Harkov
4 reviews liked by Harkov
Fate/Extra CCC
2013
A stellar game that holds nothing back and revels in it. The story is a creative rollercoaster that deftly balances humor, tragedy, an earnest dive into the concept of love and absolutely unashamed perversion. Compelling dialogue and situations are presented at a refreshingly brisk pace and rarely did I ever feel like I was forcing myself to get to the next enjoyable moment, though I will admit to making liberal use of PPSSPP's fastforwarding in battles. The evocative imagery puts most other games to shame despite the limitations of the PSP and the soundtrack, much like the first game's, is top notch.
I did find the combat notably less enjoyable than I did with the original like a decade ago but I still don't think it's as bad as everyone makes it out to be, and I really liked how it never felt like the devs wanted to just make a VN instead since they made constant efforts to mix story and gameplay in creative ways.
The characters from the first game are used exceptionally well and show up with a lot more charisma with even a side character like Gatou becoming a highlight. The new characters are also great additions and emphasize the game's themes while having interesting stories in their own right. Being a Sakura chad and getting not one not two not three but FOUR Sakuras is a level of pandering few gamers will get the chance to experience and I pity you all. Also naturally getting to team up with Gil is amazing and makes the mostly-unchanged 2nd playthrough entirely worth it.
I like boobs.
I did find the combat notably less enjoyable than I did with the original like a decade ago but I still don't think it's as bad as everyone makes it out to be, and I really liked how it never felt like the devs wanted to just make a VN instead since they made constant efforts to mix story and gameplay in creative ways.
The characters from the first game are used exceptionally well and show up with a lot more charisma with even a side character like Gatou becoming a highlight. The new characters are also great additions and emphasize the game's themes while having interesting stories in their own right. Being a Sakura chad and getting not one not two not three but FOUR Sakuras is a level of pandering few gamers will get the chance to experience and I pity you all. Also naturally getting to team up with Gil is amazing and makes the mostly-unchanged 2nd playthrough entirely worth it.
I like boobs.
Max Payne
2001
Killer atmosphere, fun action-packed gameplay, great dialogue, what more could you ask for? Well I guess the nightmare platforming sections can be pretty annoying and it does feel like the game expects you to quicksave every 10 seconds but overall it's not that much of a hassle.
Elden Ring
2022
This review contains spoilers
An absolute blast with an unparalleled sense of adventure. Elden Ring does a great job restoring the freshness of the souls formula after it was wearing thin with dark souls 3 by incorporating it in a beautiful world with tons of secrets to find, cool areas to explore and challenging enemies to fight. There's a crazy amount of cool equipment and spells/miracles to find and play around with and the ashes of war made DS3's weapon arts more powerful and fun to use. The summons were really neat too and I had a good time fighting bosses with my screaming demi-human crew and mimic partner. The mini-dungeons were generally enjoyable to go through but tended to have some annoying bosses and the visual styles got repetitive. The legacy dungeons were great and surprisingly complex while all feeling very distinct and the bosses were intense with stellar presentation. My main complaint with the game would be that a fair amount of bosses are poorly balanced and act far too aggressive while being able to 2-shot you no matter how many levels you've put into vigor. Some situations could also just feel blatantly unfair like the radahn fight (though the presentation was awesome) and malenia's flurry attack + healing. While I loved exploring the open world, it did have a negative impact on NPC questlines since they were so sparse and hard to come across I didn't really get to fully experience any of them aside from Ranni's. Also it's very weird how Melina is barely in the game at all. The roundtable hold is really cozy too. The crafting system is pretty pointless but it didn't negatively impact my experience. Overall while it's certainly not without its flaws, elden ring delivered on my expectations with gusto and gave me a truly grand adventure.
This review contains spoilers
Dropped quite a ways into Ichijo's route. Just found it pretty dull, unfortunately. I liked Kageaki but couldn't really bring myself to care about anyone else since the game conditioned me to expect they were just going to be raped and/or murdered in an hour or two anyways and the resulting shock value tapered off very very quickly. The dialogue could be entertaining but walked a very thin line between funny and needlessly long-winded, and while the fights have solid presentation I thought the exposition was unexciting and the constant air-jousting was repetitive. On the bright side I liked the character and mech designs and there were some fun moments like Kageaki endearingly sharing his enthusiasm for racing. I'm sure it gets better in the final route to some extent like a lot of other VNs but since I'm barely getting any value out of it as-is, I'd rather cut my losses and bail out.