GurthingtonRacks
2019
I have wonderful glowing positive things to say about this game.
I have always had a fondness for remedy's style of game making, there is perhaps nobody besides Kojima that understands how to make a game that feels like a movie like they do.
There are several moments in this game that send shivers up my spine from the visuals, perhaps it is the best looking ps4 game.
Gameplay wise, it reminds me quite a bit of alan wake just with more flavor and is less gimmicky. Mostly shooting with some platforming and puzzle elements. It's pacing is great and does not overstay it's welcome.
Story wise it might utilize my favourite way to tell stories, through the environment, lightly used cutscenes with expertly acted characters.
Maybe the best written female protagonist of any game ever, Jesse is very well written and impeccabley acted by Courtney Hope.
She says something in the game that stuck with me about even though the situation is horrific it felt right to be where she was in the moment. A line bespeaking of existential bliss, a feeling we all chase after. Well this game made me feel that in a way, it was a joy.
I have always had a fondness for remedy's style of game making, there is perhaps nobody besides Kojima that understands how to make a game that feels like a movie like they do.
There are several moments in this game that send shivers up my spine from the visuals, perhaps it is the best looking ps4 game.
Gameplay wise, it reminds me quite a bit of alan wake just with more flavor and is less gimmicky. Mostly shooting with some platforming and puzzle elements. It's pacing is great and does not overstay it's welcome.
Story wise it might utilize my favourite way to tell stories, through the environment, lightly used cutscenes with expertly acted characters.
Maybe the best written female protagonist of any game ever, Jesse is very well written and impeccabley acted by Courtney Hope.
She says something in the game that stuck with me about even though the situation is horrific it felt right to be where she was in the moment. A line bespeaking of existential bliss, a feeling we all chase after. Well this game made me feel that in a way, it was a joy.
What’s better than a game where you walk around and press one button? A game where you walk around and press no buttons!
I played this game back in 2006 when it first released and I really enjoyed it, then a power outage happened while I was saving and it was my only save file. I never had only one save file ever again and that’s a pretty big impact on me. I bring this up because this game is a massive time investment and I was very much not willing to get back into the mix, 60 hours down the drain. Zodiac age completely and absolutely fixes this. The game comes with a 2x/4x speed up mode that completely trivializes all the leveling and walkin around you have to do. Very much like the speed up mode on emulators, it makes the game accessible in a way it previously was not. I was able to beat this game in around 30 hours because of this feature.
Now I will actually talk about the game itself, like I said at the start. You essentially just setup menus and actions before you start combat and let the game play itself. It feels like a miracle that this game is fun. But the environment, story, characters, leveling system, license board, gambits, hunts all combine together to make this very enjoyable experience.
It was very cathartic to come back to this game and beat it. That’s all I got to say. Good times
I played this game back in 2006 when it first released and I really enjoyed it, then a power outage happened while I was saving and it was my only save file. I never had only one save file ever again and that’s a pretty big impact on me. I bring this up because this game is a massive time investment and I was very much not willing to get back into the mix, 60 hours down the drain. Zodiac age completely and absolutely fixes this. The game comes with a 2x/4x speed up mode that completely trivializes all the leveling and walkin around you have to do. Very much like the speed up mode on emulators, it makes the game accessible in a way it previously was not. I was able to beat this game in around 30 hours because of this feature.
Now I will actually talk about the game itself, like I said at the start. You essentially just setup menus and actions before you start combat and let the game play itself. It feels like a miracle that this game is fun. But the environment, story, characters, leveling system, license board, gambits, hunts all combine together to make this very enjoyable experience.
It was very cathartic to come back to this game and beat it. That’s all I got to say. Good times
2024
This review contains spoilers
I heard about this game incredibly recently. Came at an interesting time for me as I have started to work on game development myself. This is a throwback ps1 type survival horror game that leans very heavily on silent hill and resident evil for its gameplay inspiration and final fantasy 7(ps1) for its visuals.
Even though it borrows very extensively from its source material. I can’t help but find myself charmed by this game. It strikes the mark I feel it was intending to go for.
I find myself very drawn towards works that blend notions of cuteness with horror. There is a psychological phenomenon known as cute aggression(haven’t you always wondered why people say “ooo I’m just going to eat you up” when they see a baby? According to psycholgists the parts of our brains that appreciate cuteness is wired closely with our aggressive tendencies. I feel that this is why this game clicks so well together.
Resident evil and silent hill both have immediately hostile worlds but final fantasy 7’s world is equally hostile but feels less so partially because of its artistic direction. There is a sort of implicit uncanny feeling to early 3d modeling in video games, you can make something cute but with shadows and framing can make things seem very dark. The donkey Kong country game over screen immediately comes to mind when I think about this.
Well that whole feeling is encapsulated in this claustrophobic stuffy game. It leans heavily on it’s atmosphere which is aided by CRT filters and lighting effects to generate a game that feels like a Mandela effect lost ps1 title.
You progress through the game much the way you would through resident evil, keys scattered throughout the world. It’s one big map, with various areas.
Combat is about as fleshed out as it was in survival horror in the 90’s and 2000’s. It wasn’t the focus of those games and it’s not the focus here. You have tank controls, not as bad as resident evil or silent hill but still stiff feeling, no moving while shooting for you. Enemies never really feel like a challenge but the game will throw them at you fairly constantly but you will also never run out of bullets because the game hands it out like candy.
In hindsight, I don’t like that I didn’t feel as stressed about having enough ammo as I would in a game like dead space and also the enemies are genuinely not threatening enough. They are very scary and doll like to look at but they very easy to dispatch.
This game has ok puzzles, they are mostly basic logic stuff like look through word docs to find clues or look through a room to find a train that’s coloured blue or whatever. Honestly they are about as on par with resident evil or silent hill so that’s ok.
Story wise unfortunately, idk fellas I don’t think writing was the dev’s strong suit.
Survival horror will usually abandon lore story telling in favor of atmospheric story telling but the way this game is laid out makes me think the dev really thought he had something going.
No he did not, mining for gold and finding an interdimensional gateway that turns people into monsters is not really that interesting.
But I give a pass because honestly video games in the 90’s couldn’t really write for shit either.
The soundtrack is in my opinion, excellent. At times it does sound a little derivative of the obvious source material but the mystical, liminal vibes are held in tact.
Overall, def recommend this one.
Even though it borrows very extensively from its source material. I can’t help but find myself charmed by this game. It strikes the mark I feel it was intending to go for.
I find myself very drawn towards works that blend notions of cuteness with horror. There is a psychological phenomenon known as cute aggression(haven’t you always wondered why people say “ooo I’m just going to eat you up” when they see a baby? According to psycholgists the parts of our brains that appreciate cuteness is wired closely with our aggressive tendencies. I feel that this is why this game clicks so well together.
Resident evil and silent hill both have immediately hostile worlds but final fantasy 7’s world is equally hostile but feels less so partially because of its artistic direction. There is a sort of implicit uncanny feeling to early 3d modeling in video games, you can make something cute but with shadows and framing can make things seem very dark. The donkey Kong country game over screen immediately comes to mind when I think about this.
Well that whole feeling is encapsulated in this claustrophobic stuffy game. It leans heavily on it’s atmosphere which is aided by CRT filters and lighting effects to generate a game that feels like a Mandela effect lost ps1 title.
You progress through the game much the way you would through resident evil, keys scattered throughout the world. It’s one big map, with various areas.
Combat is about as fleshed out as it was in survival horror in the 90’s and 2000’s. It wasn’t the focus of those games and it’s not the focus here. You have tank controls, not as bad as resident evil or silent hill but still stiff feeling, no moving while shooting for you. Enemies never really feel like a challenge but the game will throw them at you fairly constantly but you will also never run out of bullets because the game hands it out like candy.
In hindsight, I don’t like that I didn’t feel as stressed about having enough ammo as I would in a game like dead space and also the enemies are genuinely not threatening enough. They are very scary and doll like to look at but they very easy to dispatch.
This game has ok puzzles, they are mostly basic logic stuff like look through word docs to find clues or look through a room to find a train that’s coloured blue or whatever. Honestly they are about as on par with resident evil or silent hill so that’s ok.
Story wise unfortunately, idk fellas I don’t think writing was the dev’s strong suit.
Survival horror will usually abandon lore story telling in favor of atmospheric story telling but the way this game is laid out makes me think the dev really thought he had something going.
No he did not, mining for gold and finding an interdimensional gateway that turns people into monsters is not really that interesting.
But I give a pass because honestly video games in the 90’s couldn’t really write for shit either.
The soundtrack is in my opinion, excellent. At times it does sound a little derivative of the obvious source material but the mystical, liminal vibes are held in tact.
Overall, def recommend this one.
2024
Finally, a backlog breaker. This is probably going to destroy my desire to play any other games for a while. I have long had obsessions with rougelike games. Binding of isaac and slay the spire both managed to capture inordinate amounts of my gaming time. Maybe on the same level as street fighter and other fighting games in general.
I was extremely skeptical about this game upon initally seeing it. It's just poker and cards I thought to myself. But I took a chance because slay the spire and inscryption showed me that deck builders and rougelikes can an incredibly engrossing combination(also I had a friend recommend it).
I have absolutely no regrets, the way a lot of people talk about vampire survivors is how I feel about this game. It is visual, auditory, sensory joy. When I take a run my mind is awash with potential systems I can tweak to solve the ever daunting goal of the game(which in this case is to finish 8 antes of cards a series of 3 games with different challenges).
There is something about the clustering of strategies, the immense difficulty and constant encourage to keep trying and the myriad of systems and how they work together that is so so wonderful. I have always had a mind for statistics(I worked as a data analyst for a couple years) this game rewards understanding of statistics and critical thinking. All you are really doing is organizing poker hands with powerups but the amount of ways the games powerups allow you to do that is just atonishing. The game has a shop that you can access in the middle of the game and in that you find the main way you go about acquiring power in a run which can take you anywhere from 2-3 hours(possibly shorter if I can get more efficient at playing this game). The game has both temporary and permanent powerups. The temporary powerups coming in 2 flavors: the arcana cards and the joker cards. Arcana cards are single use, they affect the money you spend or the cards you are playing, joker cards can be held in a hand of 5 and as long as you hold them you can use their power(the powers can range from being able to make straights with gaps like 1 to 3 can be considered a straight or adding multipliers to hands with certain conditions met like a hand with diamonds). The games permanent powers come in 2 forms as planatary cards and vouchers. The vouchers are the most expensive items in the game and provide a permenant bonus and the planetary cards gives bonuses to which hands you play.
I took the time to explain a system because this game doesn't just have that it has other systems as well and they all work together to create a meta that even the creator of the game says he does not have completely figured out.
I think this game is a wonderful testament to what can be possible even with the most seemingly simple ingrediants.
I was extremely skeptical about this game upon initally seeing it. It's just poker and cards I thought to myself. But I took a chance because slay the spire and inscryption showed me that deck builders and rougelikes can an incredibly engrossing combination(also I had a friend recommend it).
I have absolutely no regrets, the way a lot of people talk about vampire survivors is how I feel about this game. It is visual, auditory, sensory joy. When I take a run my mind is awash with potential systems I can tweak to solve the ever daunting goal of the game(which in this case is to finish 8 antes of cards a series of 3 games with different challenges).
There is something about the clustering of strategies, the immense difficulty and constant encourage to keep trying and the myriad of systems and how they work together that is so so wonderful. I have always had a mind for statistics(I worked as a data analyst for a couple years) this game rewards understanding of statistics and critical thinking. All you are really doing is organizing poker hands with powerups but the amount of ways the games powerups allow you to do that is just atonishing. The game has a shop that you can access in the middle of the game and in that you find the main way you go about acquiring power in a run which can take you anywhere from 2-3 hours(possibly shorter if I can get more efficient at playing this game). The game has both temporary and permanent powerups. The temporary powerups coming in 2 flavors: the arcana cards and the joker cards. Arcana cards are single use, they affect the money you spend or the cards you are playing, joker cards can be held in a hand of 5 and as long as you hold them you can use their power(the powers can range from being able to make straights with gaps like 1 to 3 can be considered a straight or adding multipliers to hands with certain conditions met like a hand with diamonds). The games permanent powers come in 2 forms as planatary cards and vouchers. The vouchers are the most expensive items in the game and provide a permenant bonus and the planetary cards gives bonuses to which hands you play.
I took the time to explain a system because this game doesn't just have that it has other systems as well and they all work together to create a meta that even the creator of the game says he does not have completely figured out.
I think this game is a wonderful testament to what can be possible even with the most seemingly simple ingrediants.
2024
I got through like 6 hours of this before I was like, “ok I’m 30 and I don’t find high school to be a captivating setting and I don’t want to play through 500 floors of Tartarus doing the same shit over and over again for my only respite to be talking to the old people at the book store and leveling up my academics by studying at the shared computer.” Baldur’s gate 3 ruined this shit for me lol. I might have enjoyed this in my early 20’s but I just can’t do it anymore. I enjoyed the original but there is just not enough new content and the game might look pretty but I got like 100 games to complete on my list and I would rather play live a live or silent hill 2 then this shit. Signing off
2017
Highly highly recommend this game. Square enix probably gonna try make a few more of these but they won’t succeed. You need a mad man like yoko taro to bring the heat needed to make the most existential video game of all time. I must confess, I tried and stopped playing this game like 3-4 times. Something about the liminalness of the environment and the game’s weird presentation threw me off. My girlfriend says this is her favourite game of all time tho, so I jumped back in as part of my backlog completion project. By the end of it, I have felt a million feelings, and understand why the game feels so weird at the beginning, it’s trying to lull you into the uncomfortable feelings it ramps up as you keep playing through it. If the purpose of art is to create emotions in people, well this might be the most successful piece of art I have experienced in my life.
2001
This did not take too long to beat.
I feel like in 2001 this would be a 9/10 game. For its time this game probably was seen as very revolutionary because I remember what was around at that time and pretty much the other biggest show in town was metal gear solid or grand theft auto. To have some straight forward cop shooter where the main guy’s super power is that he is so angry he can slow down time is really awesome. Max payne is basically the punisher, you are live role playing criminal genocide. All you do in the game is move from point A to B shooting as many guys as possible. It’s pure boneheaded caveman smashing rocks together type enjoyment. Considering I played this on a whim after playing Alan wake 2, it is completely and utterly head spinning to go from one of the most complex and intricate video game stories ever made to one of the most straightforward pulp ass hardboiled noir detective trope heavy stories. But it works well for the feeling of the game. Max Payne is always saying stuff like “snow flakes were coming down like I was about to come down on injustice”, it’s hilarious simplistic and stupid assume, I am defiantly going to start saying “I made like chow yun fat” every now and then for no reason.
The worst parts of this game are easily the dream sequences. Dawg kill me, I don’t ever want to do platforming in a game that is not made for platformkng while there is a looping sample of a baby screaming its ass off.
The bullet time and dodge mechanics still feel like a very fresh idea to me. You can use them defensively or offensively and they make everything that is on screen look very cinematic and fancy. It’s not quite a “trick” action game like godhand or vanquish but it gets the job done.
All in all this game holds up really well. I can see why it helped propel Remedy to the heights they have reached in later titles like Alan wake 2 or control.
I feel like in 2001 this would be a 9/10 game. For its time this game probably was seen as very revolutionary because I remember what was around at that time and pretty much the other biggest show in town was metal gear solid or grand theft auto. To have some straight forward cop shooter where the main guy’s super power is that he is so angry he can slow down time is really awesome. Max payne is basically the punisher, you are live role playing criminal genocide. All you do in the game is move from point A to B shooting as many guys as possible. It’s pure boneheaded caveman smashing rocks together type enjoyment. Considering I played this on a whim after playing Alan wake 2, it is completely and utterly head spinning to go from one of the most complex and intricate video game stories ever made to one of the most straightforward pulp ass hardboiled noir detective trope heavy stories. But it works well for the feeling of the game. Max Payne is always saying stuff like “snow flakes were coming down like I was about to come down on injustice”, it’s hilarious simplistic and stupid assume, I am defiantly going to start saying “I made like chow yun fat” every now and then for no reason.
The worst parts of this game are easily the dream sequences. Dawg kill me, I don’t ever want to do platforming in a game that is not made for platformkng while there is a looping sample of a baby screaming its ass off.
The bullet time and dodge mechanics still feel like a very fresh idea to me. You can use them defensively or offensively and they make everything that is on screen look very cinematic and fancy. It’s not quite a “trick” action game like godhand or vanquish but it gets the job done.
All in all this game holds up really well. I can see why it helped propel Remedy to the heights they have reached in later titles like Alan wake 2 or control.
2023
So…. Suprise this game is GREAT!
I was in the camp of hating on square enix after the triple whammy of final fantasy 15, final fantasy 7 remake and kingdom hearts 3.
However this game might be the first one where the modern square enix vision has finally clicked for me. I would say this game’s primary strength is its visual spectacle. It’s clearly where square put most of the time and money. Its other strength is the combat, handled by a former capcom employee who worked on devil may cry.
It’s an action rpg through and through with no sentimentality for final fantasy’s legacy of methodical strategy based combat. Elements don’t affect different kinds of enemies and you only control 1 guy and his dog.
But this game can be every bit as flashy as devil may cry. It might lean a little more to the cinematic but its combat has enough meat that putting the work into learning it is worth your time.
Eikon battles are another highlight. They remind a lot of Asura’s wrath. A game known for its scale as big as the planet boss fights and over the top cutscenes. Eikon fights are flashy, highly visually stimulating boss fights that use a seperate moveset from Clive’s default one. They break up the pace of this game and provide a great deal of excitement and visual spectacle.
I found myself getting a bit bored of this game around the halfway point and was skipping most of the cutscenes because I thought it was getting a bit monotonous. But then I started to experiment more with the game’s combat and found I really enjoyed cycling through the Eikon abilities and flying around the screen.
I love the characters, escpially cid. Very stoic vibes from most of them but they are all good for carrying around a story touching on metaphors for environmentalism, racism, and geopolitical conflict. Its tone is maybe the darkest of any final fantasy game, a lot of characters die in this game. Like a huge amount. It is filled with a lot of touching moments, I am not gonna lie I teared up a few times. There is a very believable current of love and sentiment between these characters and it was enough to move me. Here’s hoping square keeps honing their creative vision, they seem to be back on track.
I was in the camp of hating on square enix after the triple whammy of final fantasy 15, final fantasy 7 remake and kingdom hearts 3.
However this game might be the first one where the modern square enix vision has finally clicked for me. I would say this game’s primary strength is its visual spectacle. It’s clearly where square put most of the time and money. Its other strength is the combat, handled by a former capcom employee who worked on devil may cry.
It’s an action rpg through and through with no sentimentality for final fantasy’s legacy of methodical strategy based combat. Elements don’t affect different kinds of enemies and you only control 1 guy and his dog.
But this game can be every bit as flashy as devil may cry. It might lean a little more to the cinematic but its combat has enough meat that putting the work into learning it is worth your time.
Eikon battles are another highlight. They remind a lot of Asura’s wrath. A game known for its scale as big as the planet boss fights and over the top cutscenes. Eikon fights are flashy, highly visually stimulating boss fights that use a seperate moveset from Clive’s default one. They break up the pace of this game and provide a great deal of excitement and visual spectacle.
I found myself getting a bit bored of this game around the halfway point and was skipping most of the cutscenes because I thought it was getting a bit monotonous. But then I started to experiment more with the game’s combat and found I really enjoyed cycling through the Eikon abilities and flying around the screen.
I love the characters, escpially cid. Very stoic vibes from most of them but they are all good for carrying around a story touching on metaphors for environmentalism, racism, and geopolitical conflict. Its tone is maybe the darkest of any final fantasy game, a lot of characters die in this game. Like a huge amount. It is filled with a lot of touching moments, I am not gonna lie I teared up a few times. There is a very believable current of love and sentiment between these characters and it was enough to move me. Here’s hoping square keeps honing their creative vision, they seem to be back on track.
2006
I am very enthusiastic about Godhand, a game that never quite got it's time in the sun but left an impression on anyone that played it.
There is a genre of action games that blends very elements of fighting games and sports games into it's presentation. I seen the roots of it in super smash bros melee but also Godhand. As of late I see this in games such as vanquish, doom eternal and even calisto protocol(the illfated horror brawler game from late 2022). For those games I would refer to them as Trick shooters. There is a fluidity of movement, a flow, a sort of comboed movement that at times needs to be practiced and improved upon iteratively. In a way it's more like tony hawk pro skater than an action game.
Godhand I believe to be a kind of precursor game to this phenomenon, a trick brawler. Released towards the end of ps2's lifecycle around the same time as DMC3. Godhand is very much an oddity in the history of video games. It's an old school brawler set in a 3d environment. It does not have a block button, it has a dodge button and you can flick it very fast and it looks hilarious. You have a wheel of special moves you can use, one of which is spanking your opponents. It's set in the old west, it has a surf rock soundtrack. You can juggle opponents, it's ridiculously difficult. It might be one of the funniest games I have ever played, it's dialogue is like camp kung fu b movie. It's intentionally bad, "you need to feed your brain, not your ass" he says to the fat demon named "Elvis". What makes me liken this game to doom eternal and the like is the fluidity of the game. You do so many things so fast and when you master it, you feel like a God. You combo a guy, see some other guys come at you, dodge everything they do. Hit them with a baseball bat, throw the baseball bat at some other guys approaching. Launching lunge kick into another guy. Kick some guy off the ledge. And all of this can happen in seconds.
I know it might not be for everyone, but this definately feels like a game for me. It's everything I love in a game, it's silly, it's got a high skill cap, performing it feels amazing, there is room for learning and creativity. God bless clover/platinum games, those guys get it.
There is a genre of action games that blends very elements of fighting games and sports games into it's presentation. I seen the roots of it in super smash bros melee but also Godhand. As of late I see this in games such as vanquish, doom eternal and even calisto protocol(the illfated horror brawler game from late 2022). For those games I would refer to them as Trick shooters. There is a fluidity of movement, a flow, a sort of comboed movement that at times needs to be practiced and improved upon iteratively. In a way it's more like tony hawk pro skater than an action game.
Godhand I believe to be a kind of precursor game to this phenomenon, a trick brawler. Released towards the end of ps2's lifecycle around the same time as DMC3. Godhand is very much an oddity in the history of video games. It's an old school brawler set in a 3d environment. It does not have a block button, it has a dodge button and you can flick it very fast and it looks hilarious. You have a wheel of special moves you can use, one of which is spanking your opponents. It's set in the old west, it has a surf rock soundtrack. You can juggle opponents, it's ridiculously difficult. It might be one of the funniest games I have ever played, it's dialogue is like camp kung fu b movie. It's intentionally bad, "you need to feed your brain, not your ass" he says to the fat demon named "Elvis". What makes me liken this game to doom eternal and the like is the fluidity of the game. You do so many things so fast and when you master it, you feel like a God. You combo a guy, see some other guys come at you, dodge everything they do. Hit them with a baseball bat, throw the baseball bat at some other guys approaching. Launching lunge kick into another guy. Kick some guy off the ledge. And all of this can happen in seconds.
I know it might not be for everyone, but this definately feels like a game for me. It's everything I love in a game, it's silly, it's got a high skill cap, performing it feels amazing, there is room for learning and creativity. God bless clover/platinum games, those guys get it.
2015
What is there to be said about the greatest video game of all time up until this point.
I started playing dark souls in 2013, I remember seeing a trailer for bloodborne at the end of 2014 and immediately being captivated. I already had been through the barrier of dark souls difficulty by the time I had played bloodborne.
I could not anticipate that I would play and beat this game more times than I had with any other game. In terms of atmosphere it is unmatched, in terms of gameplay it was revolutionary for souls games(people retroactively went back to dark souls games and started playing with no shield). I believe it started a minor cultural obsession with cosmic horror and HP lovecraft. Perhaps it is the most memetic of Miyazaki’s games, the story that can be mapped to endless things. Capitalism, interfamilial conflicts, cults, the cycle and abuse of power.
Bloodborne’s pacing and environments just cause you to feel like there is a darkness in the room with you in the most positive way possible. A palatable cloud of horror and hopelessness. Shadows hide beings with twisted husks that parody anything resembling a creature of reality.
Bloodborne’s weapon system, with its signiture parry mechanic make this game a joy to master. In the 8 times I have played through it I have never repeated the same build.
Even the game’s chalice dungeon system is an interesting idea. Once grinded through enough you can use codes to find the games most powerful upgrade gmes which significantly increase power. Min maxing was a surprisingly enjoyable experience.
With its superior art direction, environments, story told through those environments(people are still making new discoveries about the story through vidoe essays?), unique gameplay, and memorable enemies and bosses, bloodborne is a must play experience for any lover of games.
I started playing dark souls in 2013, I remember seeing a trailer for bloodborne at the end of 2014 and immediately being captivated. I already had been through the barrier of dark souls difficulty by the time I had played bloodborne.
I could not anticipate that I would play and beat this game more times than I had with any other game. In terms of atmosphere it is unmatched, in terms of gameplay it was revolutionary for souls games(people retroactively went back to dark souls games and started playing with no shield). I believe it started a minor cultural obsession with cosmic horror and HP lovecraft. Perhaps it is the most memetic of Miyazaki’s games, the story that can be mapped to endless things. Capitalism, interfamilial conflicts, cults, the cycle and abuse of power.
Bloodborne’s pacing and environments just cause you to feel like there is a darkness in the room with you in the most positive way possible. A palatable cloud of horror and hopelessness. Shadows hide beings with twisted husks that parody anything resembling a creature of reality.
Bloodborne’s weapon system, with its signiture parry mechanic make this game a joy to master. In the 8 times I have played through it I have never repeated the same build.
Even the game’s chalice dungeon system is an interesting idea. Once grinded through enough you can use codes to find the games most powerful upgrade gmes which significantly increase power. Min maxing was a surprisingly enjoyable experience.
With its superior art direction, environments, story told through those environments(people are still making new discoveries about the story through vidoe essays?), unique gameplay, and memorable enemies and bosses, bloodborne is a must play experience for any lover of games.
2015
I don't know why this one took off, I hate the writing. This is the most twee ass shit I ever done experienced. This the type of game for people that wear helmets as a fashion statement.
2023
If I could give this 6 stars I would because I think this game is in a different caliber than almost every game over the last few years. Might be my second favourite game now next to bloodborne. I have played dnd, divinity 2 and dragon age origins. That’s about the level of experience I had with this kind of game. At a glance it’s similar to Larian’s other games, however it may have set a new standard for story presentation in games. It has superb voice acting, writing, enemy design, character design, world building, and map design. This is not even getting into the actual gameplay. It is in someways a step back and forward for Larian, I really enjoyed the environmental style of combat from divinity 2 but this game simplies that and instead refocuses on giving you a variety of abilities which can lead to a variety of creative ways of handling battles. You can still do trippy things like fill a box full of high weight objects and drop it on enemies using telekinesis, but you also have a variety of simple to complex ways to build different classes. The game’s power progression feels appropriately passed for what took me around 80 hours to finish and I was hauling ass to get through this game. I actually found myself dropping the difficulty halfway through as the fighting on balanced difficulty got a bit too much to handle for me when not min maxing my build.
The story takes a great amount of twists and turns as it goes on and is wound together with its unique and fleshed out cast of characters which have delightful backstories and quests related to them.
Overall this game reminded me of why I love RPGs so much and has given me excitement for what hard working passionate developers can put together in a time where large business is destroying creativity and quality in gaming.
The story takes a great amount of twists and turns as it goes on and is wound together with its unique and fleshed out cast of characters which have delightful backstories and quests related to them.
Overall this game reminded me of why I love RPGs so much and has given me excitement for what hard working passionate developers can put together in a time where large business is destroying creativity and quality in gaming.
2019
This is a very good game.
I have talked a bit about it with one of my friends and he said he did not like that this game did not have the traditional power up styles associated with metroidvania style games. Namely the movement oriented powers that you naturally acquire throughout the game. I don't think every metroidvania style game needs this.
Blasphemous handles it's progression with subtlety and does not give you the most overt power ups to adapt and advance through the world. It has broad range of powerup types including items you can equip for stat boosts, items that give you a draw back and bonus(such as you do more damage but your defenses are weakened), active items that use your MP gauge(called fervor in this game).
I think the game has a superb artstyle with a lot of beautiful sprite work. It reminds me a lot of old DOS games but just much more lavish. While this game is described as a horror game, I found it to be a lot more surreal and strange.
The game's story I am told it fleshed out a lot more in the DLC but I loved how it was presented through the lore on the items and brief dialouge with the characters. I felt like I was given a suffcient amount of mystery and explanation.
It's voice acting is very good, I am told it's even better in spanish.
Overall highly recommend this one.
I have talked a bit about it with one of my friends and he said he did not like that this game did not have the traditional power up styles associated with metroidvania style games. Namely the movement oriented powers that you naturally acquire throughout the game. I don't think every metroidvania style game needs this.
Blasphemous handles it's progression with subtlety and does not give you the most overt power ups to adapt and advance through the world. It has broad range of powerup types including items you can equip for stat boosts, items that give you a draw back and bonus(such as you do more damage but your defenses are weakened), active items that use your MP gauge(called fervor in this game).
I think the game has a superb artstyle with a lot of beautiful sprite work. It reminds me a lot of old DOS games but just much more lavish. While this game is described as a horror game, I found it to be a lot more surreal and strange.
The game's story I am told it fleshed out a lot more in the DLC but I loved how it was presented through the lore on the items and brief dialouge with the characters. I felt like I was given a suffcient amount of mystery and explanation.
It's voice acting is very good, I am told it's even better in spanish.
Overall highly recommend this one.
Sorry world, I don't like this game.
My favourite part of it probably was the shrine puzzles but to be honest I did not even really like them that much. This game has the illusion of creative problem solving to deal with situations but in reality there is very much a set solution to each problem.
I find the world completely and utterly uncapitvating much like breath of the wild before it. There is something about the way nintendo approaches open worlds that makes them completely uninteresting for me to explore. I don't know if it's the liberal usage of empty space or the fact that getting from point A to B is still boring for me even with the building option.
Speaking of this game's central mechanic, it's build system. In theory you should be able to build all sorts of things to help you traverse and defeat the enemies. I don't know if this is a skill issue on my part but I found the system to obtuse and unituitive to do anything other than what was completely obviously set up. Most of the time I did not find it to be the best way of working through the dungeons even though in theory you can do anything you want with it.
It's held back by batteries as a resource which I think are farmed by those gatchapon machines you find around. Yeah I don't like that either. I pretty much hate anything gatchapon related and even something as trivial as randomly getting machine parts annoys me. There should be a store you can buy batteries at.
But I digress, this one ain't for me. It's for the fortnite and minecraft generation bless their hearts. I miss the dungeon designs of majora's mask and ocarina of time, I wish they would find some way to freshen up those ideas instead of this open world slop.
My favourite part of it probably was the shrine puzzles but to be honest I did not even really like them that much. This game has the illusion of creative problem solving to deal with situations but in reality there is very much a set solution to each problem.
I find the world completely and utterly uncapitvating much like breath of the wild before it. There is something about the way nintendo approaches open worlds that makes them completely uninteresting for me to explore. I don't know if it's the liberal usage of empty space or the fact that getting from point A to B is still boring for me even with the building option.
Speaking of this game's central mechanic, it's build system. In theory you should be able to build all sorts of things to help you traverse and defeat the enemies. I don't know if this is a skill issue on my part but I found the system to obtuse and unituitive to do anything other than what was completely obviously set up. Most of the time I did not find it to be the best way of working through the dungeons even though in theory you can do anything you want with it.
It's held back by batteries as a resource which I think are farmed by those gatchapon machines you find around. Yeah I don't like that either. I pretty much hate anything gatchapon related and even something as trivial as randomly getting machine parts annoys me. There should be a store you can buy batteries at.
But I digress, this one ain't for me. It's for the fortnite and minecraft generation bless their hearts. I miss the dungeon designs of majora's mask and ocarina of time, I wish they would find some way to freshen up those ideas instead of this open world slop.
Mother mercy, they done fucked up bad making this one. I remember buying this and being so excited because I rented the other one for gamecube. HOLY HOLY shit dawg, this is not a port it's a completely different game and it sucks ass. You have to stop point and click to zipline web from one place to another and the game looks like shit.
Just play the other one.
Just play the other one.