Hebi
2006
RULE OF ROSE IS A VERY UNLUCKY GAME
Fuck. This is going to be the first game I give the star rating to after I've finished typing this review. If you're in the know, Rule of Rose is widely considered a work of video game art that is hampered by abysmal gameplay. Specifically combat.
And yeah, that about sums it up.
Though one of the most common narratives surrounding the game is about its controversial release, it is something of a testament to itself that it has overcome this particular bondage and is now widely beloved and considered by fans of the genre to be one of the best pyschological horror games of the PS2. You know, the console that has the most abundant high quality horror library. So that's saying a lot.
The only weakness it will never shake is its dreadful gameplay. Look, unless your name is Resident Evil 4, it is pretty much par the course for survival and psychological horror games to have clunky, unintuitive combat. I still consider Silent Hills 2 and 3 to be some of the best video games out there and they play like your character has a blindfold and was just spun around sixteen times and expected to hit the pinata with a rusty pipe. But Rule of Rose is a particularly bad offender. Jennifer has terrible range with her various melee weapons. It takes her almost a full six seconds (I counted) to get up when she's knocked down. Which is constantly. And if the enemy is already winding up, get ready to wait another six seconds because Jennifer is about to go right back to kissing the floor. Not to mention the INSANELY morally reprehensible hitboxes. And the sheer number of enemies they'll pack into a tight corridor will make you want to tear your hairs out as you get stunlocked into eternity with literally nothing to do except accept your inevitable demise and reload after losing progress and having to do it all again.
The level design is also severely lacking. It's marred by tight corridors with absolutely "too many doors" to check and connecting hallways to get severely lost in. I'll be transparent--I nearly put the game down during the first level on the airship because the back and forth through the sizable length of the zeppelin and checking dozens of rooms for...what the hell I was supposed to be doing, was extremely grating. There's a similar level late game in the mansion where I wanted to sigh until my lungs fell out from boredom. At that point, I was at least highly invested in the story that I pushed through. But "Hey Hebi" you might say, "Don't the Silent Hill games also contain a litany of narrow, same-y looking hallways with TOO MANY DOORS? The answer is yes. But there is a cure in Silent Hill: A fucking map that clearly names rooms and shows you not only which ones have stuff in them, but also which ones cannot be accessed. In Rule of Rose, there is a map screen for both levels. But they are not only intimidating to look at due to the sheer number of rooms and hallways...they are also nearly illegible and contain no vividly colored markers to show you things like...doors you can't open.
BUT. Those two levels I mentioned above? Well, it's no coincidence that those are the only levels in which you lack you're super duper best friend, Brown the dog boy. And let me tell you honestly...I'm not a big dog person (bad history). But Brown is one of the best video game companions. He's integral to the gamplay experience as you give him clues to sniff, wherein that good pupper will just kind of take you to the place you need to get to. And god damnit it's so cute when he starts pawing at the door he wants you to go through. The inclusion of Brown is a godsend and is not only integral to the gameplay of navigating the map, but also to the story.
And now we arrive at the elements that make players laud the game for its artistry. To begin: the vibes. Rule of Rose has an exceptional score. One of my favorites in recent history. It serves as a perfect, reflective brush stroke on the canvas of navigation. I actually prolonged some sections of the game by letting Brown help me find hidden items just so that I could continue listening to the BGM. It's perfectly melancholic at times with complex chord voicings and meditative modal structures.
Its classical and jazz inspirations also lend themselves to the overall aesthetic design choices. The enemy design in the game may be lacking inspiration, but everything else oozes style that reflects both the psychological horror and 1930s modern Victorian English aesthetics.
As far as the story goes, I genuinely find the execution of the psychological text to be up there with the likes of Silent Hill 2. Seriously, this game pulls no punches in its themes of abusive relationships, power dynamics, rape, etc. It is completely unique in its willingness to engage with the cruel acts children can commit. And it does two things that I "extremely respect" that set it apart from most media that attempts to engage with these themes. And get ready for some ranting because I have very strong and correct opinions on some of these matters.
For one, it is incredibly considerate in its presentation. I am often disgusted by media like 13 Reasons Why and this absolutely tasteless desire to "just kind of show" rape and suicide with grotesque realism. You may think portraying acts like this is "impactful" or "bold". You would be stupid. Visually presenting something like rape with high fidelity to make it as realistic as possible is actually the work of COWARDS. The artistically challenged. The cruel. The lazy. Let's call a spade a spade. Media, at the end of the day, is entertainment. It can be challenging and upsetting. Mulholland Drive comes to mind. Showing rape and suicide in excruciating detail isn't more effective than alluding to it in deft, subtextual, creative metaphorical ways. It's just fucking grotesque shock value shlock. Rule of Rose could tell me everything I needed to know with body language. A teenage girl unable to look Jennifer in the eyes as she calls herself "filthy" while located in a sick room bed next to a grown man. We later see said man escorting the girl out of said sick room as she trails weakly behind him, holding her abdomen in clear physical pain.
It's just as evocative without needing to both traumatize me, and retraumatize victims of this kind of horrific abuse. And it requires actual consideration and creative thinking. I mean, just imagine the difference between the kind of person who writes these implied moments in Rule of Rose. Now imagine the kind of person who sits down and types out a brutal scene of abuse and all of the horrific details. There is nary a single moment in Rule of Rose that shows any form of abuse in grave detail. It challenges the audience to put the pieces together. Sometimes it's a little on the nose. But it nonetheless asks us to confront these themes and contextualize them within the greater message of the story.
The second thing I adore is its commitment to empathy. Every character in this game has done something terrible whether actively or passively. And yet, aside from one character (the pedophile and rapist), the game does not outwardly severely judge a single one of them. At one point or another, each and every character has a moment where they are shown to be a victim themselves. The game's story may be tragic. It may not even ask you to forgive the acts. But I find it beautiful that it examines the pain and circumstances that led to them. I can't bring myself to outright hate (minus the one absolutely irredeemable character) any of the girls, despite how horrific some of the actions they take are. And I find it extra bold to examine this through the lens of children. What's more, the text offers us a tragic but very true understanding that the cruelty of children is just another form of innocence to some degree. Especially when said children are living within the confined mansion-ed walls run by a predator.
Rule of Rose may have frustratingly unpolished combat. It may lack any semblance of challenging puzzles. It may not be very scary and be devoid of tension when it comes to the monsters. But it is clear the developers intended the narrative to be the dominant centerpiece. They've stated in interviews that they wanted it to be, essentially, an interactive film. And in that way, they knocked it out of the park. I was deeply affected by the story and its characters. I cried a lot at the end. I feel emotions just thinking about certain moments and scenes.
Video games may have still been in their childhood development stages in 2006. But I think games like Rule of Rose exist as true testaments that video games can contain the narrative complexity and thematic consideration of even some of the best novels and films.
I mean...I have one clear, definitive example. Lord of the Flies is considered a classic and is required reading in most schools. Rule of Rose is Lord of the Flies, but about girls and twice as good.
Fuck. This is going to be the first game I give the star rating to after I've finished typing this review. If you're in the know, Rule of Rose is widely considered a work of video game art that is hampered by abysmal gameplay. Specifically combat.
And yeah, that about sums it up.
Though one of the most common narratives surrounding the game is about its controversial release, it is something of a testament to itself that it has overcome this particular bondage and is now widely beloved and considered by fans of the genre to be one of the best pyschological horror games of the PS2. You know, the console that has the most abundant high quality horror library. So that's saying a lot.
The only weakness it will never shake is its dreadful gameplay. Look, unless your name is Resident Evil 4, it is pretty much par the course for survival and psychological horror games to have clunky, unintuitive combat. I still consider Silent Hills 2 and 3 to be some of the best video games out there and they play like your character has a blindfold and was just spun around sixteen times and expected to hit the pinata with a rusty pipe. But Rule of Rose is a particularly bad offender. Jennifer has terrible range with her various melee weapons. It takes her almost a full six seconds (I counted) to get up when she's knocked down. Which is constantly. And if the enemy is already winding up, get ready to wait another six seconds because Jennifer is about to go right back to kissing the floor. Not to mention the INSANELY morally reprehensible hitboxes. And the sheer number of enemies they'll pack into a tight corridor will make you want to tear your hairs out as you get stunlocked into eternity with literally nothing to do except accept your inevitable demise and reload after losing progress and having to do it all again.
The level design is also severely lacking. It's marred by tight corridors with absolutely "too many doors" to check and connecting hallways to get severely lost in. I'll be transparent--I nearly put the game down during the first level on the airship because the back and forth through the sizable length of the zeppelin and checking dozens of rooms for...what the hell I was supposed to be doing, was extremely grating. There's a similar level late game in the mansion where I wanted to sigh until my lungs fell out from boredom. At that point, I was at least highly invested in the story that I pushed through. But "Hey Hebi" you might say, "Don't the Silent Hill games also contain a litany of narrow, same-y looking hallways with TOO MANY DOORS? The answer is yes. But there is a cure in Silent Hill: A fucking map that clearly names rooms and shows you not only which ones have stuff in them, but also which ones cannot be accessed. In Rule of Rose, there is a map screen for both levels. But they are not only intimidating to look at due to the sheer number of rooms and hallways...they are also nearly illegible and contain no vividly colored markers to show you things like...doors you can't open.
BUT. Those two levels I mentioned above? Well, it's no coincidence that those are the only levels in which you lack you're super duper best friend, Brown the dog boy. And let me tell you honestly...I'm not a big dog person (bad history). But Brown is one of the best video game companions. He's integral to the gamplay experience as you give him clues to sniff, wherein that good pupper will just kind of take you to the place you need to get to. And god damnit it's so cute when he starts pawing at the door he wants you to go through. The inclusion of Brown is a godsend and is not only integral to the gameplay of navigating the map, but also to the story.
And now we arrive at the elements that make players laud the game for its artistry. To begin: the vibes. Rule of Rose has an exceptional score. One of my favorites in recent history. It serves as a perfect, reflective brush stroke on the canvas of navigation. I actually prolonged some sections of the game by letting Brown help me find hidden items just so that I could continue listening to the BGM. It's perfectly melancholic at times with complex chord voicings and meditative modal structures.
Its classical and jazz inspirations also lend themselves to the overall aesthetic design choices. The enemy design in the game may be lacking inspiration, but everything else oozes style that reflects both the psychological horror and 1930s modern Victorian English aesthetics.
As far as the story goes, I genuinely find the execution of the psychological text to be up there with the likes of Silent Hill 2. Seriously, this game pulls no punches in its themes of abusive relationships, power dynamics, rape, etc. It is completely unique in its willingness to engage with the cruel acts children can commit. And it does two things that I "extremely respect" that set it apart from most media that attempts to engage with these themes. And get ready for some ranting because I have very strong and correct opinions on some of these matters.
For one, it is incredibly considerate in its presentation. I am often disgusted by media like 13 Reasons Why and this absolutely tasteless desire to "just kind of show" rape and suicide with grotesque realism. You may think portraying acts like this is "impactful" or "bold". You would be stupid. Visually presenting something like rape with high fidelity to make it as realistic as possible is actually the work of COWARDS. The artistically challenged. The cruel. The lazy. Let's call a spade a spade. Media, at the end of the day, is entertainment. It can be challenging and upsetting. Mulholland Drive comes to mind. Showing rape and suicide in excruciating detail isn't more effective than alluding to it in deft, subtextual, creative metaphorical ways. It's just fucking grotesque shock value shlock. Rule of Rose could tell me everything I needed to know with body language. A teenage girl unable to look Jennifer in the eyes as she calls herself "filthy" while located in a sick room bed next to a grown man. We later see said man escorting the girl out of said sick room as she trails weakly behind him, holding her abdomen in clear physical pain.
It's just as evocative without needing to both traumatize me, and retraumatize victims of this kind of horrific abuse. And it requires actual consideration and creative thinking. I mean, just imagine the difference between the kind of person who writes these implied moments in Rule of Rose. Now imagine the kind of person who sits down and types out a brutal scene of abuse and all of the horrific details. There is nary a single moment in Rule of Rose that shows any form of abuse in grave detail. It challenges the audience to put the pieces together. Sometimes it's a little on the nose. But it nonetheless asks us to confront these themes and contextualize them within the greater message of the story.
The second thing I adore is its commitment to empathy. Every character in this game has done something terrible whether actively or passively. And yet, aside from one character (the pedophile and rapist), the game does not outwardly severely judge a single one of them. At one point or another, each and every character has a moment where they are shown to be a victim themselves. The game's story may be tragic. It may not even ask you to forgive the acts. But I find it beautiful that it examines the pain and circumstances that led to them. I can't bring myself to outright hate (minus the one absolutely irredeemable character) any of the girls, despite how horrific some of the actions they take are. And I find it extra bold to examine this through the lens of children. What's more, the text offers us a tragic but very true understanding that the cruelty of children is just another form of innocence to some degree. Especially when said children are living within the confined mansion-ed walls run by a predator.
Rule of Rose may have frustratingly unpolished combat. It may lack any semblance of challenging puzzles. It may not be very scary and be devoid of tension when it comes to the monsters. But it is clear the developers intended the narrative to be the dominant centerpiece. They've stated in interviews that they wanted it to be, essentially, an interactive film. And in that way, they knocked it out of the park. I was deeply affected by the story and its characters. I cried a lot at the end. I feel emotions just thinking about certain moments and scenes.
Video games may have still been in their childhood development stages in 2006. But I think games like Rule of Rose exist as true testaments that video games can contain the narrative complexity and thematic consideration of even some of the best novels and films.
I mean...I have one clear, definitive example. Lord of the Flies is considered a classic and is required reading in most schools. Rule of Rose is Lord of the Flies, but about girls and twice as good.
2024
DRAGON'S DOGMA 2 IS A QUEEN AMONG PAWNS
Allow me to just get it out of the way. Dragon's Dogma 2 is extremely poorly optimized and borderline unplayable on max settings even on my beastly rig. But it runs amazing on Medium graphics settings so...there you have it.
Now, onto the good stuff (which is pretty much everything else).
Dragon's Dogma 2 is basically a reboot. Hell, even the main title upon starting up the game reads: "Dragon's Dogma". Oh, and before I proceed I just have to gush about how much the character creator FUCKS. Just like with Baldur's Gate 3, I have spent hours just making characters. It's an absolutely robust feature that is so generous they let you do it twice!
At it's core, Dragon's Dogma 2 is an open world action RPG with side quests, crafting, dungeons, loot, etc. In reality, the game exists in a liminal space where this is the first open world action RPG ever made. It actively goes out of its way to thwart the common banalities that have made the "genre" stale and a festering infection on games as a whole for the last decade or so. Fast travel is sparce. You spend preciously rare resources to do so. Some sidequests are timed and will give you a fail state if you are unable to complete them on time. You have only one save file and mostly cannot reload to "make the right decision". I fucking love it.
Speaking of side quests, they are a sumptuous feast of thoughtfully crafted splendor. They do not have "!" markers on your mini map. You actually have to take in your surroundings and talk to people to see if someone needs you to bonk some heads. It's honestly a lot more intuitive than it sounds. I'm pretty sure I engaged with all of the side quests without needing to consult a guide once. Not only that, but the quests are engaging and often times lead to "bigger" picture plots and intrigue. One particular quest was pretty simple: there was an elven dude who wanted me to buy him a bow. Buying a bow for this man lead to multiple map-spanning quests that climaxed with "literally save the elves". Now that's what I call quest design.
Dragon's Dogma 2 is a "Pawnlike" RPG. The company you keep will be comprised of your own personal pawn as well as two others you borrow from other players. Entering the pawn-zone to find new members for your crew is like shopping for friends. And amidst the sea of same-faced women whose creators didn't even bother editing the default head and just wanted a lady in bikini armor, there are some real gems. In my playthrough, I romped around the world with Gandalf, Lae'zel, Nero from DMC, and GARFIELD. Without the technical fuckery, this alone would've earned the game a 5 star rating from me. And no matter how many times I heard the same lines of dialogue uttered from these devoted freaks, I never grew tired of it (because of the different personality types you can choose for them). It always got a chuckle from me hearing my calm, calculated pawn chiding one of the simpleton pawns that "You are going to kill yourself because you're constantly tripping over your own feet. Get it the fuck together, dude".
Just a quick shout out to whoever made Gina, the seven foot tall beastren archer who didn't take shit from anyone...and Arthas, my sweet golden retriever of a man who literally did not know what pain was when face-tanking dragonfire to protect me. I was with these guys most of my journey and I loved and cherished them dearly.
The Vocation system is real neat. Whenever you're in a city or town, you can change you and your pawn's class as you see fit. And all of them are really fun and play in completely unique ways (yes, even the trickster for the most part). In general, fighting gobloids and big monsters is a ton of fun and is absolutely rife with texture and potential comedy. Throwing a deer into an explosive barrel near your foe; sky-launching your pawn onto an ogre's back with your shield; making a cyclops fall near a broken bridge and then using his body to cross...oh what a thrill. And there are so many fun little touches I continued to discover all the way until the endgame. For example, about halfway through the game I was riding on a the back of a drake as it soared in the sky. After shaking me off, I was in freefall and thought "Welp, time to be dead". But no. Just as I was about to hit the ground, Nero caught me in his arms like a princess and saved me.
The game is made of these memorable moments. Not from predetermined quest designs. Not from calculated world events. You make them yourself with the tools they give you. I cannot tell you how awesome it was to slay a griffin, and then proceed to high five Gandalf.
Do I wish the main story was slightly more than just "whatever"? Sure. Do I wish there were just a feeeew more big monster types to fight? Yeah. Are there some side quests that end with "Wait, there's definitely still more to this, right?" while there is unfortunately no more to it? Mhmm. But those are just drops of water in a bucket compared to what makes this game just so damn unique and fun.
In the middle of my playthrough, I was pitching the game to a good friend of mine. I told them that, "It's like the Baldur's Gate 3 of action RPGs". And while that's definitely a bit of an overstatement, I stand by it. Dragon's Dogma 2 has so much depth and texture in the ways you can interact with the world, much like the original. Only more. It's just really such a shame it's so hampered with optimization issues on every platform. I guess the extremely good RE Engine finally showed its limitations by not exactly being ideal for such a sprawling open-world RPG (I'm reminded of EA's insistence on making BioWare use the Frostbyte engine...dear lord I remember the devs in the break room tearing their hairs out because making a simple inventory screen was apparently a nightmare).
There are still some things I would very much like to see added as well, and hopefully will in the inevitable DLC. Just like with Dark Arisen for the original.
But I mean...come on. Any game that let's me fist-pump with a great-sword wielding Peter Griffin after slaying a literal griffin as he tells me what a sick warrior I am is at least a little bit of a masterpiece.
Allow me to just get it out of the way. Dragon's Dogma 2 is extremely poorly optimized and borderline unplayable on max settings even on my beastly rig. But it runs amazing on Medium graphics settings so...there you have it.
Now, onto the good stuff (which is pretty much everything else).
Dragon's Dogma 2 is basically a reboot. Hell, even the main title upon starting up the game reads: "Dragon's Dogma". Oh, and before I proceed I just have to gush about how much the character creator FUCKS. Just like with Baldur's Gate 3, I have spent hours just making characters. It's an absolutely robust feature that is so generous they let you do it twice!
At it's core, Dragon's Dogma 2 is an open world action RPG with side quests, crafting, dungeons, loot, etc. In reality, the game exists in a liminal space where this is the first open world action RPG ever made. It actively goes out of its way to thwart the common banalities that have made the "genre" stale and a festering infection on games as a whole for the last decade or so. Fast travel is sparce. You spend preciously rare resources to do so. Some sidequests are timed and will give you a fail state if you are unable to complete them on time. You have only one save file and mostly cannot reload to "make the right decision". I fucking love it.
Speaking of side quests, they are a sumptuous feast of thoughtfully crafted splendor. They do not have "!" markers on your mini map. You actually have to take in your surroundings and talk to people to see if someone needs you to bonk some heads. It's honestly a lot more intuitive than it sounds. I'm pretty sure I engaged with all of the side quests without needing to consult a guide once. Not only that, but the quests are engaging and often times lead to "bigger" picture plots and intrigue. One particular quest was pretty simple: there was an elven dude who wanted me to buy him a bow. Buying a bow for this man lead to multiple map-spanning quests that climaxed with "literally save the elves". Now that's what I call quest design.
Dragon's Dogma 2 is a "Pawnlike" RPG. The company you keep will be comprised of your own personal pawn as well as two others you borrow from other players. Entering the pawn-zone to find new members for your crew is like shopping for friends. And amidst the sea of same-faced women whose creators didn't even bother editing the default head and just wanted a lady in bikini armor, there are some real gems. In my playthrough, I romped around the world with Gandalf, Lae'zel, Nero from DMC, and GARFIELD. Without the technical fuckery, this alone would've earned the game a 5 star rating from me. And no matter how many times I heard the same lines of dialogue uttered from these devoted freaks, I never grew tired of it (because of the different personality types you can choose for them). It always got a chuckle from me hearing my calm, calculated pawn chiding one of the simpleton pawns that "You are going to kill yourself because you're constantly tripping over your own feet. Get it the fuck together, dude".
Just a quick shout out to whoever made Gina, the seven foot tall beastren archer who didn't take shit from anyone...and Arthas, my sweet golden retriever of a man who literally did not know what pain was when face-tanking dragonfire to protect me. I was with these guys most of my journey and I loved and cherished them dearly.
The Vocation system is real neat. Whenever you're in a city or town, you can change you and your pawn's class as you see fit. And all of them are really fun and play in completely unique ways (yes, even the trickster for the most part). In general, fighting gobloids and big monsters is a ton of fun and is absolutely rife with texture and potential comedy. Throwing a deer into an explosive barrel near your foe; sky-launching your pawn onto an ogre's back with your shield; making a cyclops fall near a broken bridge and then using his body to cross...oh what a thrill. And there are so many fun little touches I continued to discover all the way until the endgame. For example, about halfway through the game I was riding on a the back of a drake as it soared in the sky. After shaking me off, I was in freefall and thought "Welp, time to be dead". But no. Just as I was about to hit the ground, Nero caught me in his arms like a princess and saved me.
The game is made of these memorable moments. Not from predetermined quest designs. Not from calculated world events. You make them yourself with the tools they give you. I cannot tell you how awesome it was to slay a griffin, and then proceed to high five Gandalf.
Do I wish the main story was slightly more than just "whatever"? Sure. Do I wish there were just a feeeew more big monster types to fight? Yeah. Are there some side quests that end with "Wait, there's definitely still more to this, right?" while there is unfortunately no more to it? Mhmm. But those are just drops of water in a bucket compared to what makes this game just so damn unique and fun.
In the middle of my playthrough, I was pitching the game to a good friend of mine. I told them that, "It's like the Baldur's Gate 3 of action RPGs". And while that's definitely a bit of an overstatement, I stand by it. Dragon's Dogma 2 has so much depth and texture in the ways you can interact with the world, much like the original. Only more. It's just really such a shame it's so hampered with optimization issues on every platform. I guess the extremely good RE Engine finally showed its limitations by not exactly being ideal for such a sprawling open-world RPG (I'm reminded of EA's insistence on making BioWare use the Frostbyte engine...dear lord I remember the devs in the break room tearing their hairs out because making a simple inventory screen was apparently a nightmare).
There are still some things I would very much like to see added as well, and hopefully will in the inevitable DLC. Just like with Dark Arisen for the original.
But I mean...come on. Any game that let's me fist-pump with a great-sword wielding Peter Griffin after slaying a literal griffin as he tells me what a sick warrior I am is at least a little bit of a masterpiece.
GRANBLUE FANTASY: RELINK IS A SIDEQUEST
I remember when they first revealed this game back in like...what? 2018? I remember seeing a "cool knight lady" sauntering around a colorful, richly stylistic fantasy town built atop a sky island. My interest was piqued. Classic-style JRPGs had been in a downward death spiral. FFXV was a sloppy, albeit charming, unfinished game that was developed to be on better hardware. The Tales Series was...the Tales Series. Bravely Default was "fine". So when I ALSO learned that Nobuo Uematsu was coming out of retirement just to do the score for Granblue Fantasy: Relink, I thought to myself, "This is it. This is going to be the revival of the genre in a big way".
Well. It is and isn't. And I'd like to say that playing this game had the good fortune of coming after I shelved Tales of Arise (on account of feeling my IQ dropping to Mariana-trench depths while playing. More bland shonen-ery). However, Granblue Fantasy: Relink had the misfortune of being played before Dragon's Dogma 2. I guess what I mean to say is that sequence of games sort of represents my thoughts of Granblue Fantasy: Relink being stuck in some bizarre, middling purgatory realm.
I cannot deny that the art design is gorgeous. It told Bravely Default to hold its ale. The water color-esque textures, the character art in the menus, the visual effects of each character's combat abilities--divine. Although generic NPCs look like they're straight out of an early PS2 game. No joke, they might actually look and be more poorly animated than Final Fantasy X NPCs.
Combat is action oriented with a strong focus on differing mechanics between the large cast of heroes you can control. Think Kingdom Hearts meets Overwatch. I had a lot of fun mastering Narmaya's butterfly stances just as much as I did Zeta's Dragoon-like combo aerials. And the boss fights were very fun. In past reviews of modern shit JRPGs (Xenoblade Chronicles 3 and Final Fantasy XVI), I had said on multiple occasions that I think the bosses would benefit greatly from attacks with movement tells, clear multiphase attack patterns, and puzzle gimmicks. More in-line with the likes of Final Fantasy XIV (the MMO). Granblue Fantasy: Relink devs must have DEFINITELY read my reviews and incorporated all of these elements and then some.
The story, however, is an element at war with itself. It's a fun sky swashbuckler featuring a rogue's gallery of (already well-acquainted) allies. But the protagonist super sucks. I couldn't wait to get them out of my party for the postgame. They were a perfect reflection of the biggest core question I had while engaging with the plot: who is this made for? Is this a kid's game? The story is awfully gaunt and goofy in a dumb way...not a fun way. It has a mascot character whose VA I have nothing by pity for because that putrid little lizard thing is probably my least favorite videogame character of all time. AND YOU CANNOT GET RID OF HIM. And yet...the 15 or so year old protagonist is surrounded by a bunch of adults who are, extremely obviously, much cooler than them. I understand they had to stick with the previous games/anime by having Gran/Djeeta leading the team. But golly jee whiz...Katalina is obviously the better main character. Hell, even Rackham. In a better world, Rosetta would have banished those kid fucks to the thorn dimension before becoming obsequious to their foolish whims. Get these goddamn super children outta here and make way for the hot and powerful adults. Their personalities and dialogue are better. They are more fun to play. And they don't have the literal worst video game character of all time spitting "jokes" at them and ruining every single moment of tension in the story.
That's the crux of the issue here. It suffers the same disease as the MCU films. It favors (very stupid) levity over drama. I actually screamed when the lizard fuck shouted "Giver her back, buttface!" at the very cool antagonist as she totally wrecked our shit.
A lot of this can be attributed to the fact that, for all intents and purposes, Granblue Fantasy: Relink is a side story. They've been building these characters, this story, and the world for a very, very long time via mobile games and a brief anime. Because of that, it really does feel like a spinoff movie at best. The stakes just aren't really there. And more importantly, while unique, it is a dramatic hinderance that all of your crew has already had their respective arcs and have completely bonded with one another. They have no development outside of their little (very minimalist) comic book side stories. Which admittedly exist solely as exposition to tell you why they know each other.
But I do have some respect fo CyGames for turning what was an EXTREMELY lucrative mobile game franchise into a "proper" JRPG. It even retains the gacha elements for unlocking new characters without any real money transactions. It's all done with in-game currency that is drip-fed to you via the story and postgame (which, by the way, is when the actual game starts).
Look. The core elements are here. Fast-paced action with RPG elements. Fantastic art. Gorgeous music. A fun and semi-unique world. This franchise has a LOT of potential for future installments. But I'm afraid CyGames won't take the risks of doing what really needs to be done: get a new crew and a new protagonist. And commit to a story that isn't one made "definitely" specifically for children. One that can be appreciated by all age demographics. You know...like the Final Fantasy games of yore.
Thankfully, this painfully mid campaign clocked in at under 20 hours. And that alone is something to be praised as Xenoblade Chronicles 3 wasted 100+ hours of my goddamn life.
But I have to dock it severely for the fucking eldritch mascot horror. I hope one day it will be incinerated in a hellfire related "accident".
I remember when they first revealed this game back in like...what? 2018? I remember seeing a "cool knight lady" sauntering around a colorful, richly stylistic fantasy town built atop a sky island. My interest was piqued. Classic-style JRPGs had been in a downward death spiral. FFXV was a sloppy, albeit charming, unfinished game that was developed to be on better hardware. The Tales Series was...the Tales Series. Bravely Default was "fine". So when I ALSO learned that Nobuo Uematsu was coming out of retirement just to do the score for Granblue Fantasy: Relink, I thought to myself, "This is it. This is going to be the revival of the genre in a big way".
Well. It is and isn't. And I'd like to say that playing this game had the good fortune of coming after I shelved Tales of Arise (on account of feeling my IQ dropping to Mariana-trench depths while playing. More bland shonen-ery). However, Granblue Fantasy: Relink had the misfortune of being played before Dragon's Dogma 2. I guess what I mean to say is that sequence of games sort of represents my thoughts of Granblue Fantasy: Relink being stuck in some bizarre, middling purgatory realm.
I cannot deny that the art design is gorgeous. It told Bravely Default to hold its ale. The water color-esque textures, the character art in the menus, the visual effects of each character's combat abilities--divine. Although generic NPCs look like they're straight out of an early PS2 game. No joke, they might actually look and be more poorly animated than Final Fantasy X NPCs.
Combat is action oriented with a strong focus on differing mechanics between the large cast of heroes you can control. Think Kingdom Hearts meets Overwatch. I had a lot of fun mastering Narmaya's butterfly stances just as much as I did Zeta's Dragoon-like combo aerials. And the boss fights were very fun. In past reviews of modern shit JRPGs (Xenoblade Chronicles 3 and Final Fantasy XVI), I had said on multiple occasions that I think the bosses would benefit greatly from attacks with movement tells, clear multiphase attack patterns, and puzzle gimmicks. More in-line with the likes of Final Fantasy XIV (the MMO). Granblue Fantasy: Relink devs must have DEFINITELY read my reviews and incorporated all of these elements and then some.
The story, however, is an element at war with itself. It's a fun sky swashbuckler featuring a rogue's gallery of (already well-acquainted) allies. But the protagonist super sucks. I couldn't wait to get them out of my party for the postgame. They were a perfect reflection of the biggest core question I had while engaging with the plot: who is this made for? Is this a kid's game? The story is awfully gaunt and goofy in a dumb way...not a fun way. It has a mascot character whose VA I have nothing by pity for because that putrid little lizard thing is probably my least favorite videogame character of all time. AND YOU CANNOT GET RID OF HIM. And yet...the 15 or so year old protagonist is surrounded by a bunch of adults who are, extremely obviously, much cooler than them. I understand they had to stick with the previous games/anime by having Gran/Djeeta leading the team. But golly jee whiz...Katalina is obviously the better main character. Hell, even Rackham. In a better world, Rosetta would have banished those kid fucks to the thorn dimension before becoming obsequious to their foolish whims. Get these goddamn super children outta here and make way for the hot and powerful adults. Their personalities and dialogue are better. They are more fun to play. And they don't have the literal worst video game character of all time spitting "jokes" at them and ruining every single moment of tension in the story.
That's the crux of the issue here. It suffers the same disease as the MCU films. It favors (very stupid) levity over drama. I actually screamed when the lizard fuck shouted "Giver her back, buttface!" at the very cool antagonist as she totally wrecked our shit.
A lot of this can be attributed to the fact that, for all intents and purposes, Granblue Fantasy: Relink is a side story. They've been building these characters, this story, and the world for a very, very long time via mobile games and a brief anime. Because of that, it really does feel like a spinoff movie at best. The stakes just aren't really there. And more importantly, while unique, it is a dramatic hinderance that all of your crew has already had their respective arcs and have completely bonded with one another. They have no development outside of their little (very minimalist) comic book side stories. Which admittedly exist solely as exposition to tell you why they know each other.
But I do have some respect fo CyGames for turning what was an EXTREMELY lucrative mobile game franchise into a "proper" JRPG. It even retains the gacha elements for unlocking new characters without any real money transactions. It's all done with in-game currency that is drip-fed to you via the story and postgame (which, by the way, is when the actual game starts).
Look. The core elements are here. Fast-paced action with RPG elements. Fantastic art. Gorgeous music. A fun and semi-unique world. This franchise has a LOT of potential for future installments. But I'm afraid CyGames won't take the risks of doing what really needs to be done: get a new crew and a new protagonist. And commit to a story that isn't one made "definitely" specifically for children. One that can be appreciated by all age demographics. You know...like the Final Fantasy games of yore.
Thankfully, this painfully mid campaign clocked in at under 20 hours. And that alone is something to be praised as Xenoblade Chronicles 3 wasted 100+ hours of my goddamn life.
But I have to dock it severely for the fucking eldritch mascot horror. I hope one day it will be incinerated in a hellfire related "accident".
2023
This review contains spoilers
ALAN WAKE 2 IS A LIGHT IN THE DARK
My ex once talked about how she played Alan Wake on the Xbox 360. My ex sucks, so naturally, I assumed Alan Wake must also have sucked. I still do not know whether or not Alan Wake sucks. But I can say this:
Alan Wake 2 rules.
The game activated my "awe receptors" every time it decided to take an idea or technical ambition, and just fucking run with it. There are sections of this game that had me grinning ear to ear. The devs were clearly having a blast at least with the creative boldness they were willing to exhibit. There is a chapter in particular (if you know, you know) that is probably one of my favorite levels in a video game now. Alan Wake 2 is not just "another survival/psychological horror game". It's also a film, a satire, and even a musical comedy. Fuck it even has a few Tim and Eric-esque advertisements that had me cackling.
The technical aspects of this game were much like its plot, MIND BENDING. And not just in terms of fidelity. The sparing use of intensely saturated reds and greens was like something out of a French New Wave film. It really added a sense of frantic atmosphere to the Dark Place/Overlap sections. There was also the...previously mentioned iconic...section of the game when my jaw "literally dropped" when I realized the light from the giant TV "screens" were casting path tracing lights on the environment.
Sound design is incredible. There's a constant watery blurble that fades in and out within the environments of the levels. You're trained to fear this sound because it typically means a scary monster is near. But you start to feel as paranoid as the literally tortured writer himself when you realize that watery blurble that made you dread turning the corner was just a water cooler.
Being pretty damn experienced with writing and the genre, I was able to intuit a number of the plot's many twists and turns. But it didn't make the journey to them any less fun or intriguing. Protagonists Alan and Saga are both very solid leads. Their sections play differently (Saga's being more survival horror and Alan's more psychological) and offer refreshing balance. This is especially cool due to the fact that you are able to freely switch back and forth between their stories.
I think that all aspects of Alan Wake 2 are executed with exceptional skill...except for one little part. See, this game is almost a mirror of the Resident Evil 4 Remake of the same year (LAST YEAR). Alan Wake beats it out when it comes to presentation and artistic vision. But RE4 Remake decimates it in the gameplay department.
The gunplay is satisfying, and the flashlight feels tactile when using the power of Duracell to compel shadow zombies to kindly obliterate. But the enemy variety and design are painfully bland. There are exactly five enemies in the game: normal dudes, big dudes, dudes that throw stuff, spooky mirrored body dudes, and, of fucking course, DOGS. Exactly one of those enemies has a novel and spooky design. The rest usually end up being the same dude in a flannel shirt holding a blunt weapon. It's scary to hide and run from them, but it's not very fun to fight them. Especially when they fucking teleport around and "omae wa mo" you constantly, appearing right in front of your face to bash in your head. And this is kind of too bad considering it's...one of the most core elements to the experience.
That being said, when I first saw the HLTB, and that the average "story only" playthrough was around 22.5 hours, I was like "For a horror game? Oh Lord...That's way too long". However, I can tell you now that I am entirely satisfied with the game's length. I one-hundred percented Alan Wake 2, clocking in around 25 hours, and I wasn't bored for a moment.
Alan Wake 2 is an experience I'll likely not soon forget. If you come to this review in the future and find it has a five star rating rather than its current 4.5, you'll know that I am still thinking about it and realized I could overlook a bit of mediocre combat and enemy design in favor of every other incredible way this game delighted me.
My ex once talked about how she played Alan Wake on the Xbox 360. My ex sucks, so naturally, I assumed Alan Wake must also have sucked. I still do not know whether or not Alan Wake sucks. But I can say this:
Alan Wake 2 rules.
The game activated my "awe receptors" every time it decided to take an idea or technical ambition, and just fucking run with it. There are sections of this game that had me grinning ear to ear. The devs were clearly having a blast at least with the creative boldness they were willing to exhibit. There is a chapter in particular (if you know, you know) that is probably one of my favorite levels in a video game now. Alan Wake 2 is not just "another survival/psychological horror game". It's also a film, a satire, and even a musical comedy. Fuck it even has a few Tim and Eric-esque advertisements that had me cackling.
The technical aspects of this game were much like its plot, MIND BENDING. And not just in terms of fidelity. The sparing use of intensely saturated reds and greens was like something out of a French New Wave film. It really added a sense of frantic atmosphere to the Dark Place/Overlap sections. There was also the...previously mentioned iconic...section of the game when my jaw "literally dropped" when I realized the light from the giant TV "screens" were casting path tracing lights on the environment.
Sound design is incredible. There's a constant watery blurble that fades in and out within the environments of the levels. You're trained to fear this sound because it typically means a scary monster is near. But you start to feel as paranoid as the literally tortured writer himself when you realize that watery blurble that made you dread turning the corner was just a water cooler.
Being pretty damn experienced with writing and the genre, I was able to intuit a number of the plot's many twists and turns. But it didn't make the journey to them any less fun or intriguing. Protagonists Alan and Saga are both very solid leads. Their sections play differently (Saga's being more survival horror and Alan's more psychological) and offer refreshing balance. This is especially cool due to the fact that you are able to freely switch back and forth between their stories.
I think that all aspects of Alan Wake 2 are executed with exceptional skill...except for one little part. See, this game is almost a mirror of the Resident Evil 4 Remake of the same year (LAST YEAR). Alan Wake beats it out when it comes to presentation and artistic vision. But RE4 Remake decimates it in the gameplay department.
The gunplay is satisfying, and the flashlight feels tactile when using the power of Duracell to compel shadow zombies to kindly obliterate. But the enemy variety and design are painfully bland. There are exactly five enemies in the game: normal dudes, big dudes, dudes that throw stuff, spooky mirrored body dudes, and, of fucking course, DOGS. Exactly one of those enemies has a novel and spooky design. The rest usually end up being the same dude in a flannel shirt holding a blunt weapon. It's scary to hide and run from them, but it's not very fun to fight them. Especially when they fucking teleport around and "omae wa mo" you constantly, appearing right in front of your face to bash in your head. And this is kind of too bad considering it's...one of the most core elements to the experience.
That being said, when I first saw the HLTB, and that the average "story only" playthrough was around 22.5 hours, I was like "For a horror game? Oh Lord...That's way too long". However, I can tell you now that I am entirely satisfied with the game's length. I one-hundred percented Alan Wake 2, clocking in around 25 hours, and I wasn't bored for a moment.
Alan Wake 2 is an experience I'll likely not soon forget. If you come to this review in the future and find it has a five star rating rather than its current 4.5, you'll know that I am still thinking about it and realized I could overlook a bit of mediocre combat and enemy design in favor of every other incredible way this game delighted me.
This review contains spoilers
SILENT HILL 4: THE ROOM IS A NIGHTMARE
I had heard people often say that Silent Hill 4 was the black sheep of the family. The family being the first four Silent Hill games made by Team Silent. I went into this game really hopeful, thinking that it would be a sort of..."Flawed Masterpiece". That people had just been too hard on the game and found too many flaws by directly comparing it to the iconic first three games.
Well, now that I have played as much as I could bear, I would say that I don't think people are hard ENOUGH on it.
As far as I had played, there were exactly four things I enjoyed about this game: the intro video, the apartment sections, the story (it was fairly intriguing), and the twin victims enemy (probably the most terrifying designs by Masahiro Ito).
Everything else was less than mediocre. The level design fluctuated between bland and flat to waaaay too overly complicated and frustrating. The water prison was a fucking nightmare to navigate and re-navigate. And then re-navigate two more times.
The puzzles were soul fracturing. I think exactly all of them made my eyes glaze over like I was in the middle of a lecture on advanced ASTROLOGY. Like I was required to look up my time of birth and how much the stars had shifted since ancient Greece to figure out my moon, sun, Mars, etc. Just to open a god damn lock on a fence. I shit you not, there's a section where you have to enter numbers on a keypad. But Henry (the protagonist) cannot input these numbers because "it's too dark and he can't see them very well".
And compared to James Sunderland and Heather Mason, protagonist Henry Townsend felt like a bowl of bread with some ketchup. Silent Hill has long been iconic for it's Lynch-esque stilted dialogue that invokes the surreal nightmare world in which the characters inhabit. Henry Townsend takes it too far to the point where honestly it's just garbage line delivery. I do not know who is "mostly responsible" for this, but the absence of any human being-like inflection or sentence utterances aside from "What the hell?" made me actively dislike him. Plus he looks like Zach Braff and it's really off-putting for a Silent Hill game.
Silent Hill 4: The Room had some really interesting conceptual stuff going on with the Rear Window apartment sequences. But everything else feels like some fan-made game that is in its EARLY STAGES.
I had heard people often say that Silent Hill 4 was the black sheep of the family. The family being the first four Silent Hill games made by Team Silent. I went into this game really hopeful, thinking that it would be a sort of..."Flawed Masterpiece". That people had just been too hard on the game and found too many flaws by directly comparing it to the iconic first three games.
Well, now that I have played as much as I could bear, I would say that I don't think people are hard ENOUGH on it.
As far as I had played, there were exactly four things I enjoyed about this game: the intro video, the apartment sections, the story (it was fairly intriguing), and the twin victims enemy (probably the most terrifying designs by Masahiro Ito).
Everything else was less than mediocre. The level design fluctuated between bland and flat to waaaay too overly complicated and frustrating. The water prison was a fucking nightmare to navigate and re-navigate. And then re-navigate two more times.
The puzzles were soul fracturing. I think exactly all of them made my eyes glaze over like I was in the middle of a lecture on advanced ASTROLOGY. Like I was required to look up my time of birth and how much the stars had shifted since ancient Greece to figure out my moon, sun, Mars, etc. Just to open a god damn lock on a fence. I shit you not, there's a section where you have to enter numbers on a keypad. But Henry (the protagonist) cannot input these numbers because "it's too dark and he can't see them very well".
And compared to James Sunderland and Heather Mason, protagonist Henry Townsend felt like a bowl of bread with some ketchup. Silent Hill has long been iconic for it's Lynch-esque stilted dialogue that invokes the surreal nightmare world in which the characters inhabit. Henry Townsend takes it too far to the point where honestly it's just garbage line delivery. I do not know who is "mostly responsible" for this, but the absence of any human being-like inflection or sentence utterances aside from "What the hell?" made me actively dislike him. Plus he looks like Zach Braff and it's really off-putting for a Silent Hill game.
Silent Hill 4: The Room had some really interesting conceptual stuff going on with the Rear Window apartment sequences. But everything else feels like some fan-made game that is in its EARLY STAGES.
This review contains spoilers
NEEDY STREAMER OVERLOAD NEEDS YOU TO "GET IT"
Much like the game itself, I don't have a lot to say here. In Needy Streamer Overload you play as a non-good, un-human person that is both the boyfriend and manager of a streamer girl (clearly supposed to be a VTuber).
Your streamer girl PET thing is called Ame by you, and KAngel by her fanbase. As her boyfriend/manager thing, you manage her streams and dictate her activities. Some of which CAN include abusing diazepams and having sex. You manage her stats (stress, relationship, "dark thoughts"), moderate her chat, and dismissively respond to her texts as the trash boyfriend you are.
I wrote a whole "way too long-ed" critique of this game but I decided to scrap it because it's honestly not worth the thesis paper.
I do not know the brains of Japanese developer Xemono. Sometimes they have something kind of thoughtful (but still on-the-nose) to say about internet dwellers with Denpa, or people disconnected from reality and socially ostracized. Other times they portray KAngel as a gross stereotype of a Menhera (a woman with unstable mental health to the point of harming herself and others). Sometimes you empathize with her. You see and remove comments in her streams by nasty viewers who degrade her as a gamer, as a sex object, etc. Other times, you have the option to tell her "she doesn't deserve to live" or encourage her to cut her wrists.
I think it's kind of interesting for a Japanese dev to address topics of addiction, suicide, and loneliness so forthright. At the same time, the framing for these thematic elements fluctuates between "a teenager's understanding" and "outright icky".
Needy Streamer Overload is South Park. It brings up serious issues while being too afraid or too ignorant to take a consistent stance on its darker themes. Needy Streamer Overload is also Fight Club. But if Fight Club lacked the subtextual commentary on how "standard" masculinity ideals are harmful for men, and was solely the shallow interpretation most dudes walked away with (whoah dude, Tyler Durden is so rad).
But. The pastel Windows 98 aesthetic is choice as fuck.
Much like the game itself, I don't have a lot to say here. In Needy Streamer Overload you play as a non-good, un-human person that is both the boyfriend and manager of a streamer girl (clearly supposed to be a VTuber).
Your streamer girl PET thing is called Ame by you, and KAngel by her fanbase. As her boyfriend/manager thing, you manage her streams and dictate her activities. Some of which CAN include abusing diazepams and having sex. You manage her stats (stress, relationship, "dark thoughts"), moderate her chat, and dismissively respond to her texts as the trash boyfriend you are.
I wrote a whole "way too long-ed" critique of this game but I decided to scrap it because it's honestly not worth the thesis paper.
I do not know the brains of Japanese developer Xemono. Sometimes they have something kind of thoughtful (but still on-the-nose) to say about internet dwellers with Denpa, or people disconnected from reality and socially ostracized. Other times they portray KAngel as a gross stereotype of a Menhera (a woman with unstable mental health to the point of harming herself and others). Sometimes you empathize with her. You see and remove comments in her streams by nasty viewers who degrade her as a gamer, as a sex object, etc. Other times, you have the option to tell her "she doesn't deserve to live" or encourage her to cut her wrists.
I think it's kind of interesting for a Japanese dev to address topics of addiction, suicide, and loneliness so forthright. At the same time, the framing for these thematic elements fluctuates between "a teenager's understanding" and "outright icky".
Needy Streamer Overload is South Park. It brings up serious issues while being too afraid or too ignorant to take a consistent stance on its darker themes. Needy Streamer Overload is also Fight Club. But if Fight Club lacked the subtextual commentary on how "standard" masculinity ideals are harmful for men, and was solely the shallow interpretation most dudes walked away with (whoah dude, Tyler Durden is so rad).
But. The pastel Windows 98 aesthetic is choice as fuck.
2023
SLAY THE PRINCESS IS A PRISTINE BLADE ON THE TABLE
I knew I was "probably going to love" this game the moment I saw the art style. And guess what, I pretty much only have high praises to sing for this pencilingly scribbled, princessified horror, branching path sassy narrator-like game.
Slay the Princess can be simply summarized as a graphic novel creep-out horror version of the Stanley Parable. But, of course, that's a slight disservice. I love me some Stanley Parable, but it's a very lean experience comparatively.
Slay the Princess has similarly fun, sass-mouthed Narrator with a British accent, but they are actually baked into the lore/plot in a novel way. The two games also share the same gameplay incentive, which is to keep playing and looping to see all of the various creaking, twisting pathways and "endings". The major difference being that, in the Stanley Parable, the fun comes from fucking with the Narrator as you antagonize each other into bizarre and amusing situations. Whereas Slay the Princessis more narratively focused. It's rooted in exploring all of the permutations of the story. How many ways can I kill/not kill the princess? How many voices can I get in my head? Which consequences lead to which chapters lead to which other outcomes lead to which OTHER chapters?
It's a blast the whole way through. Every facet of the game is executed with mastery. The art, sound design, writing, music and music cues...the only thing I was hesitant about at first was some of the voice work by the Princess' VA. It sort of felt like some sort of "yandere gf ASMR" bit. BUT she eventually grew on me. And by the end, I thought she had done a great job juggling between many, many different versions of the Princess you will find on your journey. I imagine this was an extremely fun game to record for.
My only criticisms are sort of fundamentally tied to the nature of Slay the Princess being an "ending-like" game. After the first playthrough, the novelty sort of starts to grow stale. You can see behind the curtains a bit, which takes the magic down just a half a peg. I found myself focusing more on clicking words that were words I hadn't clicked in order to see something I hadn't seen before. I guess what I mean is that the stakes sort of disappeared. It started to feel like I was "going through the motions" rather than engaging with the story. But even then I was discovering new and fun things in my subsequent second and third playthroughs. And...well even though I knew how everything was going to end up more or less, there were still moments I was discovering in my third playthrough that pulled my heartstrings.
I played it. I slayed it. And, just like my favorite voice in the game, I'm absolutely SMITTEN.
I knew I was "probably going to love" this game the moment I saw the art style. And guess what, I pretty much only have high praises to sing for this pencilingly scribbled, princessified horror, branching path sassy narrator-like game.
Slay the Princess can be simply summarized as a graphic novel creep-out horror version of the Stanley Parable. But, of course, that's a slight disservice. I love me some Stanley Parable, but it's a very lean experience comparatively.
Slay the Princess has similarly fun, sass-mouthed Narrator with a British accent, but they are actually baked into the lore/plot in a novel way. The two games also share the same gameplay incentive, which is to keep playing and looping to see all of the various creaking, twisting pathways and "endings". The major difference being that, in the Stanley Parable, the fun comes from fucking with the Narrator as you antagonize each other into bizarre and amusing situations. Whereas Slay the Princessis more narratively focused. It's rooted in exploring all of the permutations of the story. How many ways can I kill/not kill the princess? How many voices can I get in my head? Which consequences lead to which chapters lead to which other outcomes lead to which OTHER chapters?
It's a blast the whole way through. Every facet of the game is executed with mastery. The art, sound design, writing, music and music cues...the only thing I was hesitant about at first was some of the voice work by the Princess' VA. It sort of felt like some sort of "yandere gf ASMR" bit. BUT she eventually grew on me. And by the end, I thought she had done a great job juggling between many, many different versions of the Princess you will find on your journey. I imagine this was an extremely fun game to record for.
My only criticisms are sort of fundamentally tied to the nature of Slay the Princess being an "ending-like" game. After the first playthrough, the novelty sort of starts to grow stale. You can see behind the curtains a bit, which takes the magic down just a half a peg. I found myself focusing more on clicking words that were words I hadn't clicked in order to see something I hadn't seen before. I guess what I mean is that the stakes sort of disappeared. It started to feel like I was "going through the motions" rather than engaging with the story. But even then I was discovering new and fun things in my subsequent second and third playthroughs. And...well even though I knew how everything was going to end up more or less, there were still moments I was discovering in my third playthrough that pulled my heartstrings.
I played it. I slayed it. And, just like my favorite voice in the game, I'm absolutely SMITTEN.
VA11 HAII-A: CYBERPUNK ACTION MADE ME DRINK AN ACTUAL BEER ALONE
Look, I drink plenty fine when in a social environment. That's not the issue. I just make it a rule to never drink by myself due to a family history of alcoholism. SO IT SAYS SOMETHING, that when seeing that first card (upon starting a new game) saying to "get comfy and have some snacks", I thought "Hey, I'm gonna be a Glitch City bartender, may as well have a drink with my clientele".
And so I cracked open a cold one. It was a milk stout. The type of drink that you can chew on. The kind of drink that you only need one of to feel satisfied.
And that's also, conveniently, how I would describe Va11 HaII-A.
The game itself is really a visual novel punctuated by segments where you make non-healthy poison sauce that people, for reasons I will never understand, willingly pay real Cuberpunk currency to drink. I mean...you can literally just "make a beer" on the spot using the same ingredients you use to make a Marti--I mean a Brandtini. It's honestly just there as a gimmick to immerse you into your role. Most of it revolves around looking at instructions on what ingredients to use...and then doing that. There are few moments (maybe one or two max) that made me think a little bit due to the vague requests of my patrons. The only real depth comes from knowing when to get people wasted or not, as this can determine which ending you get.
So, as a visual novel, how is the story? Well...it's mostly lovely. The various patrons are a rogue's gallery of "everyday non-heroes", as the devs themselves describe. I think there is more commentary in casually serving a man who admits openly he is a literal assassin, an AI sexworker that has kept her...youthful model despite her age due to people's...predilections. There's just something thematically cool about Jill Stingray (the player character) just sort of accepting the nightmares of a Cyberpunk dystopia because it's just...normal to her. This itself is singlehandedly more interesting commentary than any single "ship of Theseus-ed, corporations evil" theme in Cyberpunk 2077.
Overall, the characters are colorful, charming, have enough depth to chew on, and made me feel something. They are diverse and well-represented. Seriously, a large portion of the cast is queer as fuck, and depicted well. There's a moment when your big boob hacker friend is talking about her family. She mentions "having three other sist--two sisters and a younger brother". Oh, and yeah, Jill's storyline was also quite touching and made me cry by the resolution. Really enjoyed her as a protagonist.
I do have an opinion that is likely unpopular. I don't like Dana very much. She's charming enough. But she really is just a "bit too quirky and perfect" for me to feel immersed in her as a human person. And I really didn't care for the writer's
decision for her to be Jill's main romantic interest. It had the blueprint of a manic pixie dreamgirl trope that I really just didn't care for.
I will also say the conclusion of the game was quite unsatisfying. As the game slowly faded to white, I literally thought to myself "Seriously?" I don't need the plotlines of every single character wrapped up neatly with a bow. And I do think Jill has a nice moment of growth at the end. But some characters really just felt as if their storylines were dropped completely. And while I liked Jill Stingray's growth-moment, I still think the overall RESOLUTION of her story ended prematurely and didn't really offer much in the way of, "Where she is going from here". The latter by itself is not necessarily bad, but the way it was handled made me unsure as to what her options even were.
Overall, I really enjoyed myself. It's one of the few visual novels that grabbed me enough to binge-play, and I think it's strengths lie in it's world-building, music, charming cast, and--most important for the Cyberpunk genre--STRONG VIBES.
And I kind of hate how much the game made me want to try a drink containing the games five ingredients: rat-poison, sugar sauce, spicy grease, bitter juice, and pseudo-alcohol.
Look, I drink plenty fine when in a social environment. That's not the issue. I just make it a rule to never drink by myself due to a family history of alcoholism. SO IT SAYS SOMETHING, that when seeing that first card (upon starting a new game) saying to "get comfy and have some snacks", I thought "Hey, I'm gonna be a Glitch City bartender, may as well have a drink with my clientele".
And so I cracked open a cold one. It was a milk stout. The type of drink that you can chew on. The kind of drink that you only need one of to feel satisfied.
And that's also, conveniently, how I would describe Va11 HaII-A.
The game itself is really a visual novel punctuated by segments where you make non-healthy poison sauce that people, for reasons I will never understand, willingly pay real Cuberpunk currency to drink. I mean...you can literally just "make a beer" on the spot using the same ingredients you use to make a Marti--I mean a Brandtini. It's honestly just there as a gimmick to immerse you into your role. Most of it revolves around looking at instructions on what ingredients to use...and then doing that. There are few moments (maybe one or two max) that made me think a little bit due to the vague requests of my patrons. The only real depth comes from knowing when to get people wasted or not, as this can determine which ending you get.
So, as a visual novel, how is the story? Well...it's mostly lovely. The various patrons are a rogue's gallery of "everyday non-heroes", as the devs themselves describe. I think there is more commentary in casually serving a man who admits openly he is a literal assassin, an AI sexworker that has kept her...youthful model despite her age due to people's...predilections. There's just something thematically cool about Jill Stingray (the player character) just sort of accepting the nightmares of a Cyberpunk dystopia because it's just...normal to her. This itself is singlehandedly more interesting commentary than any single "ship of Theseus-ed, corporations evil" theme in Cyberpunk 2077.
Overall, the characters are colorful, charming, have enough depth to chew on, and made me feel something. They are diverse and well-represented. Seriously, a large portion of the cast is queer as fuck, and depicted well. There's a moment when your big boob hacker friend is talking about her family. She mentions "having three other sist--two sisters and a younger brother". Oh, and yeah, Jill's storyline was also quite touching and made me cry by the resolution. Really enjoyed her as a protagonist.
I do have an opinion that is likely unpopular. I don't like Dana very much. She's charming enough. But she really is just a "bit too quirky and perfect" for me to feel immersed in her as a human person. And I really didn't care for the writer's
decision for her to be Jill's main romantic interest. It had the blueprint of a manic pixie dreamgirl trope that I really just didn't care for.
I will also say the conclusion of the game was quite unsatisfying. As the game slowly faded to white, I literally thought to myself "Seriously?" I don't need the plotlines of every single character wrapped up neatly with a bow. And I do think Jill has a nice moment of growth at the end. But some characters really just felt as if their storylines were dropped completely. And while I liked Jill Stingray's growth-moment, I still think the overall RESOLUTION of her story ended prematurely and didn't really offer much in the way of, "Where she is going from here". The latter by itself is not necessarily bad, but the way it was handled made me unsure as to what her options even were.
Overall, I really enjoyed myself. It's one of the few visual novels that grabbed me enough to binge-play, and I think it's strengths lie in it's world-building, music, charming cast, and--most important for the Cyberpunk genre--STRONG VIBES.
And I kind of hate how much the game made me want to try a drink containing the games five ingredients: rat-poison, sugar sauce, spicy grease, bitter juice, and pseudo-alcohol.
This review contains spoilers
CYBERPUNK 2077 DOESN'T WANT YOU TO BE A PUNK
Listen up, choom. I played the first release of this game on launch day back in 2020. After playing The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, this was my most anticipated game for years. So the fact that I refunded the game to get a return on my scratch a mere hour and a half into it due to bugs, performance issues, and just getting a real ick about the writing...well it was not preem.
I can safely say that in the three or so years since the game's launch, Cyberpunk 2077 is now a really solid game. However, it cannot achieve the coveted status of being a "HEBI CERTIFIED 10/5 for reasons I will divulge later.
COMBAT: The combat is extremely satisfying (as long as you're not exclusively using guns) and includes a buffet of ways to flatline your enemies. Starting off the game, my V could most effectively take out people with knife headshots and occasional "malfunctioning" gas tanks that I lured enemies towards via hacked cameras. In the final mission of the game, I ran into a room with my mantis blades, sliced up two guys, then used a super jump to pounce and dismember a sniper on the catwalk above me. From there, I hacked an enemy mech to turn on their own friends, while shooting from a distance with my high powered sniper rifle. Then two guys ambushed my on the catwalk from either side, so I dashed into the air, slowed time, and crit head-shotted them both before touching down on the ground, whipping out my legendary throwing knife and playing the best game of darts of my fucking life with the remaining few soldiers. The gunplay may not be the best, but you can get around that with the myriad ways to approach a given combat encounter.
OPEN WORLD: One of the few modern games that "deserves" to be open world. There are so many intriguing characters to meet, and twisty-turny side quests to undertake. I was pretty much delighted by all of them. I even found the "grindy" quests for fixers and cyberpsychos to be enjoyable not only because they allowed me to play with my new toys, but also because many of them offered a surprising amount of depth in terms of story. Not to mention: HOLY MOLY NIGHT CITY IS GORGEOUS. I love that every neighborhood has its own character and visual identity. Pacifica is completely unique from Japantown which is completely unique from Heywood, etc.
DRIVIN': Cruising around Night City is...not great. Unless you're riding a motorcycle or one of two cars that are actually fun to drive (one being locked behind a very grindy set of not-super-fun car hijacking side quests). Almost all of the cars drive like boats on the open sea. If you want to go any kind of fast, good luck even switching lanes without fishtailing out of control and inadvertently running over a crowd of people, giving you an instant 2 star wanted level. So I cruised around on my Yaiba Kusanagi (the Akira) motorcycle most of the game, which was overall enjoyable. Oh and just as a quick note, the radio stations are super lacking and don't feel like they have much of an "identity" like the ones in GTA. The number of "good" tracks is pretty limited which kind of made my ears beg for mercy after 100+ hours.
NARRATIVE: Alright. Here's where it is. This is the part where I say the thing. The endings suck. And not just because they suck. But because they are the culmination of the rest of the narrative failures of the game compounded into one semi-shitstorm. It is ironic that Cyberpunk 2077 is adapted from a tabletop game, because it sure does not want you to roleplay in a number of key ways. People may counter my coming points by saying they are "realistic", or "fit the genre". But that's honestly bullshit. First thing's first: there are four romance options in the game. Fine. BUT you may choose only one depending on your sexual orientation (I guess 2 if you're bi). Some of them are even VOICE dependent. So if you're playing a masc V with a femme voice, you will actually have only one option.
I understand the desire to have NPCs feel like real people, but at the end of the day, I can't but wonder...what exactly do you lose by making these options so limited? In exchange for "realism", you lose player expression and their own roleplaying experience. I mean Judy being a lesbian doesn't seem to have much of an impact on who she is as a person. Nor does her storyline deal with any issues regarding being a queer person. So like...what is the cost/benefit of making her a female only love interest. The same for Panam. And River. And god help you if you play a gay man because you have goddamn Kerry as your only option. Compare this to Baldur's Gate 3. Astarion is pretty clearly queer coded, but straight women are obsessed with him and are able to romance him. Nothing is lost. None of the impact of his clearly coded plotline is marred. It's fine. You just get to...tell the story yourself with the pieces the writers give you.
How does this tie into the endings? Well, simply put, the endings exhibit the same desire to take control away from the players and into the hands of the writers. It's like a bad GM who wants you to follow their strict plotline that they planned from the beginning rather than adapt to where their players want to go with the story. Everything from V needing to die no matter what (choose one of three flavors!), to the horrible and jarring voice messages you get during the credits, to the fact that ABSOLUTELY none of the logic behind V's need to perish if they decide to go back into their own body makes any lick of sense if you think about it for more than twenty seconds. I remember sitting there on one of the dialogues with "literal AI goddess" Alt Cunningham, just thinking to myself, "Um. Why not just put my engram on the Relic so I can retake my brain. Oh wait, we're already going to literally be doing that because it's the only way back into my brain. Wait what the fuck? Why can't I just take back my brain Johhny style?"
Well, much like Fallout 4 and Mass Effect 3, the game NEEDS there to be a bittersweet ending. Which sure, okay. But it always ends one of 2 ways: either you go back into your body and only have six months to live because your...body is...rejecting your personality (Jesus fucking Christ). Or you let Johnny have your body while you skip off to into AI "heaven" with Alt. And let me tell you something, if you are playing a lady V, the thematic implications of this loss of control of your bodily autonomy to a womanizing POS is kind of sickening (sitll love you Johnny <3).
On the theme of identity and "what is consciousness", Cyberpunk 2077 fails and is pathetic compared to the likes of Prey and Soma.
And it really is just a shame because everything else in the narrative was definitely compelling. I was on the edge of my seat nearly the whole game when it came to the main storyline. So when I got a voicemail during the credits with Judy kind of vociferously saying she was breaking up with me and that "it was a shame things turned out the way they did"... after single-handedly storming Arasaka tower, carving a path of chaos and destruction through their forces, and destroying one of their most ambitious and horrific projects, leaving the most powerful and evil corporations in absolute ruin...well, I was both confused and pretty insulted. Especially after 100+ hours of gameplay.
But hey, it's so cool she was a super realistic character with her own autonomy right? So players get a choice of how they want to do combat, but not how they want to construct and roleplay the story...Why make a roleplaying game? Why is it unrealistic for a character to be player-sexual, but it's totally realistic for the player to slaughter thousands of enemies and mow down crowds of innocent civilians while never addressing it or experiencing mental trauma of being a mass murderer? The game forgot it is a power fantasy.
Most other aspects of the game delivered in a big way. The sum of its parts almost overcome the one major fault I find in it. It's pretty damn fun and engaging and I would recommend people play it still. It's just a shame that Cyberpunk 2077, a story-heavy roleplaying game is ultimately disinterested in you being the one roleplaying.
Listen up, choom. I played the first release of this game on launch day back in 2020. After playing The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, this was my most anticipated game for years. So the fact that I refunded the game to get a return on my scratch a mere hour and a half into it due to bugs, performance issues, and just getting a real ick about the writing...well it was not preem.
I can safely say that in the three or so years since the game's launch, Cyberpunk 2077 is now a really solid game. However, it cannot achieve the coveted status of being a "HEBI CERTIFIED 10/5 for reasons I will divulge later.
COMBAT: The combat is extremely satisfying (as long as you're not exclusively using guns) and includes a buffet of ways to flatline your enemies. Starting off the game, my V could most effectively take out people with knife headshots and occasional "malfunctioning" gas tanks that I lured enemies towards via hacked cameras. In the final mission of the game, I ran into a room with my mantis blades, sliced up two guys, then used a super jump to pounce and dismember a sniper on the catwalk above me. From there, I hacked an enemy mech to turn on their own friends, while shooting from a distance with my high powered sniper rifle. Then two guys ambushed my on the catwalk from either side, so I dashed into the air, slowed time, and crit head-shotted them both before touching down on the ground, whipping out my legendary throwing knife and playing the best game of darts of my fucking life with the remaining few soldiers. The gunplay may not be the best, but you can get around that with the myriad ways to approach a given combat encounter.
OPEN WORLD: One of the few modern games that "deserves" to be open world. There are so many intriguing characters to meet, and twisty-turny side quests to undertake. I was pretty much delighted by all of them. I even found the "grindy" quests for fixers and cyberpsychos to be enjoyable not only because they allowed me to play with my new toys, but also because many of them offered a surprising amount of depth in terms of story. Not to mention: HOLY MOLY NIGHT CITY IS GORGEOUS. I love that every neighborhood has its own character and visual identity. Pacifica is completely unique from Japantown which is completely unique from Heywood, etc.
DRIVIN': Cruising around Night City is...not great. Unless you're riding a motorcycle or one of two cars that are actually fun to drive (one being locked behind a very grindy set of not-super-fun car hijacking side quests). Almost all of the cars drive like boats on the open sea. If you want to go any kind of fast, good luck even switching lanes without fishtailing out of control and inadvertently running over a crowd of people, giving you an instant 2 star wanted level. So I cruised around on my Yaiba Kusanagi (the Akira) motorcycle most of the game, which was overall enjoyable. Oh and just as a quick note, the radio stations are super lacking and don't feel like they have much of an "identity" like the ones in GTA. The number of "good" tracks is pretty limited which kind of made my ears beg for mercy after 100+ hours.
NARRATIVE: Alright. Here's where it is. This is the part where I say the thing. The endings suck. And not just because they suck. But because they are the culmination of the rest of the narrative failures of the game compounded into one semi-shitstorm. It is ironic that Cyberpunk 2077 is adapted from a tabletop game, because it sure does not want you to roleplay in a number of key ways. People may counter my coming points by saying they are "realistic", or "fit the genre". But that's honestly bullshit. First thing's first: there are four romance options in the game. Fine. BUT you may choose only one depending on your sexual orientation (I guess 2 if you're bi). Some of them are even VOICE dependent. So if you're playing a masc V with a femme voice, you will actually have only one option.
I understand the desire to have NPCs feel like real people, but at the end of the day, I can't but wonder...what exactly do you lose by making these options so limited? In exchange for "realism", you lose player expression and their own roleplaying experience. I mean Judy being a lesbian doesn't seem to have much of an impact on who she is as a person. Nor does her storyline deal with any issues regarding being a queer person. So like...what is the cost/benefit of making her a female only love interest. The same for Panam. And River. And god help you if you play a gay man because you have goddamn Kerry as your only option. Compare this to Baldur's Gate 3. Astarion is pretty clearly queer coded, but straight women are obsessed with him and are able to romance him. Nothing is lost. None of the impact of his clearly coded plotline is marred. It's fine. You just get to...tell the story yourself with the pieces the writers give you.
How does this tie into the endings? Well, simply put, the endings exhibit the same desire to take control away from the players and into the hands of the writers. It's like a bad GM who wants you to follow their strict plotline that they planned from the beginning rather than adapt to where their players want to go with the story. Everything from V needing to die no matter what (choose one of three flavors!), to the horrible and jarring voice messages you get during the credits, to the fact that ABSOLUTELY none of the logic behind V's need to perish if they decide to go back into their own body makes any lick of sense if you think about it for more than twenty seconds. I remember sitting there on one of the dialogues with "literal AI goddess" Alt Cunningham, just thinking to myself, "Um. Why not just put my engram on the Relic so I can retake my brain. Oh wait, we're already going to literally be doing that because it's the only way back into my brain. Wait what the fuck? Why can't I just take back my brain Johhny style?"
Well, much like Fallout 4 and Mass Effect 3, the game NEEDS there to be a bittersweet ending. Which sure, okay. But it always ends one of 2 ways: either you go back into your body and only have six months to live because your...body is...rejecting your personality (Jesus fucking Christ). Or you let Johnny have your body while you skip off to into AI "heaven" with Alt. And let me tell you something, if you are playing a lady V, the thematic implications of this loss of control of your bodily autonomy to a womanizing POS is kind of sickening (sitll love you Johnny <3).
On the theme of identity and "what is consciousness", Cyberpunk 2077 fails and is pathetic compared to the likes of Prey and Soma.
And it really is just a shame because everything else in the narrative was definitely compelling. I was on the edge of my seat nearly the whole game when it came to the main storyline. So when I got a voicemail during the credits with Judy kind of vociferously saying she was breaking up with me and that "it was a shame things turned out the way they did"... after single-handedly storming Arasaka tower, carving a path of chaos and destruction through their forces, and destroying one of their most ambitious and horrific projects, leaving the most powerful and evil corporations in absolute ruin...well, I was both confused and pretty insulted. Especially after 100+ hours of gameplay.
But hey, it's so cool she was a super realistic character with her own autonomy right? So players get a choice of how they want to do combat, but not how they want to construct and roleplay the story...Why make a roleplaying game? Why is it unrealistic for a character to be player-sexual, but it's totally realistic for the player to slaughter thousands of enemies and mow down crowds of innocent civilians while never addressing it or experiencing mental trauma of being a mass murderer? The game forgot it is a power fantasy.
Most other aspects of the game delivered in a big way. The sum of its parts almost overcome the one major fault I find in it. It's pretty damn fun and engaging and I would recommend people play it still. It's just a shame that Cyberpunk 2077, a story-heavy roleplaying game is ultimately disinterested in you being the one roleplaying.
2020
This review contains spoilers
BALDUR'S GATE 3 UNSHACKLED MY SOUL
(HEBI CERTIFIED 10 OUT OF 5)
Wow. I haven't played any other game since this was released in early August...I genuinely don't have enough time to talk about Baldur's Gate 3 in this review (mostly because I'm not getting paid to do so yet).
I mean...it's probably my favorite RPG of all time now, and for a good reason. The amount of time, love, and passion put into this game is astounding. From the writing to the game mechanics. From the art to music. From sound design to UI...It's all just so goddamn good.
Top tier RPG mechanics and quest design that encourage and EXTREMELY reward creativity and scouring every area of each of its massive maps. I was consistently astounded at not only the density of content, but the consistent quality of it.
The writing is top notch. It feels like a genuine D&D campaign you would play with friends. OH WAIT, YOU CAN PLAY THE ENTIRE GAME WITH UP TO FOUR FRIENDS IN CO-OP. They even made couch co-op available for two players. It's a little awkward but still, the ability for my brother and I to play together in the living room is a luxury most games don't even make the attempt to do nowadays (minus Nintendo).
Characters are incredibly well fleshed out and endearing. I ended up very attached to not only my party but all of the side characters I had been doing quests for. Some of their questlines carried on from Act I all the way through Act 3. It was so rewarding seeing some random NPC from Act I showing up 80 hours later for an interesting follow-up quest in Act III. Felt like catching up with an old chum you went to high school with 10 years after graduating.
The level of detail in this game is mind blowing. Especially the number of permutations of outcomes in seemingly simple situations. You may think an interaction has one of two outcomes...but like a fast food restaurant's secret menu, if you do something random like, say, kill Astarion and bring him to life before talking to him for the first time YOU GET UNIQUE DIALOGUE. There are dozens and dozens of other examples like this throughout the game. It incentivizes replay in a way I genuinely have never seen from a RPG before. I mean hell...I not only had my precious first single-player run, but four other runs that started up as a result of playing with other people and starting a different Dark Urge playthrough. This is definitely a game I can see myself playing for years to come.
Baldur's Gate 3 is not without flaws, of course. There were certainly some really immersion breaking bugs and unfixed bad features, such as having the last scene of the game's emotional climax with my party wearing their ugly helmets which I had consistently switched to "hide helmet" throughout the game. That was very regrettable. There were also visual bugs and quest-related mishaps that could definitely fuck things up a bit and require a reload from a Quicksave. Co-op in particular is quite rough around the edges right now, especially local splitscreen on PS5.
I also question some of the writing decisions for certain NPCs, especially having played the early access for two years. Some of the changes were very, very good. Gale's character change absolutely saved him. Wyll's...I'm not so sure.
I was also a bit disappointed that my character's gear never changed for the remaining 60 hours or so of the game when I received what was ostensibly the objectively correct robe for my sorcerer to wear. Maybe a transmutation type patch in the future could fix this. I really wanted to see my character in some fresh digs after dozens of hours.
But that's the extent of the flaws in my opinion. Otherwise the game is unfathomably generous in other ways. Getting to dye your gear is fantastic. Having not only your class, but also your subclass open unique dialogue options was unbelievable. Implementing the Tasha's rules of getting rid of inherent race attributes within the game's incredibly excellent character creator was fabulous. They even have a slider for vitiligo...that's the first time in a video game that's been an option and goes to show the lengths Baldur's Gate 3 is willing to go to in order to accommodate their players and allow them to play the game as anyone they want to be.
Most importantly of all, being a roleplaying game, Baldur's Gate 3 allowed me to roleplay my first campaign's character in ways that consistently engaged me with them. I know you have definitely heard at least ONE of your friends start to gush about their character in Baldur's Gate 3 the same way someone talks about the dream they had last night. And I'm going to do the same right now (IT'S IMPORTANT FOR THE REVIEW I PROMISE!).
When I started up my first playthrough, I rolled a wild magic Drow Sorcerer who was of both Lothsworn and Seladrine heritage. I multiclassed her with Druid so she could have Moonbeam. You see, because she got her sorcerous magic from a chance encounter she had with a relic of Selune when she was little.
As much fun as it would be to write out even more I had planned for this character, I'll end here by saying...holy fuck. I was able to fulfill her character in so many rewarding ways that sometimes made me think, "Did I choose the canonical character for this game". That's just how goddamn good Baldur's Gate 3 is.
You can tell Larian was comprised of happy devs who were putting all of their love and joy of the their craft into Baldur's Gate 3. And studios that put emphasis in the places that matter attract the best talent in the industry. And it shows in the game. Do I look forward to their next game? Sure. But I'm looking even more forward to my next playthrough as a tortured Brass Dragonborn with the Dark Urge.
(HEBI CERTIFIED 10 OUT OF 5)
Wow. I haven't played any other game since this was released in early August...I genuinely don't have enough time to talk about Baldur's Gate 3 in this review (mostly because I'm not getting paid to do so yet).
I mean...it's probably my favorite RPG of all time now, and for a good reason. The amount of time, love, and passion put into this game is astounding. From the writing to the game mechanics. From the art to music. From sound design to UI...It's all just so goddamn good.
Top tier RPG mechanics and quest design that encourage and EXTREMELY reward creativity and scouring every area of each of its massive maps. I was consistently astounded at not only the density of content, but the consistent quality of it.
The writing is top notch. It feels like a genuine D&D campaign you would play with friends. OH WAIT, YOU CAN PLAY THE ENTIRE GAME WITH UP TO FOUR FRIENDS IN CO-OP. They even made couch co-op available for two players. It's a little awkward but still, the ability for my brother and I to play together in the living room is a luxury most games don't even make the attempt to do nowadays (minus Nintendo).
Characters are incredibly well fleshed out and endearing. I ended up very attached to not only my party but all of the side characters I had been doing quests for. Some of their questlines carried on from Act I all the way through Act 3. It was so rewarding seeing some random NPC from Act I showing up 80 hours later for an interesting follow-up quest in Act III. Felt like catching up with an old chum you went to high school with 10 years after graduating.
The level of detail in this game is mind blowing. Especially the number of permutations of outcomes in seemingly simple situations. You may think an interaction has one of two outcomes...but like a fast food restaurant's secret menu, if you do something random like, say, kill Astarion and bring him to life before talking to him for the first time YOU GET UNIQUE DIALOGUE. There are dozens and dozens of other examples like this throughout the game. It incentivizes replay in a way I genuinely have never seen from a RPG before. I mean hell...I not only had my precious first single-player run, but four other runs that started up as a result of playing with other people and starting a different Dark Urge playthrough. This is definitely a game I can see myself playing for years to come.
Baldur's Gate 3 is not without flaws, of course. There were certainly some really immersion breaking bugs and unfixed bad features, such as having the last scene of the game's emotional climax with my party wearing their ugly helmets which I had consistently switched to "hide helmet" throughout the game. That was very regrettable. There were also visual bugs and quest-related mishaps that could definitely fuck things up a bit and require a reload from a Quicksave. Co-op in particular is quite rough around the edges right now, especially local splitscreen on PS5.
I also question some of the writing decisions for certain NPCs, especially having played the early access for two years. Some of the changes were very, very good. Gale's character change absolutely saved him. Wyll's...I'm not so sure.
I was also a bit disappointed that my character's gear never changed for the remaining 60 hours or so of the game when I received what was ostensibly the objectively correct robe for my sorcerer to wear. Maybe a transmutation type patch in the future could fix this. I really wanted to see my character in some fresh digs after dozens of hours.
But that's the extent of the flaws in my opinion. Otherwise the game is unfathomably generous in other ways. Getting to dye your gear is fantastic. Having not only your class, but also your subclass open unique dialogue options was unbelievable. Implementing the Tasha's rules of getting rid of inherent race attributes within the game's incredibly excellent character creator was fabulous. They even have a slider for vitiligo...that's the first time in a video game that's been an option and goes to show the lengths Baldur's Gate 3 is willing to go to in order to accommodate their players and allow them to play the game as anyone they want to be.
Most importantly of all, being a roleplaying game, Baldur's Gate 3 allowed me to roleplay my first campaign's character in ways that consistently engaged me with them. I know you have definitely heard at least ONE of your friends start to gush about their character in Baldur's Gate 3 the same way someone talks about the dream they had last night. And I'm going to do the same right now (IT'S IMPORTANT FOR THE REVIEW I PROMISE!).
When I started up my first playthrough, I rolled a wild magic Drow Sorcerer who was of both Lothsworn and Seladrine heritage. I multiclassed her with Druid so she could have Moonbeam. You see, because she got her sorcerous magic from a chance encounter she had with a relic of Selune when she was little.
As much fun as it would be to write out even more I had planned for this character, I'll end here by saying...holy fuck. I was able to fulfill her character in so many rewarding ways that sometimes made me think, "Did I choose the canonical character for this game". That's just how goddamn good Baldur's Gate 3 is.
You can tell Larian was comprised of happy devs who were putting all of their love and joy of the their craft into Baldur's Gate 3. And studios that put emphasis in the places that matter attract the best talent in the industry. And it shows in the game. Do I look forward to their next game? Sure. But I'm looking even more forward to my next playthrough as a tortured Brass Dragonborn with the Dark Urge.
2022
SIGNALIS IS SENDING ALL THE RIGHT SIGNALS
Signalis is a very indie game. It wears its survival horror and literary influences on its sleeve. And yet it manages to maintain an identity all its own.
It has the fixed camera and "stop to aim" (or at least slow down significantly) flavors of Resident Evils 1-3. It has the oppressive atmosphere and slow-burn horror of Silent Hill. It even has the iconic "mirror scene" from Silent Hill 2. But, again, the game still manages to feel fresh and have its own identity.
The game is presented from a top-down, sort of isometric perspective. The art direction went all the way on retro-futurism in the best ways. Better than most in my opinion, since there is in-game lore to explain why.
The gameplay is great. And let me just take a brief moment to express how much I am loving this new wave of "PSX but with good gameplay" games. Minus a targeting system that can be a little finicky, combat is snappy and satisfying.
The survival elements follow the tried and true formula of inventory management, but with a slight twist: you ONLY ever have six items at a time. There is no upgrading. I've seen some bemoan this a little but I personally didn't mind. There's something kind of nice about the consistency of knowing exactly how many things you can have at all times.
The puzzles are many and varied. You will be spending a great deal of time solving bizarre riddles during your experience. But I genuinely enjoyed all of them. The biggest reason for this, I think, is that they hit that perfect sweet spot between being difficult but not intensely obtuse (as opposed to the likes of early survival horror games). They're intuitive. Oh, feels like you're missing a piece of this wooden doll? You suuuuure you explored all of the rooms? Oh, this card puzzle isn't opening the door even though you "solved" it? Are you poooositive you haven't missed anything else on this table?
The gameplay element that diverts Signalis from its classic predecessors most is its...signal mechanic. At any time you can attune your android body to a frequency via a menu--and then in-game once it's activated. They put this to use in a variety of ways, from puzzles to defeating particular enemy type.
All of the formal elements are impeccable. Sound design is terrifically ambient but punchy when needed. The lengths they went to in order to make the analogue elements feel immersive and genuine is impressive. It also boasts one of the most iconic sound cues in recent video game memory. The score is divine. Art direction, as mentioned above, is inspired. There is a great mix of vivid and drab coloring, and a lot of beautiful red motifs. And the level design is nothing short of stellar (I never felt supremely inconvenienced or overwhelmed).
The story is a backdrop while still being fleshed-out. Signalis does not need you to understand it at all in order for it to be emotional and compelling. You are Elster. You need to find her. You made a promise. Everything else is subject to conjecture, but not in a frustrating way. I don't think it is possible to know everything that is going on in the world of Signalis--there are no hard answers. The game wants you to draw your own conclusions. And not in a lazy way. I know this because there are bits of lore and exposition scattered about in a way that gives you juuuuust enough to know about the setting and its characters to make your own semi-informed conclusion.
Signalis is not the just the sum of its inspirations. If we were to compare: Resident Evil is a detective serial. Silent Hill is a horror short story. And Signalis is a tone poem.
So if you like sci-fi, survival horror, and space lesbians...then you owe it to yourself to play Signalis.
Signalis is a very indie game. It wears its survival horror and literary influences on its sleeve. And yet it manages to maintain an identity all its own.
It has the fixed camera and "stop to aim" (or at least slow down significantly) flavors of Resident Evils 1-3. It has the oppressive atmosphere and slow-burn horror of Silent Hill. It even has the iconic "mirror scene" from Silent Hill 2. But, again, the game still manages to feel fresh and have its own identity.
The game is presented from a top-down, sort of isometric perspective. The art direction went all the way on retro-futurism in the best ways. Better than most in my opinion, since there is in-game lore to explain why.
The gameplay is great. And let me just take a brief moment to express how much I am loving this new wave of "PSX but with good gameplay" games. Minus a targeting system that can be a little finicky, combat is snappy and satisfying.
The survival elements follow the tried and true formula of inventory management, but with a slight twist: you ONLY ever have six items at a time. There is no upgrading. I've seen some bemoan this a little but I personally didn't mind. There's something kind of nice about the consistency of knowing exactly how many things you can have at all times.
The puzzles are many and varied. You will be spending a great deal of time solving bizarre riddles during your experience. But I genuinely enjoyed all of them. The biggest reason for this, I think, is that they hit that perfect sweet spot between being difficult but not intensely obtuse (as opposed to the likes of early survival horror games). They're intuitive. Oh, feels like you're missing a piece of this wooden doll? You suuuuure you explored all of the rooms? Oh, this card puzzle isn't opening the door even though you "solved" it? Are you poooositive you haven't missed anything else on this table?
The gameplay element that diverts Signalis from its classic predecessors most is its...signal mechanic. At any time you can attune your android body to a frequency via a menu--and then in-game once it's activated. They put this to use in a variety of ways, from puzzles to defeating particular enemy type.
All of the formal elements are impeccable. Sound design is terrifically ambient but punchy when needed. The lengths they went to in order to make the analogue elements feel immersive and genuine is impressive. It also boasts one of the most iconic sound cues in recent video game memory. The score is divine. Art direction, as mentioned above, is inspired. There is a great mix of vivid and drab coloring, and a lot of beautiful red motifs. And the level design is nothing short of stellar (I never felt supremely inconvenienced or overwhelmed).
The story is a backdrop while still being fleshed-out. Signalis does not need you to understand it at all in order for it to be emotional and compelling. You are Elster. You need to find her. You made a promise. Everything else is subject to conjecture, but not in a frustrating way. I don't think it is possible to know everything that is going on in the world of Signalis--there are no hard answers. The game wants you to draw your own conclusions. And not in a lazy way. I know this because there are bits of lore and exposition scattered about in a way that gives you juuuuust enough to know about the setting and its characters to make your own semi-informed conclusion.
Signalis is not the just the sum of its inspirations. If we were to compare: Resident Evil is a detective serial. Silent Hill is a horror short story. And Signalis is a tone poem.
So if you like sci-fi, survival horror, and space lesbians...then you owe it to yourself to play Signalis.
LIFE IS STRANGE: TRUE COLORS IS A "MINER" (GET IT?) COURSE CORRECTION
I'm finally caught up on all of the Life is Strange games. I was not feeling burnt out in the least when playing this title directly after all of the others, so there is still a lot of clarity in my analysis of this game.
Deck Nine definitely gets what a "franchise" of Life is Strange "should be" more than Don't Nod at this point. The problem is that they still have difficulty reaching the depth and mechanical novelty of the first.
Characters: Alex Chen is a great protagonist. She has a backstory that is cathartic for people who have slipped through the cracks in society due to the catastrophic failure that is the American foster care system. But she has a couple issues: 1) She has a lot of inconsistencies in how she reacts to situations. There is a particular inciting incident that she just kind of did not have much of an emotional reaction to in proportion to...how devastating it was. Just as well...she oscillates between being a quippy trickster to a meek loner often. She is definitely more compelling when being the former. I realize it can be obviously stated that, "Dude. That's called character depth". Well, the problem is that it's a binary for her. She is EITHER one or the other in most scenes, which can make role-playing as her slightly unsatisfying . By comparison, Steph, Gabe, and Ryan have much more truly dynamic interactions. Just as well, Erika Mori (her VA) has the same inconsistency in her performance. Sometimes she's fuckin' killing it, and others there is a lot to be desired.
Otherwise, I really liked the cast. Ryan is a really good boy going through an existential crisis. Steph is Steph, she has always ruled. Gabe is endearing and layered. And the rest of the peoples of Haven Springs are equally charming (love Charlotte and Eleanor).
Gameplay: While Alex's powers are an excellent idea that create really memorable visual and emotional moments, they aren't mechanically engaging (outside of a couple specific interactions). It is "press button near person to feel their feelings". The times when it shines most are when you're navigating dialogue options to get people to overcome the hardships they're going through. But at that point, it's basically just "can you talk to a person good". It doesn't have the same puzzle-solving potential as, say...time reversal...
Story: All over the place. The setting is great. Haven Springs and the art direction are gorgeous. But, unlike Life is Strange 2, the game is way too damn short to tell the story it wants to tell. But it does do a decent amount even within this hastened plot.
The real problems are the themes and pacing. It takes an entire episode to get to the inciting incident. And the investigation in general needed a lot more micro conflicts. There's more fucking around and talking to people than there is uncovering secrets and intrigue. The absolute most MAJORLY missed opportunity was not giving the Scooby gang of Alex, Ryan, and Steph more "big time missions" together.
I am still trying to wrap my head around what the game was trying to convey in terms of its main themes. We've got Persona 5-esque "making bad people realize their horrific mistakes and getting them to be better". We've got Persona 4-esque "finding the truth is the only way to get justice". We've got...empathizing with people is good. We've got "you have to be strong in order to overcome your past". We've got familial trauma. And then we have the pain of being a foster kid stuff. Ultimately, while it was good representation, the foster care/family themes came to a conclusion that I thought was a massive cop-out. It basically boiled down to "hey, you just gotta be strong". That's some Kingdom Hearts shit man. What a huge missed opportunity to critique the system and how our country defaults to tearing families apart rather than assisting them.
The above elements ended up creating a Life is Strange game that felt a little plastic, rushed, and confused about its identity.
Also worth noting: Deck Nine has some major issues with several technical things. The audio compression on the voiced lines is unfathomably bad. I'm not sure I've EVER heard characters sound more like they were doing a horribly mixed podcast. When the characters "smile", it looks more like a grimace and is visually upsetting. And Deck Nine STILL (since Before the Storm) have not figured out how to make a natural-looking walking cycle for the protagonist. Alex and Steph have a lock in their shoulder joints that disallow them from swinging their arms further back than their waist. Their torsos protrude too far forward while their heads tilt slightly behind the nape of the neck...it just doesn't feel or look good to walk as these characters, which is a fairly big flaw in a game where you are primarily walking around.
I know I've had a lot of criticisms of the game so I'll finish up by saying this: Life is Strange True Colors is still a fun and worthwhile experience. The story and characters are compelling. The "majority of the episode segment" in chapter 3 is one of the best chapters of any Life is Strange game. And the finale, while a watered down version of The Wolf Among Us' finale, is definitely the most satisfying in the series (the final confrontation is genuinely beautiful and made me cry).
But actually as my final words: Both of Deck Nine's "side story DLC's" are stronger than the base game. The Farewell in Before the Storm is tight and even more emotional than Before the Storm itself. And this might be an unpopular opinion, but I think the same of Wavelengths.
I think the writers on this team really bring it home when they have severe limitations. Wavelengths is very efficient with its storytelling. Steph is a consistent but still complex character (thus making roleplaying as her more engaging). The themes are rock solid--loneliness and new beginnings: full stop. And the final thing I'd like to mention: SPOILERS FOR LIFE IS STRANGE 1 AND 2
Deck Nine wants to address the consequences of the "save Chloe" ending in Life is Strange 1 in a way that makes it a more meaningful and satisfying choice. In Life is Strange 2, David is basically like "Yeah everyone except me died and I hated that Max and Chloe drove off. But I have a decent relationship with her now." True Colors by default goes against this by showing that Steph and Mikey survived (oh thank fucking god). Not only this, but Wavelengths addresses this ending on multiple occasions. There's memory dialogue Steph has of making pride buttons with Chloe post-storm. There's her relived trauma from her Mom dying in the storm (and Mikey's brother). It's heartbreaking, but it at least gives us SOME goddamn context and divulgence for a half-baked cop-out of an ending to the first game.
Anyway, I appreciate Deck Nine actively rebelling against Don't Nod's reluctance to respect their most acclaimed and popular franchise. And as developers, Deck Nine just gets better with each release. I'm very interested to see what they do next with The Expanse.
I'm finally caught up on all of the Life is Strange games. I was not feeling burnt out in the least when playing this title directly after all of the others, so there is still a lot of clarity in my analysis of this game.
Deck Nine definitely gets what a "franchise" of Life is Strange "should be" more than Don't Nod at this point. The problem is that they still have difficulty reaching the depth and mechanical novelty of the first.
Characters: Alex Chen is a great protagonist. She has a backstory that is cathartic for people who have slipped through the cracks in society due to the catastrophic failure that is the American foster care system. But she has a couple issues: 1) She has a lot of inconsistencies in how she reacts to situations. There is a particular inciting incident that she just kind of did not have much of an emotional reaction to in proportion to...how devastating it was. Just as well...she oscillates between being a quippy trickster to a meek loner often. She is definitely more compelling when being the former. I realize it can be obviously stated that, "Dude. That's called character depth". Well, the problem is that it's a binary for her. She is EITHER one or the other in most scenes, which can make role-playing as her slightly unsatisfying . By comparison, Steph, Gabe, and Ryan have much more truly dynamic interactions. Just as well, Erika Mori (her VA) has the same inconsistency in her performance. Sometimes she's fuckin' killing it, and others there is a lot to be desired.
Otherwise, I really liked the cast. Ryan is a really good boy going through an existential crisis. Steph is Steph, she has always ruled. Gabe is endearing and layered. And the rest of the peoples of Haven Springs are equally charming (love Charlotte and Eleanor).
Gameplay: While Alex's powers are an excellent idea that create really memorable visual and emotional moments, they aren't mechanically engaging (outside of a couple specific interactions). It is "press button near person to feel their feelings". The times when it shines most are when you're navigating dialogue options to get people to overcome the hardships they're going through. But at that point, it's basically just "can you talk to a person good". It doesn't have the same puzzle-solving potential as, say...time reversal...
Story: All over the place. The setting is great. Haven Springs and the art direction are gorgeous. But, unlike Life is Strange 2, the game is way too damn short to tell the story it wants to tell. But it does do a decent amount even within this hastened plot.
The real problems are the themes and pacing. It takes an entire episode to get to the inciting incident. And the investigation in general needed a lot more micro conflicts. There's more fucking around and talking to people than there is uncovering secrets and intrigue. The absolute most MAJORLY missed opportunity was not giving the Scooby gang of Alex, Ryan, and Steph more "big time missions" together.
I am still trying to wrap my head around what the game was trying to convey in terms of its main themes. We've got Persona 5-esque "making bad people realize their horrific mistakes and getting them to be better". We've got Persona 4-esque "finding the truth is the only way to get justice". We've got...empathizing with people is good. We've got "you have to be strong in order to overcome your past". We've got familial trauma. And then we have the pain of being a foster kid stuff. Ultimately, while it was good representation, the foster care/family themes came to a conclusion that I thought was a massive cop-out. It basically boiled down to "hey, you just gotta be strong". That's some Kingdom Hearts shit man. What a huge missed opportunity to critique the system and how our country defaults to tearing families apart rather than assisting them.
The above elements ended up creating a Life is Strange game that felt a little plastic, rushed, and confused about its identity.
Also worth noting: Deck Nine has some major issues with several technical things. The audio compression on the voiced lines is unfathomably bad. I'm not sure I've EVER heard characters sound more like they were doing a horribly mixed podcast. When the characters "smile", it looks more like a grimace and is visually upsetting. And Deck Nine STILL (since Before the Storm) have not figured out how to make a natural-looking walking cycle for the protagonist. Alex and Steph have a lock in their shoulder joints that disallow them from swinging their arms further back than their waist. Their torsos protrude too far forward while their heads tilt slightly behind the nape of the neck...it just doesn't feel or look good to walk as these characters, which is a fairly big flaw in a game where you are primarily walking around.
I know I've had a lot of criticisms of the game so I'll finish up by saying this: Life is Strange True Colors is still a fun and worthwhile experience. The story and characters are compelling. The "majority of the episode segment" in chapter 3 is one of the best chapters of any Life is Strange game. And the finale, while a watered down version of The Wolf Among Us' finale, is definitely the most satisfying in the series (the final confrontation is genuinely beautiful and made me cry).
But actually as my final words: Both of Deck Nine's "side story DLC's" are stronger than the base game. The Farewell in Before the Storm is tight and even more emotional than Before the Storm itself. And this might be an unpopular opinion, but I think the same of Wavelengths.
I think the writers on this team really bring it home when they have severe limitations. Wavelengths is very efficient with its storytelling. Steph is a consistent but still complex character (thus making roleplaying as her more engaging). The themes are rock solid--loneliness and new beginnings: full stop. And the final thing I'd like to mention: SPOILERS FOR LIFE IS STRANGE 1 AND 2
Deck Nine wants to address the consequences of the "save Chloe" ending in Life is Strange 1 in a way that makes it a more meaningful and satisfying choice. In Life is Strange 2, David is basically like "Yeah everyone except me died and I hated that Max and Chloe drove off. But I have a decent relationship with her now." True Colors by default goes against this by showing that Steph and Mikey survived (oh thank fucking god). Not only this, but Wavelengths addresses this ending on multiple occasions. There's memory dialogue Steph has of making pride buttons with Chloe post-storm. There's her relived trauma from her Mom dying in the storm (and Mikey's brother). It's heartbreaking, but it at least gives us SOME goddamn context and divulgence for a half-baked cop-out of an ending to the first game.
Anyway, I appreciate Deck Nine actively rebelling against Don't Nod's reluctance to respect their most acclaimed and popular franchise. And as developers, Deck Nine just gets better with each release. I'm very interested to see what they do next with The Expanse.
2018
This review contains spoilers
LIFE IS STRANGE 2: LIFE IS FUCKED
I really wanted to be one of the contrarians that thought LiS2 was an overlooked gem. I have played it, thought about it, and I am not one of those people.
LiS2 has plenty of its own merits. It's still a "good"game (or at the very least solid). I like the protagonist and most of the characters. The writers are still doing a nice job of humanizing complex people. I definitely got emotional several times. But I am more interested in the things that I found lacking. Not because I "want to be a hater", but because I think the conversation to be had about this game could be a learning lesson for choice-based narrative point-and-click games in general. Trigger warning: Comparisons to LiS1 will be made. Not because I want to, but because it is necessary.
Case Study A) ROAD TRIPPIN
LiS1 has impeccable structure. I am currently working on a video describing just how much info is packed into the first "level" of the game. You essentially know everything you need to know for every set-up of every plot in the story before you hit the thirty minute mark.
LiS1 does a lot with a little. LiS2 does a little with a lot.
I'll be frank, the game is way too fuckin long. There's a good reason most of these choice-based narrative driven games typically clock in between 9 and 12 hours (LiS2 is a whopping 16). Telltale's The Walking Dead tells a very similar story (survival odyssey with a child) in 12 hours or so.
The Walking Dead's plot is to-the-point and unquestionable: it is the zombie apocalypse and we need to get the fuck to an island. In contrast, despite a fairly compelling inciting incident, LiS2 is never quite clear about why running to a town in Mexico that we've never been to is the best course of action. In fact, it questions itself many times about this through the characters themselves. And when I had found myself making my 9 year-old brother work on an illegal weed farm in Cali that was being enforced by a giant scary man with a military-style rifle, I thought to myself, much like GOB in Arrested Development, that "I've made a huge mistake".
The road trip could have worked, obviously. It worked in The Walking Dead. It wasn't great in LiS2. Characters and places came and went with the seasons (literally). The only constant were the brothers. Which I get was the point, but it's not a point that was successful. The worst side-effect of this plot decision is that Sean has to interact only with his child brother for most of the game. And they are already brothers that love each other, so what all exactly is there to explore there in terms of an arc?
It has so much more time than LiS1 and The Walking Dead. And yet it tells less of a story.
CASE STUDY B) BE A GOOD BOY
It is an absolutely puzzling decision to not give the player character the magical powers. They are instead relegated to Daniel, a sweet baby child. Remember how fun it was to hit L2 and reverse time in LiS1 to solve puzzles and conversation mistakes? Now you ask a 9 year old to do stuff for you. You look at a thing, interact with a button, and a second later an npc does the magic stuff, which is typically just lifting something telekinetically out of your walking path. It's not very engaging.
In terms of the choice-based systems... I actually think it was a neat idea to make your influence on Daniel (a subtle compiling of all the things you've told him and stuff you've done in front of him) an unknown quantity in how certain situations would play out. It makes Daniel feel like his own person rather than "just another child-kick you have to protect in a video game".
The problem: Daniel makes some of the biggest decisions in the game. Not only that, but the "influence" thing seems to run counter-intuitive to your ability to role-play. I told Daniel to be a good boy and only use his powers when he absolutely needed to. That resulted in somebody getting real hurt later on and Daniel going "What? I thought you said don't use my powers?"
It takes away from player agency both directly AND indirectly. Kind of a feat.
CASE STUDY C) DAMN DANIEL
Daniel is a truly awful child. By the end of the third episode, I kind of wanted to scream every time our main goal became "save Daniel" or "respect Daniel". Daniel would not listen to save his life. Literally. Here are some things Daniel does:
1) Breaks into a drug dealers house seconds after I sternly told him to stay put or else we might die. This resulted in us and our friends not getting paid for weeks of slave labor. It also got Sean knocked tf out by a big man.
2) Decides to break into a drug-dealer's vault after being told that "that would be very bad to do". It results in several very injured people (some potentially even extremely dead) and Sean losing an eye--something horrific on its face but even more so when you remember Sean's main drive in life was to be an artist.
3) Leaves Sean for dead and ends up in a religious cult, totally buying into his newfound belief in God. He refuses to leave with Sean, which results in Sean getting massively beaten in front of him-- nearly to death. And even then, Daniel still feels conflicted as to whether he should go with Sean.
4) Hurts his brother with his powers multiple times throughout the story.
And now for the grand finale:
5) Fucks with the VERY obviously bigger than him, very angry, very racist neighbor teen which results in the death of his father and a year (potentially 16 years) of horror and trauma for his brother.
I do not really blame Daniel. I blame the writers for using Daniel as a plot device.
CASE STUDY D) HNGGGGG
LiS2 tries to tackle very serious American political themes. But dear reader... just remember who these writers are. They did LiS1, a campy highschool sci-fi mystery. They wrote, "Ready for the mosh-pit shaka brah" (which I now love). Now imagine them trying to do pointed, serious representation of what it is like to be a person of color in America in 2016. It's about as tactful as you are thinking.
It is good to confront racial politics and experiences in media. Necessary actually. But perhaps these were not the people to do it. There are times when it honestly feels like trauma porn for people who aren't hispanic (similar to 12 Years a Slave).
FINAL THOUGHTS:
LiS2 is a weird combination of LiS1 and The Walking Dead, but fails to reach the heights of either. It wants to have its own identity, but struggles due to its namesake. It wants to be "important", but lacks deftness and call-to-action due to the limitations of its writers.
I read in interviews that the devs basically wanted to completely distance themselves from LiS1 (bewildering). It is clear that they wanted to do the complete opposite of everything related to LiS1. And, while doing the complete opposite of a game that was very successful and beloved is a bold artistic move, its also very counter-intuitive. The only person I've ever seen pull this off is David Lynch--that's a PRETTY HIGH difficulty setting. You may as well be playing Death March of The Witcher 3 for your second playthrough.
The game should have been its own thing, similar to Tell Me Why, a game much more successful executing its pursuits (probably due to actually consulting the communities it wants to portray). So the ultimate problem here (opposed to the seeming consensus among the LiS1 fandom) isn't that LiS2 isn't LiS enough. It's actually too Life is Strange.
I really wanted to be one of the contrarians that thought LiS2 was an overlooked gem. I have played it, thought about it, and I am not one of those people.
LiS2 has plenty of its own merits. It's still a "good"game (or at the very least solid). I like the protagonist and most of the characters. The writers are still doing a nice job of humanizing complex people. I definitely got emotional several times. But I am more interested in the things that I found lacking. Not because I "want to be a hater", but because I think the conversation to be had about this game could be a learning lesson for choice-based narrative point-and-click games in general. Trigger warning: Comparisons to LiS1 will be made. Not because I want to, but because it is necessary.
Case Study A) ROAD TRIPPIN
LiS1 has impeccable structure. I am currently working on a video describing just how much info is packed into the first "level" of the game. You essentially know everything you need to know for every set-up of every plot in the story before you hit the thirty minute mark.
LiS1 does a lot with a little. LiS2 does a little with a lot.
I'll be frank, the game is way too fuckin long. There's a good reason most of these choice-based narrative driven games typically clock in between 9 and 12 hours (LiS2 is a whopping 16). Telltale's The Walking Dead tells a very similar story (survival odyssey with a child) in 12 hours or so.
The Walking Dead's plot is to-the-point and unquestionable: it is the zombie apocalypse and we need to get the fuck to an island. In contrast, despite a fairly compelling inciting incident, LiS2 is never quite clear about why running to a town in Mexico that we've never been to is the best course of action. In fact, it questions itself many times about this through the characters themselves. And when I had found myself making my 9 year-old brother work on an illegal weed farm in Cali that was being enforced by a giant scary man with a military-style rifle, I thought to myself, much like GOB in Arrested Development, that "I've made a huge mistake".
The road trip could have worked, obviously. It worked in The Walking Dead. It wasn't great in LiS2. Characters and places came and went with the seasons (literally). The only constant were the brothers. Which I get was the point, but it's not a point that was successful. The worst side-effect of this plot decision is that Sean has to interact only with his child brother for most of the game. And they are already brothers that love each other, so what all exactly is there to explore there in terms of an arc?
It has so much more time than LiS1 and The Walking Dead. And yet it tells less of a story.
CASE STUDY B) BE A GOOD BOY
It is an absolutely puzzling decision to not give the player character the magical powers. They are instead relegated to Daniel, a sweet baby child. Remember how fun it was to hit L2 and reverse time in LiS1 to solve puzzles and conversation mistakes? Now you ask a 9 year old to do stuff for you. You look at a thing, interact with a button, and a second later an npc does the magic stuff, which is typically just lifting something telekinetically out of your walking path. It's not very engaging.
In terms of the choice-based systems... I actually think it was a neat idea to make your influence on Daniel (a subtle compiling of all the things you've told him and stuff you've done in front of him) an unknown quantity in how certain situations would play out. It makes Daniel feel like his own person rather than "just another child-kick you have to protect in a video game".
The problem: Daniel makes some of the biggest decisions in the game. Not only that, but the "influence" thing seems to run counter-intuitive to your ability to role-play. I told Daniel to be a good boy and only use his powers when he absolutely needed to. That resulted in somebody getting real hurt later on and Daniel going "What? I thought you said don't use my powers?"
It takes away from player agency both directly AND indirectly. Kind of a feat.
CASE STUDY C) DAMN DANIEL
Daniel is a truly awful child. By the end of the third episode, I kind of wanted to scream every time our main goal became "save Daniel" or "respect Daniel". Daniel would not listen to save his life. Literally. Here are some things Daniel does:
1) Breaks into a drug dealers house seconds after I sternly told him to stay put or else we might die. This resulted in us and our friends not getting paid for weeks of slave labor. It also got Sean knocked tf out by a big man.
2) Decides to break into a drug-dealer's vault after being told that "that would be very bad to do". It results in several very injured people (some potentially even extremely dead) and Sean losing an eye--something horrific on its face but even more so when you remember Sean's main drive in life was to be an artist.
3) Leaves Sean for dead and ends up in a religious cult, totally buying into his newfound belief in God. He refuses to leave with Sean, which results in Sean getting massively beaten in front of him-- nearly to death. And even then, Daniel still feels conflicted as to whether he should go with Sean.
4) Hurts his brother with his powers multiple times throughout the story.
And now for the grand finale:
5) Fucks with the VERY obviously bigger than him, very angry, very racist neighbor teen which results in the death of his father and a year (potentially 16 years) of horror and trauma for his brother.
I do not really blame Daniel. I blame the writers for using Daniel as a plot device.
CASE STUDY D) HNGGGGG
LiS2 tries to tackle very serious American political themes. But dear reader... just remember who these writers are. They did LiS1, a campy highschool sci-fi mystery. They wrote, "Ready for the mosh-pit shaka brah" (which I now love). Now imagine them trying to do pointed, serious representation of what it is like to be a person of color in America in 2016. It's about as tactful as you are thinking.
It is good to confront racial politics and experiences in media. Necessary actually. But perhaps these were not the people to do it. There are times when it honestly feels like trauma porn for people who aren't hispanic (similar to 12 Years a Slave).
FINAL THOUGHTS:
LiS2 is a weird combination of LiS1 and The Walking Dead, but fails to reach the heights of either. It wants to have its own identity, but struggles due to its namesake. It wants to be "important", but lacks deftness and call-to-action due to the limitations of its writers.
I read in interviews that the devs basically wanted to completely distance themselves from LiS1 (bewildering). It is clear that they wanted to do the complete opposite of everything related to LiS1. And, while doing the complete opposite of a game that was very successful and beloved is a bold artistic move, its also very counter-intuitive. The only person I've ever seen pull this off is David Lynch--that's a PRETTY HIGH difficulty setting. You may as well be playing Death March of The Witcher 3 for your second playthrough.
The game should have been its own thing, similar to Tell Me Why, a game much more successful executing its pursuits (probably due to actually consulting the communities it wants to portray). So the ultimate problem here (opposed to the seeming consensus among the LiS1 fandom) isn't that LiS2 isn't LiS enough. It's actually too Life is Strange.
2023
This review contains spoilers
FINAL FANTASY XVI IS ANOTHER NAIL IN THE COFFIN FOR THE FRANCHISE (PLEASE JUST LET IT DIE ALREADY)
Maybe this is what we deserve. Americans have been butchering Japanese culture in video games for decades--albeit mostly with good intentions. Final Fantasy XVI is Japan's rebuttal. Every "western" piece of media it attempts to "emulate" is a hackneyed, bastardized, K-Mart brand version. There is an unsettling irony when you rip so much from Game of Thrones while simultaneously missing the literal one thing that made Game of Thrones enjoyable (subverting generic fantasy tropes). In fact, Final Fantasy XVI goes out of its way to play "into" every single generic fantasy trope.
In my Life is Strange review, I mentioned how I think it can be perfectly fine (and even sometimes really good) to openly reference the media your story is inspired by. Life is Strange does this earnestly by wearing its influences on its sleeve. It's also taking inspiration from pieces of media that are mostly enjoyed by cult followings. Game of Thrones and The Witcher 3 are not "cult following" status. I think that is a meaningful distinction. And FFXVI feels much more like its just straight up plagiarizing from media like The Witcher 3 and Game of Thrones.
These are the GoT characters in FFXVI: Jon Snow, Cersei Lannister, Robyn Arryn, Ned Stark, Renly Baratheon, Gregor Clegane, Hodor, the Night King, Osha, Bran Stark, and Ghost. And I am definitely forgetting more.
Gameplay: It's Devil May Cry but bland. I don't mind square mashing, I love Kingdom Hearts. And the animations are pretty. But there is a severe lack of texture and depth to the ways enemies engage you. FF XVI is yet again living in the shadow of something it wants so very badly to be. The Kaiju battles are really great looking from a cinematic perspective. But it's so easy. I played until the final act and did not die a single time on the hardest difficulty the game offers at the beginning (action focused). Honestly the most joy I got from any of the battles was seeing the boss-move homages to Final Fantasy XIV (yet another derivative element).
Music: This...I don't even know what to say. I think it speaks volumes that Masayoshi Soken was unable to create a single inspired piece for this entire 40+ hour FINAL FANTASY GAME. There are no interesting motifs or themes. The movements are stale and dry. Typical 'action fantasy' gray dust. I'm just absolutely floored. This is the very first time a mainline Final Fantasy game has what I genuinely would call a "bad OST". Final Fantasy XV may have a dreadful fridging moment with Lady Lunafreya, but GOD DAMN Shimomura's piece in that sequence is gorgeous.
The characters are the most uninspired characters in any Final Fantasy game. Easily. I'm glad Clive at least has a heart of gold, because otherwise he broods, scowls, and says nothing meaningful when talking about wanting to free the world (which is a fucking lot). Much like Clive, the rest of the cast lacks the charm and depth of all prior Final Fantasy games. Yes, even XIII and XV.
Well, Cid is pretty good due ABSOLUTELY ENTIRELY to his VA, Ralph Insen (he is literally always good). Until they kill him off so that Clive can have an "arc".
The representation of female characters is particularly egregious. They get nude scenes for no other reason than to "shock" or pander to the male demographic of their players (come on gang, it's been 12 years since the first season of GoT). Jill is a pile of corn that has one moment in the spotlight. Otherwise, whenever things get heated, she is overshadowed by every other character's fighting prowess (including the dog) because she...gets tired and weak. I am not kidding. Another note (and I feel kind of weird for pointing this out), but it's unsettling that many of the female characters look vaguely Japanese. This is not true for the male characters. Seems like an insidious design choice based on marketing. I thought the creators said they were going for "realism"?
Well, they really did say that in a past interview. They mentioned that this dedication to "realism" meant a lack of ethnic diversity in a fantasy game was necessary. Well, that's a bit STRANGE for a few reasons. Firstly, for the aforementioned example of female characters having the plausible deniability of looking pretty East Asian. Secondly--Hey, I thought this was inspired by Game of Thrones? Did they miss everything in Essos and Dorne? Thirdly, supposedly grizzled battle veterans and Kings-guard have K-Pop hair and look clean enough to be in GQ (which, good for them). And FOURTHLY: There is a literal proxy for Persia in the game. And yet most of them, including their major war-guy, are white. This is nonsense.This is lazy, and a completely ahistorical understanding of basically anything having to do with Europe.
Tack all of this anti-creativity sludge onto a very rote fantasy setting. A total absence of party members with strategic input. A forgettable (albeit excellently visually designed) villain. A dedication to convenient plot devices to create "tension" (the Dominant for Bahamut just kind of turns evil because a kid points at him). Etc.
I am being 100% genuine when I say that this is truly the worst Final Fantasy game. XIII has a better cast and an iconic protagonist. XV has the Chocobros (who have their charms) and a much more compelling villain. You can have all of the sick-looking Kaiju battles in the world and it wouldn't make up for the absence of foundational elements which made up the great Final Fantasy games of long-past: a compelling narrative, a cast of unique and charming characters, novel RPG mechanics, iconic villains with humanity, etc.
And fuck it dude, I'm saying it: the extreme versions of boss battles in Final Fantasy XIV (Shiva, the Knights of the Round, and the Oracle of Darkness to name but a few) are more exciting, tense, and memorable than the one thing that made FFXVI "unique".
Maybe this is what we deserve. Americans have been butchering Japanese culture in video games for decades--albeit mostly with good intentions. Final Fantasy XVI is Japan's rebuttal. Every "western" piece of media it attempts to "emulate" is a hackneyed, bastardized, K-Mart brand version. There is an unsettling irony when you rip so much from Game of Thrones while simultaneously missing the literal one thing that made Game of Thrones enjoyable (subverting generic fantasy tropes). In fact, Final Fantasy XVI goes out of its way to play "into" every single generic fantasy trope.
In my Life is Strange review, I mentioned how I think it can be perfectly fine (and even sometimes really good) to openly reference the media your story is inspired by. Life is Strange does this earnestly by wearing its influences on its sleeve. It's also taking inspiration from pieces of media that are mostly enjoyed by cult followings. Game of Thrones and The Witcher 3 are not "cult following" status. I think that is a meaningful distinction. And FFXVI feels much more like its just straight up plagiarizing from media like The Witcher 3 and Game of Thrones.
These are the GoT characters in FFXVI: Jon Snow, Cersei Lannister, Robyn Arryn, Ned Stark, Renly Baratheon, Gregor Clegane, Hodor, the Night King, Osha, Bran Stark, and Ghost. And I am definitely forgetting more.
Gameplay: It's Devil May Cry but bland. I don't mind square mashing, I love Kingdom Hearts. And the animations are pretty. But there is a severe lack of texture and depth to the ways enemies engage you. FF XVI is yet again living in the shadow of something it wants so very badly to be. The Kaiju battles are really great looking from a cinematic perspective. But it's so easy. I played until the final act and did not die a single time on the hardest difficulty the game offers at the beginning (action focused). Honestly the most joy I got from any of the battles was seeing the boss-move homages to Final Fantasy XIV (yet another derivative element).
Music: This...I don't even know what to say. I think it speaks volumes that Masayoshi Soken was unable to create a single inspired piece for this entire 40+ hour FINAL FANTASY GAME. There are no interesting motifs or themes. The movements are stale and dry. Typical 'action fantasy' gray dust. I'm just absolutely floored. This is the very first time a mainline Final Fantasy game has what I genuinely would call a "bad OST". Final Fantasy XV may have a dreadful fridging moment with Lady Lunafreya, but GOD DAMN Shimomura's piece in that sequence is gorgeous.
The characters are the most uninspired characters in any Final Fantasy game. Easily. I'm glad Clive at least has a heart of gold, because otherwise he broods, scowls, and says nothing meaningful when talking about wanting to free the world (which is a fucking lot). Much like Clive, the rest of the cast lacks the charm and depth of all prior Final Fantasy games. Yes, even XIII and XV.
Well, Cid is pretty good due ABSOLUTELY ENTIRELY to his VA, Ralph Insen (he is literally always good). Until they kill him off so that Clive can have an "arc".
The representation of female characters is particularly egregious. They get nude scenes for no other reason than to "shock" or pander to the male demographic of their players (come on gang, it's been 12 years since the first season of GoT). Jill is a pile of corn that has one moment in the spotlight. Otherwise, whenever things get heated, she is overshadowed by every other character's fighting prowess (including the dog) because she...gets tired and weak. I am not kidding. Another note (and I feel kind of weird for pointing this out), but it's unsettling that many of the female characters look vaguely Japanese. This is not true for the male characters. Seems like an insidious design choice based on marketing. I thought the creators said they were going for "realism"?
Well, they really did say that in a past interview. They mentioned that this dedication to "realism" meant a lack of ethnic diversity in a fantasy game was necessary. Well, that's a bit STRANGE for a few reasons. Firstly, for the aforementioned example of female characters having the plausible deniability of looking pretty East Asian. Secondly--Hey, I thought this was inspired by Game of Thrones? Did they miss everything in Essos and Dorne? Thirdly, supposedly grizzled battle veterans and Kings-guard have K-Pop hair and look clean enough to be in GQ (which, good for them). And FOURTHLY: There is a literal proxy for Persia in the game. And yet most of them, including their major war-guy, are white. This is nonsense.This is lazy, and a completely ahistorical understanding of basically anything having to do with Europe.
Tack all of this anti-creativity sludge onto a very rote fantasy setting. A total absence of party members with strategic input. A forgettable (albeit excellently visually designed) villain. A dedication to convenient plot devices to create "tension" (the Dominant for Bahamut just kind of turns evil because a kid points at him). Etc.
I am being 100% genuine when I say that this is truly the worst Final Fantasy game. XIII has a better cast and an iconic protagonist. XV has the Chocobros (who have their charms) and a much more compelling villain. You can have all of the sick-looking Kaiju battles in the world and it wouldn't make up for the absence of foundational elements which made up the great Final Fantasy games of long-past: a compelling narrative, a cast of unique and charming characters, novel RPG mechanics, iconic villains with humanity, etc.
And fuck it dude, I'm saying it: the extreme versions of boss battles in Final Fantasy XIV (Shiva, the Knights of the Round, and the Oracle of Darkness to name but a few) are more exciting, tense, and memorable than the one thing that made FFXVI "unique".
2020
TELL ME WHY IS ANOTHER 'TWIN GAME' FOR THE HISTORY BOOKS
I would like to start by saying this game was free during pride month, which was very generous of Don't Nod. The reason being that one of the twins you play as is a trans man, which is a demographic massively underrepresented in media.
Speaking more on that, I think the way that they portrayed Tyler was very well done. Being a trans man was certainly important to the story in some ways, and it was addressed a number of times by other characters in a rural Alaska town by having well-intentioned, but awkward acknowledgments of him. But the writers did not make it his main personality trait, which is a feat by contemporary standards in all media.
When the game opens by stating that the devs consulted closely with professionals and people with the lived experiences of being trans, being indigenous, or having mental health problems, they sure meant it. I think all of the above were represented very well and I have to give kudos to Don't Nod for taking the time and resources to make sure they got these themes right.
Now, onto the game.
I played this game in-between sessions of the Deadspace Remake (which I will not be reviewing as a result of quitting after chapter two) and Final Fantasy XVI (a game that I will review, but do not have a very high opinion of at the moment). I don't usually like to play games in the middle of other playthroughs, especially AAA titles, but I couldn't shake this desire to re-engage with Arcadia Bay from Life is Strange while living in the skin of utterly bland and brooding Clive Rosfield in Final Fantasy XVI. I just kept thinking to myself, "Damn I wish I was playing as Max Caulfield right now. It's Square Enix, they could have done it!"
So I took a break and downloaded Tell Me Why.
Tell Me Why shares many things with Life is Strange (mysteries, dialogue choices, and super powers presented in fairly mundane situations). But it's also quite different. The tone is more...mature. Or maybe I should say it's less stylistic and more committed to semi-realism. Instead of time control, you get TWIN POWERS. You get to play as two protagonists, who sometimes even have contradicting goals (think Detroit: Become Human, but better).Tyler and Alyson can speak to each other through twin telekinesis as well as re-live memories from the past in order to solve the mystery of why their mom went crazy and died ten years ago.
The story is similarly as engaging as Life is Strange in that there are many juicy revelations and cliffhangers. The intros to each of the three episodes are evocative and memorable. The use of music, as well as other expressionistic choices, are not quite as "iconic" as Life is Strange. But it has strengths of its own.
I love the fairy-tale puzzles (I definitely recommend reading all of the fairy tales in the book when you come across it--it adds a lot of surprising context to the world, the story, and the characters).
The choices do a nice blend of having significant impact while giving you breathing room to patch things up when shit goes south.
Also, much like Life is Strange's time reversal, the use of the MEMORY-ZONE mechanic is not only used in fun and creative ways, but also plays a pivotal role in the themes of the story. The final decision is very thought-provoking and emotional. I think they did more than stick the landing on this one.
The town of Delos Crossing, Alaska is charming enough. But what really carries it are the complex and intriguing characters. From Chief Eddy Brown to Tessa Vecchi, everyone has their own motives, secrets, and sympathetic flaws. I cannot stress enough how refreshing it is to see fully three-dimensional characters that aren't just more post 9/11 "well sure, they're a muderous psychopath, but they have a sad backstory!"
It would be easy to judge characters like Eddy (a cop/narc no less), in the same way some really had a distaste for Chloe in Life is Strange. I sincerely hope these types of players are under the age of 18 because that type of snap judgement is a sign of immaturity and the inability to grasp that even the best of us make big time mistakes.
Tell Me Why is many things. It's a great mystery narrative. It boasts interesting characters that are fully fleshed out. It features fun mechanics that are explored in novel ways. And it is an excellent representation of varying marginalized groups. The only real critique I have is that a few of the puzzles were a bit of a slog (walk here, now walk all the way back over here, and back again). However, there were only a handful of instances like this.
But for a story-based game, it perfectly nails all of the main points. And the title is pretty fucking clever. It is not only a question the protagonists are asking, but also a question the player themselves.
I would like to start by saying this game was free during pride month, which was very generous of Don't Nod. The reason being that one of the twins you play as is a trans man, which is a demographic massively underrepresented in media.
Speaking more on that, I think the way that they portrayed Tyler was very well done. Being a trans man was certainly important to the story in some ways, and it was addressed a number of times by other characters in a rural Alaska town by having well-intentioned, but awkward acknowledgments of him. But the writers did not make it his main personality trait, which is a feat by contemporary standards in all media.
When the game opens by stating that the devs consulted closely with professionals and people with the lived experiences of being trans, being indigenous, or having mental health problems, they sure meant it. I think all of the above were represented very well and I have to give kudos to Don't Nod for taking the time and resources to make sure they got these themes right.
Now, onto the game.
I played this game in-between sessions of the Deadspace Remake (which I will not be reviewing as a result of quitting after chapter two) and Final Fantasy XVI (a game that I will review, but do not have a very high opinion of at the moment). I don't usually like to play games in the middle of other playthroughs, especially AAA titles, but I couldn't shake this desire to re-engage with Arcadia Bay from Life is Strange while living in the skin of utterly bland and brooding Clive Rosfield in Final Fantasy XVI. I just kept thinking to myself, "Damn I wish I was playing as Max Caulfield right now. It's Square Enix, they could have done it!"
So I took a break and downloaded Tell Me Why.
Tell Me Why shares many things with Life is Strange (mysteries, dialogue choices, and super powers presented in fairly mundane situations). But it's also quite different. The tone is more...mature. Or maybe I should say it's less stylistic and more committed to semi-realism. Instead of time control, you get TWIN POWERS. You get to play as two protagonists, who sometimes even have contradicting goals (think Detroit: Become Human, but better).Tyler and Alyson can speak to each other through twin telekinesis as well as re-live memories from the past in order to solve the mystery of why their mom went crazy and died ten years ago.
The story is similarly as engaging as Life is Strange in that there are many juicy revelations and cliffhangers. The intros to each of the three episodes are evocative and memorable. The use of music, as well as other expressionistic choices, are not quite as "iconic" as Life is Strange. But it has strengths of its own.
I love the fairy-tale puzzles (I definitely recommend reading all of the fairy tales in the book when you come across it--it adds a lot of surprising context to the world, the story, and the characters).
The choices do a nice blend of having significant impact while giving you breathing room to patch things up when shit goes south.
Also, much like Life is Strange's time reversal, the use of the MEMORY-ZONE mechanic is not only used in fun and creative ways, but also plays a pivotal role in the themes of the story. The final decision is very thought-provoking and emotional. I think they did more than stick the landing on this one.
The town of Delos Crossing, Alaska is charming enough. But what really carries it are the complex and intriguing characters. From Chief Eddy Brown to Tessa Vecchi, everyone has their own motives, secrets, and sympathetic flaws. I cannot stress enough how refreshing it is to see fully three-dimensional characters that aren't just more post 9/11 "well sure, they're a muderous psychopath, but they have a sad backstory!"
It would be easy to judge characters like Eddy (a cop/narc no less), in the same way some really had a distaste for Chloe in Life is Strange. I sincerely hope these types of players are under the age of 18 because that type of snap judgement is a sign of immaturity and the inability to grasp that even the best of us make big time mistakes.
Tell Me Why is many things. It's a great mystery narrative. It boasts interesting characters that are fully fleshed out. It features fun mechanics that are explored in novel ways. And it is an excellent representation of varying marginalized groups. The only real critique I have is that a few of the puzzles were a bit of a slog (walk here, now walk all the way back over here, and back again). However, there were only a handful of instances like this.
But for a story-based game, it perfectly nails all of the main points. And the title is pretty fucking clever. It is not only a question the protagonists are asking, but also a question the player themselves.