Dujanah é uma visita ao cemitério; tanto que, o jogo começa e termina interagindo com um túmulo. É uma obra que está o tempo todo tentando desagradar, fazendo piadas com situações terríveis e colocando a diegese do jogo em xeque -- perceba que, 80% do texto se direciona ao jogador, por mais que ainda crie sentido com a jornada da protagonista.

Dujanah é um espantalho de si mesmo e experimenta diversos elementos de sua linguagem para contar uma história sobre morte; a morte de seu marido e filha, a morte daqueles que sofreram pela ocupação ocidental na região, e a morte de uma objetividade perversa que permeia as discussões sobre arte na cultura dos videogames.

Tudo está morto no jogo. Os NPCs são meras figuras de argila que representam seu passado vivido e contam suas histórias para Dujanah independente da noção metalinguística e da noção de que o player irá entender (ou não). Diversas telas e interações com o texto do jogo passaram em branco para mim -- simplesmente não precisamos entender tudo.

Várias e várias vezes eu me peguei pensando "O quão nonsense isso se apresenta? O quão absurdo, talvez pretensioso? E seu significado, qual seria?" e é muito ruim ter a sensação de que o jogo fala muito para dizer pouco; porém, essas sensações eram tão passageiras quanto as histórias daqueles que já foram. E de alguma forma, elas foram úteis para a manutenção da minha experiência, de que nada preciso entender, tudo preciso sentir. Um bom exemplo disso foi o minigame de metroidvania do jogo, no qual eu senti diversas coisas como catarse, angústia, nojo, ansiedade; e no fim, não consegui canalizar pensamentos o suficiente para tirar alguma coisa daquilo. Até que eu interagi com um NPC, uma aranha, o símbolo da luxúria no jogo, e ela me disse "e eu não sei 100% se essas escolhas interpretativas vão deixar o jogador mais informado de alguma forma", e bem, eu concordo completamente -- os temas islâmicos do jogo passaram em branco para mim, e mesmo assim, não senti que tive uma experiência incompleta.

Dujanah aproveita do "inútil" ao "desagradável" para juntar suas peças e formar essa grande colagem em forma de jogo -- os sons, os visuais, o texto, as interações -- tudo extremamente poluído e algumas vezes parecendo até um shitpost vazio ou creepypasta forçada, mas que de alguma forma, manteve meu interesse.

"É verdade que a audiência, fundamentalmente, busca se entreter, é sua natureza; portanto, ela irá encontrar entretenimento, mesmo que em lugares impróprios"

-> launches game
-> installs patches to play
-> "oh cool! For a game this old the AI sure is fairly smart (than most games nowadays) and the gunplay is good!"
-> make it to mid way point and game nearly gives up to throw anything new at you

-> "Horror sequence straight from a GMOD map
-> Encounter
-> "Horror Sequence again

The encounters were fun though, core combat is definitely ahead of its time. Too bad the horror got stale for me after a bit but I like in certain sections how it linked to the games encounters in darker areas. Cool

Every No More Heroes sequel focuses on one of its elements rather than its whole, each of them to mixed success. TSA its hidden depths, NMH3 its characters and structure, and NMH2 its gameplay and style. Unfortunately, while probably the most commonly beloved of the three, I think it fails utterly to live up to its predecessor.

NMH1 had pacing. You had to earn every bit of fun, working through jobs or grindy side missions to get to fight the next assassin, so when you did, it was special. 2 doesn't even let you take your time. The only things you can do between bouts of combat are side missions, which are just more fighting but without the payoff of a cool boss at the end or admittedly improved but now completely pointless (both mechanically and thematically) minigames. The open world is gone, and with it the anticipation and mystique of every boss battle. Now they're just levels in a videogame.

I'm not going to pretend NMH1 was some masterpiece of action game combat. It was good, repetitive but satisfying mashy fun, and that's all it tried to be. NMH2 mostly succeeds at replicating that, and brings some improvements (being able to switch between weapons on the fly is appreciated, and just having multiple theoretically viable playstyles rather than every sword being an upgrade to the previous is nice), but it ultimately ends up being worse because of things around the combat itself. NMH1, again, was well-paced. Each stage was a bit of an event on its own, and each one had its gimmick to break up the repetition of the fighting. NMH2 enemies get spongey as hell, the stages get way too long by the end and have basically no variation through them. Shinobu and Henry are now playable, but while this should be cool, Shinobu is really unwieldy and ends up fighting the most boring boss in the game and then the absolute worst one, while Henry is playable for just one mediocre boss fight with no stage and then never again. It's the NMH equivalent of a turret section, it happens and then it ends, and you're not really sure what the point was.

Every NMH1 boss is worth remembering. A couple failed mechanically, but none thematically: most were great challenges, and all highlighted Travis' character in their own way. No More Heroes 2 was actually meant to focus more on boss battles and their characters, to the point that they were designed first and foremost, but this actually has a negative impact on them. No longer are they cool foils to our protagonist that help develop him and the world, they're just goofy over the top characters in a goofy over the top world. That's not to say there's no good ones, I love a couple of them, but the quality of both gameplay and writing has dropped, and with it Travis loses his opportunities to shine as the compelling, unique character he is, and ends up just feeling like a generic quirky action game protagonist. Equal parts Dante and Deadpool, with a sprinkle of some stoic anime badass of your choice. He gets the girl at the end, for fuck's sake. How do you miss the point that bad?

The story aspires to greatness, but ends up unknowingly (Somehow? Suda51 still worked on this, though not as much. Did he just not care?) just treading in the first game's footsteps. Why, thank you, Desperate Struggle, revenge is bad. We definitely didn't do "Travis gets obsessed with some made-up goal and actively makes his life worse as a result as he carves a path of blood through Santa Destroy" already. At the same time, unlike NMH1 it tries way too hard to make Travis "badass" and "likeable", which means its message ends up feeling half-assed.

Since I clearly haven't spent enough time babbling about this game, here's my thoughts on all the bosses.

- Skelter Helter - Decent tutorial boss, nothing to say. A cool intro.
- Nathan Copeland - Janky fight, I hate the scene where Travis kills a couple of innocents without any regard for them, that's very unlike him. Ok otherwise, Nathan does have charisma.
- Charlie MacDonald - The mech would have been great as some form of climax or late-game setpiece, but NMH2 uses it way too early and then never shows up again until an off-hand mention in NMH3. As a character Charlie barely exists.
- Kimmy Howell - I like the idea of Travis actively and accidentally encouraging a whole new generation to become murderers to follow him. Unfortunately the game barely touches on this, good on NMH3 for actually addressing it just a tiny bit.
- Matt Helms - Cool vibes but kinda nothing in the end.
- Cloe Walsh - Stupid easy, also kinda nothing.
- Dr. Letz Shake - Gimmicky but a bit fun.
- Million Gunman - May be the least interesting boss in the whole series, his entire character is that he likes money and has a slightly cool accent. This is like Metal Gear (not Solid) 1 level of boss gimmicks, where they had a guy called "Shotmaker" whose superpower was shooting you.
- New Destroyman - Awful. They reused the moveset from the first game whole-sale and still fucked it up, the "Red" Destroyman fights you straight up, you beat him, and then begins a 20-minute game of very slowly whittling down the "Blue" one's HP as it shamelessly camps you out.
- Ryuji - Pretty good fight, I like it thematically too.
- Mimmy - Weird. Very bizarre thing to put in the game. They really thought they were onto something huh?
- Margaret Moonlight - I'm not gonna sugarcoat it I fucking love Margaret. Her design is awesome, her being a sniper works in the fight without making it a complete slog pretty well and her theme goes fucking crazy.
- Captain Vladimir - A pretty odd addition, but in a good way this time. His fight is a bit surreal and a bit sad, and I'm always into that.
- Alice Twilight - She's pretty cool. Probably the only boss in the game that feels Kill The Past in any way.
- Jasper Batt Jr. - I hate this guy so much. His first and third phases are just unremarkably lame, but phase 2 is so fucking unfair and all (probably?) to drive home the most boring, worthless "point" to any game's story. I don't know if he sucks on purpose or on accident but I despise him.

what a bad remaster. they forgot to take into account that they changed the fps from 30 to 60 so now the enemies in combat now act twice as fast, if you wanna know why the enemies are always blocking it's because of this. and this game also has the worst boss fight in the entire series. there are some good things to say though and that yakuza 3 has a great story, and it also introduced a lot of features that are staples of the series like karaoke, it also adds content scrubbed from the original ps3 version and removes that shitty transphobic substory too

It's Re4 but kinda not?

I understand the love for the remake. I really do. Upping the combat to make it feel more "modern", revamping environments to add some survival horror backtracking and level design, changing the overall tone of the storytelling, and flushing out characters and story beats all culminate in a distinct vision for this remade classic. However, I personally don't get the hype, unfortunately. Everything I liked about the remake is what made me fall in love with RE4 in the first person, so is it fair to just rate the game based on that? If that's the case, it's by default a 10/10, since it's RE4 at its core. However, the game is not a 1-1 remake of Re4, cutting environments, and changing things to legitimize itself as an "alternative" to Re4. So, I'm conflicted. The things that were added ranged from great to not-so-great and the one thing I freaking adored about RE4 (the campy tone and writing) and what set it apart from every game in the series has been modified to fit the style of the new RE remakes. In a lot of ways, this game feels like a modded version of the Re2 remake done with RE4's environments in mind, and I don't if I truly like the idea. Once I arrived at the last third of the game, I was getting exhausted and said to myself, "I just don't think this is for me", and that's okay. The backtracking with no looping level design, the "side missions", the odd clashing of the B-movie tone and 1-liners with the very dark and dramatic RE2R presentation; the overpowered parry, the knife durability, etc. etc., etc. I think this remake is absolutely respectful to the source material and made with a lot of love, but RE4 proves that it stands the test of time, so this remake feels redundant. Absolutely solid, and a fun time overall, but it just made me want to play RE4 all over again.

8.5/10 Still Re4 at the end of the day, so there's a lot to love

playing this smooth Instagram bimbo modification cut of personal comfort food tier game in foreign country computer club in one night morning sit just for realization how i actually craved for new shit and not just some hair gelled big budget repetition.

it's more pain for me. original clicked me with all goofy shit, control limitations and development hell signs(final version is just big compilation of multiple beta versions in assets and design) just because actually those things are turned for good and creating good roller coaster core design in everything in game. original is very lucky big perfect mess and remake is just lucking that feeling. okay, we get it, original is always better, but this thing is not even trying in actually new shit in gameplay how re2remake does. it's just same but with those yellow painted barrels and better things in production standpoint. and that's it. i dont get it. you has a chance to make this "dark survival horror of rez4" with big village levels like in bloodborne for example. or more action game with nice controls and more leon as john wick. or new characters. ok, you got me, new gameplay things in combat, but why levels and structure is a cut of the same? we got ps5 on hands right now, streaming loading tech and shit, and this remake just limits itself again and again for "original feeling" and it’s totally feels like meaningless choice, like my urge to play this remake on release date with some hype of all infospace.

touching grass on sunny day after that long session? that was pretty good actually

TL;DR: I recommend this game on a sale. I got my copy for $20 and thought that was a great price, would've even paid $30.

It's a game that feels like a PS5 launch title, for better or worse. It's extremely nice to look at in terms of both fidelity and style--I'm always a sucker for traveling around an extremely detailed Japan--complete with "next gen" particles and ray-traced lighting.

However, other than looks and the great emotional payoff at the end, it's not really great. It's good, but not much to write home about.

The combat is shallow and often lacks satisfying feedback, and that's before you realize you only have three abilities (spirit guns), and only 2 are truly worth upgrading. A few talismans and a bow can spice up (or trivialize) most fights, but nothing about the gameplay pulled me to want to go for map completion. Enemy variety was weak, if creatively designed, and map the open world was pretty but shallow.

That last part can really stand as the thesis for this whole game: exceptionally pretty and awe-inspiring at first, but quickly loses it's luster and becomes quite dull. I ended up getting 50% of the 240,300(!) spirits and felt that if I kept going I would quickly want to drop the entire game. I made the wise decision to screw completion and push through the story, which is often--again--shallow and somewhat nonsensical until the end, which I very much enjoyed.

I know it sounds like I'm being overwhelming negative, so all I can say is don't go into this thinking it'll reinvent any sort of wheels or scratch any long-term gaming itches. This is a compelling experience for the spectacles alone, a spectacle which was good enough to carry me to the end and across more than two dozen hours of mostly fun gameplay. Tango Gameworks is a fine studio, and this is one I recommend trying at least once.