (i think) weeping peninsula. My first encounter with it was one of the most visceral reactions I've ever had in a game. The aggressive and unwieldy attacks of the massive beast that just jumpscared me, as I panicked to escape with my life with the scary ass music in the background. My sibling heard me from upstairs and texted me asking what the hell was going on. It's a small moment, but it was one of the most memorable moments in the game for me because of the real panic it made me feel, and the huge relief I felt when I got away. In a non open world game, this experience might have remained novel.
But this is an open world game, and nothing can keep its luster in the open world. I've seen a lot of runebears now. That one experience was tarnished, because it wasn't just the one moment anymore. It was just routine that many areas would just have an annoying bear enemy with a bloated health bar in it.
Not even the legend or demigod bosses were safe from being crtl+c/crtl+z'd all over the place. Godrick the Grafted, ah what a memorable boss. Phenomenal boss theme, memorable design, great intro and phase 2 cutscenes. If I had a son I would name him Godrick the Grafted. I just wish that there was a hollow version of him that was the exact same fight in some random evergoal but his name was Godfrey instead.
Guys holy shit! Fromsoft makes dreams come true!
Remember Astel? The boss that serves as the climax to Ranni's long questline? Man what a memorable beast. Such a strange background and design, it feels alien. But I don't just remember Astel, Naturalborn of the Void. I also remember Astel, Stars of Darkness. The exact same fight but at the end of some random catacombs, just with a different name, and also he does a billion damage now because fuck you. And no, I don't care if there's a lore reason. There's a lore reason why I can't get a girlfriend but I doubt you care about that.
As the game progressed, I just started to get tired of it all. The game's shine wasn't so bright anymore. I would go through some optional content only to find some useless shit, or a spell I couldn't use. Usually a spell because this game loves int users so much. I would explore the world, only to be showered with useless crafting materials I would never use.
In the Limgrave I was excited to poke around every nook and cranny. In the Mountaintop of Giants, I was mostly just running through it because there probably wasn't anything fun to find in the first place. Every “new” thing I found was just “alright cool, more stimulation awesome I love video games' '. Because tell me you aren’t jumping out of your seat to find another cave infested with rats.
It is fitting that the Erdtree burns and loses its shine during the game’s finest hour. The main symbol of the game becomes tarnished, just like the player character. Just like my experiences.
Over 150 or more to see, to be the elden lord is my destiny!
-The pokemon rap if it was Elden Ring
Excuse that line. The opportunity was there.
What I'm referencing with that line is the fact that Elden Ring has upwards of 150 boss fights. That's one for every gen 1 pokemon besides mew. If we wanna be funny we can bump it up to 151 or more though. Hell, I've seen some claim that there are like 200+ bosses!
Allow me to get on my Dracula shit and ask, "What is a boss fight?" I suppose a better question to ask would be, what purpose does a boss fight serve? Generally speaking, to provide a challenge and serve as a climactic moment in the story of a game. Of course, there are much more to boss fights than just this. Some bosses can be more spectacle than gameplay, others can be easy on purpose (allegedly DS1 final boss is like this), etc.
What I'm getting at with this is that when there are so many boss fights, they kind of stop feeling exciting and just start getting exhausting. A large majority of the bosses in this game really just serve as shit for my thumbs to do, or are just thrown at some random point like the end of a short dungeon because they "should be". Almost none of the bosses left any real impact on me, either because they were just endlessly repeated throughout the game, or because I didn’t give a damn or know much about their character (not a knock on the story as a whole, just a me thing). But I already covered that, didn’t I? Most of them are just there to be hard boss fights, which I guess is fine on its own, but it makes them feel more like video game bosses than something more. Take for example, Loretta in the Haligtree. Let’s also ignore the fact that she had a clone in a different dungeon. What’s her story? I don’t know. She set off on a journey to find a safe haven for the Albirauric people. Cool, I guess. Can this be inferred in her fight? Not really. The end boss of a major area is not only reused, but utterly forgettable, even if the fight itself is good. Going through and making a boss tier list for the sake of remembering everyone, I had to make a whole tier labeled “who?” because I just did not remember some of those fools.
Bad game design
-The average game reviewer
Let’s expand on that previous, rather unfocused segment by speaking of the general game balance, starting with the bosses. Also heads up, I am not even going to address the spirit ashes, we all know they’re stupid and broken. Anyways…. The bosses of this game are the main source of difficulty. In fact, some might argue that they’re the only source of difficulty, as the dungeons have generous checkpoints and for most of the game, enemies aren’t too threatening. Put a pin in that. For now, the bosses. What of them? In short, they’re iffy. In long, well, keep reading.
One of my main gripes with the bosses is the blatant input reading and the constant unnatural timing on many of their attacks. To elaborate on the “input reading” point, it’s technically not “input reading” in the traditional sense, but it might as well be. Bosses look for specific animations (usually healing with a flask) and will react before you can even process what went down (for flasks, some bosses will react before your character has even pulled out the flask in their animation). I also suspect that some attempts to punish their attacks make them react with a combo extension, but that’s speculation.
I will say, this on its own isn’t a huge deal. After all, I’m told that other fromsoft games have done this, even if to a lesser extent. My issue really comes in that it feels excessive and unfair. How can I not get frustrated when everything I do feels out of my hands because oh some input reading fucker? The boss AI is generally smarter, but that’s not my issue really. This video Elden Ring - It's complicated demonstrates how it works. I’m not saying that I should be able to just heal for free, but it just feels a bit annoying when bosses will act extremely passive until I hit a button and then they’re suddenly the most aggressive mother fuckers to walk the Lands Between.
The bosses in general are just a bit overturned if you ask me. At times, the damage output to attack speed ratio (statistic I invented now) is ludicrous. Bosses will flail their arms around without letting up and the flurry of attacks feels like it does the same damage as their large, singular hits. I recall being able to tank Houra Loux’ WWE takedowns just fine, but would fold immediately to the attack where he swats at you like a fly. Melania would be a very awesome fight, but sadly in the interest of making it hard, the end result just ends in a frustrating boss fight. I get that she has “never known defeat” (she is also, allegedly, the blade of Miquella), but does that mean that she needs to have lifesteal on all of her attacks, as well as somewhat cryptic staggering (she staggers when walking but not when she raises her sword. Ok then), on top of the most insane attack in the game? Yes, I know you can avoid waterfowl dance. I’ve done it myself. Doesn’t mean it isn’t bullshit.
The bosses also like to fuck with your flow by delaying their attacks for insane amounts of time, sometimes upwards of 3 seconds. I know when I go to kill someone I like to delay my attacks by 3 seconds, just to fuck with them. Again, this on its own isn’t a problem, maybe a cool gimmick for a handful of bosses (I think Mohg, Lord of Blood does this well, as pretty much all of his attacks are sluggish so it’s expected). The issue is that the majority of the bosses in the game attack very quickly, so when they randomly delay their attack, it totally kills your flow. Of course, avoiding this can become apart of the flow state, but it really just feels like a cheap trick, a beginner's trap, if you will. It’s also just annoying. Like dude, fuck off.
Combined with sometimes overly aggressive and fast bosses, as well as these delayed attacks plus input reading PLUS cryptic combo extensions, I find myself getting frustrated with most bosses. I’ve seen plenty of people play aggressively and shoot for stance breaks, but I find it’s really difficult to do this on the first playthrough (maybe I’m just really bad). Torrent is also a bastard.
Even the regular enemies aren’t immune to being overtuned. Starting at the mountaintop of the giants, enemies suddenly become way more spongy and hit way harder. Consecrated Snowlands and Crumbling Farum Azula get the worst of it. I want to give a quick shout out to the runebear who greets you in the Consecrated Snowlands, who has 18k HP. That is more than Radagon. You know. The final boss. I would also like to shout out the Farum Azula dragon you have to fight, with an insufferable camera and a ludicrous amount of HP. I would also like to shout out the crucible knight, the only enemy in the game I straight up gave up on. I beat Melania but not this asshole. You get the picture. The endgame is already much lighter on exploration, with the last few areas having very little in the way of discovery, and it’s made worse by these overpowered, endlessly frustrating enemies, and then a boss rush of (mostly) overpowered or frustrating boss fights. Also giant boss fights, where you can’t fucking see. Fire Giant, Elden Beast, Maliketh. Were those dudes even playtested (obviously yes, my question was did the dev team think that the Fire Giant and Elden Beast fights were good lol)?
I’ll stop now. You get the point. The endgame balance probably plays a large role in my (relatively) lower score, as it just exhausted me. I wasn’t hyped to see the ending, I was just hoping for the game to finally end.
Play it again on super hard mode!
-Sonic heroes having some fucking nerve
But why would you want it to end??? Don’t you want to play the game again? Use a different build? Explore in a different order? Maybe a challenge run?
So much of Elden Ring’s design feels like it was more for challenge runs. As a matter of fact, the open world itself feels like it only exists for challenge runs. The challenge run videos I have seen spend a lot of time sneaking around to get the necessary ashes of war/equipment/spells or whatever before actually starting the run. I will admit, it is a fun thing that you can get most of what you need for a build early. It’s just disappointing that this aspect is to the detriment of the rest of the playerbase. Why does the crafting system exist when I haven’t seen anyone use it ever? Because I’m a liar, and I have seen someone use it. Challenge runners. Why do some weapons seemingly exist just to be shit? Maybe it’s for the “CAN YOU BEAT ELDEN RING WITH ONLY THE BALLISTA” video (it exists, I watched it).
This is not to disparage challenge runners, they keep my youtube feed lively. I love watching them. I just want to ask, to an average skill gamer such as myself, what purpose does this open world serve? How does it benefit the game? There’s very clearly an “intended” order to go about things in, considering how the enemies stats scale in a linear order like they would if this wasn’t an open world game. Fuck around in Limgrave and then the order of operations is Godrick, Renalla, Radhan, Rykard, Morgott, and then you’re on rails from there. While the route to these bosses are a little bit varied, I wonder why I need to fumble around the epic Open World™ instead of this just being a more tightly designed, linear game. The “legacy dungeons'' were my favorite part of the game because it felt like I was given a real, intentionally designed challenge, and not just wandering around aimlessly until some level 90 dickhead decided to kill me because I went the “wrong way”.
As it stands, it really feels like the open world is only open to facilitate challenge runs and replays, even though the game is so fucking long that I don’t even want to replay it. I spent 120 hours on my NG file, I’m good thanks. And again, all of the initial “wow factor” is gone on my second playthrough, as I’ve already explored most of the game.
I suppose I could replay the game with a different build. New game+ does scale with your endgame, so it wouldn’t be a cakewalk. I could play it again on super hard mode, but my response to that is the same as I gave to Sonic Heroes asking me that very same question: “why would I want to do that”.
“It has a little something for everyone 9/10”
-IGN on “New Super Mario Bros U”
I realize that I have made Elden Ring sound like some joyless slog I only finished because there was a gun to my head. Not so. I did enjoy my time with Elden Ring, and if I really did hate it that much, I wouldn’t have spent so long finishing it. I think that initial high carried me through a lot of the game. I do want to say that my first 30-40 hours were really exciting. It was before everything was being reused, when everything was still new to me. When the mythos of how much of a masterpiece this game is, was just that, a legend, that I myself now got to experience. Lucky me! The music was gorgeous the whole way through, touting some pretty striking landscapes and overall excellent art direction. Although I haven’t played them (well, since starting to write this, I dabbled a bit in Bloodborne) I can tell that good art direction is kind of expected from Fromsoft. The music is also excellent, the boss themes being a particular standout. I’m not a music expert but it sounds good. I don’t think I need to justify myself, as saying “the music in Elden Ring is good” is, as I was told once, “a take so cold you have to thaw it out before reading it”. And again, I did really like some of the bosses, and I did like experimenting with different variations on my build and getting my mind to race thinking about different ways of going about things. I started wanting to just be a pure dexterity beast, but ended with some bizarre amalgamation of an arcane/dex build with a decent amount of faith on the side. Dragon communion seal my beloved.
I want to go back to that comment I made before, about Elden Ring being some untouchable masterpiece that you just have to play to understand how epic and good it is. It’s a type of mythos that is generally given to games much, much older than this one. Stuff like Mario 64, Ocarina of Time, Chrono Trigger, etc. I, a grizzled 19 year old veteran gamer, remember when games like Bioshock were in that conversation as well. It feels weird thinking that Elden Ring has kind of “made it” with that crowd of definitive “masterpieces”. Fucking hell I’m using a lot of quotation marks.
What I’m getting at here is that the reputation that these games carry doesn’t really do them many favors. New players will often go in, expecting their minds to be blown and pants to be shit, only to come out thinking “I don’t get it”. I certainly had that with Chrono Trigger, which I love to bits now, but when I first played it I was wondering what all of the hype was about.
I guess a similar fate befell me with Elden Ring. I went in expecting to play a 10/10 masterpiece, but found a game that, while good, was not entirely to my liking. It also doesn’t help that the legendary difficulty of Fromsoft games makes it difficult to have real discussions about potential balancing issues. I swear I see so many people get their criticisms shut down by the infamous “git gud”. It reminds me of back when games like Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time felt like they were above criticism, in a way. Of course, this isn’t as much the case now as it used to be, and there are plenty of critiques about Elden Ring that have been received warmly (even if someone definitely did make a video calling everyone who complained about the balancing a scrub).
“For whom are you fighting this relentless, dreadful battle?”
What am I getting at with all of that? Not sure. Just felt like pointing it out. I do believe that Elden Ring is a good game, and I did enjoy myself. It just burned me out in the end, it’s open world feeling more like a burden to my enjoyment than an asset. At journey’s end, the game’s issues weighed on me more than ever before. After 120 hours, I slayed the Elden Beast and got the Age of Stars ending. With the Golden Order destroyed after a truly frustrating battle, what did I feel? Catharsis? Relief? Satisfaction that I saved a world I feel no attachment to? In all honesty, I couldn’t really describe how I felt, other than the fact that it felt like nothing.
The age of the stars is here, bitches. It’s your problem now. I certainly don’t give a shit anymore.
Elden Ring was my first FromSoft game. Clearly, I liked it enough to spend upwards of 120 hours on it. The world and art direction are breathtaking, the music is excellent, the build variety is nearly endless. There's a lot to love about Elden Ring.
On the other hand, the game's balance is rather poor, the endgame sucks ass, the open world is bloated with repeated bosses for often barely any reward. There's a lot to not like about Elden Ring. The guy on the box is just farting around in some evergaol. A wise man once asked, "What's the deal with Vyke?"
Elden Ring is a game that kept be captivated throughout, yet was also endlessly frustrating.I guess the lands between is the perfect setting for this game. Beautiful, but ultimately kind of fucked.
Arise now, ye Tarnished. Ye dead, who yet live. The call of open world video gaming speaks to us.
-Elden Ring Opening Guy
When I first started Elden Ring, I was like a silly little kitten in a new place. It was just my bandit YIIKGirl (couldn't think of a good name) against the world. Everything was so exciting and interesting to poke around. So much exciting, new stuff to discover. The tension of fighting an enemy camp, discovering catacombs and caves, every enemy was something new.
Around level 18, I ran into Margitt. I got my ass beat, but found more new content to teeth on and power up. I thought I had explored most of Limgrave, but was shocked to find out how much more there was. Elden Ring is certainly big. Eventually, I returned, and I was the one beating his ass. I rode that high to Godrick, and by the end of Stormveil, I was feeling very positively about the game. The luster of the lands between had not yet worn out.
As the game progressed, I started seeing more repeated content. I started encountering bosses that, instead of feeling epic, or a struggle, just more shit for my thumbs to do. "Oh wow, it's Adam, the thief of fire!" Is anyone excited to discover a bitch named Adam?
Catacombs stopped being interesting to find, it was usually just more Imp shit. As the game kept going, less and less of my experiences were unique anymore, they were just more shit in the game.
One example I want to bring up is my experience with the Runebear in the (i think) weeping peninsula. My first encounter with it was one of the most visceral reactions I've ever had in a game. The aggressive and unwieldy attacks of the massive beast that just jumpscared me, as I panicked to escape with my life with the scary ass music in the background. My sibling heard me from upstairs and texted me asking what the hell was going on. It's a small moment, but it was one of the most memorable moments in the game for me because of the real panic it made me feel, and the huge relief I felt when I got away. In a non open world game, this experience might have remained novel.
But this is an open world game, and nothing can keep its luster in the open world. I've seen a lot of runebears now. That one experience was tarnished, because it wasn't just the one moment anymore. It was just routine that many areas would just have an annoying bear enemy with a bloated health bar in it.
Not even the legend or demigod bosses were safe from being crtl+c/crtl+z'd all over the place. Godrick the Grafted, ah what a memorable boss. Phenomenal boss theme, memorable design, great intro and phase 2 cutscenes. If I had a son I would name him Godrick the Grafted. I just wish that there was a hollow version of him that was the exact same fight in some random evergoal but his name was Godfrey instead.
Guys holy shit! Fromsoft makes dreams come true!
Remember Astel? The boss that serves as the climax to Ranni's long questline? Man what a memorable beast. Such a strange background and design, it feels alien. But I don't just remember Astel, Naturalborn of the Void. I also remember Astel, Stars of Darkness. The exact same fight but at the end of some random catacombs, just with a different name, and also he does a billion damage now because fuck you. And no, I don't care if there's a lore reason. There's a lore reason why I can't get a girlfriend but I doubt you care about that.
As the game progressed, I just started to get tired of it all. The game's shine wasn't so bright anymore. I would go through some optional content only to find some useless shit, or a spell I couldn't use. Usually a spell because this game loves int users so much. I would explore the world, only to be showered with useless crafting materials I would never use.
In the Limgrave I was excited to poke around every nook and cranny. In the Mountaintop of Giants, I was mostly just running through it because there probably wasn't anything fun to find in the first place. Every “new” thing I found was just “alright cool, more stimulation awesome I love video games' '. Because tell me you aren’t jumping out of your seat to find another cave infested with rats.
It is fitting that the Erdtree burns and loses its shine during the game’s finest hour. The main symbol of the game becomes tarnished, just like the player character. Just like my experiences.
Over 150 or more to see, to be the elden lord is my destiny!
-The pokemon rap if it was Elden Ring
Excuse that line. The opportunity was there.
What I'm referencing with that line is the fact that Elden Ring has upwards of 150 boss fights. That's one for every gen 1 pokemon besides mew. If we wanna be funny we can bump it up to 151 or more though. Hell, I've seen some claim that there are like 200+ bosses!
Allow me to get on my Dracula shit and ask, "What is a boss fight?" I suppose a better question to ask would be, what purpose does a boss fight serve? Generally speaking, to provide a challenge and serve as a climactic moment in the story of a game. Of course, there are much more to boss fights than just this. Some bosses can be more spectacle than gameplay, others can be easy on purpose (allegedly DS1 final boss is like this), etc.
What I'm getting at with this is that when there are so many boss fights, they kind of stop feeling exciting and just start getting exhausting. A large majority of the bosses in this game really just serve as shit for my thumbs to do, or are just thrown at some random point like the end of a short dungeon because they "should be". Almost none of the bosses left any real impact on me, either because they were just endlessly repeated throughout the game, or because I didn’t give a damn or know much about their character (not a knock on the story as a whole, just a me thing). But I already covered that, didn’t I? Most of them are just there to be hard boss fights, which I guess is fine on its own, but it makes them feel more like video game bosses than something more. Take for example, Loretta in the Haligtree. Let’s also ignore the fact that she had a clone in a different dungeon. What’s her story? I don’t know. She set off on a journey to find a safe haven for the Albirauric people. Cool, I guess. Can this be inferred in her fight? Not really. The end boss of a major area is not only reused, but utterly forgettable, even if the fight itself is good. Going through and making a boss tier list for the sake of remembering everyone, I had to make a whole tier labeled “who?” because I just did not remember some of those fools.
Bad game design
-The average game reviewer
Let’s expand on that previous, rather unfocused segment by speaking of the general game balance, starting with the bosses. Also heads up, I am not even going to address the spirit ashes, we all know they’re stupid and broken. Anyways…. The bosses of this game are the main source of difficulty. In fact, some might argue that they’re the only source of difficulty, as the dungeons have generous checkpoints and for most of the game, enemies aren’t too threatening. Put a pin in that. For now, the bosses. What of them? In short, they’re iffy. In long, well, keep reading.
One of my main gripes with the bosses is the blatant input reading and the constant unnatural timing on many of their attacks. To elaborate on the “input reading” point, it’s technically not “input reading” in the traditional sense, but it might as well be. Bosses look for specific animations (usually healing with a flask) and will react before you can even process what went down (for flasks, some bosses will react before your character has even pulled out the flask in their animation). I also suspect that some attempts to punish their attacks make them react with a combo extension, but that’s speculation.
I will say, this on its own isn’t a huge deal. After all, I’m told that other fromsoft games have done this, even if to a lesser extent. My issue really comes in that it feels excessive and unfair. How can I not get frustrated when everything I do feels out of my hands because oh some input reading fucker? The boss AI is generally smarter, but that’s not my issue really. This video Elden Ring - It's complicated demonstrates how it works. I’m not saying that I should be able to just heal for free, but it just feels a bit annoying when bosses will act extremely passive until I hit a button and then they’re suddenly the most aggressive mother fuckers to walk the Lands Between.
The bosses in general are just a bit overturned if you ask me. At times, the damage output to attack speed ratio (statistic I invented now) is ludicrous. Bosses will flail their arms around without letting up and the flurry of attacks feels like it does the same damage as their large, singular hits. I recall being able to tank Houra Loux’ WWE takedowns just fine, but would fold immediately to the attack where he swats at you like a fly. Melania would be a very awesome fight, but sadly in the interest of making it hard, the end result just ends in a frustrating boss fight. I get that she has “never known defeat” (she is also, allegedly, the blade of Miquella), but does that mean that she needs to have lifesteal on all of her attacks, as well as somewhat cryptic staggering (she staggers when walking but not when she raises her sword. Ok then), on top of the most insane attack in the game? Yes, I know you can avoid waterfowl dance. I’ve done it myself. Doesn’t mean it isn’t bullshit.
The bosses also like to fuck with your flow by delaying their attacks for insane amounts of time, sometimes upwards of 3 seconds. I know when I go to kill someone I like to delay my attacks by 3 seconds, just to fuck with them. Again, this on its own isn’t a problem, maybe a cool gimmick for a handful of bosses (I think Mohg, Lord of Blood does this well, as pretty much all of his attacks are sluggish so it’s expected). The issue is that the majority of the bosses in the game attack very quickly, so when they randomly delay their attack, it totally kills your flow. Of course, avoiding this can become apart of the flow state, but it really just feels like a cheap trick, a beginner's trap, if you will. It’s also just annoying. Like dude, fuck off.
Combined with sometimes overly aggressive and fast bosses, as well as these delayed attacks plus input reading PLUS cryptic combo extensions, I find myself getting frustrated with most bosses. I’ve seen plenty of people play aggressively and shoot for stance breaks, but I find it’s really difficult to do this on the first playthrough (maybe I’m just really bad). Torrent is also a bastard.
Even the regular enemies aren’t immune to being overtuned. Starting at the mountaintop of the giants, enemies suddenly become way more spongy and hit way harder. Consecrated Snowlands and Crumbling Farum Azula get the worst of it. I want to give a quick shout out to the runebear who greets you in the Consecrated Snowlands, who has 18k HP. That is more than Radagon. You know. The final boss. I would also like to shout out the Farum Azula dragon you have to fight, with an insufferable camera and a ludicrous amount of HP. I would also like to shout out the crucible knight, the only enemy in the game I straight up gave up on. I beat Melania but not this asshole. You get the picture. The endgame is already much lighter on exploration, with the last few areas having very little in the way of discovery, and it’s made worse by these overpowered, endlessly frustrating enemies, and then a boss rush of (mostly) overpowered or frustrating boss fights. Also giant boss fights, where you can’t fucking see. Fire Giant, Elden Beast, Maliketh. Were those dudes even playtested (obviously yes, my question was did the dev team think that the Fire Giant and Elden Beast fights were good lol)?
I’ll stop now. You get the point. The endgame balance probably plays a large role in my (relatively) lower score, as it just exhausted me. I wasn’t hyped to see the ending, I was just hoping for the game to finally end.
Play it again on super hard mode!
-Sonic heroes having some fucking nerve
But why would you want it to end??? Don’t you want to play the game again? Use a different build? Explore in a different order? Maybe a challenge run?
So much of Elden Ring’s design feels like it was more for challenge runs. As a matter of fact, the open world itself feels like it only exists for challenge runs. The challenge run videos I have seen spend a lot of time sneaking around to get the necessary ashes of war/equipment/spells or whatever before actually starting the run. I will admit, it is a fun thing that you can get most of what you need for a build early. It’s just disappointing that this aspect is to the detriment of the rest of the playerbase. Why does the crafting system exist when I haven’t seen anyone use it ever? Because I’m a liar, and I have seen someone use it. Challenge runners. Why do some weapons seemingly exist just to be shit? Maybe it’s for the “CAN YOU BEAT ELDEN RING WITH ONLY THE BALLISTA” video (it exists, I watched it).
This is not to disparage challenge runners, they keep my youtube feed lively. I love watching them. I just want to ask, to an average skill gamer such as myself, what purpose does this open world serve? How does it benefit the game? There’s very clearly an “intended” order to go about things in, considering how the enemies stats scale in a linear order like they would if this wasn’t an open world game. Fuck around in Limgrave and then the order of operations is Godrick, Renalla, Radhan, Rykard, Morgott, and then you’re on rails from there. While the route to these bosses are a little bit varied, I wonder why I need to fumble around the epic Open World™ instead of this just being a more tightly designed, linear game. The “legacy dungeons'' were my favorite part of the game because it felt like I was given a real, intentionally designed challenge, and not just wandering around aimlessly until some level 90 dickhead decided to kill me because I went the “wrong way”.
As it stands, it really feels like the open world is only open to facilitate challenge runs and replays, even though the game is so fucking long that I don’t even want to replay it. I spent 120 hours on my NG file, I’m good thanks. And again, all of the initial “wow factor” is gone on my second playthrough, as I’ve already explored most of the game.
I suppose I could replay the game with a different build. New game+ does scale with your endgame, so it wouldn’t be a cakewalk. I could play it again on super hard mode, but my response to that is the same as I gave to Sonic Heroes asking me that very same question: “why would I want to do that”.
“It has a little something for everyone 9/10”
-IGN on “New Super Mario Bros U”
I realize that I have made Elden Ring sound like some joyless slog I only finished because there was a gun to my head. Not so. I did enjoy my time with Elden Ring, and if I really did hate it that much, I wouldn’t have spent so long finishing it. I think that initial high carried me through a lot of the game. I do want to say that my first 30-40 hours were really exciting. It was before everything was being reused, when everything was still new to me. When the mythos of how much of a masterpiece this game is, was just that, a legend, that I myself now got to experience. Lucky me! The music was gorgeous the whole way through, touting some pretty striking landscapes and overall excellent art direction. Although I haven’t played them (well, since starting to write this, I dabbled a bit in Bloodborne) I can tell that good art direction is kind of expected from Fromsoft. The music is also excellent, the boss themes being a particular standout. I’m not a music expert but it sounds good. I don’t think I need to justify myself, as saying “the music in Elden Ring is good” is, as I was told once, “a take so cold you have to thaw it out before reading it”. And again, I did really like some of the bosses, and I did like experimenting with different variations on my build and getting my mind to race thinking about different ways of going about things. I started wanting to just be a pure dexterity beast, but ended with some bizarre amalgamation of an arcane/dex build with a decent amount of faith on the side. Dragon communion seal my beloved.
I want to go back to that comment I made before, about Elden Ring being some untouchable masterpiece that you just have to play to understand how epic and good it is. It’s a type of mythos that is generally given to games much, much older than this one. Stuff like Mario 64, Ocarina of Time, Chrono Trigger, etc. I, a grizzled 19 year old veteran gamer, remember when games like Bioshock were in that conversation as well. It feels weird thinking that Elden Ring has kind of “made it” with that crowd of definitive “masterpieces”. Fucking hell I’m using a lot of quotation marks.
What I’m getting at here is that the reputation that these games carry doesn’t really do them many favors. New players will often go in, expecting their minds to be blown and pants to be shit, only to come out thinking “I don’t get it”. I certainly had that with Chrono Trigger, which I love to bits now, but when I first played it I was wondering what all of the hype was about.
I guess a similar fate befell me with Elden Ring. I went in expecting to play a 10/10 masterpiece, but found a game that, while good, was not entirely to my liking. It also doesn’t help that the legendary difficulty of Fromsoft games makes it difficult to have real discussions about potential balancing issues. I swear I see so many people get their criticisms shut down by the infamous “git gud”. It reminds me of back when games like Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time felt like they were above criticism, in a way. Of course, this isn’t as much the case now as it used to be, and there are plenty of critiques about Elden Ring that have been received warmly (even if someone definitely did make a video calling everyone who complained about the balancing a scrub).
“For whom are you fighting this relentless, dreadful battle?”
What am I getting at with all of that? Not sure. Just felt like pointing it out. I do believe that Elden Ring is a good game, and I did enjoy myself. It just burned me out in the end, it’s open world feeling more like a burden to my enjoyment than an asset. At journey’s end, the game’s issues weighed on me more than ever before. After 120 hours, I slayed the Elden Beast and got the Age of Stars ending. With the Golden Order destroyed after a truly frustrating battle, what did I feel? Catharsis? Relief? Satisfaction that I saved a world I feel no attachment to? In all honesty, I couldn’t really describe how I felt, other than the fact that it felt like nothing.
The age of the stars is here, bitches. It’s your problem now. I certainly don’t give a shit anymore.
Elden Ring
2022
At first this game looks like it will be an all-time great, the biggest souls game of all time. All of the pieces are here for a masterpiece, the art direction, the gameplay loop, the lore, everything, but after playing Elden Ring it becomes clear this is all a facade, and the more you play, the more the cracks begin to reveal themselves.
First the open world design. This game takes a page from the BotW book and it lets the player free almost immediately to go wherever they want in the world, free to fight any boss, however it seems Elden Ring just took the appeal of BotW without putting in the effort. Enemies and bosses aren't properly scaled meaning that while you can go anywhere, in reality you'll basically be going the same way every playthrough with some variation.
The other problem with the open world is exploration and loot. Elden Ring has a lot of cool things to find and they always reward you in some way, however due to the sheer amount of playstyles and character paths, 80% of the time the reward found will be useless, what this does is make the player no longer want to explore themselves and just google how to find the loot they can actually use, in turn killing a lot of the enjoyment.
Finally, there is the boss design themselves, and there has been a noticeable nosedive in quality. Bosses in souls game used to be tough bu fair, you learn what they did and you strategize a plan to beat them, however, it seems Fromsoftware this design philosophy and decided that the series was only known for difficulty so the bosses have to be obscenely hard with sporadic and delayed movements. It seems after years of everyone calling the souls franchise the "hardest games of all time" the design philosophy of the games has gone through Flanderization. This new philosophy reaches its singularity in the last third of the game where the boss design is so horrendous it punishes anyone trying to play their own way and slaps the player in the face for not using magic; having your 100-hour run basically be slapped in the face and being told it was the wrong way to play the game is frankly terrible game design. The cherry on top of all this is how in the last third the game becomes horribly balanced, bosses like fire giant take 20 years to beat, malenia feels like scrapped Sekiro DLC, and the character you play as is slower than Dark Souls 3, leading the game to not be hard but fair, but absurdly hard and unfair, leading the whole experience to be unfun.
I do like Elden Ring, it has the makings of a masterpiece, but it fails in so many ways and is only really enjoyable for the first 2/3rds of your first play-through.
First the open world design. This game takes a page from the BotW book and it lets the player free almost immediately to go wherever they want in the world, free to fight any boss, however it seems Elden Ring just took the appeal of BotW without putting in the effort. Enemies and bosses aren't properly scaled meaning that while you can go anywhere, in reality you'll basically be going the same way every playthrough with some variation.
The other problem with the open world is exploration and loot. Elden Ring has a lot of cool things to find and they always reward you in some way, however due to the sheer amount of playstyles and character paths, 80% of the time the reward found will be useless, what this does is make the player no longer want to explore themselves and just google how to find the loot they can actually use, in turn killing a lot of the enjoyment.
Finally, there is the boss design themselves, and there has been a noticeable nosedive in quality. Bosses in souls game used to be tough bu fair, you learn what they did and you strategize a plan to beat them, however, it seems Fromsoftware this design philosophy and decided that the series was only known for difficulty so the bosses have to be obscenely hard with sporadic and delayed movements. It seems after years of everyone calling the souls franchise the "hardest games of all time" the design philosophy of the games has gone through Flanderization. This new philosophy reaches its singularity in the last third of the game where the boss design is so horrendous it punishes anyone trying to play their own way and slaps the player in the face for not using magic; having your 100-hour run basically be slapped in the face and being told it was the wrong way to play the game is frankly terrible game design. The cherry on top of all this is how in the last third the game becomes horribly balanced, bosses like fire giant take 20 years to beat, malenia feels like scrapped Sekiro DLC, and the character you play as is slower than Dark Souls 3, leading the game to not be hard but fair, but absurdly hard and unfair, leading the whole experience to be unfun.
I do like Elden Ring, it has the makings of a masterpiece, but it fails in so many ways and is only really enjoyable for the first 2/3rds of your first play-through.
People say Zero Escape and Uchikoshi fell off on ZTD but nah, the cracks were already showing here.
Probably the ugliest looking VN out there. Even ignoring the downgrade in art style from the previous game the 3D models here make RWBY look like a pixar film, and the upscaled resolutions from the re-releases don't make it any better. I don't ask for much when it comes to the visuals on the visual novel department but if you're gonna put me through 20+ hour long reads the least I expect is for it to not look like shit.
Story wise it feels like a borderline parody of 999, guess people complained on how cryptic some of the puzzles were on the first game so they dumbed it down for the babbies who think Professor Layton's 3DS games are difficult. It does nothing that the first one already didn't do better in terms of character dynamics or themes, and you're basically playing a longer version of it with more branching paths that amount to the same endings with slight variations, route locks and unskippable transitions for when you are moving around on the map.
All of that timewasting of arguing semantics for a gotcha cliffhanger ending that shows the trilogy had no idea how to wrap itself up because it clearly didn't have enough material to be a trilogy. Part of me feels that the ending was omitted here because Uchikoshi didn't feel like writing one and hoped that he could wave it away by saying "Whoops, third game wasn't greenlit! Sorry, guess I don't have to explain shit!"
Lo and behold, the third game got greenlit, and we all know how that turned out. Some stones are better left unturned.
Probably the ugliest looking VN out there. Even ignoring the downgrade in art style from the previous game the 3D models here make RWBY look like a pixar film, and the upscaled resolutions from the re-releases don't make it any better. I don't ask for much when it comes to the visuals on the visual novel department but if you're gonna put me through 20+ hour long reads the least I expect is for it to not look like shit.
Story wise it feels like a borderline parody of 999, guess people complained on how cryptic some of the puzzles were on the first game so they dumbed it down for the babbies who think Professor Layton's 3DS games are difficult. It does nothing that the first one already didn't do better in terms of character dynamics or themes, and you're basically playing a longer version of it with more branching paths that amount to the same endings with slight variations, route locks and unskippable transitions for when you are moving around on the map.
All of that timewasting of arguing semantics for a gotcha cliffhanger ending that shows the trilogy had no idea how to wrap itself up because it clearly didn't have enough material to be a trilogy. Part of me feels that the ending was omitted here because Uchikoshi didn't feel like writing one and hoped that he could wave it away by saying "Whoops, third game wasn't greenlit! Sorry, guess I don't have to explain shit!"
Lo and behold, the third game got greenlit, and we all know how that turned out. Some stones are better left unturned.
