GurthingtonRacks
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.
This review contains spoilers
I tried 3 times to pick up and play this game.
The first time when it released and I was blown away. I hated this game, I thought they completely fucked it up. The second time I tried again in like 2022 and I got about halfway and I still hated the game. The third time this year I played it to the finish after finishing ff16. I still hate this game, but I hate it less. Square came into this one with a few good maybe even great ideas. The combat for instance is a real highlight. I did not like it my first few tries but after playing ff16 I started to see and get an appreciation for square’s modern vision of how combat is supposed to work for final fantasy. This game however is not as fleshed out a vision as ff16. The pace is too broken up by having to control 3 characters at the same time. A problem which I feel would have been alieviated by utilizing final fantasy 12’s gambit system. Apparently rebirth is implementing some version of this, if done properly it could be amazing, we will wait and see.
Story wise, holy shit this is where the problems start cooking. This is not a remake, this is something or a sequel in a strange way. I love the idea but hate the execution. My theory is that all the events of the original have occurred in a previous looped universe, sephiroth has memories from this previous universe and I believe aerith does too. An interesting idea but why is it executed so strangely. Most of the changes to the canon do not feel as interesting or inspired as the original(for instance the scene with the shinra president is not as impactful as the original). I don’t like all the foreskin ghosts running around everywhere I feel like it could have been done in a more interesting way. The foreskin ghosts are called whispers and apparently they appear when the timeline is diverging(this is the crux of my theory that the events have already occurred and it was caused by sephiroth because who else would cause it). The handling of sephiroth is also a sore point for me. The excuse they gave for having him appear so much is because players are familiar with him already. What made him so impactful in the original is that he’s got like 7 minutes of screen time aside from his boss fights. What is the point of ruining all the mystery just so you can throw him on screen. They killed all the drama around it, miserable.
I don’t like the music, I don’t like how the environment looks. This is supposed to be a gritty steampunk world, why do we have a high def orchestra and extremely pristine rendered environments. The Lofi synthesizers worked so well in the original, made it feel desolate and hollow, eerie and liminal. Having a blown out orchestra is just a different kind of vibe. Also like there was a kind of charm to the original pre rendered backgrounds that is lost here.
Also whose idea was it to only have the game take place in Midgar and why did they stretch out the different sections of the game. Like the train graveyard is like 3 hours long and in the original I feel like it was 30 min or so.
Chapter 17 is the worst part of this game. Whoever had any hand in designing that should be sent to prison. Why do they keep splitting up the party, why do I have to unlock a bunch of doors, why is it so long, why is it so repetitive, why why why.
One thing I speculate about this game is that it is going to be a very bad time to play as a single game by playing all three of them back to back. Why? Because ff7 has a complete arc inside of itself, you have the build up to a climax and then a conclusion and is that going to happen again at the end of rebirth??? How many climaxes we gonna have? 3? There is a reason we don’t write stories like this. Sephiroth’s impact is gonna be ruined by this game having him as the last boss of it. Please square do better with rebirth.
Just want to say here first they aren’t killing aerith in the next one. I got 5 bucks on it.
The first time when it released and I was blown away. I hated this game, I thought they completely fucked it up. The second time I tried again in like 2022 and I got about halfway and I still hated the game. The third time this year I played it to the finish after finishing ff16. I still hate this game, but I hate it less. Square came into this one with a few good maybe even great ideas. The combat for instance is a real highlight. I did not like it my first few tries but after playing ff16 I started to see and get an appreciation for square’s modern vision of how combat is supposed to work for final fantasy. This game however is not as fleshed out a vision as ff16. The pace is too broken up by having to control 3 characters at the same time. A problem which I feel would have been alieviated by utilizing final fantasy 12’s gambit system. Apparently rebirth is implementing some version of this, if done properly it could be amazing, we will wait and see.
Story wise, holy shit this is where the problems start cooking. This is not a remake, this is something or a sequel in a strange way. I love the idea but hate the execution. My theory is that all the events of the original have occurred in a previous looped universe, sephiroth has memories from this previous universe and I believe aerith does too. An interesting idea but why is it executed so strangely. Most of the changes to the canon do not feel as interesting or inspired as the original(for instance the scene with the shinra president is not as impactful as the original). I don’t like all the foreskin ghosts running around everywhere I feel like it could have been done in a more interesting way. The foreskin ghosts are called whispers and apparently they appear when the timeline is diverging(this is the crux of my theory that the events have already occurred and it was caused by sephiroth because who else would cause it). The handling of sephiroth is also a sore point for me. The excuse they gave for having him appear so much is because players are familiar with him already. What made him so impactful in the original is that he’s got like 7 minutes of screen time aside from his boss fights. What is the point of ruining all the mystery just so you can throw him on screen. They killed all the drama around it, miserable.
I don’t like the music, I don’t like how the environment looks. This is supposed to be a gritty steampunk world, why do we have a high def orchestra and extremely pristine rendered environments. The Lofi synthesizers worked so well in the original, made it feel desolate and hollow, eerie and liminal. Having a blown out orchestra is just a different kind of vibe. Also like there was a kind of charm to the original pre rendered backgrounds that is lost here.
Also whose idea was it to only have the game take place in Midgar and why did they stretch out the different sections of the game. Like the train graveyard is like 3 hours long and in the original I feel like it was 30 min or so.
Chapter 17 is the worst part of this game. Whoever had any hand in designing that should be sent to prison. Why do they keep splitting up the party, why do I have to unlock a bunch of doors, why is it so long, why is it so repetitive, why why why.
One thing I speculate about this game is that it is going to be a very bad time to play as a single game by playing all three of them back to back. Why? Because ff7 has a complete arc inside of itself, you have the build up to a climax and then a conclusion and is that going to happen again at the end of rebirth??? How many climaxes we gonna have? 3? There is a reason we don’t write stories like this. Sephiroth’s impact is gonna be ruined by this game having him as the last boss of it. Please square do better with rebirth.
Just want to say here first they aren’t killing aerith in the next one. I got 5 bucks on it.
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.
2018
Put this one off for a while.
Spiderman(2018) is a pretty good game. It’s the best web swinging they have ever done in one of these by a long shot. The boss fights are kinda shit, the campaign is great tho. The story is pretty fun. I like the Mary Jane parts, I think they break up the pace of the game nicely.
Overall yeah it was fun
Spiderman(2018) is a pretty good game. It’s the best web swinging they have ever done in one of these by a long shot. The boss fights are kinda shit, the campaign is great tho. The story is pretty fun. I like the Mary Jane parts, I think they break up the pace of the game nicely.
Overall yeah it was fun
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.
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.
2008
Giving myself permission not to finish this one. So this is the worst of all the ones I played, I have played 1,3,5 which are agreed incontroversibly to be the best ones. 2 is not in the conversation at all. Every now and then capcom decides to take the road less traveled. In this case I wish they wouldn’t have. This game felt like a push to move away from Dante which I feel was a bad move. I understand capcom is a company which is constantly torn between innovation and tradition. In the case of DMC5 they struck the balance well. This game probably needed to be the scapegoat to do that game well. The elephant in the room is playing as Nero which has been compared to mgs2. Nero is just not as likable as Dante, I understand capcom trying to move with the tide of masculinity which in this case was to be a romantic than a devil may care warrior in the sensibilities of the nu metal age.
In short they didn’t put Kylie in dmc5 for a reason.
In short they didn’t put Kylie in dmc5 for a reason.
1999
Wow, I never really realized what a huge impact that this game had until I finally dusted off my ps3 and went through the arduous process of downloading this off the barely working playstation 3 online store(still up, it's a miracle).
Perhaps the greatest atmosphere created from the least computationally demanding effects that may ever have been seen. I am sure this was using most of the platstation's power but it is truly a marvel of sound and visual design.
This game is shit your pants scary for the first couple hours. I think it tapers off a little bit when you get the pipe and basically trivialize most enemy encounters(the survival horror trope of being very stingy with handing out ammo is in full effect here). Probably the thing that scared me the most was those invisible babies in the school, wtf is up with that shit lol.
I think that game falls apart structurally after the hospital. It feels very disjointed with no strong dungeons(yes I call them dungeons). There are a long walk through the mall, a resort area with a side quest needed to get the good ending, then you go to the final area which is just a recycled mix of parts from other areas in the game. However the disjointed nature of the game's second half induces a very dream like uncomfortable feeling. It's very much like twin peaks and the media that inspired it.
Storywise the game is one big metaphor for the effects of childhood trauma. Team silent's writers discussed something very difficult to discuss in video games and something that affects children of the united states(small town religious cult trauma) with sensitivity and nuance. In a way I like the themes of silent hill 1's monsters and vibe more than the second game, it's about another person's problems(Harry's daughter/Alyssia(I think that's her name), heroic vibes.
Perhaps the greatest atmosphere created from the least computationally demanding effects that may ever have been seen. I am sure this was using most of the platstation's power but it is truly a marvel of sound and visual design.
This game is shit your pants scary for the first couple hours. I think it tapers off a little bit when you get the pipe and basically trivialize most enemy encounters(the survival horror trope of being very stingy with handing out ammo is in full effect here). Probably the thing that scared me the most was those invisible babies in the school, wtf is up with that shit lol.
I think that game falls apart structurally after the hospital. It feels very disjointed with no strong dungeons(yes I call them dungeons). There are a long walk through the mall, a resort area with a side quest needed to get the good ending, then you go to the final area which is just a recycled mix of parts from other areas in the game. However the disjointed nature of the game's second half induces a very dream like uncomfortable feeling. It's very much like twin peaks and the media that inspired it.
Storywise the game is one big metaphor for the effects of childhood trauma. Team silent's writers discussed something very difficult to discuss in video games and something that affects children of the united states(small town religious cult trauma) with sensitivity and nuance. In a way I like the themes of silent hill 1's monsters and vibe more than the second game, it's about another person's problems(Harry's daughter/Alyssia(I think that's her name), heroic vibes.
2023
I did not really play this one. I watched it on youtube. This is quite a gripping story. I like the amount of branching paths and I think the vocal work is really well done. I think I would add this to a list of cosmic horror done well in gaming. There is a level of mystery that never disturbed by over revealing anything. Yeah it's a good watch, I assume it would be a good play. I just don't want to spend nearly 30 dollars canadian for something I could just watch on youtube.
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.
2019
Ok I tried to enjoy this game for children but I did not enjoy it very much. I am a very big fan of the original luigi's mansion, I love that era of nintendo's history. Back in the late 90's to early 2000's, nintendo was taking some wonderful risks and going in very fun directions with the tone and content of their games. Games like super mario sunshine, legend of zelda majoras mask and luigi's mansion had much different style than what nintendo had become known for at the time and have become known for since. Luigi's mansion in 2001 had a genuinely creepy vibe. The mixture of visual presentation, sound design, ghost design created a wonderful dollhouse like atmosphere. Then in 2013 they dropped luigi's mansion dark moon and that game has very similar problems to this one. Instead of a spooky atmosphere they opted for goofy and I think it's a little more like nintendo's other games rather than something distinct. Now I am sure that is because the intended audience for this game is younger and playing something like luigi's mansion 2001 would scare them quite a bit. I was 11-14 when I started playing the OG, it was a good precursor to games like the resident evil series.
Some positive things I can say about this game is that it looks pretty good, the powers and ghost catching works, but to me none of this really matters if you don't nail the tone.
Some positive things I can say about this game is that it looks pretty good, the powers and ghost catching works, but to me none of this really matters if you don't nail the tone.
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.
This game is great. It's probably the worst of all the modern era from soft games but it's still an amazing game. There is something about the environments, the openess of the gameplay, and the radical experimentation that gives this game a certain charm.
Some ideas I wish they kept in other games include the bonfire ascetic, and the death system with the human effigies.
Overall I would recommend it to souls fans who have experience with the other games in the franchise but have not dipped their toes into this one. If you are new to souls, please do not play this game and play one of the other ones first.
There are bad things about this game like the controls aren't as smooth as they could be. The enemy placements are fucked up. The bosses are kind of just pools of health that half heartedly swing at you, there are also way too many of them lol.
But overall I love this game, very fun.
Some ideas I wish they kept in other games include the bonfire ascetic, and the death system with the human effigies.
Overall I would recommend it to souls fans who have experience with the other games in the franchise but have not dipped their toes into this one. If you are new to souls, please do not play this game and play one of the other ones first.
There are bad things about this game like the controls aren't as smooth as they could be. The enemy placements are fucked up. The bosses are kind of just pools of health that half heartedly swing at you, there are also way too many of them lol.
But overall I love this game, very fun.
I don't like Nioh, this game is jank and unfair and not fun.
2007
This game is good, it's literally GTA but you are playing as the cops. Stupid collectables though, whoever thought making that an achievement was not a friend to the gamers.