Katana Zero is a short pixel art 2D game were you control some kind of super soldier, that is a Urban Samurai, and can see the future using an special drug. A drug that was used on other soldiers to win a war that happened in the world. The rest is better to discover playing the game.

Gameplay:
The gameplay is quite simple. You can move and jump attack; roll to dodge; throw objects and slow the time, that is the main mechanic of the game, even though you can play the game without ever using it.
A positive pointe is that the games has a good variety of enemies, levels and some optimal stuff in the gameplay; for exemple you can jump and attack upwards to make the jump higher and also deflect attack of enemies, the second one is explained in the start of the game.

Story:
The story is really deep with some things that can be confusing or have multiple meanings. Honestly some elements and set pieces don't really fit with the world and is just kinda meaningless, at least for now.
The story basically is around our character trying to understand his dreams, that has something with his origin, with the help of an psychologist, that also gives missions to complete.
We also have some choices to make during the Playthrough, most of them, doesn't really change the game in a major way, but changes our own experience in some way.
The levels are also really unique and different from each other, each one also have optional ways on how you should finish it.

Soundtrack:
The soundtrack has a lot of variety, mostly being something electronic. A good touch is that our character always start the level puting his earphones and playing the music; the music's name appears at the right bottom of the screen.

Conclusion:
The game is really simple. What mostly made me continue to play was to discover the origins of our character. Also the gameplay can be really satisfactory, but is still too simple.
In Replayability way, the game has an speedrun mode that skips all cutscenes and go straight to action. Also having highscores. Special keys to unlock new skins for the sword and a secret boss. Other than that, you can try to master the levels, the gameplay and mechanics are really simple, but is really fun to learn the levels and discover new ways to beat it.
I don't think the story really shines that much, still the set pieces and revelations are really awesome. But still is just good. A thing that I don't liked is that the choices don't matter that much on the game, at least not on a major way as I said.
If you are a fan of indie games, specially with a simple but still interesting story, I recommend it. It is a good experience.

Huge amounts of adrenaline, anger, almost non-stop action with a little bit of platforming, weapon switching, complex and challenging gameplay and, of course, a lot of Ripping and Tearing. All of this hearing a solid metal soundtrack.
That pretty much resumes Doom Eternal's experience.
Doom 4 = Doom (2016)... just saying.

-The Campaign

The campaign here have much more variety and a different pacing from Doom(2016). We have different stages like Earth, Hell, Exultia, Urdak, etc. With an amazing level design with verticality and movement options like the new Monkey Bars. With a big variety of different demons, each one with their own strenghts and weaknesses: flying demons like the Cacodemon and the Pain Elemental are really vulnerable to the ballista, and the Cacodemon can be put into a glory kill state if you throw a grenade/Sticky Bomb from the shotgun on his mouth; Arachnatron, Mancubus and Revenant can have their main weapons destroyed with enough damage; shields can be exploded with plasma rifle; the Tyrant... just shoot it until it dies. The weaknesses are incentive to use different combinations of weapons, but you can always play in your way and ignore the weak points. All the weapons have their pros and cons, it's up to you on how you gonna use them.

There is also the secrets and collectables, completely improved from the previous game. Almost all the demons have their own Toy; you can find upgrades; secret encounters and also the new Slayer Gates, these are new confrontations from gore nests. With the Slayer Gates, you need to find a key to enter the gate, beat the Gore Nest's level and you will win Empyrean keys that you can use to unlock a new baddass weapon that is as strong, if not stronger, than the BFG, if you know how to use it.

Something I need to adress is about the pacing of the game in comparison to Doom 4. In Doom Eternal we see some little platform sections, some of them seems like it came right away from Bowser's castle, while on Doom 4 is mostly action behind action, almost non stop. If you liked or not the pacing, is really subjective. Doom 4 have a stable rising pacing, that can maybe become boring because it's only rising and Doom Eternal have a lot of falling and rising on it's pacing, where the low parts of the pacing can feel really unecessary and boring. I myself prefer the falling and huge rising on Doom Eternal's pacing, the platforms sections aren't really a problem for me.

At the last, but not least, we have the Master Levels. That are, basically, the campaign levels but MUCH harder. With more and stronger demons and with all upgrades and weapons unlocked. Is chaotic, hard and really fun. But we only have a few of them, some are exclusive to special editions.

-The Soundtrack

The soundtrack... is Doom Soundtrack, I don't have much to say. Is metal, adaptative, is amazing. Mick Gordon did an amazing job, really sad that he is out of the team.
Still it seems like the soundtrack is in the good hands of Andrew Hulshut and David Levy that made Ancient Gods DLC's soundtracks.

Some Songs:

Meathook(Mick Gordon)
Blood Swamps(Andrew Hulshut)
Immora(David Levy)


-The Story

The story is just enough... for Doom. It actually have more cutscenes than the previous. Honestly I don't even remember the majority of the plot, except the epic moments.

The Lore otherwise is really expansive. If throughout the game you become interested on the elements of the story, the characters and locations, you can go to the menu and read from the Codex Entries you can find on the maps, they have a lot of information to become invested about it. If you are not interested, you can just ignore it.

-The Multiplayer

Different from Doom 4 with a pretty normal 4v4 Arena Deathmatch multiplayer based on modern shooters's multiplayers, with loadouts and everything. On Eternal we have a Slayer VS Demons deathmatch with 2 Demons players, map demons and also demons that the players can summon. Each round each team can make one upgrade with the third upgrade being special like for example summoning a Baron or the BFG.

Unfortunatly it can be seem as a wasted potential, because it would be so good if they made an actual Arena Shooter like the old ones.

Also something I really liked is the Battle Pass. BUT, different from other games that you need to buy the Battle Pass to get the items, in Doom Eternal you have to... actually play the game. You unlock new items leveling up and is really easy, the game have week challenges that give tons of XP and are a incentive to continue to play both the Campaign levels and the Multiplayer.

-The Gameplay

Now the gameplay is of course the focus on this and it doesn't dissapoint with it's fast-paced FPS style. Some weapons have new alternative fire modes like the Plasma Rifle with the Microwave Beam and the Chaingun with the new Shield. Now all the alternative fire modes really have their own strengths, all of them are viable even if it's situational: The Microwave Beam seens inferior but you can use to stun a enemy on place, the Full Auto from the Shotgun makes you slow but does a lot of damage and recovers shells, amount of shells depends on the demon; etc.
The movement is improved and make Doom 4 seems slow in comparison. You now have two dashes that you can upgrade to recover faster, Monkey bars that make you swing through the arena and the awesome new Grappling Hook on the Super Shotgun that you can use to just pull yourself to the demon or to fly through the level if used right, you also have Double Jump at the start.
Also the new "gadgets" Ice Bomb, that freezes demons, and the Flame Belch that gives armor when you hit a demon. Each one with their own upgrades.
Is even really hard to remember EVERYTHING you can do on this game, which maybe can be conciderated as a flaw by the way.
.The Skill Gap

In games, especially action based games, we have the Skill Floor and Skill Ceiling.

The Skill Floor is the normal/average skill that the players achieve on the game, normally seen as the "casual" mass.
The Skill Ceiling is where the mastery of the games is, where players that really invest their time on the game to learn new techs and most eficient ways to play, normally seen as the "hardcore" mass.

Doom Eternal has both a high Skill Floor and even higher Skill Ceiling. This can turn a lot of players off, especially the "casual" mass. That is actually one of the criticism of why Doom 4 is better, because it just feel better and easier compared to Eternal. On Doom 4 you can play on any way basically right away from the start, while on Doom Eternal you have to, at least, understand the basics and the advanced tricks of the game like weapon switching, mobility, demons's weaknesses, etc. Doom Eternal, as I said, also have a overwhelming amount of information to remember like: Health, Armor, Ammo, that is much more scarce on this game; Flame Belch, Grenades, Ice Bomb, Dashes AND Chainsaw, all of these with Countdowns.
It can feel really overwhelming to some players. Still is subjective, I myself think that it is overwhelming but is still manageble and worth the fun and the power fantasy.

-Conclusion

I had the most fun, high adrenaline and the best arcade experience with Doom Eternal. Also something that I don't see much people talking about is how arcady the things are on this game, for example on Doom 4 you found weapons being held by a corpse, on a case, etc; on Eternal, some of them, you just find floating with a glowing green color; the fact that when you put the demons on fire and explode them it just, literally, start popping green armor pieces and there is also the Monkey Bars that are really funny. I found this to be kinda "charming", we need more games that actually fell like a GAME.

About the tons of information the player needs to manage in this game, is hard, really hard. I can understand why some people felt off about this game. If you don't like the amount of things you have to think about, I recommend Doom(2016) for you. If not, get Eternal NOW.

Doom Eternal was one of the best games I ever played. Is just action, anger, Ripping and Tearing, you guys know. I completely recommend this game especially to people that like to invest their time to understand the game and play well and still have a good challenge. It's also on Xbox Game Pass by the way.



And I think the Marauder is fair.

Kill a monster, make his equipment, hunt stronger monster, repeat. It's literally what monster hunter is... and I have +1000 hours only on this one.
Monster Hunter World is a totally different game from it's antecessors, being much more accecible with the most different gameplay and better controls. Even though, of course, there are changes that some of the older fans aren't going to like. But I still think World is a great evolution of the Monster Hunter franchise.

-Some of the Changes
MHW changed a LOT of the franchise's gameplay, these are just some of the changes I think are the major ones.
The gameplay here is much less clumkier compared to the older games, especially the two first ones. You can evade to cancel some of the animations, like sharppening the weapon, gathering or driking potions, by the way you can use potions while moving. But I think the best changes regarding less clumkiness are in the monster animations that are MUCH better; being less robotic and a lot of the attacks are more fair, better telographed and have better and tigher hitboxes.

The hunts have now a tracking system; in older games you nedded to just run around the whole map trying to find the monster and throw a paintball on it, it would take a lot of time sometimes, especially if it was a new monster that you didn't have knowledge of what areas he appears and goes. I would expend more time running around trying to find the monster than actually fighting it. On World we have the Scoutflies, where you can collect tracks of the monster and, after enough tracks, he appear on the map. You can level up the tracking level on the hunt itself just collecting more tracks so you don't even need to collect the tracks in next hunts and the monster just appear on your map. The level goes down as you don't hunt or collect tracks of a respective monster, until you have to collect tracks again to find him.

The item gathering is faster, a lot of them can be gathered while moving like herbs, honey and insects; you also don't need to bring pickaxes or bugnests.

The game actually has an weapon upgrade tree so you don't need to search it in forums. Also the monster's weaknesses and carves are on the "Hunter's Notes" in the menu; they also show information about the monsters and tips about their fights.

Instead of Gunner and Blademaster armor we have the Alpha, Beta and, some, Gamma amors. The Alpha has more skills but not much decoration slots, the Beta has more slots but less skills and the Gamma is a special kind of armor that is, basically, a combination of Alpha and Beta with different set of skills, but not every armor has an Gamma version. Also, the skills are based on individual points instead of only being activated with 10 or more points.

Decorations are the one based on RNG instead of Charms, that are now the ones that are craftable.

Camps can now be fast travelled to it, when you are not in a fight, and also restock your items; you also have to unlock all of the other ones besides the starting camp.

And still much, much more like Armor Previews, were you can equip weapons to see the skills and how a Build would be; auto crafting; backwards evade; sliding on the terrain; the canteen's food mechanics; the online system; Village and Hub Quests are now the same, not having individual progression; investigations that, basically, replaced the Optional Quests; the slinger; and much, much more. A lot of them are Quality of Life changes that make the game faster and more acessible and some are a total mechanic changes like the armor skills. There is just too much changes. Some of them, I gonna explain in individual topics.

-Story
Story on Monster Hunter is something kinda of... disposable. Before MH4, the older games didn't have an actual story. Here, I feel that they tried a little bit too hard to make the story feel cinematic and serious with the characters and all. The introduction for each monster is good but I feel it could be a little bit more impactful to make the monster really feel like an over-agressive threat that you NEED to kill. The thing is: on MHW I, most of the time, just felt like I was the one invading the monster's territory and not the monster that is the one out of control and unbalacing the ecosystem; Im not the guy that cares about beating the shit of an "inoccent" animal on video games, but I think this context of an "over-agressive" monster is important for Monster Hunter because that is why the Hunters exist, to kill these monsters that are destroying the ecossystem because they are so strong that they are out of control.

About the plot, I think is... alright with some slips. The plot is about the hunters going to the New World to study the Elder Crossing, a migration of Elder Dragons, that started getting more frequent recently.

The characters are... underwhelming. The majority of the main side character does from little to nothing really, I didn't really liked any of them too much. There is not much to talk about them.

The worst part is the fact that you can't skip the cutscenes. If you are playing with a friend and he didn't watched, you both are forced to watch until it ends.
Because I played completely Solo, I didn't have problems with it, but still is a really annoying problem for the ones playing Multiplayer.

-Soundtrack:
The sound score of this game is just outstanding, it made me remember how important music is to video games and the amount of emotions that different kind of music can gives in different parts of the game.
It's amazing how Monster Hunter just do the feels of the songs just right. Every theme gives their own feel and concept to it, some of the Monsters also have their own themes and all of them work so well with them.
Astera's theme for example, always make me feel like Im on an actual military base where everyone is working hard doing ther role and jobs, also makes me feel confortable and give a tone of hope for the "operation". Is really underwhelming how music can be underestimated on video games and all the different kind of feelings that you get from the music.

Some songs:
MHW's Main Theme - Star at our Backs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=po_t8I9FC2Y

Astera's Theme:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88G-FndKZNk&list=PL5Mj1YD-jmuk3RtKNAfKWcVhCaSbt_yEz&index=7

Nergigante's Theme(Flagship of MHW):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AT5CwodhyDA


-Gameplay
Different from some of the other games, World is definetly more focused on the action. Not just have much more useful moves, better controls and weapons reworks but also because the game is just smoother now, so the fights are much more manageble. Of course we still have the hunting items like traps but they feel less mandatory this time around, which I apreciate.
We have 14 Weapons that are divided in the Light Weapons, Heavy Weapons and Technical Weapons; 11 of them are melee and 3 are Ranged. Each one is completely different from the other having a really diverse playstyle and really deep mechanics. Every weapon has their on advantage and disadvantages against monsters's parts that either does more or less damage to a certain part or some weapons have an easier or harder time breaking certain parts. For example, of course, you can't cut the monster's tail with a blunt weapon like the Hammer, but is much more easier to hit and break hard parts like horns and the blunt weapons have an better time with hard parts that bounce the attacks. Some weapons require more patience and timing on their hits and others not too much but deals less damage per hit.
Some people can think that the gameplay is just clumky and slow, but the thing is that this is on purpose. The gameplay is one based on timing, patience, placement and, especially, punishes. Monster Hunters is really about that: fighting and mastering a fight knowing the monsters's moveset and how to punishing each one of it's attacks.

On MHW we also have the introduction of the Slinger, that you can use to throw some projectiles on the monster or in places to draw it's attention. Now, is the slinger that you use to shoot things like the Flash Bomb. The damage and effect of the projectile depends on the "ammo" type, that you need it to equip it first. You can also use it for more mobility like when climbing or shooting a Grapple, that is always equipped, to swing and traverse the map faster; you can also use it while on the air so you can go from a tree to another while jumping and swinging.

Also, for the weapons, I recommend that either you go to the Training Area, that you can access talking to Housekeeper one your room, and test all of them; or you watch video guides to see all of them, also their showcase on the Official Monster Hunter Channel on Youtube, not Iceborne by the way.

-The Multiplayer
Before Monster Hunter worked with 4 people Lobbies, in MHW it's now increased to 16 people, wich I didn't enjoyed much. I found myself a lot of times just waiting in the hub waiting for the groups complete the quest so I can try to enter in the next one. Also sometimes I would do quests in group, and when we completed when I tried to enter again someone would take my spot and I would be left behind just waiting again. Is just Annoying.
My experience with the multiplayer wasn't really that good, not the worst though.
An interesting addition was the SOS Flare. While on any kind of quest, you can use this SOS Flare that make that anyone, even people that aren't on your lobby, enter your quest to help you. I don't have any comply, just think is a good addition.
The worst part would be when a Only Online monster would be added and I nedded to go play and struggle trying to find a good lobby and play with randoms.
The most satisfying part was when I completed the game and started to help begginers to defeat the monsters that I struggled and still would be quite a challenge even with endgame gear.
Still, my experience and best experience was mostly on solo. I also recommend for the people to complete the game solo and then go to the online. Is really easy to carried and lose the main part of the game that is learning it and getting better.

-The World
MHW have really big focus on the way you can use the environment like different types of slinger ammo, toads that cause different effects or rocks that you can shoot and fall on the monster causing a lot of damage.
The monsters also have an independent AI, that isn't perfect but is still really interesting to watch them doing their own routine like hunting, drinking, taking a rest, etc. If a monster encounters another one they can, sometimes, fight on a scripted animation called "Turf War" where they both do a percent of damage to each other or the stronger does a lot to the weakest one. Is really fun to watch them fight while you just sits back and watch the action.
Still about the Map, MHW has a total of 5 Locales and 4 Special Locales to special Monsters. I liked the design of all of them and also how they look and work, even the Ancient Forest that can be a freaking maze sometimes but I think is because of this maze that it is that makes it so unique. And, of course, the main hub Area: Astera. It's main problem is definetly it's size, things are just not convenient placed and you need to walk to much to get to some places. Also there is loading screens that can take too much to load depending on your platform.

-Quests
There are 5 Types of quests on MHW, including Expeditions.

.Assigned Quests - Basically the Key quests to progress on the game.
.Optional Quests - Quests that you get after the Assignments but you can also get them from NPCs and you gonna be rewarded with new items, equipments or Upgrades to the farm or canteen for example.
.Investigations - These the main ones that you want to use to grind. They come based on RNG and it depends from the Location that you are, for example: if you unlock a new investigation on the Ancient Forest the investigation is going to be one of a monster in the Ancient Forest. These investigations give differents amounts of Bonus Rewards. There are also Tempered Monsters Investigations, basically monsters that do more damage; they give you decorations on the Bonus Rewards and they are a major part of the endgame in Base World.
.Special Assignments - These are quests for the monsters that came from Title Updates; of course, if buy the game now, you gonna have them right away.
.Event Quests - Special Quests with different traits like stronger monsters, theirs sizes, special rewards, etc. On MHW these were on rotation but now you can do all of them freely.
.Expeditions - Basically, the free roam. You can just go to any of the Locations that you want and hunt all the monsters, gather items or just to move around seeing all the stuff that the map has like secret areas and camps.

-The Monsters
The game has a total of 36 Large Monsters, one of the smallest on the franchise. 19 Being completely new monsters, 14 being returning monsters and 3 of them being "Collaboration Monsters" that came right away from other games.
Also, compared to older games, the roster is much less diverse. Here we only have Wyverns and Elder Dragons, also Relics that are only the Leshen and Ancient Leshen, yes... from The Witcher.

About the combat and difficulty, as a player that started with World, I honestly think that the difficulty was well made. The difficulty curve is greatly increased everytime with a monster that is basically a difficulty wall that really tests your progression and skills as you play the game. Some of my favourite monsters are these ones that acts like a wall that you need to surpass to continue.
For the majority of the veterans, the game can be seen as pretty easy. As I said, the controls are vastly improved from the older games, besides things like less clumkyness and quality life changes.

Monster Design and Equipment Design wise, I really liked, even though I think some of them are too simple and, as I said, not much diversity on design. Im a guy that likes most of these simple designs that still can make up with their concepts.
Talking about design, I have to talk about the problems on the weapons's designs. A lot of the weapons, especially the ones that comes from the early monsters are, literally, just Bone Weapons with a monster's part slapped on them, like a feather or scales. Making all of them look REALLY similar, basically identical.
The problem with this, besides the fact that the design is really bland and boring, is that it makes the progression feel weak and stale. At some point of my first playthrough I started thinking that I was doing something wrong because all my weapons looked the same even though I was upgrading them. It's really boring not to feel an actually progress sense because the weapons looks all the same.
On counterpart, what the weapons have of boring, the armors are really amazing, also every armor still has an alternate design for the Alpha and Beta sets; the difference on the Gamma one isn't that big.

The game also had monsters that were added after launch with Title Updates, of course now they are already done. They tried a lot of new thing with some of them like the MMO inspired mechanics, one of them being One Hit Kill attacks that have predetermined ways to avoid... most of them being hide behind rocks; these were the most controversial. My main problems with these are some of the Siege Fights that took a lot of time to complete because you nedded to "complete" the hunt multiple times to weaken the monster and THEN actually complete it or slay it at some point, also they weren't soloable like they are now, you nedded to play online. Another problem that started to bother me is that they would just rob the spotlight of a lot of non-title update monsters, because their equipment would be really powerful, ESPECIALLY the last one that basically broke the game and made every other armor obsolete.

-Conclusion
For me, MHW had one of the best, if not THE best, first impressions I ever had for a game. All of my expectations were reached and even surpassed, and they weren't low. The gameplay loop was really fun and addicting; even though you are, basically doing the same thing, the game didn't felt repetitive at all for a long time(+400 hours to be more especific) because of the different monsters and personal goals that I created after completing it. The Title Updates and events were also really fun to follow.
That being said, it isn't a game for everyone. The game is focused on a gameplay loop that can maybe feel stale and boring, especially on the start if you don't continue playing. For the veterans, I know that a lot of them didn't liked the more action focused gameplay instead of the more tatical, slow and cautious hunting features and gameplay.
As I said, if uou play it, I recommend to complete it solo and then going to multiplayer. Being carried isn't fun and you lose the main satisfaction of the game.

I had really good time on World and it is one of my favourite games. If you like action games, especially the ones with a combat like the Dark Souls and other Soulslike, that is compared a lot to Monster Hunter by the way, and if you tried any of the other Monster Hunters before World but didn't liked because they were too clumky, I highly recommend this one.



But wait... there is more. MHW, of course, as all MH games, have an Ultimate Version called Iceborne. That gives EVEN MORE content, it certainly added +400 hours for me.
I made a review for it separetely.

A stressing and frustrating, still satisfying, restricted stealth focused game that tested my patience and sanity. And I still managed to play till the end, did all of the achievements, all my grades on missions are A or S and, maybe, Im gonna play a little bit more. Maybe I AM a masochist.

-Offtopic
My relationship with stealth focused games is quite complicated. Is an style of game that interests me always and I try to like, but when I play I always end up stressed and frustrated no matter how much I try, and isn't different with Aragami, maybe even worst. When you are spotted in the majority of these games, the fun just go away because of the lack of improvisation and what you can do, especially if the enemy alerts everyone. With Aragami, being spotted means that you either run or die; even kill the enemy that spotted you is sometimes risky, even if using techniques.
Also I played the whole game on Hard, so maybe some complains are only on that difficulty.
Anyway, to the review:


-The Story
At first I thought that the story was going to be just a context for the killing, but I got surprised that the Plot gets more and more interesting each mission, I find it to be amusing and intriguing, still sometimes confusing. The thing that confused me even after the end of the game is that two important characters that we meet later has REALLY similar names: their names are Hyo and... Ryo... I understood everything after finally noticing.
In the plot, you are an Aragami, a vengeful spirit, summoned through an ritual by Yamiko, a woman that is trapped somewhere and summoned you to free her from a prison that she was sealed on. Throughout the story, the Aragami discover memories from items that you recover, some of them are from Yamiko and others are from other characters that you discover later.
The mysterious memories and even the past of these characters from the memories are the aspects that kept my attention the most; I also really liked the ending.
As I said, is not focused in the story, but I still find it to be pretty good most of times, except for the two names that I confused even after the end.


-The Gameplay
The gameplay is mostly simple, maybe too simple. The main mechanic in Aragami is the Shadow Leap where Aragami can teleport to whenever place, in a limited range, if it is covered in shadows. You can also use Shadow Creation to, of course, create shadows that you can teleport to or just create shadows on your spot to mantain maximum stealth. Shadow Leap and Shadow Creation use Shadow Essence, that you recover automatically staying on the shadows.

There are Aragami Skills and Techniques, divised in Defensive and Offensive Techniques. You can use the Aragami skills, mostly, whenever you want and the Techniques can only be used two times but you can recover the usages by Shrines, that recover all the usages for all techniques, or the Shadow Kill, that is a Aragami Skill that is a really cool kill where you summon a shadow snake or dragon to kill the enemy and instantly erases him AND it also recovers one usage for one Technique that you are equipped.
The way you unlock these are with scrolls that you find on the maps. I recommend to unlock the skill that automatically shows the location of all the scrolls in the map early as possible, you gonna need it.

The biggest flaw of the gameplay is definetely the lack of good mobility, or even lack of basic mobility, I mean you can't even jump. The only way to move around the map is: walking, walk crouching, running and the Shadow Leap. Even that the Shadow Leap is a really cool mechanic it still has it's limitations like range, you can't teleport to no shadow spots, you can't use it without Shadow Essence and it can be really tricky to use on some surfaces.
The fact that the game is the restrictive kind of stealth game makes this an even worst flaw. In my opinion, Aragami doesn't have and it doesn't need "deep combat mechanics". If you are fighting an enemy 1v1, he can kill you in one hit but you can too. In a restrictive kind of stealth game like this, I don't want to go 3v1 against enemies like is a action game, the priority is on the stealth, how you move and how you hide. The thing is: the lack of even basic mobility gives not much options for you to hide or retreat fast enough, or even ways to kill enemies, Aerial Kills are also tricky sometimes by the way.
You can't jump, climb on places, dodge, kill enemies from cover or hide into different places like wardrobes for example. You can use the Shadow Leap to get into high places for example but it can be pretty tricky, especially if you are under pressure. Tons of movement options and ways to hide and kill are the highest priority on games like this.

Also a really cool detail: the techniques that you are equipped, it's usages and your Shadow Essence are all on your Cape, it's basically your informal UI. Is just a really interesting detail that I liked, because is cool and stylish. The only bad thing about it is that the cape has it's own physics so sometimes it can get tangled and you can't see shit, so you have to untangle it... in some way.


-The Stealth Experience
There is a video of the developers saying that they tried to make the game less forgiving unlike other stealth games... and they made it. The game doesn't have any kind of combat mechanics exactly to make you act more strategic and cautious as possible, also the fact that you die with just one hit. For me it makes the game quite less interesting because, as I said, when an enemy spots you and get alerted, the fun is over and most of the times is just hide or die. Kill the enemy is more risky than it looks because you can either be too slow and enemy kills you or you manage to kill the guy but another guy spots you.

Another thing that really stressed me alot the whole game is that enemies would spot me on the first frame when I just started a kill animation, kill animations that are really slow by the away. And most of the times it would be really unfair like I am on the shadows killing someone also on the shadows and a enemy really, REALLY far away would spot it, sometimes even becoming alerted and alert everyone else. I don't know if it's me the one they see, I think that the guy you are killing instantly becomes a corpse that can be spotted. But it still doesn't make any sense, it's like the corpse is a giant beacon of light that can be seen from anywhere, it doens't matter if you kill someone on the shadows or not. If he is "in front" of someone, it doesn't matter how far he is, he IS going to see it.

Still, it never stopped being satisfying the ways that you kill everyone usign different techniques and techniques combos in a way that you don't alert everyone on the map. And the techniques are all versatile, especially when fully upgraded; the only technique that I found to be uninteresting to use is the Kunai... is a Kunai... that kill distant enemies, which can even make things worst because, as I said, everyone IS going to see the corpse.
Seriously, this weird corpse visibility system is definitly the thing that made the most frustrasting because of how unfair it is, maybe or not because I played on hard.

For the last Im gonna explain the 3 states of your character depending on where you are: on Shadow, No Shadow and on Light.
.Light: You can be seen from the other side of the continent, and you also lose Shadow Essence while you stay on light. You can't create shadows on Light.

.No Shadow: You can be seen less than on Light, but is still really visible. You can create shadows on your spot to mantain stealth or in another place to teleport to.

.Shadow: You are almost invisible, to compesate how visible you are in the other states. Enemies really only see you from close. You can create shadows on shadows but... unnecessarily, obviously. You also regen Shadow Essence on shadows.


-The Missions
The game has an arcade way on how you progress in the missions. There is an score system and rewards called Seals
The Oni Seal is given when you kill every enemy; The Kami Seal is given when you don't kill anyone; and the Yurei Seal is given when no enemy sees you.
There is also a Grade system to show how good you were.

About the map design and repetition, I honestly think that the maps are pretty good. All of them have an good map design, some are better and more unique than others.
The thing that can maybe feel repetitive is maybe the objectives, especially on later game. Most of the objectives are just retrieve an item and exit the area; what helps to make it feel less repetitive is the amount of obstacles that the game introduces, besides the enemies, like light barriers.
There is also 3 boss fights in the entire game but, the second one being not really a boss FIGHT but is still a special kind of mission. Honestly, I don't have much to say about them, still think is better than just watch a cutscene.


-Conclusion
As an Indie game, I can say that it feels really different from other stealth games because is much more restrictive and make the player act more strategic and cautious on how, who and where to kill because the smallest slip can make one enemy alert the others. This was the developers is objective, and they did good.
My experience the first times because of this more restrictive playstyle just made me more frustrated on the game and I installed the game two times trying to like it. The third time being now when I finally managed to play in a smart way and understand it how it works. In my opinion it is a really unique kinda of stealth game and maybe not for every players because the majority of the stealth games are not just really forgiving with errors but some even lets the player be agressive and not even play stealthly, letting them play in their own play styles like Dishonored and Metal Gear. If you played Tenchu, you might find Aragami familiar; Tenchu was actually the main inspiration for the developers.
After I finnaly started acting smart and surpassed the frustration, the game started being much more satisfying, especially when I started re-doing all the missions to unlock all the Seals and get good grades.
Even though the thing that frustrated me the most is the corpse visibility and how unfair it can feel, this is most probably, because of the hard difficulty. In my opinion the true biggest flaw of Aragami is definetely the lack of basics mobility mechanics, LIKE JUMPING.
At the end of the day, Aragami was a good experience and I think it is an unique kind of stealth game. Different from other stealth games that lets you throw the stealth out of the window. Aragami mantain the stealth genre's roots with a restrictive kind of style gameplay. The game got more and more satisfying to play as I progressed.
I don't know if I recommend it to non stealth fans, maybe on normal difficulty, but I highly recommend it to stealth fans.

There is also a Coop mode, but I didn't played.

One of the first actual worthy expansions that I bought separately from a game. It expands even more Monster Hunter World with more equipments, monsters, mechanics; just much more content in general. Definetely one of the best expansions ever made.

-Even more Changes
MHW already basically remade the gameplay of the Monster Hunter franchise, and Iceborne added even more things, some to continue in next games, somes don't.

The main new mechanic added on Iceborne is the Clutch Claw; a equipment that you can use, without sheathing the weapon, to do a "semi-mount" on the monster and attack him, if you get hit you dismount, unless you are using certain mantles. If you just attack with a normal attack, besides doing damage, the monster's part will be tenderized; if you are using a Light Weapon you need to hit 2 times, unless you are using a special skill; if it's a Heavy Weapon you only need to hit 1 time to tenderize it. You can also use slinger ammo while mounting with the Clutch Claw to send a monster into a wall to topple it or send it to a ledge to make him fall down; you can only use it when he is not enraged.
With this, it came a problem: tenderize a monster feels like it's mandatory. Because tenderizing a part gives so much bonus damage, the monsters were balanced to have more health and take less damage and even some skills were also balanced with the clutch claw in mind. This was made to influence the players to use the Clutch Claw, but now it feels like you need to use it all the time. The "Wall Bang", when you use slinger ammo to make the monster hit a wall, feels like the only correct way to do a lot of damage on a monster when he is not enraged.

All the weapons received new moves, some use the clutch claw some don't. Making all the weapons much more stronger and versatile and making the gameplay even more action focused.

New decorations and now Level 4 decorations.
Some skills can go above their max level.

A new snowy location called Hoarfrost Reach and another one that you unlock after completing the story and is really important for the endgame grind, it also makes the endgame here much more diverse and better than base world, that was basically hunt tempered monster to try to get good decorations.

A new base snowy village called Seliana was added, I fell that a lot players that played MH: Freedom Unite will feel kind of familiar with this new village. Seliana is MUCH better than Astera, being much more smaller with more convenient placement of things like the Smither, the Canteen, item boxes and the Tailraider Safari, also no loading screens except if you go to the also new Gathering Hall, that I liked much more than the other one on Astera.


-Even More Monsters
The base game had 36 Large Monsters, one of the smallest rosters in the franchise. But Iceborne added 35 new ones, almost doubled the roster, literally by 1, being the expansion that added the most monsters in the franchise; MHW Iceborne have now a total of 71 Large Monsters. Out of the 35 added, 18 are returning monsters and 17 are new ones.
Also, now we have a monke, a furious monke.

And of course, more monsters means more equipments, equipment that looks FUCKING SICK... except some weapons that, unfortunatly, still look terrible, though it's less than base world.


-Story
I kinda liked the story of Iceborne more than the MHW one because we have a little bit more of character development.
The new plot is basically: "there is earthquakes, monsters migrating to other habitats, ice and a weird "song" going on. Go discover what the fuck is doing that", is basically that, with a couple of cool moments.


-Soundtrack
The soundtrack is still outstanding. Honestly I just put this here to recommend some songs:

MHW: Iceborne's Main Theme - Succession of Light
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOIkiPeIbvY

Nay! The Honor is All Ours
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0xTx2BsLRc

Seliana's Theme:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jc-lYkl0lrc

Velkhana's Theme(Flagship of Iceborne)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtOcADX4v6k


-The Guiding Lands
Now this is the new endgame of World that is a major addition and adds a really different and better endgame from the base one.
The Guiding Lands is the new location that has a set of different regions in it; as I said, you unlock after beating the expansion's main story. All the monster materials that you grind here are all used to augment your weapon. Normal and Tempered monsters has different drops.

It has 6 different regions that you can Level Up but also Level Down, unless the levels are fixed. You can have 3 regions on level 7, the max level; 1 region. Also, you can go to other people's Guiding Lands if you don't to want to grind to level up or down your regions.

The monsters appear on different areas by the RNG; but you can control who appears based on the level of the region or just use Lures, that you get by completing special tracks or creating via Elder Melder.

The Guiding Lands was an amazing addition that motivates to continue playing a lot because is an major part on augmenting the weapon and is a total step forward compared to the endgame of base World.

Also there are monsters that you only unlock on the Guiding Lands.

-Conclusion
I wanted this review to be longer, there is things that i didn't talked about like specific unique monsters and mechanics that they added and title updates, that are now all on the game. But is mostly because I want players to experience most for themselves.

It was even more fun to watch the dev diaries; the final one was quite emotional.

Iceborne was the first expansion that I bought full price separately, and it was 100% worth it. It adds even more to an already complete solid game. It made World even better than it was and added +400 hours to my experience.
Like World, i recommend that you beat Iceborne on solo and them go multiplayer.

If you loved World, I highly recommend Iceborne. Is an amazing example on how to make a worthy expansion that adds even more to an complete game.

A really charming RPG game with a roster of charismatic characters that make the story better than it should be. It is a really fun and good experience overall, even though it lacks some major things, mostly because of lack of resources.

-Story
The story starts with Phineas Welles, some crazy scientist, invading a ship and trying to free one of many people that are in cryo sleep; because he is in a hurry he needs to choose fast and blindily and, of course, our character is the lucky one chosen to be awaken. After that, we escape on a capsule and land on a planet in a... interesting way. Like that, the game starts and as the game progresses we meet new people, factions, do choices and discover the motivations and ambitions behind Phineas.
One of the motivations is that he wants to destroy The Board, that are basically the corporate bastards controlling everything and doing some... complicated work ethics stuff, the first city we encounter: Edgewater, shows us pretty well what all of this is about. Is also on Edgewater where we already have our first major choice.

Honestly, the thing I liked the most about the story, isn't the story itself but the characters. I think a lot of the ones we meet have a lot of personality and charisma put into them.
We also can have companions, up to 6 and take 2 to the open world.
Unfortunately, we don't have any romance options with anyone.

Parvati is best girl by the way.


-Gameplay
The gameplay is pretty standard First Person RPG, with some stuff that makes it more complex like Damage Types, Perks, Flaws, Equipment Mods, Companion's Special Abilities, and bonus Skills when you take then with you, and Science Weapons.

"Flaws" is a really interesting mechanic that I don't really think any other RPG had in the way is implemented here. Basically, if you are doing too bad against something, you get a flaw. For example: if you are getting too much damage from physical attacks, you can choose to get a flaw where you take more damage from physical attacks, BUT you get a perk point to spend. There are some unique flaws like Robophobia or Drug Addiction, you can accept them for the additional perk point or just add an interesting flaw to you character for the role playing.
The perks are just ok I guess. the majority of them are really simple like "more damage this", "more health", etc.
I would prefer maybe less perks but perks that changes the actual gameplay.
Companions also have their perks, most of them are similar or straight up the exact same; again like "more health", "more damage".

Another main game mechanic is the Tactical Time Dilation (TTC) that is pretty much based on the Pip-Boy from Fallout. It slows time and do secondary effects depending on where you shoot the enemy.

Regarding equipment, we don't have a lot of weapons variety but what we have is balanced and some really interesting and unique ones like the Science Weapons.
The most underwhelming part is regarding the armor; a lot of them have skills of course letting you do plenty of different builds. What I didn't liked is their design, the game have too much of just recolored armor with the exact same design, making the progression feel stale even though your armor is, stats wise, better.

I think the gameplay itself overall just feels well and fine to play.


-RPG Experience
The character creation lacks a lot of customization like body type and face features. Basically we can only choose head presets and them customise minor things, which is quite underwhelming; we can also customize gender, of course, hair and some features like makeup and scars.

Something interesting about attributes here is that you don't just choose in what area your character is good but on what he is bad, for an extra point of attribute. For example: you can put a negative point on Inteligence and make your character Dumb, and them you unlock specific dialogue option exclusive for Dumb characters which is a really nice touch, even though I don't remember if this happens with other negative attributes besides Intelligence.
These attributes don't just affect your skills and dialogue but also on combat, influencing things like Crit chance and Auto-Regeneration.
Of course also makes your character have more traits of personality for role playing.

The skills work quite in an unusual way here, I don't think I've seen this on other RPGs. Basically, the skills are divised in groups, when you upgrade a skill you are upgrading a set of skills from the same group. When an individual skill gets upgraded to level 50, you need to upgraded it individually after on. This can make the game feel kinda of easy, at the start at least because you are really just upgrading multiple skills at once without spending a lot of skill points.
Something also interesting about the skills, and that some Fallout NV are going to find familiar, is that the majority of them is not just useful in their specific areas but also on dialogue options or combat. For example: If you are good on Engineering you don't just receive the skill's bonus but can also choose Engineering related dialogue options if you are good enough; If you have enough Persuade skill, you don't just unlock new dialogue options but also have a chance to make humans afraid of you in combat. This is a really good way to make all skills versatile and more interesting in their own way.

And of course: Choices, the most important thing in any RPG. The majority of quests, even optional ones, have a lot of different ways to be completed and have consequences regarding your reputation or resolutions; all choices are viable, you are even allowed to just kill everyone you see.
Still, a really big flaw that I noticed is that the consequences of major choices don't appear until you finish the game. For example: after choosing the fate of a place and going back to it, thinking that everything would be falling apart, I was dissapointed to see everyone and everything was on the same place they were when I leaved. Even though the resolution appears on the ending, it's not just more immersive but more satisfying to see these resolutions in-game as you progress.


-Conclusion
Outer Worlds may be not the best RPG experience ever, but it is still a really fun one.
The characters are one of the best parts of the game for me, all their charismatic traits and personality, even though some can be over the top and the game oversaturate the theme of "Corporate bad". Still I cannot not love most of them.

The gameplay is also just enough to be fun and satisfying. There's still weapon customization and mods that gives some complexity to the combat; even though the weapon variety isn't a lot, is balanced and there are some unique ones, especially the Science Weapons.

For the last the RPG part is also good enough, except for the fact that most of consequences don't appear in-game... also no romance options. This is, most probably, because of the lack of resources, it is still an Indie game or not exactly a Indie but still not an AAA game.
I also wanted it to have normal Save files; like, you can still load to different files even if you are playing with a new character. But I just prefer normal save files.

As you guys can see, Outer Worlds may not THE best on what it is. But is still just a fun, good and a solid game to play; I had a lot fun playing and doing multiple playthrougs, testing different choices, playstyles and role playing. I recommend to any RPG enjoyer, especially the Fallout fans; is quite interesting that this game came right after Fallout 76 by the way.

Is as they say: "It's not the best choice, it's Spacer's Choice!"
(Sorry I couldn't resist)



Also:
There is two different DLCs for it. I still didn't played any of them yet.

Sekiro Shadows Dies Twice, actually more than just twice, is a From Software Soulsborne game that can also be considered a rhythm game, most of the time. It was also my first ever From Software game and what a sufferable and wonderful first impression.

-Story and Endings(No Spoiler)
You are a nameless shinobi, later on, is put the name of Sekiro and Wolf, wakes up on a well with a letter on your front; the letter says to you to find your destiny at the moon-view tower. You go to the tower to Find Kuro, The Divine Heir, a young boy that is also your master, he is captured and wanted by his bloodline and mysterious powers; he gives you your sword and that's where the game actually starts. Your objective as his shinobi is to protect and help Kuro to achieve his goals. Throughout the game, you meet new NPCs and expand the intriguing lore that, as all Soulsborne, is pretty expansive.
Something interesting about the NPCs's side quests is that, even though it doesn't seem to have different choices, some of them can end in many different ways; most of them also don't tell exactly where to go, you discover as you play and explore the locations. Some of them, don't even give unique rewards, even if useful, the big reward is basically expanded lore and world-building which I can totally respect; sometimes I would do side quests just out of curiosity of where things would go, the "tangible" reward was just profit.

About the endings(AGAIN, don't worry, there are no spoilers) there are 4 of them, you can do 3 of them in only one run, but it includes save manipulation so I recommend that you search it online if you want to do the 3 of them right away. I did the conventional way and started NG+ for all of them.

1º Ending - Is the basic one, I think it was good and even foreshadowed throughout the game, it finishes the story well.

2º Ending - Is the alternative one and... "easiest", and by that I mean that is the easiest to find out alone, except the basic one of course. It's the one with the most optional bosses to beat. It's really satisfying and it also finishes pretty well, maybe with just a little bit of opening for a sequel, and I think it's the one that fits the character the most.

3º Ending - It IS the easiest but the most secret one if you don't see guides right away of course. It is a confusing ending, I still really like it but this is one that gives the biggest opening for a sequel, which is worrying because, that I know, From Software doesn't like to do sequels.

4º Ending - It is an ending where you can beat the game earlier, also having two alternate final bosses. I think this one is my favorite, even though it got spoiled for me, I still liked it a lot... more than I should I guess.

A liked all of them, even if basically all of them were spoiled for me in some way, the 3º one I got really surprised because I got a minor spoiler by the achievement's icon, so I thought the ending would be something but ended up being another thing completely different.

The story is just enough to be good but the biggest thing, standard in all Soulsborne basically, is the game's Lore, that it doesn't just expand by the story itself but also items descriptions, dialogues and also secret dialogues, mostly by eavesdropping.
Lore is something that I always love in any game because is basically an optional story that you pay attention only if you want to. Sekiro does this pretty well expanding the lore with all the location's stories, NPC's dialogues, items descriptions, it really motivates you to pay attention to details but, AGAIN, only if you want, which is the best part. It's amazing when you notice the connections in the lore between characters and the different locations in the game.


-Gameplay
First of all: this is not like Dark Souls. I remember when this game launched everybody was playing like is Dark Souls, trying to dodge everything and underestimating or not using much of the game's combat tools, which is the biggest mistake that you can commit in this game, and I committed for a time. Sekiro is totally different from Dark Souls or Bloodborne, I would say Sekiro is definitely in the middle when it comes to offensiveness and defensiveness playstyle; at the start, the game is more defensive but as you progress you have new ways of going on a more offensive way, but still not reckless or full action paced.

First of all, let's talk about the main gimmick of Sekiro: Deflecting. Instead of having limited stamina, you and the enemies have a limited Posture meter that fills up until it breaks; for the enemies is basically a second health bar, you break their postures, you go for a Deathblow, a kill animation; when the player's posture breaks, Sekiro is going to stop blocking and topple down, being fatal most of the times and being extremely frustrating. Your posture never breaks as long as you deflect... easier said than done; also I have to say: Deflecting an enemy attack on a clutch moment and going for the deathblow is one of the most satisfying feelings I ever felt on a video game. The posture gauge recovers automatically when you stop attacking, the less health you or the enemy has, the slower it regenerates.
But there's is a big flaw: when you deflect, your posture still fills up, which means that if you parry almost all of the enemy's attack strings and your posture fills up to the max and you don't deflect the last attack, your posture breaks and you can die. I died a lot of times like this and It just feels REALLY unfair because is basically the game saying: "Ohh, that is so bad, you deflected ALL of the attacks... except that last one... oh well, I guess you die now"; It's just really annoying to be punished so hard because of one little mistake even though you played almost flawlessly.

Some other focus that this game has is a bigger emphasis on mobility and traversing the map. You have a grappling hook for more verticality and you can also use it on some specific bosses.
There is also the implementation of Stealth, which is really useful; you can just sneak a lot of areas ignoring enemies, if you can't just sprint through all of them, also just kill them right away from behind and even remove a whole health bar from mini-bosses, you can only remove it one bar of course.

Last but not less important: the Exploration. This is my first Souls game so, even though I know this is basically standard for all Soulsbornes, I just need to talk about the interesting way the game teaches you about map exploration: it doesn't. The game really just throws you into the world and says "Here, you are free. Have fun now", that is the kind of exploration this game has.
The game doesn't even have a map, at least not a conventional one, or a way to know where the place you need to go is except by paying attention to dialogue and texts. Even on New Game Plus runs I would still get a little bit lost on where the place I was supposed to go was. There was this one time on an NG+ where I was trying to go to Ashina Reservoir, that is an area that I would ALWAYS forget where it is, I randomly walked into an old woman and I thought "Meh, why not just talk to her" and she actually told the direction not just of the Reservoir but also another important area that I needed to go. This kind of event, even though is just a minor thing, really emphasizes exploration, talking to NPCs, and paying attention to dialogue and other texts, even if subconsciously.
There is also Eavesdropping, which is an interesting mechanic that mostly just adds some lore but also can unlock new important dialogues, item localizations, and even trigger quests for different endings.
There are also of course the Sculptor's Idols that are basically the Bonfires. Here they are really frequent having a lot of them in the different locations. You can fast travel, unlock skills, improve vitality, posture, and attack, buy Spirit Emblems and even change skins, fight bosses and do boss rushes.

Something that I don't really liked is the punishment when you die. On Dark Souls, for example, you lose Souls but you can recover them if you manage to reach the place you died; on Sekiro when you die you lose half of your money, experience and can give Dragonrot to NPCs; XP and Moneywise the only way to recover is grinding again. The Dragonrot is an illness that NPCs you contacted would contract after some "True Deaths", even though it seems interesting, isn't really as bad as it may look, maybe just lock some NPC quests and dialogues. There is a mechanic called Unseen Aid that can go up to 30%, this is the chance you have of not losing anything when you die; the more NPCs with Dragonrot, the less chance you have. I honestly don't liked it, I would even just forget to cure the Dragonrot.


-Combats and Progression
I feel that most of the people, especially the people that didn't stick on the game for much, felt the same: the combat is repetitive and underwhelming; and, honestly, I don't just understand why but also felt like that for a long time.
At the start of the game, it is going to feel really stale and repetitive because most of the time you are just going to stay idle Deflecting things until the posture breaks. Another reason why it feels stale is because we can only use one weapon, which would be our sword. But the more you play, unlock new skills, Prosthetic and learn bosses's weaknesses the more depth it gets.

In Sekiro, differently from other Souls games, you don't have any other weapon besides your sword. All of the playstyles are focused on some combat skills, the Combat Arts and Prosthetics.

Let's talk about the Prosthetics first, these are also a main gimmick in the game and to use them you need to consume Spirit Emblems, which I'm going to talk about later. I think most of them are really useful, some better than others, and some are really situational, still they are really useful in these specific situations. They are, like a LOT of things in this game, ALL missable. I for example on my first run only discovered one of them just in the middle part of the game and another prosthetic I just discovered the existence on NG+ 2; so yeah... explore the map and pay attention to detail. For example, some of its localizations are got by eavesdropping on enemies, mini-bosses, and information sold by merchants, but you still need to recognize the locations in the information you got.
These Prosthetics are definitely the biggest underestimated mechanic of the game, which is also a mistake that I committed. They can make a lot of boss fights really easier, even the situational ones. As I said: The more you play, the more complex it gets, you don't just upgrade the prosthetics but also unlock specific combat skills that make them even better and more versatile.

The Combat Arts are the ones that feel even more underwhelming, especially at the start.
We have two types of Combat Arts: the ones that Cost Spirit Emblems and the ones that don't.
Most of the ones that don't cost any Spirit Emblems can feel really weak, which... they mostly are, exactly because they don't cost any Spirit Emblems. Most of them are better on mini-bosses or just really situational on main bosses.
The ones that cost Spirit Emblems are the big boys but, as I said, they aren't free and may feel like a waste if you use them recklessly, even though you can still use them if you don't have the Emblems, a weak version of course. They, like a lot of the Prosthetics, can make a boss fight much easier, especially if you combine both the Combat Arts and the Prosthetics.
Something that I liked is that you unlock new combat Arts by items while exploring the map or doing some quests.

Now the Spirit Emblems, that I repeated 100 times over this topic. They are basically your second "currency", except you spend them on using some Combat Arts, Prosthetics, and some specific items. Something that I didn't understand at the start is that they are limited, and what I mean by that is that you can run out of them and have to buy or grind for them. I think they made it like this exactly that you don't be completely reckless because if you be, you are going to run out of them.

Overall, Sekiro's Combat may seem underwhelming and repetitive the first hours or even the first playthroughs, but if you stick to the game and learn how to play efficiently, it gets just better and better the more you play and learn how to deal with enemies and the best you to use your Skills and Tools.
A complaint that I have about it is that even if gets better later, the game doesn't give much motivation for you to try to play in different ways besides playing defensive and focusing on Deflecting, quite the opposite in some way. Sometimes I would try new strategies using different Prohestetics and Combat Arts and I would just end up dying or it wouldn't have a really big reward. On my first playthrough, I almost didn't use the Prohestetics and only used 1 or 2 combat arts. I just started trying more on the NG+ runs because deflecting wasn't really enough, then it just started getting better. That can be a flaw to most of the players, basically the combat just starts to get more interesting, more complex, and more rewarding too late or just doesn't even gets better if the player isn't upgrading their stuff enough.
The main motivation that I can think of, besides they being effective the more you upgrade them, is weaknesses that the bosses have like weakness to poison, fire and the Firecrackers, a Prosthetic, that can be more effective against a specific boss or a type of enemy. These Firecrackers for example are even more effective against beasts. These weaknesses are shown, mostly, towards items descriptions so it can be easy to miss.

Talking about Upgrades and Progression, the game doesn't have any way to upgrade your stats, EXCEPT for Vitality, Posture, and Attack. You upgrade Vitality and Posture by collecting four Prayer Beads, that you gain by finding on the map but, mostly, receive defeating most of the Mini-Bosses; the attack is upgraded with Memories from the Main Bosses. You can have up to 20 Vitality and Posture and 99 Attack.
As I said, the Prosthetics can be upgraded with upgrade materials that either does something better or an alternative version that works differently, and also the Combat Arts can be upgraded to a better version.
Something really weird that I noticed is that, even when you upgrade them, you can still equip the obsolete version that works exactly like the upgraded but is weaker. It's not like it's a flaw, I just think is weird.


-Bosses and Pacing
The boss design on this is probably one of the most bizarre and unique I ever see; which when I explored the other Soulsborne, I noticed that this is also basically another standard. All of them are not just amazing designed but their designs also tell how they fight might go; the swordsman is the ones where you need to use and prove that you know all the fundamentals of the game like deflecting and countering unblockable attacks while others like some beastly looking bosses have a totally different fight.
I think MOST of the bosses, especially the main ones, are really good and fair, even though there are minor ones that give a sour taste. A lot of them may play similarly but you can't play efficiently the same way with all of them. Let me try to explain: deflecting is still the main gimmick on most bosses but how you punish them and manage to use your tools in the best way possible is really different; some bosses may be weaker to some specific tools that are useless to other bosses, even consumable items. Maybe that is another reason why the Prosthetics may feel underwhelming if you try to use only one Prohestetic all the time it may not work always the same way because it isn't as efficient to one boss as it is to another; so is basically trial and error each attempt, try different Prohestetics and even specific consumables to see which one of them works the best.

Now about the pacing, when I mean by "pacing" I mean how the bosses are put in a way that teaches and tests your knowledge of the basics and advanced fundamentals and game mechanics or even breaks these exact fundamentals.
For this, I need to use two bosses as an example and I have to talk a little bit about their fights.
One of my favorite bosses of the game is Genichiro, he is the one that tests if you know the advanced fundamentals that are: Deflecting and Countering the unblockable attacks. After you defeat him, these fundamentals are even more reinforced and if you didn't adapt before, after you start to understand how important they are.
After Genichiro the next main boss would be the Guardian Ape, one of the bosses that are considered the most difficult, especially on the first tries; one of the reasons for that is because he just breaks almost everything that you learned with Genichiro. Deflect means mostly nothing, actually, this fight is more focused towards dodging and sprinting away and them hitting hard when he is recovering.
This kind of pacing happens on the entirety of the game, even on the start; there is the bosses that act like walls that you can only pass if you prove that you know how to play and understand the basics or the advanced mechanics and may feel similar and repetitive, but there is others that just break the basic and you need to fight them in a totally different way. I think this is really good even if these fights that break the basics feel like most of what you learned was useless because it makes the boss fights feel less repetitive and more of the same.

Still about pacing, is good to remember that just some bosses have a mandatory order that you can fight; I, for example, talked about Genichiro and the Guardian ape, but there are a lot of bosses that you can fight after or earlier. There is a boss that you are supposed to fight only on the middle of the game, but I fought against it basically on the start of the game, before Genichiro.


-Difficulty and New Game+
I couldn't talk about a Soulsborne without talking about the difficulty.

I honestly think the difficulty is well made, at least for most of the bosses. A problem that was recurrent on my first playthroughs was Artificial Difficulty, that is something that I totally despise in any game; there is a big difference between a bullet sponge boss that kills you in one hit and a boss that is hard to read and memorize its patterns, doing big damage but also rewards you for countering in the right way. That is actually why Genichiro is my favorite boss, he has a lot of big damage attacks that can even hit kills you but, if you counter it on the right way, you too can also punish him with big damage.
But not all bosses are like this, some of them have big damage or one-hit-kill attacks that doesn't really let you do a hard punish if countered correctly. I think a relatively good example of this is an Ogre, an early mini-boss that has... questionable hitboxes; even though he is really slow, you are still too early on the game, not having much options for big damage punishes; he is also a boss that breaks fundamentals so some players might fight him in a inefficient way... also the questionable, QUESTIONABLE, hitboxes.

But one of the reasons why I felt that this game is really dependent of artificial difficulty is the things that make the game harder. By the way, YES this game HAS difficulty options, except that is not an Easy mode, it's: Normal, Hard and Very Hard.
Let's start by Hard first:

There is an item that you can find early on the game, after the Ogre to be more specific; it's called the Demon Bell that makes the enemies do more damage and have more health BUT you gain more and better loot from enemies, don't include more money. The first time I beat the game I had the demon bell activated in the middle of the game, I think; and the changes were... noticeable but the game still felt fair and was a good playthrough.

Now the Very Hard is where I'm still not completely sure about what I think; after you beat the game for the first time you receive the Kuro's Charm in all next new games, if you give the Charm to Kuro you not just gonna increase enemy's damage and vitality but also receive chip damage for blocking, making you need to learn how to properly deflect even more, the good thing is that you gain more money and XP. The "Very Hard" comes from having both the Demon Bell and Kuro's Charm's penalties, making the game basically a one-hit kill fest.
I'm gonna get back to this after. Gonna talk a little bit about New Game Plus first and about my runs.

Right after you finish the game you have the choice to start an NG+ right away or stay on the playthrough to do other things like collect all the Prayer Beads. When you start a new one you carry all the skills and items, except key items, and unlock the Kuro's Charm that you collect with the letter on the well. Each new NG+ increases money and XP gained until NG+ 7.

Now, back to the Artificial Difficulty subject, in this game, I think it is a necessary evil, which, even though I despise it, I still recognize it is necessary for not making the game too easy. For this I'm gonna talk about some of my playthroughs:

NG+ 2 - I went for the 2º Ending and was with both the Demon Bell and Charmless. It was here that I started getting conflicted about the game's difficulty and I took... some months to beat it, maybe even a whole fucking YEAR; of course, most of it, was because it was such a sufferable experience that I always hesitated to go back to the game and would end up giving up. When I finally got back to the game and beat my PTSDs I basically finished right away, only a few bosses were left so I could have finished much, MUCH earlier. The experience was just mostly sufferable and gave me a lot of conflicting emotions about the game.

NG+ 3 - I went for the 3º Ending BUT, because I didn't wanted to suffer so much as the NG+ 2, I only went Charmless, without the Demon Bell; and HOLY. SHIT. It was so easy it hurted. I just rushed the game and beat it in TWO FUCKING DAYS. And that is when I noticed that the artificial difficulty was definitely necessary; the most times I died was 3 or 4 times against one boss, the others I beat either on first or second try.

NG - This is not New Game Plus but a True New Game; I played only with the Demon Bell, I actually didn't even know the Kuro's Charm was on a True New Game, as easy as the NG+ 3; of course it was because I already knew all bosses's patterns, weaknesses and I used Prosthetics and Combat Arts in a better way.

So, basically, the artificial difficulty is necessary for the game to be harder and not just that, on my NG+ 3 and True NG I played much better and using much more of the game's tools like the Prosthetics, Combat Arts and Items, as I said; all of this made me realize how much better the difficulty of the game was than I thought it was.


-Conclusion
Sekiro is a wonderful game and it's amazing how I almost slept on it for a long time.

All the challenges were really good to overcome; I loved all of the bosses if not most of them. Their fights, design, lore, all of it make them so unique and satisfying to overcome.

The lore was something that also hooked me up a lot and made me appreciate this side of games even more. I just love when the game's information that is shown isn't just something to put on the game and doesn't really add much to the world-building or the game's story. Everything feels important and connected, at the same time optional.
The atmosphere, characters's stories and their inner... demons. It's amazing how the world feels alive even though it really is just, mostly, full of soldiers and hostiles; I think this is the From Software Immersion that so many talked about, how you feel immersed in the world just because of the world itself and it's characters, not because of realism or something like that.

I also think that this is the first game I played that just throws you in the world and says: "Have fun", discovering things by myself, just doing things and exploring places just out of curiosity felt really good and rewarding, instead of just following markers as usual.

The combat... please don't sleep on it, is much better than it looks, which was a mistake that I committed. I think is still a flaw that the combat may only get better too late. But, if you stick on the game for long enough, it just gets better and better. Especially the Prosthetics have a lot of interesting and different ways to use but not all of them are equally efficient against all bosses which can make them feel underwhelming but you just need to try out each attempt.

I beat this shit over 7 or 8 times as I write this, I played until NG+ 6 and did another New Game, each time being better than the other one; doing quests in a different way, doing different endings, learning new lore, trying to play better, doing all achievements(easier than it seems), THERE IS SO MUCH.
After Sekiro won GOTY, it also received a free update where you can fight against bosses that you fought and doing boss rushes for the endings you did, you can access it only on the Dilapidated Temple.

This game... is just... wonderful as I said. As I was writing this I was kinda worried and disappointed that the things I was writing weren't living up for how good the game is, maybe because this is spoiler-free or just because I didn't manage to put everything; like, I didn't even talked about the Soundtrack, that IS really good, especially boss themes.
Sekiro is just the kind of game that you need to play to understand its experience. I recommend it to anyone that likes Action-Adventure games, RPGs, and, of course, for people that like Soulsborne/Soulslike games, I highly recommend it.

One of the biggest fucking disappointments I've ever had with video games, AND I MEAN THAT; this thing shows that shoving a lot of trends in a game just to try to make it more popular just doesn work.

The first Shadow Warrior, the 2013 rebooted I mean, was probably one of the first "modern" boomer shooters, launching even before than Wolfenstein: The New Order, that is when the boomer shooters like Doom started coming back and getting more popular.
And then, this shit right here just destroys everything trying to be some kind of looter shooter, fast paced modern boomer shooter with multiplayer I DON'T EVEN KNOW, it just feel like a unfocused frankestein of FPS trends and it doesn't feel right or unique in any way.

Instead of having a set of weapons with different roles and upgrades, like it's antecessor, it has this looter shooter thing of having a ton of weapons that feels mostly the same, which I hate.

don't care about story. terrible dick jokes. the first thing that appears on the first cutscene is... rabbit sex... wtf.
don't care about characters. all annoying.

there is cards... that improve your stats or something. also didn't liked.

The level design and enemies are... weird, not completely bad. Most maps looks different, which is good, but they just feel weird and repetitive in gameplay. Theres still, at least, some diverse enemies, even though I hated that there's harder versions of enemies that are the exact same enemy but bigger, are bullet sponges and has a poison aura, fire aura, etc.

There is a hub world... i didn't liked.

Conclusion: I don't like this game.

I played, thankfully with Xbox Game Pass, expecting a boomer Shooter like Doom 4 or, I don't know, 2013's SHADOW WARRIOR? You know? this game's antecessor? And I got a game that just has too much trends shoved on it, making it totally bland and forgetable.
It's also funny that this game launched the same year that Doom 4 launched, but, unlike Doom 4, this is just a forgetable game that did little to no impact; even though it could be right at Doom's side of games that brought back the Boomer Shooters to modern gaming.

I can imagine people liking this, because is still a looter shooter so it can be addictive, but I don't recommend to anyone.
If you want a boomer shooter, play Doom 4 or 2013's Shadow Warrior, much better than this one; if you want a looter shooter, play, I don't know, Destiny or Boderlands I guess? I'm not a Looter Shooter specialist; There is also Titanfall 2 or even Call of Duty that do what this thing try to do but better (especially Titanfall 2).
This is the main problem games that try to be too many things and follow trends, they end up having nothing special in any way and other games do what they try to be but better; if this game launched nowadays it would probably have a mediocre Battle Royale mode for example, just to shove more trends in it to try to make it more popular.

I don't like this.
Maybe, at some point, I will try to do an actual decent review for this, but this mean that I gonna need to play this again so... probably, never gonna happen.

Shadow Warrior 3 looks 100x better.
Play 2013's Shadow Warrior, it's good.

Ori é um jogo extraordinário onde tudo é lindo, a música é linda, a arte, os personagens, as áreas, TUDO. Esse foi o jogo que me fez amar o genêro Metroidvania e conhecer e me interessar por vários outros jogos do genêro.
Pode pular pra conclusão para ver um pequeno resumo dos tópicos e a conclusão.

-Enredo
O jogo possui uma história extremamente simples onde o único diálogo que temos... não é diálogo, é uma narração, feita pela Árvore do Espírito na qual origina Ori, o nosso personagem, que é tirado de seus galhos por uma tempestade e é encontrado por uma criatura adorável chamada Naru que o resgata e acolhe como filho. Depois de experimentar um pouco do dia-a-dia dos dois a Árvore do Espírito enche a floresta de Luz tentando chamar Ori, depois disso toda a Luz da Árvore misteriosamente desaparece. Após ver as dificuldades dos personagens, Ori foge até outra parte do mapa onde podemos jogar livremente e explorar até encontrar Sein, um orbe de Luz da árvore que pede ajuda a Ori a levá-lo até a árvore novamente; esse é o nosso objetivo até o final do jogo: entregar Sein para a Árvore e recuparar a Luz, para isso também é necessário recuperar os Elementos de Nibel, a região em que você está.

Como dito, a história é bem simples porém isso não tira seu mérito, ainda tem muitos momentos emocionantes, principalmente com ajuda da música.
Temos poucos personagens, cinco contando com Ori e a Árvore, todos tem seu charme e até desenvolvimento ao longo da história, principalmente a vilã principal.


-Jogabilidade
A jogabilidade é onde Ori mais brilha, literalmente, Ori é um espírito branco bem brilhante então muitas vezes eu morria por não conseguir me achar, mas isso é só um pequeno contra-tempo que não anula o quão incrível a jogabilidade é.

O jogo tem um foco maior na mobilidade e no genêro de Platforma; no início do jogo a jogabilidade é bem simples mas ao progredir você vai ter vários tipos de habilidades diferentes que se complementam e deixam a mobilidade extremamente satisfatória de se usar. Quero destacar uma habilidade bem única que é uma das mais interessantes e que é integrada na identidade do jogo: o Golpe, uma habilidade que permite que você use projéteis, inimigos e objetos para se impulsionar em uma direção ou redirecioná-los, enquanto o tempo é parado temporariamente; é uma habilidade simples mas é muito foda como o design faz ela parecer mais complexa do que parece e te faz usá-la de formas bem criativas.
O Golpe é uma habilidade que você desbloqueia por Árvores Ancestrais, que dão as principais habilidades do jogo, porém você também pode desbloquear melhorias e poderes secundárias por meio do Elo de Alma.
O Elo de Alma é uma mecânica interessante: basicamente, é um checkpoint em que você escolhe quando usar, se você tiver energia o suficiente. É com o Elo de Alma que você melhora e desbloqueia algumas habilidades secundárias.

Pra mim a jogabilidade só tem um pequeno defeito que seria o combate do jogo, digo que é pequeno porque, como já falei, o jogo é focado na mobilidade e genêro Platforma.
O Sein, personagem que você encontra no jogo, é o que você usa, primariamente, pra atacar inimigos, não o Ori. Ele ataca usando projéteis então você só fica longe parado apertando o botão várias vezes até o inimigo morrer, sem muito engamento contra a maioria dos inimigos sendo bem entendiante, mas não significa que todos os inimigos não sejam desafiadores. Realmente nem tem muita coisa pra falar sobre o combate além disso, é só simples ao extremo e entendiante.

Voltando ao quesito plataforma, há momentos épicos que são basicamente sequências de escape em que há uma série de obstáculos; esses momentos são frenéticos e muito desafiadores, acompanhados por músicas muito boas. Esses momentos são extremamente memoráveis e são basicamente um Skill-Check pra você mostrar o quão você aprendeu sobre a mobilidade incrível do jogo.

Falando em desafio, o jogo é bem desafiador, principalmente nos momentos de plataforma, os inimigos podem dar muito dano mas, como falei, a maioria deles, é só ficar longe apertando o botão de ataque até eles morrerem. A dificuldade tá em não morrer no mesmo espinho 77 vezes seguidas.


-Exploração
O fator Exploração é definitivamente a parte mais importante de qualquer Metroidvania, e Ori não falha em ter uma exploração boa, porém ainda com o sentimento de que falta algo.

Em Super Metroid, um dos precursores do genêro Metroidvania, a exploração é essencial tendo recompensas obrigatórias para continuar mas outras opcionais que aprimoram a personagem, deixando-a mais forte. A exploração é tão incentivada porque há muitos tipos de aprimoramentos que deixa a experiência melhor e mais fácil como: mais munição especial, tanques de energia e vários tipos de aprimoramentos para a sua arma primária.
Em Ori o únco motivo para explorar o mapa é aprimoramentos de vida, energia e pontos de experiência. A progressão do jogo é feita por esses pontos de experiência, e não pela exploração; por isso a exploração deixa este sentimento de que falta algo.

Dito isso, a exploração ainda é divertida, como um bom Metroidvania.
O jogo tem o clássico design de te prender em uma "sala" e te dar um novo poder principal, em que você precisa usar pra sair da sala. Desbloquear essas habilidades principais e então voltar às áreas anteriores que você não podia acessar é bem satisfatório, mesmo que as recompensas sejam mais prevísiveis.

Acessar essas áreas seria ainda mais satisfatórias se o jogo fosse um pouco menos linear, pelo menos é o que eu senti.
Além do seu objetivo ser mostrado no mapa, os poderes principais estão no caminho até o objetivo. Eu não lembro de nenhum poder principal em que você precisava voltar até uma área anterior, dessa vez com mais poderes, desbloqueá-lo e então progredir até o objetivo de novo, podendo descobrindo mais segredos que você não podia passar no caminho. Diferente de, novamente, Super Metroid em que, ás vezes, você precisar voltar atrás para depois progredir para frente.


-Trilha Sonora
As músicas desse jogo são simplesmente belíssimas, com certeza o jogo perderia muito do seu charme e a história perderia os momentos emocionais se não tivesse a música.

Algumas Favoritas:

Light of Nibel
First Steps Into Sunken Glades
Up the Spirit Caverns Walls


-Conclusão
Ori é um jogo bem importante pra mim, não só um dos meus favoritos mas aquele que me introduziu a um genêro que hoje eu amo: os Metroidvania.

Eu acho muito foda como esse jogo tem uma história tão simples mas tão cantivante, seja pelos personagens que conseguem se desenvolver bem ou pelos momentos emocionais, não chorei, quase nunca choro com jogo, mas da aquele aperto.
Os personagens conseguem cativar mesmo tendo um desenvolvimento breve e eu nunca parei de sentir empatia por eles.

A jogabilidade é uma das mais satisfatórias dos jogos de Plataforma que já joguei, é extremamente fluído e muito bom usar elas em conjunto. As seções de plataforma também são muito bem feitas, às vezes incluindo pequenos puzzles, sempre fazendo você usar os poderes de forma fluída e criativa.
É só uma pena que o combate esteja só... lá. Ainda não tenho nada a falar sobre além de que é simples e entendiante.

A exploração eu admito que não é a melhor, mas com certeza não é ruim; em vez da progressão acontecer por meio de pontos de experiência, deveria acontecer pela exploração, na minha opinião isso devia ser sempre padrão em qualquer Metroidvania. Mas isso ainda nunca me impediu de voltar e explorar cada canto do mapa.

A trilha sonora é com certeza uma das mais lindas que já ouvi, de todos os tipos; músicas calmas, épicas, tristes, todas feitas de forma maestral. A música está completamente ligada à experiência.

Mesmo podendo ter sido melhor, Ori ainda é um ótimo jogo acima da média e um dos melhores que já joguei. Recomendo a fãs de Metroidvania e, principalmente, fãs de jogos de Plataforma. E se você se emociona muito fácil... já vai se preparando caso jogue.

Com certeza um dos jogos mais atemporais na qual eu já joguei. Muitas vezes enquanto jogava eu esquecia que era um jogo de Super Nintendo, sendo que muitos dos seus elementos são usados e influenciam jogos até hoje. A influência mais conhecida está nos jogos Metroidvania e Super Metroid demonstra como criou esse genêro de forma maestral.

-Enredo
Não há tanto o que falar da história, o que não me surpreendeu nenhum pouco pois isso era um padrão da epóca; tanto que a Samus nesse jogo começa sem nenhum dos upgrades que ela tinha no anterior sem nenhuma explicação. O máximo de história direta que temos é uma introdução por texto, o resto é tudo contado à base de "Environmental Storytelling", a tradução literal sendo "Narrativa Ambiental", como o nome já diz, o jogo conta a história de forma indireta por meio das áreas e os elementos que há nelas. Como já no início em que entramos em uma estação deserta e escura, encontrado corpos de cientistas mortos.

O jogo começa imediatamente depois do jogo anterior, onde Samus leva o último Metroid a uma estação de pesquisa e parte para procurar outras missões. Porém ela recebe um pedido socorro da mesma estação pouco tempo depois de sair; ao chegar lá e ver toda a situação, nós nos deparamos com Ridley, um dos vilões do jogo, que captura e leva o último Metroid. Samus o segue de volta ao Planeta Zebes e aí o jogo começa.

Enredo básico, porém o suficiente.


-Controles e Jogabilidade
Muitas vezes em que jogo um jogo antigo, os controles são a primeira coisa que me incomodam e são sempre o aspecto que envelhece pior. Com Super Metroid eu raramente lutava contra os controles. A Samus pode parecer que está flutuando por tudo ao pular, mas isso rapidamente parou de ser um problema e passou a ser mais um benefício pra mim, minimamente complicado de se controlar... exceto wall-jumping, isso ainda tenho um pouco de dificuldade.

Falando em wall-jumping, sabia que você pode fazer isso desde o início? É, como muitas outras coisas, algo em que o jogo nunca fala diretamente a você. Existem 3 habilidades na qual você sempre podia fazer desde o início mas em vez de te ensinar por meio de um tutorial genérico o jogo simplesmente te deixa descobrir e aprender. Uma das "habilidades" ele literalmente te força a descobrir sozinho te trancando em uma sala; enquanto wall-jumping e "Shinespark", basicamente usado para pular muito alto, são ensinados de forma mais "convencional", ainda te trancando em uma área porém animais te ensinam a fazer, wall-jumping não parece tão óbvio de se executar quanto parece como em outros jogos como Megaman X, é o único movimento que ainda tenho uma pequena dificuldade de se fazer, como já citei.
Mas o jogo ainda tem outros movimentos bem mais secretos como que você pode controlar a direção Shinespark, Bomb Jump, em que você usa as Bombas da Morph Ball, que Samus usa para se transformar em uma bola, para pular várias vezes se você tiver o timing correto das bombas; entre outros.
É possível usar essas habilidades e outros truques que o jogo não conta para desbloquear itens mais rápido antes do que você deveria. Eu, por exemplo, usei Wall-Jumping várias vezes para chegar em alguns lugares que eu não poderia sem uma habilidade específica.

Essas habilidades ou truques deixam o jogo melhor na minha opinião, já que as pessoas podem usar sua própria criatividade para progredir e quebrar a já pouca linearidade que o jogo tem.

Além disso há o combate, mas não tanto o que falar além da satisfação de desbloquear novos poderes e ficar mais forte e ter cada vez mais facilidade em matar os inimigos. Porém o combate ainda é básico, só não é tedioso ou repetitivo pois tem uma variedade boa de inimigos, alguns requerem estratégias específicas como usar uma arma específica.
Há também os Chefões que são muito memoráveis por seus designs e só por haver 5 deles, sem contar os Mini-Chefes. Eles são memoráveis mas o combate em si ainda é só o básico, exceto UM que me deu muito trabalho só pra descobrir depois, ao finalizar o jogo, que da pra matar ele em menos de 1 minuto usando uma certa tática que você deve pensar fora da caixa.


-Exploração
A exploração é com certeza onde o jogo mais brilha e onde muitos jogos até hoje se inspiram.
A partir do momento que eu desbloqueava uma habilidade nova, eu usava o tempo todo. O melhor exemplo sendo as próprias bombas da Morph Ball, que eu usava pra explodir cada pixel da tela pra ver se tinha algo escondido; isso pode se tornar algo meio ruim já que a exploração do jogo pode muito bem se resumir a isso: Explodir cada pixel da tela até algo escondido aparecer, mas, pelo menos pra mim, isso nunca se tornou entediante e ruim, principalmente ao desbloquear a Power Bomb que, literalmente explode tudo com uma única bomba.

Além dos upgrades obrigatórios é claro, há aqueles opcionais como melhoramentos do seu Laser, pontos de vida e munição. Por causa desses upgrades a exploração é muito motivada e satisfatória por causa da boa quantidade de upgrades.

Outra coisa satisfatória da exploração, que talvez pode se tornar um problema para algumas pessoas, é o fato de que o jogo não explica e não te guia de nenhuma forma. Mesmo assim, só me vi perdido e não sabendo meu próximo passo uma vez no jogo todo. A parte satisfatória é que quando você encontra um local, mesmo que esse local seja parte da missão principal, você vai ter esse sentimento bom de que encontrou sozinho, se você descobrir de uma forma não apropriada, como uma das habilidades secretas que falei, o sentimento de satisfação é ainda maior.

Os poucos defeitos que consigo pensar sobre a exploração, como eu tinha dito, é a forma da qual você explora o mapa pode se tornar entediante e repetitiva já que na maioria das vezes é só atirar e explodir cada quadradinho atirando ou com bombas. Tem até alguns itens que simplesmente estão escondidos de forma muito obscura, ou você descobre sem querer enquanto atira em tudo ou vendo um guia; eu por exemplo descobri um sozinho enquanto testava os controles e atirei no lugar em que o item estava.
Um defeito bem grande que que só notei o quão é confuso na minha segunda run para desbloquear todos os itens, é o mapa do jogo. Ele não tem nenhum tipo de sinal de interligação entre áreas, ou seja, não tem nenhum indicador de entradas ou saídas, onde tem porta e onde não tem, no mapa tudo é uma parede. Áreas secretas tem a mesma cor que áreas normais e itens que você pegou ou não pegou são mostrados da mesma forma. Isso se tornou muito irritante e confuso já que eu tinha que ir e voltar pra caramba pra procurar e pegar todos os itens.
Além de não mostrar as interligações no mapa, ele também só mostra o mapa da área em que você está, não pra ver o mapa das outras áreas sem entrar nelas.



-Ambientação e Trilha Sonora
O jogo traz uma ambientação muito diversa e interessante, principalmente com elementos de "Narrativa Ambiental". O jogo inteiro, principalmente no começo, tem o sentimento de tensão e isolamento; mas também transmite sentimentos de heroísmo e descobrimento que até mudam ao longo do jogo.
Esses sentimentos são ainda mais reforçados pela ótima trilha sonora e efeitos sonoros do jogo, que transmitem muito bem esse sentimentos para cada área. A música da primeira área, por exemplo, ao sair da nave, é tensa e entrega até um ar de terror; mas ao progredir até um ponto, a música muda para a tema mais heroico mostrando que as coisas estão mudando ao seu favor.

Algumas Músicas abaixo:
Theme of Super Metroid - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vYsVk23oxA&list=PL0BCE0BA953AC33E4&index=3

Brinstar Overgrown with Vegetation Area - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLcyg4Tq5uY&list=PL0BCE0BA953AC33E4&index=6

Planet Zebes (Arrival on Crateria) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmmpZfRmBFk&list=PL0BCE0BA953AC33E4&index=4


-Conclusão
Honestamente eu não esperava que fosse gostar tanto de Super Metroid. Eu só o joguei por causa do recente anúncio de Metroid Dread, título mais recente da franquia até então, e estava muito querendo jogar algum outro Metroidvania; não esperava que fosse gostar tanto e que ele imediatamente se tornaria mais um dos meus favoritos e que eu me tornaria um fã da franquia.

A exploração foi extremamente satisfatória e recompensadora até o final, mesmo com alguns momentos irritantes por causa do mapa. Descobrir tudo sozinho foi muito revigorante, mesmo que não usei muito das táticas não convencionais até o final do jogo, e ainda assim não tinha descoberto tudo até finalizar e descobrir que havia muito mais.
A jogabilidade foi estranha só no início, rapidamente ficando muito boa.

Esse jogo é quase perfeito, só não acho por causa dos defeitos do mapa mas isso com certeza é por causa da época em que ele foi criado. Super Metroid basicamente criou, se não, no minímo, impulsionou o gênero. Não existia quase nenhum tipo de inspiração na época.
Ainda assim, é um dos melhores e mais atemporais jogos já feitos, sendo uma influência até hoje, e eu tenho que recomendar a todos, principalmente aos fãs de Metroidvania. Essa é uma experiência que todos devem ter.


Só mais uma pequena coisa: Salve os Animais no final :)

O jogo tinha um trabalho: ter uma jogabilidade melhor, mais fluída que o antecessor, o que não é muito difícil pois Aragami 1 já tem uma gameplay dura, o resto era só manter no mesmo nível. A gameplay em si é mil vezes mais fluída que o primeiro, mas TODO O RESTO foi piorado.

A jogabilidade como falei pode sim ser considerada melhor que a do primeiro; pra começar em Aragami 2 você tem o incrível poder de pular, duas vezes até, que é algo que o primeiro nem tinha. Isso melhorou muito a verticalidade do jogo, principalmente misturado ao "teleporte" das sombras.
Aragami 1 tinha um sistema de teleporte bem interessante em que você só podia teleportar mirando pra uma área com sombras; aqui o teleporte é basicamente um dash normal que você pode usar pra se movimentar, tanto no chão quanto no ar, e se teleportar para agarrar as bordas dos lugares. Menos único porém mais versátil e fluído.
Agora os assassinatos aéreos... funcionam, diferente do primeiro jogo que eles eram estranhos de se fazer. Mas eles são fáceis demais de se fazer. Em jogos de stealth assassinatos áereos só podem ser feitos de uma altura alta, aqui você só precisa usar pulo duplo e pronto. Sério que eu acho que eu matei mais gente com assassinato áreo do que normal de tão fácil que é. Infelizmente alguns poderes não podem ser ativados por assassinatos áereos o que é estranho mas... balanceado, eu acho, infelizmente não sei se isso é de propósito.
Também foi adicionado um sistema de combate no jogo... é só o básico. Defender, esquivar, parry, ataque e finalização. Só o básico pra ter algo pra chamar de combate mesmo.
Mas realmente a jogabilidade é muito boa e fluída, talvez um pouco fácil demais. Me parecia muito Dishonored só que em terceira pessoa, mais rápido e melhor de controlar já que é em terceira pessoa.
Infelizmente os elogios acabam por aqui porque a partir de agora é só decepção.

Finalizando o tópico de jogabilidade, há, é claro, os poderes com base de sombra que o jogo traz. Além de poderes também há habilidades passivas que são interessantes até. Agora a estratégia dos melhores poderes mudou; em Aragami 1 a forma mais rápida e satisfatória de matar era atraindo vários inimigos e matando todos ao mesmo tempo com um buraco negro. Aqui o foco é em atordoar vários inimigos e aí matar tudo mundo. Os poderes e habilidades em si são legais, o que me fudeu foi o jeito que você desbloqueia elas que estragou bastante o jogo pra mim.

A progressão é definitivamente um dos principais passos para trás que estragaram minha experiência. No primeiro jogo a progressão era baseada em exploração, coletar pergaminhos para ganhar um ponto de habilidade e usar pra desbloquear as habilidades. Aqui é só um sistema de progressão genérico por nível muito chato, pelo menos eu não me senti forçado a repetir uma missão várias vezes pra subir de nível, mas caso você queira ter todas as habilidades isso é necessário. Eu prefiro a progressão baseada em exploração porque é uma progressão mais palpável, garantida e da pra planejar melhor a progressão. Em Aragami 1 praticamente todas as missões tinham no mínimo 1 Ponto de habilidade pra encontrar, já aqui é só fazer missão e talvez você sobe ou não de nível.
A exploração é rebaixada a coletar dinheiro, roupas e equipamentos novos mas eu não senti nenhum incentivo para procurar eles e eu simplesmente não ligo.

A história ... eu não liguei nem um pouco, pra mim não teve nenhum motivo pra prestar atenção e acompanhar a história. Primeiramente o jeito que a história é contada é muito chato: Texto, mucho texto. Só falando com personagens e eles dão exposição sobre alguma coisa, é muito chato ao longo do jogo, com poucas cutscenes que também não tem muito de especial. Os personagens também não são interessantes, ou pelo menos são por causa do jeito que a história é contada.
Outro motivo é que também a progressão da história não é muito bem sentida; o primeiro jogo era linear e cada missão era diferente em um mapa diferente; aqui tem MUITA missão em mapas repetidos, com objetivos repetidos. Parece que você só tá fazendo a mesma coisa e não anda pra frente.

Por último, um motivo que tanto prejudica a história como o jogo em si é o comprimento que é longo demais e só piora a repetitividade. O primeiro jogo não só tinha um comprimento curto de umas 7 horas, mas também tinha muito mais variedade de mapas; Aragami 2 tem até mais que o dobro de horas e é muito mais repetitivo, fazendo que lá pro final do jogo eu só comecei a pular a história e fazer as missões o mais rápido possível só pra acabar logo; se não me engano eu terminei com umas 18 horas. Tenho certeza que se o jogo tivesse metade desse tempo, talvez até menos, a experiência teria sido muito melhor.

Infelizmente Aragami 2 foi uma decepção pra mim, pelo menos lá para as 7 ou 8 horas de jogo que foi quando o jogo começou a ficar extremamente cansativo e eu comecei a perceber os defeitos como progressão e história. Eu normalmente não ligo muito para repetitividade mas tenho limites. O jogo é mais longo do que deveria e a repetição de mapas e objetivos é horrível, ficou bem insuportável no final.
Tirando a jogabilidade do jogo, todo o resto foi um declínio comparado ao primeiro: a história, progressão, variedade, mapas; o que é extremamente decepcionante porque a principal coisa que precisava ser polida do primeira era só a jogabilidade, mas não a custo de todo o resto.
Aragami 2 infelizmente sofreu sacrificando vários coisas que fazia seu antecessor bom só pra tentar agradar mais pessoas. Só outro exemplo de jogo sacrificando qualidade por quantidade.

O lendário criador da dificuldade nos jogos e único jogo difícil do mundo, exceto que Dark Souls também é bem mais que só um joguinho que é mais difícil do que precisa ser. Eu até diria que a dificuldade foi até de certa forma decepcionante se comparado ao que passei nos chefes de Sekiro, minha primeira experiência da From Software.

Eu diria que a magia de Dark Souls realmente começa ao alcançar a Igreja na Paróquia, você entra e pega um elevador que ainda não se sabe aonde leva e quando você percebe você está de volta a área inicial do jogo. Isso acontece várias vezes ao longo do jogo, é uma aula excepcional de Level Design e a minha parte favorita do jogo, me fez perceber o quão linear Sekiro é. O que torna isso melhor, pra mim, é o fato de que a Viajem Rápida só é desbloqueada lá pra metade do jogo, tecnicamente o final, e ainda por cima só pode se teleportar para algumas fogueiras específicas. Isso tornou o jogo melhor porque isso faz que com que você tenha que aprender as áreas, os atalhos, os inimigos e as rotas mais seguras, lá pro final eu já conseguia lembrar das áreas e me locomover de forma eficiente e natural.
E você PRECISA aprender como se locomover pelas áreas porque todas elas podem ser extremamente brutais, se você não mata os inimigos rápidos o suficiente. Eu diria que elas foram de onde o sofrimento veio pra mim; se em Sekiro as paredes que eu precisava passar eram os Chefes, em Dark Souls foram as áreas, só de eu lembrar dos esqueletos já me dá um PTSD básico.
E há é claro: as Fogueiras que me deram o maior sentimento de alívio e conforto que já senti em qualquer jogo. Chegar em uma fogueira é como tirar 1 tonelada das costas, pelo menos até você criar coragem para sair e continuar explorando. Já que muitas delas são muito separadas e você não tem Viagem Rápida desde o começo, é mais um grande incentivo para explorar com cautela e aprender a área.

Mas, surpreendentemente, não é só sofrimento. Na verdade o jogo deixa o jogador usar da boa e velha força bruta, que fez mais parte do jogo do que pensei que faria. O jogo ainda dá o luxo da sensação boa de voltar pra uma área que antes era difícil mas dessa vez conseguindo matar os inimigos em até 1 golpe. Ainda assim não é bom ficar confiável demais, principalmente ignorar inimigos, se não quando você perceber você vai estar cercado por 77 inimigos que você ignorou e te seguiram até os confins do mapa.

Sobre os chefes do jogo, eu até posso falar que foram o aspecto mais "decepcionante" pra mim. Já que eu vim de Sekiro, onde ou você aprende ou você morre, os chefes de Dark Souls foram só um pouco mais que um obstáculo no caminho. Contando com as DLCs, eu diria que de todos os 26 chefes do jogo apenas 7 me deram um problema de verdade, 4 do jogo base e 3 da DLC, que são meus favoritos, e 3 eram uma luta de múltiplos chefes. Os únicos que não venci por força bruta foram os da DLC já que só enfrentei eles no NG+, que é o que tem a maior escala de dificuldade; e o chefe final já que bem... ele era o último, não tinha muito o que aprimorar.
Mas a maioria dos chefes ainda são muito memoráveis, possuindo designs únicos e história muito boa.

Enquanto as lutas dos chefes foram meio decepcionantes algo que excedeu minhas expectativas foi as áreas, exploração e o Level Design do jogo. O jogo não se baseia em viagem rápida das fogueiras e sim atalhos colocados em locais precisos o suficiente. Dark Souls é um dos poucos jogos que já joguei em que ficar andando de lá pra cá não foi algo miserável porque os atalhos sempre apareciam e deixavam a área mais fácil de navegar depois.
E é também pelas áreas que a verdadeira dificuldade veio pra mim; seja pela quantidade de inimigos, a locomoção pelo mapa e até mesmo a localização das fogueiras. Tudo isso e a diversidade delas fazem com que o Level Design seja meu aspecto favorito do jogo... mesmo que algumas dessas áreas sejam um pouco mais complicadas do que deveriam ser.

Outro aspecto favorito foi o sentimento de superar o que parecia impossível. Eu diria que Dark Souls não foi mais difícil, porém mais injusto e mais brutal que Sekiro. Isso resultou em bem mais momentos que pareciam impossíveis ou simplesmente que levariam uma eternidade pra superar. Mas eu sempre conseguia alguma hora, na força bruta, com melhor conhecimento e até mesmo só desistindo temporariamente, que é algo que o próprio jogo ensina no primeiro chefe, às vezes algo parece difícil demais pra você, e É, é natural que você deixe para depois quando você vai estar ainda mais forte.
O momento em que mais senti isso foi nas Catacumbas, pra mim a área mais desgraçada. Eu estava em um buraco cheio de inimigos que me matavam mais rápido do que eu conseguia matar todos eles, cheguei até a matar o chefe da área mas não sabia de jeito nenhum onde e como sair. Literalmente tava me tornando um Vazio. Não queria reforçar minha arma porque não sabia se ia precisar do material depois (foi um pequeno erro, reforcem as armas). Então sem mais nada pra fazer comecei a farmar até poder usar um certo machado que educadamente peguei emprestado de um NPC que estava nas Catacumbas, engraçado que o machado requeria Fé. O machado me permitiu matar os esqueletos em um golpe e eu conseguir saí de lá e voltar para a área inicial. Meio tosco mas puta que pariu o alívio foi grande. Passei a só usar machados o resto do jogo, e pretendo só usar machados nos próximos só por causa disso.

Ficar perdido a cada 5 minutos (Matei Sif antes do Demônio Cabra, um fato que acho engraçado);
O potencial e diversidade das builds, armas e armaduras;
A história e o mundo;
Artorias e o Abismo;

Isso são só algumas ressalvas que me marcaram no jogo porém não consegui encaixar aqui mas ainda queria ressaltar.

E ainda tem tanta coisa opcional e que muita gente nem sequer pode achar na primeira vez, sejam NPCs, caminhos escondidos, áreas inteiras. Eu até fiquei chateado com o tanto de coisa que perdi na minha primeira vez zerando, deixando passar 2 chefes, 1 área, e não vendo o final de todos os NPCs que encontrei, menos 1 que morreu quando eu matei ele, mas enfim; querendo ou não, isso é bem especial e faz você querer rejogar mais.

É uma pena que não dá pra falar pra falar de tudo incrível e pequenos incomôdos que esse jogo faz sem tornar isso em um texto de 17 páginas.

Dark Souls foi uma experiência extremamente boa pra mim, principalmente porque eu percebi que ele é, ou pelos menos é um gostinho do RPG de ação que sempre quis: onde eu posso usar uma armadura pesada, arma gigante E ainda usar magia, em vez de um sistema de classe restrito que fala o que você pode e não ter ou usar no jogo.
A parte complicada é dizer se eu recomendo ou não o jogo. Definitivamente não é uma experiência agradável pra todo mundo, principalmente se você já não gosta de Soulslikes ou combate mais lento e restrito, além do fato que não é um jogo que dá muitas direções.
Mas fica minha recomendação, é só um pouco difícil falar pra quem é a recomendação.

Shadow Warrior 3 é simplesmente charme, personalidade e adrenalina a todo momento, um retorno extremamente bem vindo depois que foi o rumo desagradável que foi o segundo jogo, que foi uma tentativo no pior genêro que existe: Looter Shooters.

O jogo traz de volta armas únicas e diferentes cada uma com seu papel e aprimoramentos que as deixam ainda mais interessantes e quebradas; incluindo umas das escopetas mais satisfatórias de atirar que eu já vi, só o efeito sonoro já deixa a serotonina no máximo.

E sim, se você já viu algo do jogo, comparações com Doom Eternal são inevitáveis, tem um gancho, mesmo que o jogo já estava sendo feito antes. Gerenciamento de recursos, recuperar munição fatiando os inimigos, finalizadores brutais, é o pacote completo mas também tem seus toques individuais. Os finalizadores por exemplo são na verdade um ataque especial que mata qualquer um instantaneamente se você preencher uma barra, e a melhor parte: os finalizadores te deixam arrancar as armas dos inimigos e usá-las contra os outros.
O jogo também tem uma boa e velha progressão por itens que você encontra nos mapas, nada inovador mas eficiente.

Falando em inimigos acho que esse é o FPS com os designs de inimigos mais diferenciados que eu já vi, até achei que o jogo era mentira a primeira vez que vi o trailer pela variedade. Não tem um inimigo parecido, todos são extremamente únicos e interessantes, é claro cada um também tem certas fraquezas ou formas mais rápidas e eficientes de matá-los.

A história é defitivamente uma história.

E é isso o que tem pra falar, curto que nem o jogo que aliás zerei em umas 4 horas, porém foram 4 horas de uma experiência extremamente boa. Mas mesmo com review curta, não se engane: eu AMEI o jogo. Recomendo pra qualquer um que goste do gênero de Ação e principalmente aqueles que amam Doom Eternal.
Quer história vai assistir um filme.