InimitableUman
2003
I was meant to play this game and I was forged in the fire of it.
Okay, that sounds insane so let me explain what I mean. In an issue of Game Informer that came out sometime during the 00s, there was an ad for a game.
I remember the ad very well. The game it described was fascinating. A tense survival horror game, a genre I'd never played. One where you were alone in a run-down village. But what interested me the most was that its story was told out of order, the levels taking place at different times, and you'd have to piece everything together yourself if you wanted to understand the full story.
I remembered that this game was called SIREN, and I never forgot that. Thinking back on it, the ad was likely for Siren: Blood Curse, the remake/remix of this game for PS3, but what cemented itself in my mind was the PS2 game. There was no point in time where I ever wondered "What was that game I saw the ad for?" ; I never forgot. Every once in awhile, I would think about Siren, and wonder if one day I'd ever be able to play it. I never looked it up, never watched any videos of it. I just kept it in my head, a gaming white whale, like Asura's Wrath is for me still.
But in December 2016, I was able to buy the game. I had no idea it was even on PS4, upscaled with trophy support. It was like a miracle, like they'd put it there just for me. Maybe it wasn't important, but it felt important. And I resolved that I wouldn't just play the game, but I would stream it, every time I played it. This isn't something I often do, there's only a handful of games I've streamed all of and most are shorter than Siren.
What I quickly discovered was that Siren is not an easy game to play. Its controls are only slightly better than tank controls, the levels don't give you much direction, sight-jacking often requires a lot of waiting around for enemies to move where you want them to, and dying could often set you back pretty far. For someone like me who usually tries to play games without looking anything up, it was a real challenge. Even learning that the manual had tips for every mission only helped a little bit. Eventually I did have to look two or three things up online. It took me a year and five months, but I eventually beat Siren, getting the full ending, doing everything but getting all the archive items.
It was tough. At times I disliked the game. There were streams where I'd only manage to do one level, parts of the game that I absolutely dreaded getting to. But even so I saw how special it was. Especially these years later, the bad memories fade away and I mostly remember the parts I loved.
And those parts are fantastic. The atmosphere and area design is second-to-none, I feel like there are probably Japanese villages that look exactly like this. The village has 9 areas and you can see exactly where they are in relation to each other. After awhile, a couple of those areas transform as the monsters build new structures over them. I can still describe every single area.
The sound-design creates ever-present tension. The monsters are awful and memorable. The archive isn't just data files or audio logs, they're random bits and bobs that you find around town, sometimes offering insights, sometimes just adding color to the world. The main characters are rendered in this way where real photos of facial expressions are recreated in polygons and animated - it actually works really well, even with the british accents they give everyone in the dub. Each of them is distinct and once again I could easily describe every one, even if I couldn't remember all their names.
For every way the gameplay is frustrating, Siren is a master-craft in another. Even its story, its out-of-order, incredibly confusing story, still feels cool and epic even if you only get the broad strokes. I came out of it being thankful for having played it.
There's one level in the game specifically that bowled me over. In it you play as a pre-teen girl looking for her parents. You go through the farmland/dried-up river area, and it looks different from when you've seen it before. The air is full of bright lights like fireflies. There's weird noises all around. It's almost beautiful. But the enemies are still there and you still have to avoid them like usual. So you sneak through, coming close to being detected once or twice but - phew - they don't notice you. You wouldn't have any way to defend yourself if they did. Finally the girl reaches the church where her parents are. The door is locked. She goes to the window and knocks on it, yelling for her mom and dad. In the church her parents shriek and move away from the window. Then you see - the girl has become a monster herself, the zombie-like shibito that wander the village. First I realized, oh, that's why the level looked weird, because that's how shibito see the world. And it gives you insight into some of their actions later in the game. But then I realized something else, and thought "Hold on a minute...If this girl is a shibito...And the monsters in the level are shibito...Were they even looking for me? Would they even have hurt me if they caught me?"
I later tested this and found that, no, they wouldn't. They completely ignore you, you're just another shibito like them. Throughout that level, the fear is entirely in your head, and even if you get within a distance where they'd normally notice you but they don't, you probably don't even realize it, you just think "oh, that was a close one, they almost saw me." I don't know how this level plays out for everyone but I imagine that figuring out that the enemies are harmless during the level itself is a rare occurrence, because it goes against everything you've done up to that point. It's incredible.
One day, a youtuber will discover this and put it in a video essay and Siren will begin to get the respect it deserves. For now, it'll continue to be played by horror game fans and Silent Hill lovers - neither of which I am - and influence Japanese horror games, including, seemingly, director Keiichiro Toyama's next game, Slitterhead, which also features a realistic Japanese setting - urban this time - and has creatures that look like shibito on steroids.
I don't have a great way to end this review, but if this sounds like an experience you'd get something out of, it's on the PS Store; try throwing yourself into that fire.
Okay, that sounds insane so let me explain what I mean. In an issue of Game Informer that came out sometime during the 00s, there was an ad for a game.
I remember the ad very well. The game it described was fascinating. A tense survival horror game, a genre I'd never played. One where you were alone in a run-down village. But what interested me the most was that its story was told out of order, the levels taking place at different times, and you'd have to piece everything together yourself if you wanted to understand the full story.
I remembered that this game was called SIREN, and I never forgot that. Thinking back on it, the ad was likely for Siren: Blood Curse, the remake/remix of this game for PS3, but what cemented itself in my mind was the PS2 game. There was no point in time where I ever wondered "What was that game I saw the ad for?" ; I never forgot. Every once in awhile, I would think about Siren, and wonder if one day I'd ever be able to play it. I never looked it up, never watched any videos of it. I just kept it in my head, a gaming white whale, like Asura's Wrath is for me still.
But in December 2016, I was able to buy the game. I had no idea it was even on PS4, upscaled with trophy support. It was like a miracle, like they'd put it there just for me. Maybe it wasn't important, but it felt important. And I resolved that I wouldn't just play the game, but I would stream it, every time I played it. This isn't something I often do, there's only a handful of games I've streamed all of and most are shorter than Siren.
What I quickly discovered was that Siren is not an easy game to play. Its controls are only slightly better than tank controls, the levels don't give you much direction, sight-jacking often requires a lot of waiting around for enemies to move where you want them to, and dying could often set you back pretty far. For someone like me who usually tries to play games without looking anything up, it was a real challenge. Even learning that the manual had tips for every mission only helped a little bit. Eventually I did have to look two or three things up online. It took me a year and five months, but I eventually beat Siren, getting the full ending, doing everything but getting all the archive items.
It was tough. At times I disliked the game. There were streams where I'd only manage to do one level, parts of the game that I absolutely dreaded getting to. But even so I saw how special it was. Especially these years later, the bad memories fade away and I mostly remember the parts I loved.
And those parts are fantastic. The atmosphere and area design is second-to-none, I feel like there are probably Japanese villages that look exactly like this. The village has 9 areas and you can see exactly where they are in relation to each other. After awhile, a couple of those areas transform as the monsters build new structures over them. I can still describe every single area.
The sound-design creates ever-present tension. The monsters are awful and memorable. The archive isn't just data files or audio logs, they're random bits and bobs that you find around town, sometimes offering insights, sometimes just adding color to the world. The main characters are rendered in this way where real photos of facial expressions are recreated in polygons and animated - it actually works really well, even with the british accents they give everyone in the dub. Each of them is distinct and once again I could easily describe every one, even if I couldn't remember all their names.
For every way the gameplay is frustrating, Siren is a master-craft in another. Even its story, its out-of-order, incredibly confusing story, still feels cool and epic even if you only get the broad strokes. I came out of it being thankful for having played it.
There's one level in the game specifically that bowled me over. In it you play as a pre-teen girl looking for her parents. You go through the farmland/dried-up river area, and it looks different from when you've seen it before. The air is full of bright lights like fireflies. There's weird noises all around. It's almost beautiful. But the enemies are still there and you still have to avoid them like usual. So you sneak through, coming close to being detected once or twice but - phew - they don't notice you. You wouldn't have any way to defend yourself if they did. Finally the girl reaches the church where her parents are. The door is locked. She goes to the window and knocks on it, yelling for her mom and dad. In the church her parents shriek and move away from the window. Then you see - the girl has become a monster herself, the zombie-like shibito that wander the village. First I realized, oh, that's why the level looked weird, because that's how shibito see the world. And it gives you insight into some of their actions later in the game. But then I realized something else, and thought "Hold on a minute...If this girl is a shibito...And the monsters in the level are shibito...Were they even looking for me? Would they even have hurt me if they caught me?"
I later tested this and found that, no, they wouldn't. They completely ignore you, you're just another shibito like them. Throughout that level, the fear is entirely in your head, and even if you get within a distance where they'd normally notice you but they don't, you probably don't even realize it, you just think "oh, that was a close one, they almost saw me." I don't know how this level plays out for everyone but I imagine that figuring out that the enemies are harmless during the level itself is a rare occurrence, because it goes against everything you've done up to that point. It's incredible.
One day, a youtuber will discover this and put it in a video essay and Siren will begin to get the respect it deserves. For now, it'll continue to be played by horror game fans and Silent Hill lovers - neither of which I am - and influence Japanese horror games, including, seemingly, director Keiichiro Toyama's next game, Slitterhead, which also features a realistic Japanese setting - urban this time - and has creatures that look like shibito on steroids.
I don't have a great way to end this review, but if this sounds like an experience you'd get something out of, it's on the PS Store; try throwing yourself into that fire.
2005
Don't listen to some of the top reviews here, this game is better than the first one, it's more wacky, more colorful, got more and bigger levels, more cousins, more presents, more cutscenes, more King. It's one of the best video games.
2023
Contrary to several of the other reviews here, I think this game's short length and relative lack of difficulty are a strength, not a weakness. I don't care if a puzzle game is hard, I care if it's good, if it's fun, and if the puzzles feel like puzzles - they can make you feel smart when you beat them, whether it's easy, or hard. As someone who loves The Witness, a long and more difficult game, I think this.
Just like this game, The Witness, and Superliminal (a much closer relative to this game that even has the main voice you hear share an accent with this game's Cait), it's about perspective. Go in expecting every idea to be explored exhaustively and you will be disappointed, go in expecting short, potent bursts of creativity that never let up, with even the final challenges presenting a new wrinkle, and you will be satisfied.
When considering the totality of the game, the uninteresting story and dialogue that feels like certain characters were written by completely different people than others, doesn't matter all that much. It's not what you're gonna remember, though going by this game's description, it unfortunately may be partly what you're supposed to. Sorry on that one devs. But a game with this sort of "10 second clip can go viral without even having any commentary" factor does not come along every day, and eventually, with Antichamber, Superliminal, and now this game being behind us, the first-person-puzzler genre won't be providing games like that anymore. Let's treasure them while they are coming out.
Just like this game, The Witness, and Superliminal (a much closer relative to this game that even has the main voice you hear share an accent with this game's Cait), it's about perspective. Go in expecting every idea to be explored exhaustively and you will be disappointed, go in expecting short, potent bursts of creativity that never let up, with even the final challenges presenting a new wrinkle, and you will be satisfied.
When considering the totality of the game, the uninteresting story and dialogue that feels like certain characters were written by completely different people than others, doesn't matter all that much. It's not what you're gonna remember, though going by this game's description, it unfortunately may be partly what you're supposed to. Sorry on that one devs. But a game with this sort of "10 second clip can go viral without even having any commentary" factor does not come along every day, and eventually, with Antichamber, Superliminal, and now this game being behind us, the first-person-puzzler genre won't be providing games like that anymore. Let's treasure them while they are coming out.
WTF is with the banner screenshot for this, backloggd
(If you didn't get it reload the page a few times)
(If you didn't get it reload the page a few times)
2001
This review contains spoilers
One of the most fascinating Nintendo games. A real, somewhat unforigiving look at the circle of life, and one man's will to survive in an alien environment. I'm not joking; Pikmin's dark aspects aren't just some subtext for youtube video essays (something like "The Dark Truth underneath the Pikmin franchise"). It's not underneath anything, it's right there on the surface. I remember being very surprised by how deep and emotional some of Captain Olimar's diary logs got. This is a story of survival, of collaboration, and by the end when you see that the Pikmin have learned to fight on their own, it's a beautiful thing. Olimar is a brave man. He's not portrayed as one but he is. He's a leader who tamed the wilds of an alien world. I think he and Donkey Kong would get along. These plot elements, the strict time limit, the gameplay that can quickly get somewhat overwhelming if you're not familiar with real-time strategy, and the somewhat dated graphics, probably make this game pretty alienating (ha) to modern and casual players. I'd definitely tell someone new to the franchise to start with Pikmin 3. But there's a charm to this first entry that 3 (I haven't played 2) doesn't have.
2015
"I am only a man." - CommanderVideo
I kind of think that everyone should play these. These games were a part of my maturation in the same way that No More Heroes and Bayonetta were, except I often don't give these enough credit.
I kind of think that everyone should play these. These games were a part of my maturation in the same way that No More Heroes and Bayonetta were, except I often don't give these enough credit.
2008
Ahh, to be a grimp, flinging myself around, filling seeds with pollen, collecting spectra in that colorful world...
Always had a soft spot for this game and in the past couple years I 100%ed the Encore version on PC, 12 years after I first played it in 2008. Both of those playthroughs are logged (well the dates I got achievements/trophies), the original playthrough is the earliest thing in my journal! It was a big surprise to hear that it was getting a sequel and I'd like to play that one day.
Always had a soft spot for this game and in the past couple years I 100%ed the Encore version on PC, 12 years after I first played it in 2008. Both of those playthroughs are logged (well the dates I got achievements/trophies), the original playthrough is the earliest thing in my journal! It was a big surprise to hear that it was getting a sequel and I'd like to play that one day.
1992
Very short, though it does include a New Game+ mode that's substantially harder. It's impressive how much of the DNA of the series is in this game, considering that the main thing Kirby is known for - his copy abilities - isn't in it. It's also interesting to see what they did NOT bring forward - Kirby being able to inflate himself to a massive size, and appearing to live among a whole bunch of other Kirbys - I think this is why clones of him often dance along with him when he clears levels in later games. It's such a dynamic game compared to, I imagine, many others at the time, I'm sure reviewers back then must have thought it was like playing an animated movie.
2002
There's beautiful simplicity to this game that the others, as much as I love Kingdom Hearts at its most insanely complex, just don't have. This is a game with something to prove, and whatever it was, it proves it. Hollow Bastion is one of my favorite locations in video games. The final boss is one of my favorite final bosses in video games. The ending is one of the greatest, top 3 greatest, endings in video games. Even playing it for the first time in 2012, at age 19, with no nostalgia connected to this series, no history of listening to the music - the only connection I had to the games was performing in a bizarre classroom theater version of the game's intro scenes shortly before - when Kairi says "I know you will!", and Sora is taken away from her, and that music begins to play...Wow. It's an incredible moment. The rough edges on this game compared to the sequels barely make it worse, they just make it more unique.
2009
An incredibly unique game the likes of which will probably never be seen, or played by nearly anyone, again. The experience itself is not always - perhaps even not often - fun, but there is a clear passion and love of making games here from one of my favorite creators, Keita Takahashi. The letter that was unlocked once players - with the help of the devs boosting their numbers - had collectively finished the game is very touching.
A surprising jump in quality over the first game, for being on a system not much more advanced than the NES itself, and lacking one thing the NES had, color. I found myself being led fairly easily through this game, and I didn't get stuck unlike how I got stuck several times with the original.
But little did players at the time know that this was just the chrysalis stage of Metroid, a prelude to the beautiful butterfly that would emerge just a few years later...
But little did players at the time know that this was just the chrysalis stage of Metroid, a prelude to the beautiful butterfly that would emerge just a few years later...
2009
An incredible formative game for a teenage me - and no, not in that way!! It just informed the kind of half-crazy, half-serious, heart-on-its-sleeve vibe I love to see in games and media in general.
It's been really crazy to play this game in 2010 (when it came out in the US), and then over several years see it go from being a largely unknown game where the primary audience was considered to be horny guys, to a well-respected hack-and-slash with a GOTY sequel, to a SMASH BROS-worthy franchise (one of the most incredible surprises of my life - I always wanted Bayo in Smash but thought it was such an impossibility that I put Bit.Trip's CommanderVideo on the Smash poll instead of her), to now being not just all of those things, but also having Bayonetta be an icon for feminist and LGBT gamers. Things did not start out that way, let me tell you.
The plot of this game is actually good, also.
It's been really crazy to play this game in 2010 (when it came out in the US), and then over several years see it go from being a largely unknown game where the primary audience was considered to be horny guys, to a well-respected hack-and-slash with a GOTY sequel, to a SMASH BROS-worthy franchise (one of the most incredible surprises of my life - I always wanted Bayo in Smash but thought it was such an impossibility that I put Bit.Trip's CommanderVideo on the Smash poll instead of her), to now being not just all of those things, but also having Bayonetta be an icon for feminist and LGBT gamers. Things did not start out that way, let me tell you.
The plot of this game is actually good, also.
2009
Really really good despite Keita Takahashi no longer being involved with the series at this point. Robo-King is hilarious, he could give Marvin from Hitchiker's guide a run for his money in depression. The variety of levels is huge (though most of them are recycled from old games, Beautiful Katamari was exclusive to Xbox 360 so anyone that only had a PS3 would have been experiencing those levels for the first time here) and the new, bright graphical style works well. Was a pretty good finale for the Katamari series on consoles, but I do hope to see a new one one day, with or without Takahashi.
A legit fun minigame collection with a huge amount of Nintendo Polish, that generated discussion and often derision because of its odd take on microtransactions - where everyone conveniently forgot to mention that the game A) leads you to getting the lowest price on nearly every game fairly easily provided you play the ones you buy a little before buying the next one, and B) that price is usually around $1.50, meaning the full price of the game will be, for nearly every player - and these are players who clearly like the game if they're buying everything, not people being cajoled in some way - 15 bucks.
And you're getting a fair amount of content for this. You only need to buy six minigames to complete the weird, somewhat endearing story about this complete failure of a dog/dad, and there's 3 extra minigames along with one final thingy that lets you do something else (look it up if you want to know). Each game has 25 basic challenges (5 levels each of 5 sub-games - microgames? Did Wario trademark that? Probably, knowing him - themed around the same aspect of baseball) and 25 advanced challenges. The higher levels of even the normal challenges are pretty tough, and the advanced ones are advanced as heck. If you like a hand-eye-coordination challenge but don't want to play a rhythm game, this is the game for you. If you like playing the game a lot you'll be tackling up to 450 challenges there, plus the 2 unlockable high score challenges for each game - 468, then. Worth 15 bucks in my opinion.
The game isn't perfect, I think the minigames are fun enough that the presentation surrounding them could have been more robust - even just a little 3D world to run around in like in NintendoLand - and you should get more for winning some of the tougher challenges. What you get isn't great - just 3D Dioramas, and costumes for the high score modes. But, this game is all about the love of the game of baseball, so I guess that's what the devs expect you to have when you play it. You're not doing this for dioramas or costumes for your Mii. You're doing this to hear the crack of the bat, or the...whatever the noise is when the ball lands in your glove. It's a very "NIntendo" thing, and they wanted people to know that this is what the game is about so much that they mentioned it when they first revealed it in a Nintendo Direct.
It's not gonna be for everyone. And maybe there are some poor kids out there who are somehow spending more on this game than they should be. But for what it generally is, a 15-dollar baseball-themed minigame collection, damn did I have fun. I hope we get to see Rusty and the fam again, someday, somewhere.
And you're getting a fair amount of content for this. You only need to buy six minigames to complete the weird, somewhat endearing story about this complete failure of a dog/dad, and there's 3 extra minigames along with one final thingy that lets you do something else (look it up if you want to know). Each game has 25 basic challenges (5 levels each of 5 sub-games - microgames? Did Wario trademark that? Probably, knowing him - themed around the same aspect of baseball) and 25 advanced challenges. The higher levels of even the normal challenges are pretty tough, and the advanced ones are advanced as heck. If you like a hand-eye-coordination challenge but don't want to play a rhythm game, this is the game for you. If you like playing the game a lot you'll be tackling up to 450 challenges there, plus the 2 unlockable high score challenges for each game - 468, then. Worth 15 bucks in my opinion.
The game isn't perfect, I think the minigames are fun enough that the presentation surrounding them could have been more robust - even just a little 3D world to run around in like in NintendoLand - and you should get more for winning some of the tougher challenges. What you get isn't great - just 3D Dioramas, and costumes for the high score modes. But, this game is all about the love of the game of baseball, so I guess that's what the devs expect you to have when you play it. You're not doing this for dioramas or costumes for your Mii. You're doing this to hear the crack of the bat, or the...whatever the noise is when the ball lands in your glove. It's a very "NIntendo" thing, and they wanted people to know that this is what the game is about so much that they mentioned it when they first revealed it in a Nintendo Direct.
It's not gonna be for everyone. And maybe there are some poor kids out there who are somehow spending more on this game than they should be. But for what it generally is, a 15-dollar baseball-themed minigame collection, damn did I have fun. I hope we get to see Rusty and the fam again, someday, somewhere.
2021
Sometimes frustrating and feels like it really could have shined if they just took time to polish it like the year they had for Tears of the Kingdom. Apparently the devs teased a sort of free mode or New Game +, which would have been really good for big fans, but it never materialized.
But this game is a breath of fresh air and if I may compare it to another game I beat recently, a better example of a good and memorable "AA" game than Robocop: Rogue City. The art design and music are simply awesome, and the game is pretty damn fun to play. ACE Team seems like a really cool dev that generally has been able to do what they want and I'd like to play more games from them.
My last Trebhum was named Goose, he was my second "Mineral Guy" after Ridley died, before becoming the chosen one. He came to the final fight with 2 others but he was the only one that survived. He was the culmination of the efforts of many brave Trebhum: Captain Togoo (a bulky fellow), Motern the waterboy, Tubi the Mixer, Wenwu the quick, Dafoe the swimmer, Winker the floaty, and young Dewdrop. Along with many others whose names we may not remember but whose efforts were not in vain.
But this game is a breath of fresh air and if I may compare it to another game I beat recently, a better example of a good and memorable "AA" game than Robocop: Rogue City. The art design and music are simply awesome, and the game is pretty damn fun to play. ACE Team seems like a really cool dev that generally has been able to do what they want and I'd like to play more games from them.
My last Trebhum was named Goose, he was my second "Mineral Guy" after Ridley died, before becoming the chosen one. He came to the final fight with 2 others but he was the only one that survived. He was the culmination of the efforts of many brave Trebhum: Captain Togoo (a bulky fellow), Motern the waterboy, Tubi the Mixer, Wenwu the quick, Dafoe the swimmer, Winker the floaty, and young Dewdrop. Along with many others whose names we may not remember but whose efforts were not in vain.