Hebi
2022
This review contains spoilers
POKEMON VIOLET/SCARLET IS HARD TO REVIEW
I will be totally honest. I had probably more fun playing this game than I have any other Pokemon game. However: yes, the game is extremely broken and is in an unacceptable technical state for a major release.
So this game is real difficult to review. I think for this one I'm just gonna break it down into positive and negative:
POSITIVE: The open world is fun This is the standard for Pokemon games moving forward. Finding Pokemon in the wild and according to things like climate is just better. And my little motorcycle Pokemon was a joy to ride around.
NEGATIVE: Zero drip. Absolutely baffling the game gives you so many customization options but you must always wear your awful school uniform under everything. Why even make clothes that are the color blue or green or anything that isn't going to compliment the hideous hues of red and purple that are mandatory. This would be a time to say "fuck the ludonarrative".
POSITIVE: Wow. The story/writing/characters were actually fairly compelling. And the culmination of all three storylines into the final area was pretty fantastic. By the way, the music in the Area Zero? Best track in the series.
NEGATIVE: 5 fps fairly common. Terrible textures--we're talkin' PS1 era. Constant visual bugs. And holy fuck the sandwich mechanic. They made that shit ten days before the game went plat and just straight up did not care. Is it funny? Yes. Is it acceptable? Nope.
POSITIVE: I actually lost some battles in this game! I didn't look at guides so some gyms were way too easy. BUT that also meant I was a tad underleveled for other ones which made them actually kind of difficult. Far cry from Sword/Shield in which I did not lose a single battle. The entire game.
NEGATIVE: The elite four were lame af.
POSITIVE: The post-game was dope af.
Honestly, I think if the game was polished and didn't have so many fuck-y spots that I would throw this gen around a 4.5. Technical horrors aside, there are still some choices I'm very critical of. However, I feel that overall there are more things going for the game than not. Which is why I legitimately had a good time playing this game.
As per usual with more recent titles, the starter evolutions were "not so good".
At one point, my fucking adorable Sprigatito evolved, stood up on it's hind legs and told me "Hey, I know you wanted some kind of sick, leaf panther...but this is who I am now. A freakazoid masked magician creature that throws flower bombs from sky portals." At first, I was sorely disappointed. I did not love my mask freak. But over time, it grew on me. And I saw how much that flower bomb absolutely nuked everything it touched. It was then that I finally accepted my Poke-child and said, "I may not love you fully, but we sure are having a lot of fun together, eh?"
I will be totally honest. I had probably more fun playing this game than I have any other Pokemon game. However: yes, the game is extremely broken and is in an unacceptable technical state for a major release.
So this game is real difficult to review. I think for this one I'm just gonna break it down into positive and negative:
POSITIVE: The open world is fun This is the standard for Pokemon games moving forward. Finding Pokemon in the wild and according to things like climate is just better. And my little motorcycle Pokemon was a joy to ride around.
NEGATIVE: Zero drip. Absolutely baffling the game gives you so many customization options but you must always wear your awful school uniform under everything. Why even make clothes that are the color blue or green or anything that isn't going to compliment the hideous hues of red and purple that are mandatory. This would be a time to say "fuck the ludonarrative".
POSITIVE: Wow. The story/writing/characters were actually fairly compelling. And the culmination of all three storylines into the final area was pretty fantastic. By the way, the music in the Area Zero? Best track in the series.
NEGATIVE: 5 fps fairly common. Terrible textures--we're talkin' PS1 era. Constant visual bugs. And holy fuck the sandwich mechanic. They made that shit ten days before the game went plat and just straight up did not care. Is it funny? Yes. Is it acceptable? Nope.
POSITIVE: I actually lost some battles in this game! I didn't look at guides so some gyms were way too easy. BUT that also meant I was a tad underleveled for other ones which made them actually kind of difficult. Far cry from Sword/Shield in which I did not lose a single battle. The entire game.
NEGATIVE: The elite four were lame af.
POSITIVE: The post-game was dope af.
Honestly, I think if the game was polished and didn't have so many fuck-y spots that I would throw this gen around a 4.5. Technical horrors aside, there are still some choices I'm very critical of. However, I feel that overall there are more things going for the game than not. Which is why I legitimately had a good time playing this game.
As per usual with more recent titles, the starter evolutions were "not so good".
At one point, my fucking adorable Sprigatito evolved, stood up on it's hind legs and told me "Hey, I know you wanted some kind of sick, leaf panther...but this is who I am now. A freakazoid masked magician creature that throws flower bombs from sky portals." At first, I was sorely disappointed. I did not love my mask freak. But over time, it grew on me. And I saw how much that flower bomb absolutely nuked everything it touched. It was then that I finally accepted my Poke-child and said, "I may not love you fully, but we sure are having a lot of fun together, eh?"
2022
This review contains spoilers
GOD OF WAR RAGNAROK IS INDEED A GOD AMONG VIDEO GAMES
(HEBI CERTIFIED 10 OUT OF 5)
God of War Ragnarok is the distillation of strengths from every near-recent Playstation exclusive. It has the narrative thoughtfulness and execution of The Last of Us. It has the weighty, superbly crafted combat of Horizon: Zero Dawn.
It does not have web slinging, however.
I'll admit, I was very hesitant about this title when I pressed the "start game " button. Following up the glorious 2018 reboot was not going to be an easy task. I thought of at least twenty-seven different ways in which they could SERIOUSLY goof it.
They did not. Mostly.
LETS START WITH THE GOOD
The narrative is fantastic. Start to finish I was leaning in, absolutely dazzled with not only the writing, but the stellar performances as well. Christopher Judge does such a superb job as Kratos that it rivals even the most iconic performances in film. I'm not kidding. Not even a little.
The rest of the cast is equally exceptional. The choice to rotate between Kratos and Atreus/Loki as protagonists was a bold and masterfully executed decision. I was literally thinking to myself at one point, "Gee, I'd really like to see Atreus just...get to be a teenage doof". And then they let me do just that in what was one of the game's best chapters.
I "do not have time" to go into every single detail about this game's story. However, I will talk about one theme in particular. You see, God of War ended up being more 'Magical Girl' than the "literal 0% amount" that I thought it would.
At its core, God of War 2018 was a game that was centered around positive masculinity. Ragnarok runs with this even farther. It says to you, "What if you could channel your positive masculinity so hard that you could CHANGE PROPHECY".
The moment that hit me the hardest was when Atreus realizes, during the extremely cool battle of Ragnarok, that Odin is using innocent Midgard folk as cannon fodder on the front lines. Atreus remembers what his father told him: "Close your heart to it", he says, "Wars are won by those who are willing to sacrifice everything."
Kratos looks at his son. He looks at the carnage and death surrounding him. There is a subtle change in his face as he takes Atreus by the shoulders and tells him, "I was wrong".
Kratos spares Thor while getting through to him. He heals Freya's heart as much as he can, despite her continuous efforts to de-exist both he and Atreus. He calls a disembodied head his BROTHER. Kratos is one outfit transformation away from being an absolutely jacked Sailor Moon. And he does it all while maintaining the brutality and violence that is necessary for defense in the world he inhabits (look, those fuckin wolvers hit him first). Ragnarok gets to have its cake and eat it too.
To finish up on the narrative side of things, I want to address something that's been bothering me. I have seen some people saying that God of War Ragnarok has "Marvel writing".
We are going to talk about this now. The way in which we talk about it will be directed with the second person pronoun "you" in reference to the accusers. And we begin like this: You are "pretty stupid". Or at the very least unaware that Joss Whedon and Marvel did not invent the Hero's Journey, playful banter, or blockbuster action. The thing Marvel does that you don't like is downplay its drama: something serious happens and then there's a goofy gag a minute later so that the audience doesn't get too sad. Ragnarok does not do this. I paid very close attention. It does not need to be sorry. It is BETTER.
Ragnarok lets you sink into its drama. It is subtle. It is subtextual. You can get everything you need to know from the expression on a characters face. Kratos does not need to say anything in order to tell you everything. Is there playful banter? Yeah. Mostly from Mimir while he's spouting a fucking mountain's worth of world building. It's called "not being dull".
I have said basically everything I wanted to say here so I'll just finish with this message to the accusers: You stop it. Right now. Your level of media analysis is just not up to the task on this one. Got it?
Moving on.
Bear McCreary aces the score. The art direction is beautiful. The audio is fantastic. The level design superb. And there are SO MANY little critters. An "I Spy's" worth of nature's whimsical little freakazoids. I spent "so much time" just looking for AND at them.
Just as well, gameplay is excellent. I thought the new spear sucked at first. Then I realized it totally rules and became my go-to weapon.
Then there's the rich and diverse set of bosses (a great improvement from GoW 2018).
Then there's the runic attacks. The collectibles. Arrow spells. Wolf attacks. Lava Armors. The ABSOLUTELY WICKED secret postgame area in Vanaheim. THE "WAY BETTER THAN THEY NEEDED TO BE" SIDEQUESTS.
Now let's address a few things that made me pretty frustrated:
-Party members need to shut the absolute fuck up when I am solving puzzles.
-Climbing walls at a snail's pace to traverse is "not very engaging".
-Some of the skin textures, such as those on Kratos and Atreus (two main characters, no biggie) look dramatically outdated.
-The difficulty is very finicky.
Hey, let's actually stop here a moment on the topic of difficulty.
I played the game on 'Give Me No Mercy'. Throughout the story I was mostly pleased with it. With the exception of being surrounded by intensely aggressive enemies and having to "not know where the hell the thing is that is hitting me".
But I can deal with that. The boss fights in the story were challenging but fair. It was nice. I felt adequately challenged.
Then there's the postgame. Now, I know what you're thinking, "It's the post-game, it's supposed to be hard." Well, most of it is actually good and difficult while feeling fun. The dragon fights, for example, are really nice.
But the two, like, main post-game attractions aside from the Crater are not very well-executed. The Berserkers are way lame in comparison to the Valkyries. The two gank fights made me turn down the difficulty so I could move on with my life. Puzzlingly awful design. The Berserkers hit way too hard and are slippery as hell. From leaping across the arena immediately after they attack, to having an unforgivable iFrame window after some of their moves. I quite literally swung my axe through the body of a berserker THREE TIMES after it attacked. I did no damage. He leapt away immediately and did a follow-up attack.
All of this goes for Gna, the Valkyrie Queen, as well. There are stupidly unforgiving AoEs (fuck those fireballs). There are moves with multiple combo possibilities, leaving you to rely on...well nothing since your memory can't help you in that millisecond window. There are also moves enemies will do where they leap to the other side of the stage and expect you to run to them and hit them with your shield in a two second time-frame. You get practically one-shotted if you cannot get there in time.
They are too aggressive. There's too much visual information happening to be able to properly process what is going on in crucial moments. And there's just too much damn health on the King and Queen.
It feels like the same decision FromSoftware made with Elden Ring: "Hey gang, people beat that really hard game we made. I guess we have to make things even harder now".
Okay, maybe. Or maybe not. Maybe what you actually end up doing is cranking the heat up so high that my kitchen is now on fire. Look, Sigrun was fucking hard. Just because I beat her once doesn't mean it's going to be easy next time.
Anyway, I saved these two bozos (the King and Queen) for last on my 100% playthrough. I turned the difficulty down to normal after twenty or so tries each. Beat the King first try on Normal. The Queen? Three tries. And I had a lot more fun in those fights on normal, but I couldn't help but wonder what the designers were thinking. Why there was SUCH a stark contrast between Normal and Hard. I can't say for sure. All I can say is that, again, I did not really enjoy the fights. In fact, they almost left me with a taste so bitter that I thought, "maybe this game kind of sucks".
But then I recalled my fight with Heimdall, the God of Being an Absolute Piece of Shit. I remembered my time in Jotunheim as Atreus, finally meeting another giant and getting up to some fun teenage hi jinx in the midst of the apocalypse. I recalled the moment Atreus bestowed Fenrir's soul into the body of Garm, a giant zombie hel-hound. I even recollected a moment between Kratos, Freya, and Mimir--drifting lazily through the rivers of Vanaheim---each of them bonding over past traumas, and talking about the ways in which they overcame them.
God of War Ragnarok is a beautiful game. The postgame "epic bosses" may have been a letdown, but I still feel something gnawing at me now that the journey has ended. It feels like...a hole.
And that's when you know it's good.
(HEBI CERTIFIED 10 OUT OF 5)
God of War Ragnarok is the distillation of strengths from every near-recent Playstation exclusive. It has the narrative thoughtfulness and execution of The Last of Us. It has the weighty, superbly crafted combat of Horizon: Zero Dawn.
It does not have web slinging, however.
I'll admit, I was very hesitant about this title when I pressed the "start game " button. Following up the glorious 2018 reboot was not going to be an easy task. I thought of at least twenty-seven different ways in which they could SERIOUSLY goof it.
They did not. Mostly.
LETS START WITH THE GOOD
The narrative is fantastic. Start to finish I was leaning in, absolutely dazzled with not only the writing, but the stellar performances as well. Christopher Judge does such a superb job as Kratos that it rivals even the most iconic performances in film. I'm not kidding. Not even a little.
The rest of the cast is equally exceptional. The choice to rotate between Kratos and Atreus/Loki as protagonists was a bold and masterfully executed decision. I was literally thinking to myself at one point, "Gee, I'd really like to see Atreus just...get to be a teenage doof". And then they let me do just that in what was one of the game's best chapters.
I "do not have time" to go into every single detail about this game's story. However, I will talk about one theme in particular. You see, God of War ended up being more 'Magical Girl' than the "literal 0% amount" that I thought it would.
At its core, God of War 2018 was a game that was centered around positive masculinity. Ragnarok runs with this even farther. It says to you, "What if you could channel your positive masculinity so hard that you could CHANGE PROPHECY".
The moment that hit me the hardest was when Atreus realizes, during the extremely cool battle of Ragnarok, that Odin is using innocent Midgard folk as cannon fodder on the front lines. Atreus remembers what his father told him: "Close your heart to it", he says, "Wars are won by those who are willing to sacrifice everything."
Kratos looks at his son. He looks at the carnage and death surrounding him. There is a subtle change in his face as he takes Atreus by the shoulders and tells him, "I was wrong".
Kratos spares Thor while getting through to him. He heals Freya's heart as much as he can, despite her continuous efforts to de-exist both he and Atreus. He calls a disembodied head his BROTHER. Kratos is one outfit transformation away from being an absolutely jacked Sailor Moon. And he does it all while maintaining the brutality and violence that is necessary for defense in the world he inhabits (look, those fuckin wolvers hit him first). Ragnarok gets to have its cake and eat it too.
To finish up on the narrative side of things, I want to address something that's been bothering me. I have seen some people saying that God of War Ragnarok has "Marvel writing".
We are going to talk about this now. The way in which we talk about it will be directed with the second person pronoun "you" in reference to the accusers. And we begin like this: You are "pretty stupid". Or at the very least unaware that Joss Whedon and Marvel did not invent the Hero's Journey, playful banter, or blockbuster action. The thing Marvel does that you don't like is downplay its drama: something serious happens and then there's a goofy gag a minute later so that the audience doesn't get too sad. Ragnarok does not do this. I paid very close attention. It does not need to be sorry. It is BETTER.
Ragnarok lets you sink into its drama. It is subtle. It is subtextual. You can get everything you need to know from the expression on a characters face. Kratos does not need to say anything in order to tell you everything. Is there playful banter? Yeah. Mostly from Mimir while he's spouting a fucking mountain's worth of world building. It's called "not being dull".
I have said basically everything I wanted to say here so I'll just finish with this message to the accusers: You stop it. Right now. Your level of media analysis is just not up to the task on this one. Got it?
Moving on.
Bear McCreary aces the score. The art direction is beautiful. The audio is fantastic. The level design superb. And there are SO MANY little critters. An "I Spy's" worth of nature's whimsical little freakazoids. I spent "so much time" just looking for AND at them.
Just as well, gameplay is excellent. I thought the new spear sucked at first. Then I realized it totally rules and became my go-to weapon.
Then there's the rich and diverse set of bosses (a great improvement from GoW 2018).
Then there's the runic attacks. The collectibles. Arrow spells. Wolf attacks. Lava Armors. The ABSOLUTELY WICKED secret postgame area in Vanaheim. THE "WAY BETTER THAN THEY NEEDED TO BE" SIDEQUESTS.
Now let's address a few things that made me pretty frustrated:
-Party members need to shut the absolute fuck up when I am solving puzzles.
-Climbing walls at a snail's pace to traverse is "not very engaging".
-Some of the skin textures, such as those on Kratos and Atreus (two main characters, no biggie) look dramatically outdated.
-The difficulty is very finicky.
Hey, let's actually stop here a moment on the topic of difficulty.
I played the game on 'Give Me No Mercy'. Throughout the story I was mostly pleased with it. With the exception of being surrounded by intensely aggressive enemies and having to "not know where the hell the thing is that is hitting me".
But I can deal with that. The boss fights in the story were challenging but fair. It was nice. I felt adequately challenged.
Then there's the postgame. Now, I know what you're thinking, "It's the post-game, it's supposed to be hard." Well, most of it is actually good and difficult while feeling fun. The dragon fights, for example, are really nice.
But the two, like, main post-game attractions aside from the Crater are not very well-executed. The Berserkers are way lame in comparison to the Valkyries. The two gank fights made me turn down the difficulty so I could move on with my life. Puzzlingly awful design. The Berserkers hit way too hard and are slippery as hell. From leaping across the arena immediately after they attack, to having an unforgivable iFrame window after some of their moves. I quite literally swung my axe through the body of a berserker THREE TIMES after it attacked. I did no damage. He leapt away immediately and did a follow-up attack.
All of this goes for Gna, the Valkyrie Queen, as well. There are stupidly unforgiving AoEs (fuck those fireballs). There are moves with multiple combo possibilities, leaving you to rely on...well nothing since your memory can't help you in that millisecond window. There are also moves enemies will do where they leap to the other side of the stage and expect you to run to them and hit them with your shield in a two second time-frame. You get practically one-shotted if you cannot get there in time.
They are too aggressive. There's too much visual information happening to be able to properly process what is going on in crucial moments. And there's just too much damn health on the King and Queen.
It feels like the same decision FromSoftware made with Elden Ring: "Hey gang, people beat that really hard game we made. I guess we have to make things even harder now".
Okay, maybe. Or maybe not. Maybe what you actually end up doing is cranking the heat up so high that my kitchen is now on fire. Look, Sigrun was fucking hard. Just because I beat her once doesn't mean it's going to be easy next time.
Anyway, I saved these two bozos (the King and Queen) for last on my 100% playthrough. I turned the difficulty down to normal after twenty or so tries each. Beat the King first try on Normal. The Queen? Three tries. And I had a lot more fun in those fights on normal, but I couldn't help but wonder what the designers were thinking. Why there was SUCH a stark contrast between Normal and Hard. I can't say for sure. All I can say is that, again, I did not really enjoy the fights. In fact, they almost left me with a taste so bitter that I thought, "maybe this game kind of sucks".
But then I recalled my fight with Heimdall, the God of Being an Absolute Piece of Shit. I remembered my time in Jotunheim as Atreus, finally meeting another giant and getting up to some fun teenage hi jinx in the midst of the apocalypse. I recalled the moment Atreus bestowed Fenrir's soul into the body of Garm, a giant zombie hel-hound. I even recollected a moment between Kratos, Freya, and Mimir--drifting lazily through the rivers of Vanaheim---each of them bonding over past traumas, and talking about the ways in which they overcame them.
God of War Ragnarok is a beautiful game. The postgame "epic bosses" may have been a letdown, but I still feel something gnawing at me now that the journey has ended. It feels like...a hole.
And that's when you know it's good.
This review contains spoilers
XENOBLADE CHRONICLES 3 IS A FAKE FRIEND
I've said it before and I'll say it again. JRPGs have a major problem with third acts. Like, catastrophically, tragically abysmal. I say tragically because there are so many good things going for it from the first cutscene.
Disclaimer: I will be comparing this game to other, more competent JRPGs.
GAMEPLAY
It's very much MMO-style gameplay, but with more action. I love the ability to make any character any class. It also has a nice amount of variety with the inclusion of Chain Attacks and Links.
On the Hard difficulty, I found that the game required me to strategize and fine-tune my party to overcome tough challenges. I like this. However, in most overworld battles you can basically sit back and turn off your brain. The only meaningful difference between Hard and Easy in the overworld is enemy health. So I eventually switched to Easy in the overworld just to get things moving along.
Final Fantasy XII boasts a similar system. It's not quite as flashy or anime, but it has far more depth and complexity. If you want, you can literally program your party with a series of prioritized "if--then" actions. Xenoblade 3 never teeters on that sort of depth and ends up feeling like all the combinations of classes, abilities, and skills are just visual input flavor.
Let's talk about boss fights now. So the gameplay overall turned out less strategic than I would have liked, but I still had a good amount of fun with it. Until boss fights. It is almost impossible to comprehend what the sweet Jesus is happening between the bombastic particle effects and party members screaming over each other. Do the climactic enemies have different moves and strategies required to approach? No. Every boss can essentially be approached the same way: the Tanks tank, the Healers heal, and the DPS does damage. Period. As for the attacks, I never knew what a single one did, was named, or what the tells were. And the fact that I didn't need to know ANY of this to beat ALL of them is clumsy design.
If you're going to shape combat to be MMO-adjacent, then match that with a similar boss philosophy. Make enemy attacks have big text and longer charge-up meters somewhere that's actually visible. Give me something interesting to do. I'm reminded of another Final Fantasy game: FFXIV. Give me summa dat "Oh shit, she's doing the thing--make sure we go to this side of the arena!" Or some "Okay, full defense for this big attack and then go all-out when they are on cooldown". All-in-all, it just kind of felt boring to whittle away at a gigantic health bar with the same approach every time.
Quick note--the final boss is awful. I cannot forgive it. You fight a health bar five times, four of which are just the same exact fight. The stage is absolute chaos and an eye-sore.
STORY/CHARACTERS
It's so similar to FFX. Z is Yu Yevon (naming your villains letters of the alphabet is dumb as hell). Off-seers are summoners. Etc.
It sucks big time because the opening act is great and the second act climax is honestly incredible and well-executed.
Immediately after this story beat is when everything falls apart. "Okay, now it's time to go confront the final bad guys". Except wait, now is the last chance to go around and do all the hero ascension quests, colony quests, and general exploration. The time difference for me between the protagonists saying "Okay let's end this thing" and me finishing up the "rest of the game" clocked in at around 60 hours. That is ATROCIOUS pacing. By the time I rejoined the story to the point of no return, I genuinely forgot what we were doing.
In terms of the main cast, it's weird. Eunie is brilliant. I love how aggressively Bri'ish she is and her voice actor KILLS IT. Lanz is a good boy. I like him well-enough. Taion is solid. He had a lot more potential but ended up being kind of dry with a lack of follow-through on his potential arc. Mio would have been dreadfully dull, but her ticking lifespan and voice actor (who also fucking kills it) saved her. Sena is a puppy dog, but I didn't see any visible growth despite having so much time dedicated to her arc. Noah is the protagonist. That is his defining personality trait so he's...fine. Which is really not great when it's your main character. He lacks personality, humor, or depth. He is a tool that drives the plot forward for the most part.
I love the heroes, however. I honestly would have preferred some combination of them as my main party. Camuravi, Fiona, Monica, Triton, Juniper...All of them have more personality in their little finger than Noah. If you're going to give me a band of misfit toys, then really fucking go for it!
I will say to the game's credit that the whole Colony thing, with its webs of relationships (EVERY npc has a name and a story to some extent) is an impossible feat that is pretty well-executed. It made me feel very connected to the world on an emotional level.
Which makes it all the worse when the third act absolutely shits the bed. I honestly don't have anything good to say about it. The final boss is hardly compelling after his "revelation". X and Y are just kind of shoe-horned in as easy mini-bosses. No climactic moments for them. N was already a lame character so I didn't give a hoot about him. The spectacle of the external battle with the mechs and colonies (Mass Effect 3 style) drew me in a bit, but then I just wished I was out there doing THAT instead. The whole thing with N and M needing to make the final sacrifice had "absolutely no impact". My brother and I literally screamed "What the fuck does it matter?! They're already dead!"
Then there's the final scene and the ship-ening. But that's more thematic, so let's talk about it.
THEMES
Overall, there are a lot of implied themes in this game that are great. Anti-capitalsim (overthrowing elite vampires which hold a monopoly of power and require the "little people" to be at constant war with each other in order for the vampires to exist), Anarchism (de-centralizing the government in favor of collectives that co-operate with each other peacefully), and Progress (a group of youngsters over-throwing ancient geezers who are "literally stopping the flow of time so that they can maintain power and not die").
Unfortunately, I feel these themes were kind of stumbled upon accidentally. The real main theme of Xenoblade 3 is twofold: cliche "take back your fate" shonen-ery, and--way more bizzare--"fucking".
See, the game immediately ships all of the main cast. The camera is constantly focused on them in pairs. It's lame. None of the forced couples have ANY chemistry, save maybe Lanz and Sena?
It's a similar problem I had with The Quarry. Why can't we just have some real great friendships? Eunie and Taion seem much better as unlikely best buds than lovers. The three times Eunie flirts with him are so forced. It would be far more novel to give us more moments between, let's say, Sena and Eunie. Or Noah and Taion. There are some moments of exploration between these characters, but everything ultimately boils down to the ships. AND THEY DON'T EVEN GIVE THESE RELATIONSHIPS SUBSTANTIAL EXPLORATION.
FINAL THOUGHTS
-The way the cast needs like fifteen scenes at the end where each of the characters says in less-than-elegant terms that they're ready to "take back their fate" is brutally stupid. Final Fantasy X achieves this with FAR more emotional payoff in TWO scenes--the final scene containing "literally two lines of dialogue".
-The economy is fucking busted. I had 2 million money by the end. Never needed to spend it on a single thing. What the hell is the point of having vendors if I find infinitely better equipment by simply playing the game?
-The world is big, but bland. The weird barrage of trinkets littering the map, the lack of variety in environments in a fantasy world, the dull gray pre-fab colonies. It all just feels kind of uninspired by the end.
-Having every sidequest be a series of fast-travels and "fight the thing to get the stuff" is painful. There are some particularly bad offenders.
-Having no way of telling the player where they can find specific ingredients/items, along with stingy drop rates is completely frustrating. It made one particularly bad simple fetch quest turn into a TWO HOUR SEARCH. I am NOT kidding.
-Every tragic death or sacrifice is reversed. Once again, I am NOT kidding. It's Kingdom Hearts syndrome. It kills all drama. It's baffling. What, would it be too sad for good guys to catch an L sometimes? Cowards.
The game took me 135 hours to beat. Better games which similarly boast massive playtimes elevate the stakes and pace out major events with mastery (Persona 5/The Witcher 3).
I can't totally hate Xenoblade 3 because the first half was so wonderful. Seriously. I was charmed by the first couple dozen hours of this game. I was having a ton of fun with the combat. The story was interesting enough to keep me hooked. And the characters were showing a lot of promise for growth.
Everything after the second half climax destroyed that. Woefully so. And much to my horror, they saved their worst for last.
In one of the final cutscenes, Nia (who I love dearly), pulls out a photo. The photo in question...is possibly the most disgusting thing I've ever experienced in a video game. It shows the cast of Xenoblade 2 (a whoooooole other issue), but slightly older. It shows Rex standing proudly over his presumed three wives, all holding his babies. Fucking MORMON shit dude. In that moment I caught three vibes:
1) Nia got played dirty to the worst extent. Really? She--a super cool, independent, funny, "doesn't take shit from anyone", catgirl...decided to play third breeder for a boring shonen protag? Vile.
2) This is canon. It's in the game. The writers/devs really thought having three wives is like, an okay thing to put out there. And there's no take-backsies. It's real. This is the canonical fate of these poor, wretched creatures. Vile.
3) This is going to get heavy. And really gross. But that's just what it is. But there is a strong pedophilic undertone in Xenoblade 2 that is confirmed in this photo. Rex is 15 when he meets Pyra, Mythra, and Nia. There is sexual tension between all of them throughout the game. The three women are all adults, literally hundreds of years old at that. Sure, it looks like Rex is an adult by the time they start churning out is progeny. But there are still implications here that make me very skep. Vile.
The only thing I regret about Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is that I didn't purchase a physical copy that I could trade-in to Gamestop for a better game.
At least it has Eunie.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. JRPGs have a major problem with third acts. Like, catastrophically, tragically abysmal. I say tragically because there are so many good things going for it from the first cutscene.
Disclaimer: I will be comparing this game to other, more competent JRPGs.
GAMEPLAY
It's very much MMO-style gameplay, but with more action. I love the ability to make any character any class. It also has a nice amount of variety with the inclusion of Chain Attacks and Links.
On the Hard difficulty, I found that the game required me to strategize and fine-tune my party to overcome tough challenges. I like this. However, in most overworld battles you can basically sit back and turn off your brain. The only meaningful difference between Hard and Easy in the overworld is enemy health. So I eventually switched to Easy in the overworld just to get things moving along.
Final Fantasy XII boasts a similar system. It's not quite as flashy or anime, but it has far more depth and complexity. If you want, you can literally program your party with a series of prioritized "if--then" actions. Xenoblade 3 never teeters on that sort of depth and ends up feeling like all the combinations of classes, abilities, and skills are just visual input flavor.
Let's talk about boss fights now. So the gameplay overall turned out less strategic than I would have liked, but I still had a good amount of fun with it. Until boss fights. It is almost impossible to comprehend what the sweet Jesus is happening between the bombastic particle effects and party members screaming over each other. Do the climactic enemies have different moves and strategies required to approach? No. Every boss can essentially be approached the same way: the Tanks tank, the Healers heal, and the DPS does damage. Period. As for the attacks, I never knew what a single one did, was named, or what the tells were. And the fact that I didn't need to know ANY of this to beat ALL of them is clumsy design.
If you're going to shape combat to be MMO-adjacent, then match that with a similar boss philosophy. Make enemy attacks have big text and longer charge-up meters somewhere that's actually visible. Give me something interesting to do. I'm reminded of another Final Fantasy game: FFXIV. Give me summa dat "Oh shit, she's doing the thing--make sure we go to this side of the arena!" Or some "Okay, full defense for this big attack and then go all-out when they are on cooldown". All-in-all, it just kind of felt boring to whittle away at a gigantic health bar with the same approach every time.
Quick note--the final boss is awful. I cannot forgive it. You fight a health bar five times, four of which are just the same exact fight. The stage is absolute chaos and an eye-sore.
STORY/CHARACTERS
It's so similar to FFX. Z is Yu Yevon (naming your villains letters of the alphabet is dumb as hell). Off-seers are summoners. Etc.
It sucks big time because the opening act is great and the second act climax is honestly incredible and well-executed.
Immediately after this story beat is when everything falls apart. "Okay, now it's time to go confront the final bad guys". Except wait, now is the last chance to go around and do all the hero ascension quests, colony quests, and general exploration. The time difference for me between the protagonists saying "Okay let's end this thing" and me finishing up the "rest of the game" clocked in at around 60 hours. That is ATROCIOUS pacing. By the time I rejoined the story to the point of no return, I genuinely forgot what we were doing.
In terms of the main cast, it's weird. Eunie is brilliant. I love how aggressively Bri'ish she is and her voice actor KILLS IT. Lanz is a good boy. I like him well-enough. Taion is solid. He had a lot more potential but ended up being kind of dry with a lack of follow-through on his potential arc. Mio would have been dreadfully dull, but her ticking lifespan and voice actor (who also fucking kills it) saved her. Sena is a puppy dog, but I didn't see any visible growth despite having so much time dedicated to her arc. Noah is the protagonist. That is his defining personality trait so he's...fine. Which is really not great when it's your main character. He lacks personality, humor, or depth. He is a tool that drives the plot forward for the most part.
I love the heroes, however. I honestly would have preferred some combination of them as my main party. Camuravi, Fiona, Monica, Triton, Juniper...All of them have more personality in their little finger than Noah. If you're going to give me a band of misfit toys, then really fucking go for it!
I will say to the game's credit that the whole Colony thing, with its webs of relationships (EVERY npc has a name and a story to some extent) is an impossible feat that is pretty well-executed. It made me feel very connected to the world on an emotional level.
Which makes it all the worse when the third act absolutely shits the bed. I honestly don't have anything good to say about it. The final boss is hardly compelling after his "revelation". X and Y are just kind of shoe-horned in as easy mini-bosses. No climactic moments for them. N was already a lame character so I didn't give a hoot about him. The spectacle of the external battle with the mechs and colonies (Mass Effect 3 style) drew me in a bit, but then I just wished I was out there doing THAT instead. The whole thing with N and M needing to make the final sacrifice had "absolutely no impact". My brother and I literally screamed "What the fuck does it matter?! They're already dead!"
Then there's the final scene and the ship-ening. But that's more thematic, so let's talk about it.
THEMES
Overall, there are a lot of implied themes in this game that are great. Anti-capitalsim (overthrowing elite vampires which hold a monopoly of power and require the "little people" to be at constant war with each other in order for the vampires to exist), Anarchism (de-centralizing the government in favor of collectives that co-operate with each other peacefully), and Progress (a group of youngsters over-throwing ancient geezers who are "literally stopping the flow of time so that they can maintain power and not die").
Unfortunately, I feel these themes were kind of stumbled upon accidentally. The real main theme of Xenoblade 3 is twofold: cliche "take back your fate" shonen-ery, and--way more bizzare--"fucking".
See, the game immediately ships all of the main cast. The camera is constantly focused on them in pairs. It's lame. None of the forced couples have ANY chemistry, save maybe Lanz and Sena?
It's a similar problem I had with The Quarry. Why can't we just have some real great friendships? Eunie and Taion seem much better as unlikely best buds than lovers. The three times Eunie flirts with him are so forced. It would be far more novel to give us more moments between, let's say, Sena and Eunie. Or Noah and Taion. There are some moments of exploration between these characters, but everything ultimately boils down to the ships. AND THEY DON'T EVEN GIVE THESE RELATIONSHIPS SUBSTANTIAL EXPLORATION.
FINAL THOUGHTS
-The way the cast needs like fifteen scenes at the end where each of the characters says in less-than-elegant terms that they're ready to "take back their fate" is brutally stupid. Final Fantasy X achieves this with FAR more emotional payoff in TWO scenes--the final scene containing "literally two lines of dialogue".
-The economy is fucking busted. I had 2 million money by the end. Never needed to spend it on a single thing. What the hell is the point of having vendors if I find infinitely better equipment by simply playing the game?
-The world is big, but bland. The weird barrage of trinkets littering the map, the lack of variety in environments in a fantasy world, the dull gray pre-fab colonies. It all just feels kind of uninspired by the end.
-Having every sidequest be a series of fast-travels and "fight the thing to get the stuff" is painful. There are some particularly bad offenders.
-Having no way of telling the player where they can find specific ingredients/items, along with stingy drop rates is completely frustrating. It made one particularly bad simple fetch quest turn into a TWO HOUR SEARCH. I am NOT kidding.
-Every tragic death or sacrifice is reversed. Once again, I am NOT kidding. It's Kingdom Hearts syndrome. It kills all drama. It's baffling. What, would it be too sad for good guys to catch an L sometimes? Cowards.
The game took me 135 hours to beat. Better games which similarly boast massive playtimes elevate the stakes and pace out major events with mastery (Persona 5/The Witcher 3).
I can't totally hate Xenoblade 3 because the first half was so wonderful. Seriously. I was charmed by the first couple dozen hours of this game. I was having a ton of fun with the combat. The story was interesting enough to keep me hooked. And the characters were showing a lot of promise for growth.
Everything after the second half climax destroyed that. Woefully so. And much to my horror, they saved their worst for last.
In one of the final cutscenes, Nia (who I love dearly), pulls out a photo. The photo in question...is possibly the most disgusting thing I've ever experienced in a video game. It shows the cast of Xenoblade 2 (a whoooooole other issue), but slightly older. It shows Rex standing proudly over his presumed three wives, all holding his babies. Fucking MORMON shit dude. In that moment I caught three vibes:
1) Nia got played dirty to the worst extent. Really? She--a super cool, independent, funny, "doesn't take shit from anyone", catgirl...decided to play third breeder for a boring shonen protag? Vile.
2) This is canon. It's in the game. The writers/devs really thought having three wives is like, an okay thing to put out there. And there's no take-backsies. It's real. This is the canonical fate of these poor, wretched creatures. Vile.
3) This is going to get heavy. And really gross. But that's just what it is. But there is a strong pedophilic undertone in Xenoblade 2 that is confirmed in this photo. Rex is 15 when he meets Pyra, Mythra, and Nia. There is sexual tension between all of them throughout the game. The three women are all adults, literally hundreds of years old at that. Sure, it looks like Rex is an adult by the time they start churning out is progeny. But there are still implications here that make me very skep. Vile.
The only thing I regret about Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is that I didn't purchase a physical copy that I could trade-in to Gamestop for a better game.
At least it has Eunie.
2022
This review contains spoilers
CULT OF THE LAMB MAKES CULTS KIND OF FUN
Cult of the Lamb is a wonderful game. There are so many things to adore about it. The art is delightful. The idea is fantastic (Animal Crossing meets a Doom-themed Hades). There are so many fun systems that interact with each other in unique ways.
However, though I was very charmed by this game (just like a real cult!), I found myself trudging to get through to the end. I think the reason for this is because, while there is a good amount of gameplay variety, none of it feels meaty enough to keep me interested for long.
Cult management is fun. I enjoyed indoctrinating woodland critters and sacrificing them for the greater good. But you unlock all of the town building options a bit quickly, and you might use only a quarter to a third of them at best.
This is true unfortunately for most of the systems in the game. There are really only a few tarot cards worth bothering with. The rituals become a bit redundant in terms of utility. And the varied weapon abilities on each run tend to more or less work out the same. There's not a lot of pondering whether to upgrade to a weapon with a better ability. It is far better to just choose the stronger weapon and not think twice about the ability you may be giving up.
Essentially, the game spread itself a bit thin. It wanted to do a lot, in novel and engaging ways, which is admirable. The execution just left me wanting a little more.
To summarize briefly, the first third of the game is pure excitement and fun. The middle half starts to drag a little bit--and the last third is a dull marathon to get to the end with no real post-game payoff.
I would also like to mention the bugs. I am usually pretty forgiving about bugs--probably to the detriment of my credit as a "reviewer". But there were several times when the game got stuck and forced me to restart, losing a decent amount of progress.
Ultimately, I had far more fun in the Cult management section of the game as I found the rogue-like (I refuse to ever use the term "rogue-lite") sections to be tedious and unsatisfying on the whole.
The vibes are definitely strong with Cult of the Lamb. But I don't really have anything cute or clever to say at the end of this "review". And I guess that's kind of indicative of my feelings on the whole.
Cult of the Lamb is a wonderful game. There are so many things to adore about it. The art is delightful. The idea is fantastic (Animal Crossing meets a Doom-themed Hades). There are so many fun systems that interact with each other in unique ways.
However, though I was very charmed by this game (just like a real cult!), I found myself trudging to get through to the end. I think the reason for this is because, while there is a good amount of gameplay variety, none of it feels meaty enough to keep me interested for long.
Cult management is fun. I enjoyed indoctrinating woodland critters and sacrificing them for the greater good. But you unlock all of the town building options a bit quickly, and you might use only a quarter to a third of them at best.
This is true unfortunately for most of the systems in the game. There are really only a few tarot cards worth bothering with. The rituals become a bit redundant in terms of utility. And the varied weapon abilities on each run tend to more or less work out the same. There's not a lot of pondering whether to upgrade to a weapon with a better ability. It is far better to just choose the stronger weapon and not think twice about the ability you may be giving up.
Essentially, the game spread itself a bit thin. It wanted to do a lot, in novel and engaging ways, which is admirable. The execution just left me wanting a little more.
To summarize briefly, the first third of the game is pure excitement and fun. The middle half starts to drag a little bit--and the last third is a dull marathon to get to the end with no real post-game payoff.
I would also like to mention the bugs. I am usually pretty forgiving about bugs--probably to the detriment of my credit as a "reviewer". But there were several times when the game got stuck and forced me to restart, losing a decent amount of progress.
Ultimately, I had far more fun in the Cult management section of the game as I found the rogue-like (I refuse to ever use the term "rogue-lite") sections to be tedious and unsatisfying on the whole.
The vibes are definitely strong with Cult of the Lamb. But I don't really have anything cute or clever to say at the end of this "review". And I guess that's kind of indicative of my feelings on the whole.
2022
This review contains spoilers
THE QUARRY IS ITSELF A "BUT THOU MUST"
Prologue
I have a kind of verbal habit--I pick up certain phrases or humurous word-linkages and say them over and over in any and every situation in which it is funny. This is hardly unique, but I digress. While couch co-oping The Quarry with three other friends, I found myself haunted, repeating the following phrase time AND time again:
"Surely they wouldn't..."
The "they" in question being Supermassive, the developers of the game, and the thing they would or would not do being something that video game enjoyers may consider "kind of lame".
Act I: The Good
Having recently played Until Dawn, I can easily contrast the differences between these two games and I am happy to report that The Quarry is better in many ways.
The characters are overall more likeable this time around (overall is operative and yes this is irrefutable). The game gets you to the monster threat MUCH quicker, unlike Until Dawn which dicks around with a completely weightless prank plot for three quarters of the game.
Ted Raime is iconic. Although nothing quite tops Peter Stormare in Until Dawn.
The infection gimmick adds about the only meaningful replayability "mechanic" and is pretty neat. The Werewolf design is excellent and creative, if maybe a bit too similar to the Wendigo design in Until Dawn. I also think the tarot cards are leagues better than totems because they add another layer of choice. Kind of.
Act II: They Wouldn't... (The Bad)
All of the same flaws are here from Until Dawn. It's disappointing and frustrating.
On second playthrough you very quickly catch on to the fact that most choices boil down to what number of characters are killed and in what way. The end is always the same (more on that later). Most characters are in peril in only select few instances. And this is all made worse by the fact that the main marketing promise of the game was that they had "made improvements from Until Dawn's feedback" and that "every character can become the lead".
Utter lies, sadly. They didn't even fulfill the promise of each character having unique roles to fill. Kaitlyn has so much set-up in regard to her mechanical prowess and shooting skill. She gets to blast some moon fools a couple of times at MOST and does absolutely nothing with her mechanical knowledge. You even go out of your way for an entire level dedicated to finding an integral car part in a junkyard and at the end they're just sort of like "welp, there's nothing here that can help, guess this was just another QTE setpiece."
The same goes for the rest of the cast. Will Ryan face his fears with the spooky ghost lady? Nah. Will Jacob step up and redeem himself by rash suicide mission to save the group? Nope. Will Abigail finally come out of her shell and go from shy art girl to stealth rogue assassin? Definitely not.
Compounded with this is the same mistake to have a red-herring villain that takes up far too much screen time without even being fleshed out AND not bringing any tension to the table. Because you know very early on that they aren't bad guys. It's better than Josh's Saw-esque prank brigaid from Until Dawn but it's a waste nonetheless. Had they even attempted to better flesh out the Hackett family then this could potentially be a point of interest for replayability. Also I'm very sick of how mountain folk are portrayed in horror media.
But hey, check it out: in a game where they focus on dumb teenage relationship drama rather than meaningful friendships, they do let you choose a gay option for Ryan. Except wait, later they completely drop it and shoehorn a completely useless sublot involving sexual tension with Laura which basically drops any character bonds Ryan may have had with either Kaitlyn or Dylan. Also Laura has a goddamn boyfriend that she is literally risking her life to save, what in the peanut butter butter pops is the meaning of this "plotpoint".
Anyway, the final confrontation totally blows. Shoot the thing that conveneintly showed itself to you (something that was apparently so hard to find that in 6 years the Hackett family could not find it) and win. Or don't shoot (which is actually kind of made to feel like a complex choice given that the game has been leaning hard into telling you up until that point) and get three main characters insta killed and immediately roll end credits.
Excuse me, what? The goddamn thing is curled up in a ball crying. If you want me to realize that this is not at all a complex decision then give the player a visual cue. Have the lunar ghoul turn its head, fangs bared, as the timer to shoot or not shoot is nearly out. The devs are trolling you on this decision, and the consequences are utterly stupid.
Also Chapter 7 is an ABSOLUTE SLOG on future playthroughs without a "skip cutscene" function for people who have already beaten the game.
Also also the accessibility options are really nice, but the game is incredibly easy in terms of QTEs and the other mechanics. So while I do appreciate Director mode and easier options for players of all skills, there really should be an option to ramp up the difficulty as well.
I have already written "too much", but I would like to point out that the backstory of Hackett's Quarry and the werewolf curse is absolute hogwash and doesn't stand up to the first layer of scrutiny.
And now the worst has come: the ending is just...a series of slideshows. No substance either. Just "Nick died, Laura lived, Dylan got his hand cut off, etc." This is an absolute slap in the proverbial face to the player. At least Until Dawn had the characters doing interviews during the credits, talking about the night and reminding you of all the times you utterly goofed it up. The Quarry doesn't give you any closure on the many relationships formed between the characters. Did Ryan go to art school and have a sick ass installment dedicated to the horrors of that night? Did Emma's vlog go viral after taking a "photograph of the werewolf"? We'll never know anything. We just learn what we already knew, which is that the characters that lived...are...still alive. Absolutely disappointing. The Quarry deserved better.
Act III: Making narrative video games with many branching paths and outcomes is a goliath undertaking--but so is making literally any video game so this cannot remain an excuse for narrative-based adventure games
I give this game a 3.5 star blanket review, because that first playthrough with friends is magical and "thou must" experience it. But the second playthrough is when I came to the INTEGRAL decision with Jacob where he can either dive back into the water to get the rotor arm for the van or run to save Abi. This time I dove into the water. I got a clue about the story. I then got the same exact cutscene from my previous playthrough. That was the only difference in outcome.
Surely they wouldn't...and yet they absolutely did.
Prologue
I have a kind of verbal habit--I pick up certain phrases or humurous word-linkages and say them over and over in any and every situation in which it is funny. This is hardly unique, but I digress. While couch co-oping The Quarry with three other friends, I found myself haunted, repeating the following phrase time AND time again:
"Surely they wouldn't..."
The "they" in question being Supermassive, the developers of the game, and the thing they would or would not do being something that video game enjoyers may consider "kind of lame".
Act I: The Good
Having recently played Until Dawn, I can easily contrast the differences between these two games and I am happy to report that The Quarry is better in many ways.
The characters are overall more likeable this time around (overall is operative and yes this is irrefutable). The game gets you to the monster threat MUCH quicker, unlike Until Dawn which dicks around with a completely weightless prank plot for three quarters of the game.
Ted Raime is iconic. Although nothing quite tops Peter Stormare in Until Dawn.
The infection gimmick adds about the only meaningful replayability "mechanic" and is pretty neat. The Werewolf design is excellent and creative, if maybe a bit too similar to the Wendigo design in Until Dawn. I also think the tarot cards are leagues better than totems because they add another layer of choice. Kind of.
Act II: They Wouldn't... (The Bad)
All of the same flaws are here from Until Dawn. It's disappointing and frustrating.
On second playthrough you very quickly catch on to the fact that most choices boil down to what number of characters are killed and in what way. The end is always the same (more on that later). Most characters are in peril in only select few instances. And this is all made worse by the fact that the main marketing promise of the game was that they had "made improvements from Until Dawn's feedback" and that "every character can become the lead".
Utter lies, sadly. They didn't even fulfill the promise of each character having unique roles to fill. Kaitlyn has so much set-up in regard to her mechanical prowess and shooting skill. She gets to blast some moon fools a couple of times at MOST and does absolutely nothing with her mechanical knowledge. You even go out of your way for an entire level dedicated to finding an integral car part in a junkyard and at the end they're just sort of like "welp, there's nothing here that can help, guess this was just another QTE setpiece."
The same goes for the rest of the cast. Will Ryan face his fears with the spooky ghost lady? Nah. Will Jacob step up and redeem himself by rash suicide mission to save the group? Nope. Will Abigail finally come out of her shell and go from shy art girl to stealth rogue assassin? Definitely not.
Compounded with this is the same mistake to have a red-herring villain that takes up far too much screen time without even being fleshed out AND not bringing any tension to the table. Because you know very early on that they aren't bad guys. It's better than Josh's Saw-esque prank brigaid from Until Dawn but it's a waste nonetheless. Had they even attempted to better flesh out the Hackett family then this could potentially be a point of interest for replayability. Also I'm very sick of how mountain folk are portrayed in horror media.
But hey, check it out: in a game where they focus on dumb teenage relationship drama rather than meaningful friendships, they do let you choose a gay option for Ryan. Except wait, later they completely drop it and shoehorn a completely useless sublot involving sexual tension with Laura which basically drops any character bonds Ryan may have had with either Kaitlyn or Dylan. Also Laura has a goddamn boyfriend that she is literally risking her life to save, what in the peanut butter butter pops is the meaning of this "plotpoint".
Anyway, the final confrontation totally blows. Shoot the thing that conveneintly showed itself to you (something that was apparently so hard to find that in 6 years the Hackett family could not find it) and win. Or don't shoot (which is actually kind of made to feel like a complex choice given that the game has been leaning hard into telling you up until that point) and get three main characters insta killed and immediately roll end credits.
Excuse me, what? The goddamn thing is curled up in a ball crying. If you want me to realize that this is not at all a complex decision then give the player a visual cue. Have the lunar ghoul turn its head, fangs bared, as the timer to shoot or not shoot is nearly out. The devs are trolling you on this decision, and the consequences are utterly stupid.
Also Chapter 7 is an ABSOLUTE SLOG on future playthroughs without a "skip cutscene" function for people who have already beaten the game.
Also also the accessibility options are really nice, but the game is incredibly easy in terms of QTEs and the other mechanics. So while I do appreciate Director mode and easier options for players of all skills, there really should be an option to ramp up the difficulty as well.
I have already written "too much", but I would like to point out that the backstory of Hackett's Quarry and the werewolf curse is absolute hogwash and doesn't stand up to the first layer of scrutiny.
And now the worst has come: the ending is just...a series of slideshows. No substance either. Just "Nick died, Laura lived, Dylan got his hand cut off, etc." This is an absolute slap in the proverbial face to the player. At least Until Dawn had the characters doing interviews during the credits, talking about the night and reminding you of all the times you utterly goofed it up. The Quarry doesn't give you any closure on the many relationships formed between the characters. Did Ryan go to art school and have a sick ass installment dedicated to the horrors of that night? Did Emma's vlog go viral after taking a "photograph of the werewolf"? We'll never know anything. We just learn what we already knew, which is that the characters that lived...are...still alive. Absolutely disappointing. The Quarry deserved better.
Act III: Making narrative video games with many branching paths and outcomes is a goliath undertaking--but so is making literally any video game so this cannot remain an excuse for narrative-based adventure games
I give this game a 3.5 star blanket review, because that first playthrough with friends is magical and "thou must" experience it. But the second playthrough is when I came to the INTEGRAL decision with Jacob where he can either dive back into the water to get the rotor arm for the van or run to save Abi. This time I dove into the water. I got a clue about the story. I then got the same exact cutscene from my previous playthrough. That was the only difference in outcome.
Surely they wouldn't...and yet they absolutely did.
This review contains spoilers
FATAL FRAME II: THE CRIMSON BUTTERFLY IS POKEMON SNAP BUT WITH TWINS AND GHOSTS
This is the first time I have played a game in the Fatal Frame franchise. It is with glee, dear gamer, that I inform you that Fatal Frame falls into a fun middle ground between Resident Evil and Silent Hill.
It doesn't have the action of Resident Evil, but makes up for it in atmosphere and horror. Then again, it doesn't have quite as strong of a vibe as Silent Hill...but more than makes up for it with gameplay that is "actually pretty good".
The Camera Obscura (your weapon and spectral hobby machine) is a pretty novel game mechanic. You take pictures of ghosts and it kills them. Then you can go through a little scrapbook and look at all the pictures of the ghosties you re-murder-fied and save your faves.
It can be upgraded as well which adds incentive to get those big high scores when you send those phantasmal freaks back to HECK.
Our protagonist twins are solid. Mio works well as a lead and Mayu is simultaneously "must protect" and "must escape from" which is pretty neat.
Overall the story is solid. Nothing crazy--about par for the time and genre.
The only real grievances I have are with poorly spaced save spots, ghosts sometimes being glitchy, and a real slogfest to get to the final boss. Also the ending is kind of a letdown. I think you could have had a much more impactful ending without validating the town's psychotic cult rituals.
So listen. Fatal Frame 2 has some genuine scares. It may even rival Silent Hill in terms of spooky scaries. But most importantly, it let me scrapbook my traumas. Like when I did a photoshoot for a woman with backwards-bent legs and arms crawling around on the floor. And aren't those the things that really matter?
This is the first time I have played a game in the Fatal Frame franchise. It is with glee, dear gamer, that I inform you that Fatal Frame falls into a fun middle ground between Resident Evil and Silent Hill.
It doesn't have the action of Resident Evil, but makes up for it in atmosphere and horror. Then again, it doesn't have quite as strong of a vibe as Silent Hill...but more than makes up for it with gameplay that is "actually pretty good".
The Camera Obscura (your weapon and spectral hobby machine) is a pretty novel game mechanic. You take pictures of ghosts and it kills them. Then you can go through a little scrapbook and look at all the pictures of the ghosties you re-murder-fied and save your faves.
It can be upgraded as well which adds incentive to get those big high scores when you send those phantasmal freaks back to HECK.
Our protagonist twins are solid. Mio works well as a lead and Mayu is simultaneously "must protect" and "must escape from" which is pretty neat.
Overall the story is solid. Nothing crazy--about par for the time and genre.
The only real grievances I have are with poorly spaced save spots, ghosts sometimes being glitchy, and a real slogfest to get to the final boss. Also the ending is kind of a letdown. I think you could have had a much more impactful ending without validating the town's psychotic cult rituals.
So listen. Fatal Frame 2 has some genuine scares. It may even rival Silent Hill in terms of spooky scaries. But most importantly, it let me scrapbook my traumas. Like when I did a photoshoot for a woman with backwards-bent legs and arms crawling around on the floor. And aren't those the things that really matter?
2003
This review contains spoilers
SILENT HILL 3 IS A PRO-CHOICE VIDEOGAME
It is kind of a tall order to not compare Silent Hill 3 to its series siblings. So let's just get it out of the way.
SH3 doesn't come close to the psychological/conceptual depth of Silent Hill 2. And it lacks a Lisa transformation scene which hard carries the first game for me.
So what makes Silent Hill 3 so great? Well it's pretty simple.
Silent Hill 3 is one of the only horror games that focuses on the experiences of women. And I respect that a lot.
Walking home alone at night, being alone on the subway, losing your bodily autonomy. Oh and the plot revolving around a forced demonic pregnancy because of some psycho religious lady. These are just some the themes and horrors that SH3 focuses on.
Honestly, there's a lot I could say here praising how these topics are handled, but I don't think I could say it any better than user eurothug4000 in her YouTube video titled: "The Real Horrors of Silent Hill 3". I came across the video as soon as I finished the game last night. She puts to words everything I had a hunch about while playing. Basically, it's a brilliant analysis that most fans and series essayists overlook.
With that being said, the gameplay fails the brilliant concepts. The gameplay is more frantic and in-your-face than previous entries--but it's a little too much. Most of the enemies lack inspired design (except the closers).
Listen here, dear reader. You know how dogs are the worst enemy in every game? Well, they are the most common enemy you will come up against in Silent Hill 3. It's awful.
I also think the entire first third or so of the game is completely lacking context, especially if this is your first game in the series. There are far too many enemies for the number of items they give you. I don't mind having to dash between rooms because I don't have the ammo to fight--that can be really good horror. I do mind when the enemies are much faster than me because THEY ARE GODDAMN DOGS.
On the other hand, Cheryl rules. She's definitely tied with James as my favorite Silent Hill protagonist. She has personality and relatable reactions to moments and characters, which is oddly not on-brand for most Silent Hill games.
All in all, there is a song in this game titled "Dance With The Night Wind". That's cold as fuck.
It is kind of a tall order to not compare Silent Hill 3 to its series siblings. So let's just get it out of the way.
SH3 doesn't come close to the psychological/conceptual depth of Silent Hill 2. And it lacks a Lisa transformation scene which hard carries the first game for me.
So what makes Silent Hill 3 so great? Well it's pretty simple.
Silent Hill 3 is one of the only horror games that focuses on the experiences of women. And I respect that a lot.
Walking home alone at night, being alone on the subway, losing your bodily autonomy. Oh and the plot revolving around a forced demonic pregnancy because of some psycho religious lady. These are just some the themes and horrors that SH3 focuses on.
Honestly, there's a lot I could say here praising how these topics are handled, but I don't think I could say it any better than user eurothug4000 in her YouTube video titled: "The Real Horrors of Silent Hill 3". I came across the video as soon as I finished the game last night. She puts to words everything I had a hunch about while playing. Basically, it's a brilliant analysis that most fans and series essayists overlook.
With that being said, the gameplay fails the brilliant concepts. The gameplay is more frantic and in-your-face than previous entries--but it's a little too much. Most of the enemies lack inspired design (except the closers).
Listen here, dear reader. You know how dogs are the worst enemy in every game? Well, they are the most common enemy you will come up against in Silent Hill 3. It's awful.
I also think the entire first third or so of the game is completely lacking context, especially if this is your first game in the series. There are far too many enemies for the number of items they give you. I don't mind having to dash between rooms because I don't have the ammo to fight--that can be really good horror. I do mind when the enemies are much faster than me because THEY ARE GODDAMN DOGS.
On the other hand, Cheryl rules. She's definitely tied with James as my favorite Silent Hill protagonist. She has personality and relatable reactions to moments and characters, which is oddly not on-brand for most Silent Hill games.
All in all, there is a song in this game titled "Dance With The Night Wind". That's cold as fuck.
2015
This review contains spoilers
UNTIL DAWN IS FUN UNTIL DAWN
Let me explain myself. Until Dawn is great the first time around. But when you do finally survive until dawn, a lot of the replay value goes out the window.
Let me say some good things. The game still looks great in 2022. That is saying something. The performances and casting are nice (Peter Stormare is iconic as always). It's still fun with friends who haven't played before. Also, there is an incentive to play multiple times if you want to save everyone.
However, after the first of the two big reveals toward the end of the game, you realize that everything having to do with the cabin is totally harmless--no one there can die or is in any real danger. This cheapens almost all of the scares in the entire first half of the game.
Basically, like TellTale games, once the curtain is lifted and you know how the magic trick works (all choices essentially leading to the same outcome; characters only being in real danger a couple times each, etc.), a lot of the magic is gone.
It's a great couch co-op game. But the choice to have THREE "stand-still-or-die-with-the-wonkiest-mechanic-or-else-the-best-character-dies" moments at the end was a real party foul.
Let me explain myself. Until Dawn is great the first time around. But when you do finally survive until dawn, a lot of the replay value goes out the window.
Let me say some good things. The game still looks great in 2022. That is saying something. The performances and casting are nice (Peter Stormare is iconic as always). It's still fun with friends who haven't played before. Also, there is an incentive to play multiple times if you want to save everyone.
However, after the first of the two big reveals toward the end of the game, you realize that everything having to do with the cabin is totally harmless--no one there can die or is in any real danger. This cheapens almost all of the scares in the entire first half of the game.
Basically, like TellTale games, once the curtain is lifted and you know how the magic trick works (all choices essentially leading to the same outcome; characters only being in real danger a couple times each, etc.), a lot of the magic is gone.
It's a great couch co-op game. But the choice to have THREE "stand-still-or-die-with-the-wonkiest-mechanic-or-else-the-best-character-dies" moments at the end was a real party foul.
1999
This review contains spoilers
SILENT HILL IS THE 'SILENT HILL' OF VIDEO GAMES
Gamers knew at the launch of Silent Hill that it was ahead of its time. We still know this.
Silent Hill has flaws. Clunky combat and locomotion. A couple somewhat offensive levels (although mercifully short). And some pretty atrocious voice acting.
Fans of the series will tell you that 2 of the above 3 criticisms actually make the game better. More surreal. More scary.
And they have a point.
The stilted dialogue makes it feel like a fever dream. Something straight out of a David Lynch movie.
The awkward tank controls and goofy ass combat do kind of make the tense moments give you even more of a mind-panic than if everything was fine-tuned.
Whether these choices were intentional or not, the true draw of Silent Hill is its oppressive ambience. Its beautiful and haunting score. Its raw dedication to "scaring the Jesus out of you".
Simply put: the vibes are decadent.
The overall story may be sort of half-baked. The characters may be less than totally developed. But even despite all of that, Lisa's transformation scene WILL haunt you for days. To this day it is one of my favorite moments in a video game. It is one of my favorite moments in an ANYTHING.
Silent Hill is flawed. But it more than makes up for those flaws with artistic vision, experimentation, and execution. It's a rabbit hole that sticks with you. The more you think about it, the more you find.
These elements were perfected with Silent Hill 2. But there's no denying that the first in the series changed the landscape not only for horror games, but for horror as a a genre in ANY medium.
But fuck sewer levels. Devs, please stop with this nonsense of sewer and swamp levels in video games. I promise you it won't detract from the experience.
Gamers knew at the launch of Silent Hill that it was ahead of its time. We still know this.
Silent Hill has flaws. Clunky combat and locomotion. A couple somewhat offensive levels (although mercifully short). And some pretty atrocious voice acting.
Fans of the series will tell you that 2 of the above 3 criticisms actually make the game better. More surreal. More scary.
And they have a point.
The stilted dialogue makes it feel like a fever dream. Something straight out of a David Lynch movie.
The awkward tank controls and goofy ass combat do kind of make the tense moments give you even more of a mind-panic than if everything was fine-tuned.
Whether these choices were intentional or not, the true draw of Silent Hill is its oppressive ambience. Its beautiful and haunting score. Its raw dedication to "scaring the Jesus out of you".
Simply put: the vibes are decadent.
The overall story may be sort of half-baked. The characters may be less than totally developed. But even despite all of that, Lisa's transformation scene WILL haunt you for days. To this day it is one of my favorite moments in a video game. It is one of my favorite moments in an ANYTHING.
Silent Hill is flawed. But it more than makes up for those flaws with artistic vision, experimentation, and execution. It's a rabbit hole that sticks with you. The more you think about it, the more you find.
These elements were perfected with Silent Hill 2. But there's no denying that the first in the series changed the landscape not only for horror games, but for horror as a a genre in ANY medium.
But fuck sewer levels. Devs, please stop with this nonsense of sewer and swamp levels in video games. I promise you it won't detract from the experience.
This review contains spoilers
RESIDENT EVIL 5 IS PRETTY REPREHENSIBLE
It's really a shame.
My friend and I were couch co-oping this game as a sort of "stroll down memory lane" experience.
That game is fairly fun, if not a huge step backward from the divine Resident Evil 4. But the questions happened quickly and subtly. It began with: "Why is Sheva not on the box art?"
It then became: "Wow this story is not nearly as camp-y or fun as RE4. Why does it feel more along the lines of 'Black Hawk Down'.
But it's okay. We were still having fun playing a Resident Evil game together.
Then: "Huh. Are we in the Middle East or another part of Africa? This seems like a careless blend of 'struggling societies' invented by people who didn't really care about the place they were portraying."
RE4's location worked because Spain doesn't have as much of the uh--loaded poitical implications.
Then: "Wait are these really zombies? They kind of just seem like people."
And finally we arrived at the place. You know, THE PLACE. Where you are just sort of killing a bunch of LITERAL spear-chucking stereotypes of African tribal people. They barely exhibit any signs of being zombified.
My friend (playing Chris) sat down his controller. I (playing Sheva) fired a few shots and got overwhelmed in a corner. We both died.
We looked at each other. I spoke up. "I think that might just be how the game ends."
I promptly quit to the PS5 menu and uninstalled the game.
Also, most of the encounters/ bosses were just copy/pasted from RE4, a far superior game in every way.
It's really a shame.
My friend and I were couch co-oping this game as a sort of "stroll down memory lane" experience.
That game is fairly fun, if not a huge step backward from the divine Resident Evil 4. But the questions happened quickly and subtly. It began with: "Why is Sheva not on the box art?"
It then became: "Wow this story is not nearly as camp-y or fun as RE4. Why does it feel more along the lines of 'Black Hawk Down'.
But it's okay. We were still having fun playing a Resident Evil game together.
Then: "Huh. Are we in the Middle East or another part of Africa? This seems like a careless blend of 'struggling societies' invented by people who didn't really care about the place they were portraying."
RE4's location worked because Spain doesn't have as much of the uh--loaded poitical implications.
Then: "Wait are these really zombies? They kind of just seem like people."
And finally we arrived at the place. You know, THE PLACE. Where you are just sort of killing a bunch of LITERAL spear-chucking stereotypes of African tribal people. They barely exhibit any signs of being zombified.
My friend (playing Chris) sat down his controller. I (playing Sheva) fired a few shots and got overwhelmed in a corner. We both died.
We looked at each other. I spoke up. "I think that might just be how the game ends."
I promptly quit to the PS5 menu and uninstalled the game.
Also, most of the encounters/ bosses were just copy/pasted from RE4, a far superior game in every way.
2020
This review contains spoilers
RESIDENT EVIL 3 IS EVERYTHING IT NEEDED TO BE
It is interesting to me that many critics had, essentially, the same reaction to this game that they did to its progenitor.
Did they change the itneractions with Nemesis? Sure. Mr. X in the 2 Remake filled more of the "can be anywhere at anytime" role that Nemesis did in the original. However, the new Nemesis is also much more intimidating and fills the action sequences with enough monstrously explosive action than the Nemesis of yore.
And, to be frank, that is much to the Threemake's benefit. That's because, while 2 is much more of a survival horror game with undertones of dread--the Threemake is more action-packed horror camp.
How the developers succeded in their vision
-Enemy variety is much higher than 2, giving you more scenarios to use your full arsenal of weapons.
-Raccoon city has never been more beautiful and is a joy to explore.
-Boss fights are thrilling and over-the-top. Spectacle meets gameplay.
-Play length is just right. It's quite refreshing to play a game I can finish in a few sittings as opposed to the current trend of making AAA games open world and requiring 100+ hours for completion.
-Jill is the best.
Where the developers faultered
-Sometiems triggering Nemesis events locks you out of being able to further explore areas. (Not a hard lock, but it sure is a lot more annoying to go out of your way to open a locked door once that meat golem is hunting you down).
-The Carlos sections are a bit of a drag. I also experienced serious audio bugs that made me restart the game, Coincidence? Just let me play as Jill guys.
I once read an internet comment (and by that I mean I've seen this "way to many times") which said: "Man. I really miss the days when video games weren't so political. Like Resident Evil." Ah, yes. Resident Evil. The game which is filled to the brim with critiques of modern pharmeceutical companies and para-militaries. So listen up buck-o, if you are reading this right now, you really just meant, "I miss when video games were campy and extremely fun." And yes, that is exactly what the Resident Evil 3 Remake is.
It is interesting to me that many critics had, essentially, the same reaction to this game that they did to its progenitor.
Did they change the itneractions with Nemesis? Sure. Mr. X in the 2 Remake filled more of the "can be anywhere at anytime" role that Nemesis did in the original. However, the new Nemesis is also much more intimidating and fills the action sequences with enough monstrously explosive action than the Nemesis of yore.
And, to be frank, that is much to the Threemake's benefit. That's because, while 2 is much more of a survival horror game with undertones of dread--the Threemake is more action-packed horror camp.
How the developers succeded in their vision
-Enemy variety is much higher than 2, giving you more scenarios to use your full arsenal of weapons.
-Raccoon city has never been more beautiful and is a joy to explore.
-Boss fights are thrilling and over-the-top. Spectacle meets gameplay.
-Play length is just right. It's quite refreshing to play a game I can finish in a few sittings as opposed to the current trend of making AAA games open world and requiring 100+ hours for completion.
-Jill is the best.
Where the developers faultered
-Sometiems triggering Nemesis events locks you out of being able to further explore areas. (Not a hard lock, but it sure is a lot more annoying to go out of your way to open a locked door once that meat golem is hunting you down).
-The Carlos sections are a bit of a drag. I also experienced serious audio bugs that made me restart the game, Coincidence? Just let me play as Jill guys.
I once read an internet comment (and by that I mean I've seen this "way to many times") which said: "Man. I really miss the days when video games weren't so political. Like Resident Evil." Ah, yes. Resident Evil. The game which is filled to the brim with critiques of modern pharmeceutical companies and para-militaries. So listen up buck-o, if you are reading this right now, you really just meant, "I miss when video games were campy and extremely fun." And yes, that is exactly what the Resident Evil 3 Remake is.
This review contains spoilers
I DO NOT HAVE WORDS FOR DISCO ELYSIUM
(HEBI CERTIFIED 10 OUT OF 5)
Disco Elysium is one of the finest cRPG's ever made. There is a good argument that it is THE finest cRPG of all time.
Coming from a clearly competent and talented team of devs from Estonia, I do not have enough time to say all of the words that need to be said about this game.
This game allowed me to play a now-sober, Hunter S. Thompson-esque, communist cop. There are many other clever ways the game allows you to build the perfect cop you want. It's sumptuous.
There are about three critiques I have with the game--replay value doesn't feel as compelling as with other RPGs, skill checks barring content feels a little cheap, and using clothing as a stat booster is a little immersion breaking.
Everything else is divine: narrative, art design, creative skills, characters, audio, atmosphere...
All in all, this game introduced me to Kim Kitsuragi so I have no other choice than to give it the rare TEN OUT OF FIVE.
(HEBI CERTIFIED 10 OUT OF 5)
Disco Elysium is one of the finest cRPG's ever made. There is a good argument that it is THE finest cRPG of all time.
Coming from a clearly competent and talented team of devs from Estonia, I do not have enough time to say all of the words that need to be said about this game.
This game allowed me to play a now-sober, Hunter S. Thompson-esque, communist cop. There are many other clever ways the game allows you to build the perfect cop you want. It's sumptuous.
There are about three critiques I have with the game--replay value doesn't feel as compelling as with other RPGs, skill checks barring content feels a little cheap, and using clothing as a stat booster is a little immersion breaking.
Everything else is divine: narrative, art design, creative skills, characters, audio, atmosphere...
All in all, this game introduced me to Kim Kitsuragi so I have no other choice than to give it the rare TEN OUT OF FIVE.
This review contains spoilers
FIRE EMBLEM WARRIORS: THEE HOPES LEAVES YOU WITH ABSOLUTELY NO HOPE
As with my previous review of 'Fire Emblem: Three Houses'. this game is massive and so I will keep my thoughts fairly brief. For clarity, I only played the Golden Deer route on Hard.
GAMEPLAY: The dev team has been really upping their game since Persona 5: Strikers (another surprisingly excellent game). Combat is flashy and exciting. There are so many combos, spells, weapon arts, etc. but you don't have to do much memorizing which is kind of an amazing feat. I am still in awe of their ability to include tactical gameplay in a Dynasty Warriors-type combat experience.
CAMP LIVING: It's not the monastary, but the camp is still a fine experience. There are still activities that affect stats and gameplay. You can "go on dates with characters" which is a really fun addition, mostly because you actually get to have pseudo-conversations with them (unlike tea time in Three Houses). It took me far too long to see the backdrop of camp changes depending on your geographical location, which is really nice. I do wish upgrades to facilities yielded more of a visual reward, but that's a relatively small complaint.
STORY: I'm a little burnt out on Fire Emblem at the moment so I only played the Golden Deer route, but I have some thoughts:
1) I think it was an excellent decision to focus on the war arc. Three Houses tries to do a balancing act and ends up falling kind of flat. Three Hopes, on the other hand, focuses intently on the war...and still falls pretty flat (more on that later). At the very least, the first two-thirds of the story are very compelling.
2) It is really cool to fight the protagonist from Three Houses. I love how intimidating they made them.
3) Like Three Houses, the last third is a slog. I was so done with grind-quests by the end I even missed out on the Dancer class completely (why on earth would you lock this behind a grind-quest).
4) The ending suxxx with Three Exes. The final battle in my route was totally twisted sick...but overall there was no resolution for anything. The war. Your character. Your character from the first game. Just some narration saying "Yeah...so the war didn't end".
Despite it's flaws, it's a fantastic and fun game that I look forward to replaying. I'm really happy that New Game+ is going to allow me to skip a lot of the drudgery, much like Three Houses.
Lysithia's Dark Spikes still one shots bosses, so it could have been 5 stars...but for some reason Edelgard doesn't have Aymr so I simply must stamp it at a solid 4.
As with my previous review of 'Fire Emblem: Three Houses'. this game is massive and so I will keep my thoughts fairly brief. For clarity, I only played the Golden Deer route on Hard.
GAMEPLAY: The dev team has been really upping their game since Persona 5: Strikers (another surprisingly excellent game). Combat is flashy and exciting. There are so many combos, spells, weapon arts, etc. but you don't have to do much memorizing which is kind of an amazing feat. I am still in awe of their ability to include tactical gameplay in a Dynasty Warriors-type combat experience.
CAMP LIVING: It's not the monastary, but the camp is still a fine experience. There are still activities that affect stats and gameplay. You can "go on dates with characters" which is a really fun addition, mostly because you actually get to have pseudo-conversations with them (unlike tea time in Three Houses). It took me far too long to see the backdrop of camp changes depending on your geographical location, which is really nice. I do wish upgrades to facilities yielded more of a visual reward, but that's a relatively small complaint.
STORY: I'm a little burnt out on Fire Emblem at the moment so I only played the Golden Deer route, but I have some thoughts:
1) I think it was an excellent decision to focus on the war arc. Three Houses tries to do a balancing act and ends up falling kind of flat. Three Hopes, on the other hand, focuses intently on the war...and still falls pretty flat (more on that later). At the very least, the first two-thirds of the story are very compelling.
2) It is really cool to fight the protagonist from Three Houses. I love how intimidating they made them.
3) Like Three Houses, the last third is a slog. I was so done with grind-quests by the end I even missed out on the Dancer class completely (why on earth would you lock this behind a grind-quest).
4) The ending suxxx with Three Exes. The final battle in my route was totally twisted sick...but overall there was no resolution for anything. The war. Your character. Your character from the first game. Just some narration saying "Yeah...so the war didn't end".
Despite it's flaws, it's a fantastic and fun game that I look forward to replaying. I'm really happy that New Game+ is going to allow me to skip a lot of the drudgery, much like Three Houses.
Lysithia's Dark Spikes still one shots bosses, so it could have been 5 stars...but for some reason Edelgard doesn't have Aymr so I simply must stamp it at a solid 4.
This review contains spoilers
FIRE EMBLEM: THREE HOUSES IS ANIME GAME OF THRONES BUT BETTER
There is so much to say about this game, so I will briefly go into a number of pertinent categories. For clarity, I played every route of the game on maddening. I really like this game. But it has some issues.
BATTLE: Top tier strategy. I love the Fire Emblem formula top to bottom and the team is in fine form here. I love being able to zoom in on the battlefield and look at the grandeur of them in fully rendered 3D. Unit customization is bonkers. You can turn your scrawniest characters into beautiful machines of murder. The biggest downside from previous titles is that the maps themselves are uninspired in comparison--aside from the Crimson Flower route which boasts some of the most tense battles in the series (more on that later).
MONASTERY LIVING: The dev team clearly took some notes from Atlus here. Everything you do at the monastery (gardening, cooking, hanging out with your buds) interweaves into combat in fun and surprising ways. It is basically Fire Emblem Hogwarts and you get to RP as a professor. It rules.
STORY: If you didn't already know, there are three routes in this game (four actually, but Rhea's a narc so why would you ever side with the Church). After playing every route, here are my quick thoughts:
GOLDEN DEER (sad, sad copy/paste): This route is unfortunately a copy/paste of the Church (narc) route. Claude is shafted as a character and the stakes do not feel as high as in the other routes. The final fight rules and is unique at least.
BLUE LIONS (trudging forth): In terms of a classic "Fire Emblem", this is the route that is most familiar. It is also for narcs because you are forced to side with the Church. Dmitiri's arc is quite rushed, but still interesting. Weakest antagonists as you address neither the Church nor TWSitD. It took everything in me to finish.
BLACK EAGLES (this is it chief?): This is easily the best route depending on your viewpoint (something three houses does fairly well). Most compelling villain. Most diverse and intense maps. And it is refreshing to play a Fire Emblem game from a completely different perspective. Some say it feels too short, but I say THANK THE GODDESS. This game becomes a real slog in the last third no matter the route and I for one, was more than willing to trade a sense of finality to the story for a quicker playthrough.
DIFFICULTY: Normal is way easy. Hard is waaay easy. Maddening is the best way to play the game if you're looking for a tactical challenge, but the mode certainly lives up to its namesake too many times. There are chapters and maps that drove me to the brink, and not in a fun way. In fact, I got hard locked in a Blue Lions chapter which forced me to reload a previous save, losing hours of progress. See, the way they add "difficulty" is by juicing enemy stats/abilities and adding double the amount of enemies. It's artificial difficulty at its worst. And I will probably never forgive the dev team for the number of surprise spawns in the middle of combat that I had no way of tactically planning for. Never do this again Intelligent Systems.
All in all, it is an incredible game that needed a little more time in the oven.
Lysithia's Death Spikes alone carry it to five stars, but I simply MUST knock it down a half for not having seasons.
There is so much to say about this game, so I will briefly go into a number of pertinent categories. For clarity, I played every route of the game on maddening. I really like this game. But it has some issues.
BATTLE: Top tier strategy. I love the Fire Emblem formula top to bottom and the team is in fine form here. I love being able to zoom in on the battlefield and look at the grandeur of them in fully rendered 3D. Unit customization is bonkers. You can turn your scrawniest characters into beautiful machines of murder. The biggest downside from previous titles is that the maps themselves are uninspired in comparison--aside from the Crimson Flower route which boasts some of the most tense battles in the series (more on that later).
MONASTERY LIVING: The dev team clearly took some notes from Atlus here. Everything you do at the monastery (gardening, cooking, hanging out with your buds) interweaves into combat in fun and surprising ways. It is basically Fire Emblem Hogwarts and you get to RP as a professor. It rules.
STORY: If you didn't already know, there are three routes in this game (four actually, but Rhea's a narc so why would you ever side with the Church). After playing every route, here are my quick thoughts:
GOLDEN DEER (sad, sad copy/paste): This route is unfortunately a copy/paste of the Church (narc) route. Claude is shafted as a character and the stakes do not feel as high as in the other routes. The final fight rules and is unique at least.
BLUE LIONS (trudging forth): In terms of a classic "Fire Emblem", this is the route that is most familiar. It is also for narcs because you are forced to side with the Church. Dmitiri's arc is quite rushed, but still interesting. Weakest antagonists as you address neither the Church nor TWSitD. It took everything in me to finish.
BLACK EAGLES (this is it chief?): This is easily the best route depending on your viewpoint (something three houses does fairly well). Most compelling villain. Most diverse and intense maps. And it is refreshing to play a Fire Emblem game from a completely different perspective. Some say it feels too short, but I say THANK THE GODDESS. This game becomes a real slog in the last third no matter the route and I for one, was more than willing to trade a sense of finality to the story for a quicker playthrough.
DIFFICULTY: Normal is way easy. Hard is waaay easy. Maddening is the best way to play the game if you're looking for a tactical challenge, but the mode certainly lives up to its namesake too many times. There are chapters and maps that drove me to the brink, and not in a fun way. In fact, I got hard locked in a Blue Lions chapter which forced me to reload a previous save, losing hours of progress. See, the way they add "difficulty" is by juicing enemy stats/abilities and adding double the amount of enemies. It's artificial difficulty at its worst. And I will probably never forgive the dev team for the number of surprise spawns in the middle of combat that I had no way of tactically planning for. Never do this again Intelligent Systems.
All in all, it is an incredible game that needed a little more time in the oven.
Lysithia's Death Spikes alone carry it to five stars, but I simply MUST knock it down a half for not having seasons.
2021
This review contains spoilers
IT TAKES TWO MAKES DIVORCE VERY FUN
It Takes Two is a story-based platformer designed around couch co-op. That alone earns some street cred due to the genre's lackluster catalogue in recent years.
There are two things that can be known from It takes Two: the game was designed by an elite team of artists and programmers, but the story feels like it was written by an AI script generator programmed to potentially understand the human condition.
I'll give it to ya straight--sometimes divorce is something that MUST be done. It was difficult for my brother and I (experiencers of divorce-like events) to believe that the best course of action for our story's protagonists was to "maybe just not get divorced because that would be sad".
Off-brand Pixar hackney-ing aside, the GAME is a delicious and marvelous thing to behold. The number of inspired gimmicks and their many unique platforming, puzzle-solving implementations can be compared with the likes of Super Mario Odyssey (to a *degree).
The visuals are stunning. There was hardly a moment where my brother and I weren't in awe of the gorgeous environments.
On a technical level, It Takes Two may as well be called, It Takes So Many--given the fact that there were never any frame hiccups or noticeable bugs.
Back to "howevers"... it runs a bit long and drags in the second act. There got to be a point where the delight and awe turned to "let's get on with it already". This was mostly a pacing issue with the story, but nonetheless kept it from being a spicy five stars.
It Takes Two taught me nothing. And yet my brother and I, sitting side-by-side on our living room, sectional, pull-out sofa-- inherited a world of wonders and excitement along the way. So no, May, it was not "boooring".
It Takes Two is a story-based platformer designed around couch co-op. That alone earns some street cred due to the genre's lackluster catalogue in recent years.
There are two things that can be known from It takes Two: the game was designed by an elite team of artists and programmers, but the story feels like it was written by an AI script generator programmed to potentially understand the human condition.
I'll give it to ya straight--sometimes divorce is something that MUST be done. It was difficult for my brother and I (experiencers of divorce-like events) to believe that the best course of action for our story's protagonists was to "maybe just not get divorced because that would be sad".
Off-brand Pixar hackney-ing aside, the GAME is a delicious and marvelous thing to behold. The number of inspired gimmicks and their many unique platforming, puzzle-solving implementations can be compared with the likes of Super Mario Odyssey (to a *degree).
The visuals are stunning. There was hardly a moment where my brother and I weren't in awe of the gorgeous environments.
On a technical level, It Takes Two may as well be called, It Takes So Many--given the fact that there were never any frame hiccups or noticeable bugs.
Back to "howevers"... it runs a bit long and drags in the second act. There got to be a point where the delight and awe turned to "let's get on with it already". This was mostly a pacing issue with the story, but nonetheless kept it from being a spicy five stars.
It Takes Two taught me nothing. And yet my brother and I, sitting side-by-side on our living room, sectional, pull-out sofa-- inherited a world of wonders and excitement along the way. So no, May, it was not "boooring".