As I initially set off to finish the last of the remaining dungeons, I round a corner and a stray thought occurs: “Can I dogfight dragons in this game?” After an evening spent on that instead, it turns out that I can both do that and send it tumbling down a cliff in the process. Another thought follows: “This is probably the coolest game I’ve ever played.”

This reflects a strength that’s been carried forward from Breath of the Wild and part of what separated that game from standard open world fare: the “triangle rule.” It includes shaping environmental geometry in such a way that landmarks and other notable sights were deliberately obscured from angles players were most likely to view them from, creating a visual chain of interest as they orient themselves around it. It’s impressive that Tears of the Kingdom retains this considering just how much Hyrule has been reshuffled and expanded upon, but where it particularly excels in this regard is in terms of new additions, namely its tripling down on verticality.

Diving into a well or tree stump, winding up in a complex cave system, finding treasure behind a waterfall or at the top of a hidden shaft and using Ascend to pop out the other end in parts unknown is the exact kind of storybook-like experience that this new formula needed, like meat added to the bones of the sense of adventure BOTW was otherwise so successful at selling. Caves seem a deceptively simple inclusion on a conceptual level – goodness knows open world fantasy games’re no stranger to them – but one reason you couldn’t just plop TOTK’s into some other game is because of how their design’s informed by Link’s traversal options. Just finding them often resembles a scene out of Katsuya Terada’s art for the first few Zelda games, steep climbs into hidden entryways and all, often in a way that foreshadows the challenges inside. Slippery walls, boulders you have to smash your way through, confined spaces and other hazards combine to form the other reason, which is the contrast these environmentally constrained puzzle boxes create with the rest of the game’s freedom.

Shrines and temples alike exemplify this, as much as or more than the spectacle of diving from a sky island straight into the Depths in what’s a sensation I haven’t felt since Gravity Rush 2. Getting goofy with a combination of Ultrahand and Recall or whatever other powers you prefer to circumvent obstacles brings to mind an anecdote I have about a level in Thief 2 called Casing the Joint – years now after first playing that level, I still couldn’t tell you the “proper” way to beat it, because I’d always drag boxes from the opposite end of the level and use them to scramble onto titular joint’s roof before smashing a window that would leave every guard permanently alerted. Scuffed a method as it may sound, the important thing is that the game says “yes” to the player regardless, and the same’s largely true of TOTK; although, as with BOTW, some of its quest design shows that it isn’t fully designed in accordance with these sorts of open-ended solutions (Calip’s omniscient fence in Kakariko comes to mind), this isn’t necessarily so much a flaw as just an indicator that it’s not quite the same type of game. Where limitations like these do exist, they rarely feel so arbitrary as to outweigh the feeling of thinking like an adventurer that comes with nonlinear problem solving through Link’s new, more multifaceted powers.

Fuse is a favourite of mine not just for how it turns any item you come across into a potential tool, but also because this by extension encourages thinking about your equipment more than BOTW required. A bokoblin reaper may share the same animations as a horriblin hammer, but only one of them’s getting used for smashing enemies’ armour, clearing boulders out of caverns or searching for ore among other things. It’s understandable why some players may initially be upset at the apparent lack of any new weapon types compared to BOTW, but considering how many different functionalities are covered thanks to this one power, I wouldn’t be surprised if the devs considered and rejected the idea based on potential new ones being redundant. It feels weird to say so about a game that isn’t by any means hurting for recognition, but this is just one example of how it (and its predecessor) probably deserves more credit for achieving more with less.

This extends to its enemy design. We have a tendency to think of “enemy variety” in terms of the quantity of different enemy types, but what gets lost in that sort of discourse is the mechanical variety between those types. Even in BOTW, bokoblins have more dynamic behaviours than the combined enemy rosters of some other games, and that was without boss bokoblins, aerocudas and Zonai constructs for them to interact with. While TOTK having a higher amount of different and region-specific enemy types is appreciated nonetheless, I’m glad that fleshing out these behaviours amongst a relatively condensed roster still seems to have been a priority.

Flux Constructs are a standout in both that respect and why we ought to also apply this sort of lateral thinking to TOTK’s combat as well – in a game in which you can remove a golem’s hands to prevent him from being able to punch you, shoot dragons out of the sky with a DIY plane or suspend yourself in air with a foot-mounted flamethrower, it seems myopic to judge it based on how many ways Link can swing a weapon. Between using Recall on a certain attack of theirs to fling myself to places I couldn’t otherwise reach, darkness that’s actually dark and which requires resources to dispel, plus summonable AI companions, it becomes apparent that the sceptics were wrong – this isn’t BOTW DLC, but rather a Dragon’s Dogma 2 closed beta.

I’m only being slightly facetious, because much of what makes Dragon’s Dogma and its mutual point of influence, i.e. Skyrim, special as adventure games is present here too. If those two games could each be distilled into one key characteristic, I’d say they’re respectively dynamism and player-directed experiences. TOTK takes both and melds them with a largely honoured commitment to unrestricted problem solving that – in my view – has always felt like the most natural direction for Zelda to go in, forming a superlative package which I think sits at the top of its franchise, its console and potentially open world games in general.

All this and somehow I still feel as if I’ve only scratched the surface of all there is to appreciate here. As many words could be written about the atmosphere invoked during a sunset with the Dragon Head Island theme playing, the extent to which Ganondorf’s phase 2 transition has been living in my head rent free or the fact that, if you think about it, Link himself has become the legend of Zelda. I might play another 100 hours and still be finding new things to wrap my head around. Such a game.

Octopath Traveler was a game that took me by surprise with how much I enjoyed it. Initially, I wasn't interested in the game due to it resembling Bravely Default and because I got filtered by both Bravely Default & Octopath Traveler's demos when those were released. In retrospect, I went into them hoping for and expecting them to be games that I could play and keep my brain turned off. Before & during my playthrough of the first Octopath Traveler I realized I was a total idiot. When I finally gave the game a proper chance, I found the strategy required in taking down bosses and enemies to be one of the best parts of the game. Octopath Traveler II keeps everything good about the first game and improves upon its shortcomings to deliver a fantastic RPG that is sure to become a classic in due time.

The gameplay is mostly the same with all of the primary jobs from the first game coming back. Even the new secondary jobs share some similarities to the ones in the previous game. However, they added one new mechanic and it is one that can become a game-changer in tough situations, Latent Powers. Each traveler has a unique one with different benefits. A few examples would be, Partitio's latent power that allows him to have max BP, Agnea's which allows her single attack moves to attack all enemies, or Hikari's & Ochette's which give them access to special attacks. I can't count the number of times this mechanic saved me from what would otherwise have been a game over had it not been added. There are also EX skills that grant you access to more powerful abilities but I didn't use them as much as I probably could have. They may not have been vital additions to the game, but they are welcome ones that make the game a little bit easier and each character more unique.

The biggest issues with the first game were the story and the 8 travelers you play as barely interact with each other. While there were a couple of travelers from the first game whose stories I ended up enjoying more, in most cases the stories were more interesting and an improvement over the first one. The pacing for each story was better too. Some chapters are split into two parts that give the game a little more breathing room to flesh out the story a little more compared to everyone in the first game where they only had 4 chapters. They fixed my biggest gripe with the first game's story and that was the lack of connection between each traveler's quest. The final chapter unites all of the characters together in order to save the world and also adds some lore that pieces some events in their respective stories together.

The travelers interact with each other a lot more and in a handful of others ways than they did in the first game. There is the banter dialogue which is a lot easier to find than it was in the first game (I didn't even know it existed in Octopath 1 till the end of the game), the crossed paths chapters that involve two of the travelers going on an adventure together, and the final chapter that unites them all. Seeing all your party members interact with each other might seem like a small, unimportant oversight, but it comes a long way in enhancing the experience.

While the first Octopath Traveler may have a special place in my heart, Octopath Traveler II is a game that surpasses it in pretty much every way. If this game is an indication of what is in store for the future of the Octopath Traveler franchise, then its a series that has a bright future ahead of it.

I don’t like the sentiment that this game was “What Xenoblade 3 Should Have Been”. This game feels largely like a nostalgia-fest-y victory lap while also trying to be a full fledged game (and it succeeds in that!), and quite honestly I feel like wanting this first would have gone very much against Xenoblade 3’s message of moving on from the “Endless Now”. Thankfully aside from that one gripe with the sentiments, I’m by no means immune to nostalgia-fests! Every little reference and location and nod warmed my heart, and speaking of heartwarming SHULKDAD!!!! God I loved seeing the parents interact with their kids, even Rex who I’m not especially fond of elsewhere, I was pretty fond of in this game. Matthew and A are a fantastic duo as well as great characters individually, I love how Matthew is this sorta dumbass (lovingly) hyperactive guy, love him so much. A is my genderfuck monarch and I love A with all my heart, perfect char. Nikol and Glimmer as said earlier, in addition to being great in their own right, I loooove their relationships with Shulk and Rex so damn much. Great story of course as well, even if I feel like it could have used a bit more room to breathe. Combat I feel is pretty alright as well, they did a pretty good job differentiating it from 3’s, which was something I was a bit worried about. Major issue with it is that the defense classes can’t keep aggro for shit, especially with how overpowered Rex is (SPIN TO WIN). But yeah! Overall I loved this dlc, it stands pretty well among its peers in the series and despite how I felt for a bit in the middle, it worked its way into my heart pretty dang well. Love you, Xenoblade <3

You ever see something that only exists because some suit thought it would net them a promotion?

The stink of "internal pitch released to the public" is one that this game will never manage to wash off of itself, because that is what this so obviously is. This was designed, top to bottom, for the sole purpose of being used in a business proposal to trick some old guys into investing. AI is hot right now, peaking in its usual fad cycles — gamer president memes aren't going to be around for much longer, but they're everywhere right now —and the Square Enix business department have taken the Web3 bait. NFTs, crypto, the blockchain, and now with a re-imagining of The Portopia Serial Murder Case, we're getting into the GPT-esque AI text parser sector. What's unfortunate for the Square Enix Web3 diehards is that their ideas fucking blow and their execution is somehow even worse than their concepts.

The idea of augmenting your traditional text parser with AI may sound interesting. It isn't. Square Enix claims that the point of this move is to limit the classic guess-the-verb problems that arise in primitive text adventure games by allowing the computer to take broader guesses at what the user is trying to say; in effect, putting the challenge of "what am I supposed to do" on the program, rather than the player. The reason why this doesn't work at all is because it's ironically harder to grok what the game is willing to accept as an input when you don't have a predefined list of which verbs work and which ones don't. LOOK and USE and TAKE are primitive, but they're also intuitive. Having a conversation with your AI partner to facilitate going to a location while they hem and haw and chide you for wasting time is frustrating, not convenient.

The game told me very early on that the victim's nephew had a motive and lived down by the port, at Nagisa Apartments. The most rudimentary of text parsers should be able to link "Kobe Port" and "Nagisa Apartments" as being interchangeable should the user wish to go there; with AI, this ought to be trivial. I wanted to go check the place out to see if there was any evidence in the area. Here's what happened:

>Go to Kobe port.
"Maybe we should focus on the task at hand?"
>Let's go to Kobe Port.
"Hmm..."
>Go to the port.
"Maybe we should focus on the task at hand?"
>Go Kobe Port.
"Maybe we should focus on the task at hand?"
>Let's go to Nagisa Apartments.
"I always forget exactly where that place is. It's somewhere near the port, though. Let's head there first and get our bearings."

Emphasis mine. So the writers understand that the port and Nagisa Apartments are linked, but the game logic fails to make the connection. Awesome. Really impressive showcase of your new technology.

Also, the LOOK command has been rendered completely useless. You're now expected to hold the right control button, making all of the UI elements disappear in order to inspect the background CGs for details. If this sounds like a terrible change, it is. Trying to LOOK around Toshi's apartment just made my partner say that the building was quiet. Inspecting the background CG revealed a phone, which I then examined through the text parser. Also in the CG was a piece of paper tucked beneath the phone. I tried to look at it, but the game was confused. It didn't seem to know if there was a piece of paper, or a note, or a letter, or a notepad, or anything of the sort beneath the phone. It just kept "Hmm..."-ing me. I don't know if this was an inconsequential background element that was painted in by an artist without being considered interactive in the game logic, or if it was a critical piece of evidence that I wasn't allowed to pick up because I wasn't using the correct terminology. If I could have LOOKed around the room for a written description of what was there, the game might have been willing to tell me which word corresponded to that piece of paper. But it didn't, so I didn't get to examine it. (EDIT: After some asking around, the piece of paper was actually a core piece of evidence. The game specifically wanted the term "memo".)

I don't know what about this is meant to be "AI". My partner acts like his brain is seeping out of his ears unless I prompt him with the exact line the game is expecting me to say. It's artificial, sure, but this is far from intelligent. And the game is ten fucking gigabytes! They must have packed the entire model into this thing, and it barely functions! Honestly, this feels like a shoddy Flash-based text adventure more than it does a modern AI tech demo. Something this badly put together wouldn't have flown back when Zork was new; in 2023, this is unacceptable.

One more Square Enix failure for the pile. How many more does the company have left in them before they're forced to fold?

Look, the problem is obvious: if you want to be able to type freely in a text-based game, then you need to be able to generate responses to whatever the player might say.

But that's not Portopia. Portopia is a game with a carefully defined set of words the player can use and asks for specific responses to specific moments. That's like the point. That's half the puzzle of the game.

So if you smash in this generative text thing only on the player's side.......it won't work! Characters won't have anything to say! You still have to be just ask specific here as in the original because if you don't then you won't get any answers besides "Hm? Huh?" And without the knowledge of what your limitations are--what you can and can't do--it's no longer a puzzle. It's just a brick wall to smash your face into.

Even at free, it is baffling they let this out into the public! The idea, in theory, is interesting! Keep it to yourself!

> Go to study
"Hmm....." (command rejected)

> Go to the study
"Alright, let's go inside"

---

> Show pendant
"Let's maybe talk about that after the interview" (command rejected)

> Show her the pendant
"Tell me what you know about this pendant"

---

The above is this game, pretty much. It's rigid like the original text adventure made in the 80s with only 7 or so actions you can do at any point so the remake didn't add more to it, but on top of that the NLP makes it a worse experience despite it being advertised as "AI-powered", given similar phrases and synonyms aren't parsed correctly.

I'd suggest to anyone to play the original instead, at least the limitations are understandable there.

I have this propensity to never play games a second time, even the ones I love. It serves me well more often than not, because I greatly value backlog exploration and sheer variety over mechanical or scholarly mastery of any specific title. Where it bites me in the wahooey, however, is in largely skill-oriented titles like character action games, ones that demand keen attentiveness and willingness to retain and juggle knowledge of systems macro and micro. For as much as I love these games for their absolutely unbridled pomp and the hot-blooded verve that courses thru em - I know I’m not going to get the most out of them, I just don’t have that kind of attention. Bayonetta 1 is astoundingly good, but it’s a game I essentially Bronze Trophied my way through, and only watched .webms of people going sicko online for. I only knew what dodge offset WAS when I hit the last level, when it was too late for me 😔.
Bayorigins: Wily Beast and Weakest Creature is just a nice little scrimblo that forces a more steady pace with its longer runtime and focus on action adventure & metroidvania-lite elements. There is a more sensical focus on the storytelling here than in the mainline entries, exemplified through its presentation style of a children’s picturebook narrated by a granny. It’s all just nice, the visual direction is utterly astounding, and is the most blown away I’ve been by sheer artistry in a videogame in a very long time, the shader programmers were spinning in their chairs like the tasmanian devil on this one. With the combat being a touch more of a tertiary focus on the title than the rest, it allows itself time to slowly blossom through the course of the runtime with a steadily increasing amount of abilities, roadblocks and enemy gimmicks - and while there are no post-battle ranking screens to have Stone trophies nip at my heels, it felt immensely satisfying to sense myself mastering it under a more forgiving piecemeal delivery. It’s actually a little impressive how intuitive this control scheme becomes after an awkward starting period; forcing the player to control two separate characters by splitting the controller inputs down the middle. With its smart application within certain story beats, I became more than sold on the way this plays, kinda love it. For all these reasons, it's my favourite Bayonetta game. This is the warmest I’ve felt for a Platinum title since Wonderful 101, and while it doesn’t reach the same heights, it’s a miraculously good little spinoff to patch over my confidence in the studio that Bayo3 had dented.

Train your ears as you make your way through Avalon Forest and you can practically hear a familiar sound.

You could quite easily argue that Bayonetta Origins is the most Clover-esque game to come out of Platinum thus far, but it becomes apparent early on that its level design and progression structure’s drawing from a very different well: Metroid! Areas and items initially just out of reach, cordoned off by the likes of icy branches or rippling lakes, become open as Cheshire gains more elemental powers. These powers sidestep the common issue of feeling like glorified keys by the degree to which they flesh out the game’s action portions, simultaneously enabling a combat system that has more going on by the midway point than most comparable titles do by their climax and bolstering the setting’s labyrinthine characterisation through mechanics. With Metroid Prime fresh in everyone’s minds after having recently been treated to an atypically faithful remaster, one would hope audiences have a renewed appreciation for how rare it is to see this sort of design even attempted in 3D, nevermind executed to such a standard that every loop and interconnection between Avalon’s different biomes feels geographically plausible.

Neither Cereza nor Cheshire will be shinesparking their way out of bounds, to be clear, but that’s just as well, because the artistry on display in Origins is made to be soaked in at a leisurely pace. To illustrate the point, here’s a collage I made out of some of my screenshots. This game’s beautiful, there’s no other word for it, but one reason that’s exciting is because it’s reflective of the hidden talent yet lurking within Platinum. The staff behind Origins includes more than a bit of new blood, including the game’s director, and (if I’m not mistaken) this is Tomoko Nishii’s first time in the art director’s seat. We may hope that her and her team’s work is recognised and rewarded, because the world needs more games that can cause me to involuntarily mumble “how did they do that?” more than once. Their interpretation of Irish mythology is especially ace – the stained-glass, crystalline whimsy of the Tír na nÓgs and the faeries is a wonderful fit for the imagery conjured up by folk songs I’d heard as a wean.

As befits a playable storybook, all involved with the narrative side of Origins demonstrate a similarly tight grasp of their crafts. The voice direction here’s easily on par with that of The Wonderful 101 and suits the characters’ expressive visuals so well, the narrator’s gruff impression of Cheshire being particularly brilliant but not so much as to outshine or overshadow Angeli Wall, whose understanding of Cereza is such that you can all but hear flashes of her future self buried under layers of insecurity and self-consciousness. Therein lies a key strength of Origins – recontextualisation. Every instance of Bayonetta’s attitude in the mainline games feels all the more nuanced having now been exposed to her humblest of beginnings. Considering what he endures in this game, Cheshire has well and truly earned his right to be such a goofball by the time he becomes Viola’s companion (maybe that’s not just tobacco in his pipe). A post-game bonus chapter redefines Jeanne’s eventual fate as a knowing act of selflessness where previously it might’ve seemed uncharacteristic of her. It all represents the best kind of storytelling one could ask of a prequel, i.e. that which retroactively enriches the rest of its franchise.

This harmoniousness is part of why the sentiment I’ve occasionally read cropping up, that Origins turning out to be as great a game as it is in wake of Bayonetta 3 is somehow surprising, is one I find a little perplexing. If Origins’ quality might be seen in relation to its companion piece in any capacity, it’s in a sense that vindicates and is complementary to that game’s principles, not which stands in contrast to them. Origins shares more than a bit of its DNA – the core axis of controlling two characters simultaneously, multiple currencies with independent purposes, a boss, several characters and visual motifs – but perhaps the most important component is the same willingness to throw caution to the wind and upend series conventions, taken to the more extreme conclusion of completely overturning the tone, art style and general formula associated with Bayonetta as opposed to “just” altering all of those significantly. It’s an already bold direction that Origins has doubled down on, which seems a hard thing not to respect when courting mass appeal would likely be so much easier.

If all hasn’t made it clear already, this is the type of game that a cynic might describe as one that doesn’t happen anymore. It’s borne of pure passion, in other words, and come the end credits, there’ll be no doubt in your mind that the team behind it are utterly in love with these characters and the world they inhabit. As rich in mechanics as in story, stuffed with unlockable costumes, riddled with the little things (check out Cheshire’s idle animations in each of his elemental forms) and representing a series with no shortage of fresh ideas, you can’t reasonably ask for more than this.

Let’s dance, and possibly pet some bunny rabbits.

Backloggd phenomena report: you ever notice a discrepancy between a game's average rating and what the top reviews have to say about it? Both prior Bayonettas are pretty good examples of this. Reading through the original's reviews would have you convinced it's one of the highest rated games on the site, but it's sitting at a good-but-not-great 3.9/5. Conversely, its sequel, by all accounts, must've featured a puppy getting stiletto'd in the opening cutscene or something, but it's got a more impressive 4.1 average. Personally, I chalk this up to the casual-hardcore dichotomy. Leisurely gamers make up a larger portion of the collective unconscious, but passionate players are more likely to both write in-depth analyses and spend time voting up reviews that they agree with. I don't claim to be an expert on high-level gameplay or anything (my 'about me' on here isn't at all facetious) but I like to think of myself as someone who can see both sides of the spectrum, and I can at least anecdotally vouch for my theory being correct here. My appreciation for the first game's nuances only grows with each revisit, but, at the same time, I have several friends that consider it among their favorites who were surprised when I told them that you can continue a combo after dodging. On the other hand, I remember genuinely enjoying 2's story the first time around, but I wasn't able to finish a replay in preparation for this...

Bayonetta 3 manages to break this pattern, apparently finding common ground with its relatively low (at time of writing) 3.7 average and generally underwhelmed top reviews. Obviously, this doesn't actually mean anything, but, to me, it's representative of how so many decisions in here bafflingly appeal to neither audience. Demon Slave, the game's major new mechanic, had potential in expanding Bayonetta's moveset by giving her another avenue to creatively set up finishers, but every kaiju's overbearing nature, not to mention the fact that enemies don't seem to respond to them at all, make them feel like just another strong attack. This wouldn't have mattered as much if they at least looked cool in action, but it's usually hard to tell what they're even doing- the camera zooming in on Bayonetta even when a demon gets the encounter's final blow is a telltale sign that this wasn't thought through. They also mean that enemies lack an intimidation factor, a pitfall that could've been similarly avoided to some degree if they weren't incredibly generic visually. This extends to bosses, which primarily just feel like big enemies- at no point during a Bayonetta game should I be surprised that I got a boss bonus at the end of a verse. And there's also the smaller stuff. Retaining 1's lack of interest in an intelligible narrative without any of the energy that made its cutscenes at least watchable. The multiverse setting, which I (perhaps generously) attribute to bad timing and not any kind of trend chasing, is, at times, novel, but it lacks the showmanship of a Psychonauts or a Travis Strikes Again to really make its worlds exiting from a casual perspective. But far and away the most insulting is the implementation of the gimmick sections. A staple of high-action games that, at their best, satisfy both pros (by offering pacing reprieves and remixes of core mechanics) and casuals (by offering memorable, eye-catching spectacle) but here don't even attempt to do either. Instead, they're boring, slow-moving, time-consuming, utterly bizarre affairs that make you wonder if the minds behind them even knew what game they were working on.

But, against all odds, I ended up enjoying myself. It could just be because Bayonetta's core moveset is so great that I'll never outright dislike any of her games, but I think the alternate weapons deserve their due credit. Nearly all of them are genuinely remarkable in how outlandishly they're designed, completely distinct yet somehow perfectly in tune with how our Umbran Witch operates, and ultimately just great fun to mess around with. Maybe the true lesson to be learned here is that if you throw enough darts at the board, you're bound to get at least one bullseye. Considering she's just received her own prequel spinoff, Bayonetta is the leading lady of a capital-F franchise now, and I'd much rather see her flinging ideas about haphazardly than indulging in another round of playing it safe.

𝙼𝚊𝚛𝚌𝚑 𝟷𝟾, 𝟸𝟶𝟶𝟻...

𝙸𝚝'𝚜 𝚊 𝚍𝚊𝚢 𝙸'𝚕𝚕 𝚗𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚛 𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚐𝚎𝚝.

𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚘𝚙 𝚒𝚗𝚜𝚒𝚍𝚎 𝚖𝚎 𝚍𝚒𝚎𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚍𝚊𝚢.

𝙸 𝚠𝚊𝚜 "𝚊𝚜𝚔𝚎𝚍" 𝚕𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚝𝚘 𝚓𝚘𝚒𝚗 𝚊 𝚝𝚘𝚙-𝚜𝚎𝚌𝚛𝚎𝚝 𝚐𝚘𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚗𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚐𝚛𝚊𝚖.

𝙽𝚘𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝙸 𝚑𝚊𝚍 𝚊 𝚌𝚑𝚘𝚒𝚌𝚎.

An old woman stumbles towards you with a raised pitchfork in her hands. You stab in her in the face. She does nothing. You stab her a few more times. Maybe she'll do something. She does nothing. You stab her in the face a few more times. Maybe she'll do something? She relents. Now there's enough distance to shoot her kneecap with a 9mm bullet. She does nothing. Her head would now be at the perfect height for you to spin-kick it into the piranha-infested waters like a toxic football, but she's still walking towards you; it's time to parry. When the game gives you permission to do so, you press the button and bat away her pitchwork. She stumbles back in impressive pain, and the sheer force of your kick causes her husband to stumble, tripping a landmine in the process. The mine incinerates the dock you're standing on in a shower of beautiful sparks - one for every pound you spent on this Nvidia GeForce GTR 4090XL graphics card - and you remark on how far video games have come since Pac-Man. In a past life this display would have immolated the rest of the woman's family too; they would have melted away into chicken eggs and pesetas. But they're still here now, waiting for their turn in the same sanitized digital ballet you saw in John Wick 4 the other night. Time to do the same old thing again.

You return to Resident Evil 4 for a lot of things, but I think the paragraph above succinctly describes the core loop that we all keep coming back for on the PlayStation 4, the PlayStation 5, the Xbox One, the Xbox Series S, the Xbox Series X and the PC. The scenario might change (slightly), the enemies might change (significantly), the weapons might change (substantially (fuck you for what you did to the TMP)), the graphics might change (definitely). But you are, despite it all, controlling a baying mob in the cleanest, nastiest, most efficient way you possibly can. Bonus points if you can make it look cool as Hell in the process.

Playing this right after resident evil 4 (2005), it's plain to see how this game was a forking point for the series - both games are essentially the same implementation of a core idea, but choose to tackle combat from different angles of genre. At their best, they emphasise close management of an advancing enemy pool using a fairly limited toolset that flows naturally into the other aspects of itself: Knife to pistol. Pistol to kick. Kick to grenade. Grenade to egg. The movements feel primitive, awkward and unintuitive at first, but soon reveal themselves to be expertly crafted for natural achievement of a precision-flow state, racking up minor-yet-satisfying hits to keep a crowd under control while setting up scenarios where bigger and badder moves can be unleashed at the appropriate time. Put Leon in resident evil 4 (2005) and I bet he could manage at least a few rounds of The Mercenaries.

This replay of the game was inspired by a re-release of the game that recently came out. As someone who spends a lot of time talking shop to people about people like Shinji Mikami and Hideki Kamiya, it's easy to fall into the trap of evaluating these games as beautiful little puzzle boxes to be mechanically solved and understood - but spend ten minutes with someone who likes Resident Evil 4 because they simplified the water room, and you'll discover that there are actually people out there who think Resident Evil 4 (in its current remade form) is as much stupid greatness as your average A24 film. I hate these people, but I do understand where they'e coming from - when this game came out, I bought it for myself despite knowing I was deathly afraid of time's perpetual march forwards; even worse, I was the type of person who said things like "you can't improve on this in any way" when Leon told Saddler to stick around at the end of the castle section. Resident Evil 4 (in its current remade form) is essentially my worsetest nightmare. It’s Resident Evil.

𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚝𝚛𝚊𝚒𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐, 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚙𝚞𝚗𝚒𝚜𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚖𝚒𝚜𝚜𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜 𝚗𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚕𝚢 𝚔𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚎𝚍 𝚖𝚎.

𝙱𝚞𝚝 𝚊𝚝 𝚕𝚎𝚊𝚜𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚢 𝚔𝚎𝚙𝚝 𝚖𝚢 𝚖𝚒𝚗𝚍 𝚘𝚏𝚏 𝚘𝚏 𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐.