2023
It's ironic that a game with intergalactic space travel and so many different planets feels so bland to explore. Bethesda's philosophy to game design has always been "size matters" and Starfield feels like the natural evolution of that approach.
However, by having so many planets, moons, even galaxies to explore ... everything feels bland. We all know deep down that no developer could ever create entire galaxies of content. And honestly, nobody would even want that, because even if it sounds cool, after a while you would realize that it gets tiring to play the very same game over hundreds of hours because the mechanics simply can't carry such a massive experience.
Thanks to the amount and the resulting emptiness of these planets I ended up wanting to explore none of them. I occasionally tried to wander around aimlessly, looking for markers on my map and usually just ended up in samey caves and outposts that provided nothing of interest. It was "content" in the strictest sense but it wasn't worthwhile or meaningful. It was just there to make the game bigger.
A good game, as far as I'm concerned, leads the player to where the good content is. Starfield does this by randomly putting quests into your log (seemingly by your character hear about rumors NPCs talk about) and while that is definitely an option that does work, it also makes it feel like you're just working off a list.
Maybe that's a matter of preference, but if I reach a new location in an RPG I want to talk to NPCs, gather information, stumble upon interesting places and actively look for the quests. In Starfield it feels like you're running around and your questlog gets filled automatically while you're doing something else. It's the Ubisoft design of doing content. Nothing needs to be explored, everything is on your map or your questlog. Now choose something and do it, damn it!
And it feels wrong to me. My questlog was filled with stuff like "talk to person X", talk to person Y", "apply for random job", "go there" and without context I simply did not know what I should even go for. Sometimes I ended up randomly following a marker to a quest and it ended up being something that my character that I had in my mind wouldn't even be interested in. But since he put it in his questlog, he obviously is somehow.
There are some quests in this game that I liked. Most of them don't really offer the interesting decision making of something like Fallout: New Vegas, but you can choose to be an asshole or a helpful citizen and I particularly enjoyed the lengthy storyline of Ryujin industries, full of industry spionage and betrayal. It wasn't interesting in terms of gameplay, but it lead to some cool choices at least. Though I imagine the end result will still look fairly similar in every case.
The gameplay is basically Fallout, but more boring. Instead of having the cool V.A.T.S. system you have nothing interesting to do. There are tons of weapons and also grenades, mines and drugs to use but combat encounters boil down to simply shooting people without really having the character use specific abilities or really any decision making. The skill tree mostly offers percentual boosts to your weapons and nothing really stood out to me that made combat interesting. There is one thing you unlock fairly late in the game, that feels like the equivalent of Skyrim screams, but these also did not seem very interesting to use.
It also has the typical hacking, lockpicking, pickpocketing, sneaking ... It does nothing new in that regard. The only real thing this introduces to Bethesda RPGs are the spaceships. However, these can mostly be ignored, since your ship isn't really meant to be used for flying from planet to planet, but mostly just as a way to make quick travel more tedious, since you always have to enter your cockpit before jumping to the next galaxy. The actual fights in space are something I always tried to avoid, since they simply aren't fun to do, but they're there and I suppose it could be fun for some people to upgrade and customize there ships. I certainly didn't need it. I also never bothered to create and outposts since it was simply not something I ever found use for.
The main storyline was there. Really, I could not care less about it. I liked how they handled New Game + in regards to the story, but I was never invested, did not care for the characters and it all lead to a generic conclusion that offers nothing of value. You might as well not do the main story, but you'd miss out on the powers you unlock at some point, so at least play to that point.
In conclusion, I think this game simply caters to a specific type of audience. People who enjoy spending a lot of time in one game, gathering materials and money, building bases and spaceships and have constant progression and tons of quests will probably be happy with this. It does offer a lot. It's a gigantic game and even though I put about 40 hours into it, it still feels like I only scratched the surface. But people who want their RPGs to have some deeper mechanics, quests with interesting choices and less bloat will probably end up like me and leave the experience unimpressed.
However, by having so many planets, moons, even galaxies to explore ... everything feels bland. We all know deep down that no developer could ever create entire galaxies of content. And honestly, nobody would even want that, because even if it sounds cool, after a while you would realize that it gets tiring to play the very same game over hundreds of hours because the mechanics simply can't carry such a massive experience.
Thanks to the amount and the resulting emptiness of these planets I ended up wanting to explore none of them. I occasionally tried to wander around aimlessly, looking for markers on my map and usually just ended up in samey caves and outposts that provided nothing of interest. It was "content" in the strictest sense but it wasn't worthwhile or meaningful. It was just there to make the game bigger.
A good game, as far as I'm concerned, leads the player to where the good content is. Starfield does this by randomly putting quests into your log (seemingly by your character hear about rumors NPCs talk about) and while that is definitely an option that does work, it also makes it feel like you're just working off a list.
Maybe that's a matter of preference, but if I reach a new location in an RPG I want to talk to NPCs, gather information, stumble upon interesting places and actively look for the quests. In Starfield it feels like you're running around and your questlog gets filled automatically while you're doing something else. It's the Ubisoft design of doing content. Nothing needs to be explored, everything is on your map or your questlog. Now choose something and do it, damn it!
And it feels wrong to me. My questlog was filled with stuff like "talk to person X", talk to person Y", "apply for random job", "go there" and without context I simply did not know what I should even go for. Sometimes I ended up randomly following a marker to a quest and it ended up being something that my character that I had in my mind wouldn't even be interested in. But since he put it in his questlog, he obviously is somehow.
There are some quests in this game that I liked. Most of them don't really offer the interesting decision making of something like Fallout: New Vegas, but you can choose to be an asshole or a helpful citizen and I particularly enjoyed the lengthy storyline of Ryujin industries, full of industry spionage and betrayal. It wasn't interesting in terms of gameplay, but it lead to some cool choices at least. Though I imagine the end result will still look fairly similar in every case.
The gameplay is basically Fallout, but more boring. Instead of having the cool V.A.T.S. system you have nothing interesting to do. There are tons of weapons and also grenades, mines and drugs to use but combat encounters boil down to simply shooting people without really having the character use specific abilities or really any decision making. The skill tree mostly offers percentual boosts to your weapons and nothing really stood out to me that made combat interesting. There is one thing you unlock fairly late in the game, that feels like the equivalent of Skyrim screams, but these also did not seem very interesting to use.
It also has the typical hacking, lockpicking, pickpocketing, sneaking ... It does nothing new in that regard. The only real thing this introduces to Bethesda RPGs are the spaceships. However, these can mostly be ignored, since your ship isn't really meant to be used for flying from planet to planet, but mostly just as a way to make quick travel more tedious, since you always have to enter your cockpit before jumping to the next galaxy. The actual fights in space are something I always tried to avoid, since they simply aren't fun to do, but they're there and I suppose it could be fun for some people to upgrade and customize there ships. I certainly didn't need it. I also never bothered to create and outposts since it was simply not something I ever found use for.
The main storyline was there. Really, I could not care less about it. I liked how they handled New Game + in regards to the story, but I was never invested, did not care for the characters and it all lead to a generic conclusion that offers nothing of value. You might as well not do the main story, but you'd miss out on the powers you unlock at some point, so at least play to that point.
In conclusion, I think this game simply caters to a specific type of audience. People who enjoy spending a lot of time in one game, gathering materials and money, building bases and spaceships and have constant progression and tons of quests will probably be happy with this. It does offer a lot. It's a gigantic game and even though I put about 40 hours into it, it still feels like I only scratched the surface. But people who want their RPGs to have some deeper mechanics, quests with interesting choices and less bloat will probably end up like me and leave the experience unimpressed.
2023
One of these games that has a fantastic foundation due to it's movement and gamefeel but suffers from structural issues.
There not being a map seems like a mistake. It doesn't even need to be a very detailed one, but just roughly seeing where each of the different areas are in relation to the others would've gone a long way.
I feel like some of the later areas could've benefitted from more challenging jumping passages or even an optional area akin to the Path of Pain in Hollow Knight, but overall the game offers enough opportunities to use your entire moveset on. The "shot" ability just seemed pointless to me. It just blocked my progress arbitrarily at one point and doesn't get much use otherwise.
Would love for this to get a sequel that expands on what is there. The moveset is fantastic already, so getting to use it on even cooler levels without the confusing progression would be amazing.
I could also mention the combat, but it's just ... there. It didn't bother me but it lacks complexity.
Would definitely recommend it since 3D Metroidvanias are super rare and this one does a good job.
There not being a map seems like a mistake. It doesn't even need to be a very detailed one, but just roughly seeing where each of the different areas are in relation to the others would've gone a long way.
I feel like some of the later areas could've benefitted from more challenging jumping passages or even an optional area akin to the Path of Pain in Hollow Knight, but overall the game offers enough opportunities to use your entire moveset on. The "shot" ability just seemed pointless to me. It just blocked my progress arbitrarily at one point and doesn't get much use otherwise.
Would love for this to get a sequel that expands on what is there. The moveset is fantastic already, so getting to use it on even cooler levels without the confusing progression would be amazing.
I could also mention the combat, but it's just ... there. It didn't bother me but it lacks complexity.
Would definitely recommend it since 3D Metroidvanias are super rare and this one does a good job.
1987
For what is essentially the very first stealth title on consoles, this is a pretty impressive game. There's lots of ingredients in here that became a staple not only in this series but in the genre as a whole.
However, it obviously isn't perfect. There's plenty of areas where stealth simply isn't possible and fire fights are forced on you. This can be fine, but triggering those without a warning is a bit off-putting. Alerts also don't always matter all that much ... Often you walk a few steps, enter a new screen and you're fine. Later MGS games do this too, but the small scale of a screen in this game makes this a bigger issue.
A way bigger problem is the progression, though. Freeing hostages for information or using your codec for instructions is a great feature, however it doesn't always work well enough to figure out the location of cryptically hidden items or the path forward. Having dozens of doors that need different keycards and don't show what level of keycard they need makes exploring a huge guessing game. Having to try out like 6 different keycards for some of the later doors to check if you even got the right one is dumb. At least let a higher leveled one open every lower level door too.
As for bosses ... They did a good job at making these very varied and they had some good ideas. The execution is just pretty lacking most of the time. The final boss in particular is very underwhelming.
What I find fascinating however, is how many ideas there are in this game, that later get reused. The keycard thing, getting captured and thrown into a cell, electric floors you have to deactivate with a remote missile, hallways filled with gas, lasers you have to spot with goggles, a Hind D boss, the "turn your console off" line ... All of that is already in here.
The storyline is very barebones, which might be surprising considering what franchise this is, but I suppose for the time this was normal. Some select moments are pretty cool though. Can't imagine many games having character lie to you to hinder your progress for example. That still isn't something that's happening all that much.
Last thing I would mention is the music. Not all of it is amazing, but overall there are quite a few catchy tracks in this. I caught myself humming along quite a bit.
So yeah, a decent Metal Gear prototype that only continues to be build upon. I'd say this is worth your 3-4 hours you'd invest in it, but definitely have a guide ready, or maybe just use maps. It makes it all more tolerable and fun.
However, it obviously isn't perfect. There's plenty of areas where stealth simply isn't possible and fire fights are forced on you. This can be fine, but triggering those without a warning is a bit off-putting. Alerts also don't always matter all that much ... Often you walk a few steps, enter a new screen and you're fine. Later MGS games do this too, but the small scale of a screen in this game makes this a bigger issue.
A way bigger problem is the progression, though. Freeing hostages for information or using your codec for instructions is a great feature, however it doesn't always work well enough to figure out the location of cryptically hidden items or the path forward. Having dozens of doors that need different keycards and don't show what level of keycard they need makes exploring a huge guessing game. Having to try out like 6 different keycards for some of the later doors to check if you even got the right one is dumb. At least let a higher leveled one open every lower level door too.
As for bosses ... They did a good job at making these very varied and they had some good ideas. The execution is just pretty lacking most of the time. The final boss in particular is very underwhelming.
What I find fascinating however, is how many ideas there are in this game, that later get reused. The keycard thing, getting captured and thrown into a cell, electric floors you have to deactivate with a remote missile, hallways filled with gas, lasers you have to spot with goggles, a Hind D boss, the "turn your console off" line ... All of that is already in here.
The storyline is very barebones, which might be surprising considering what franchise this is, but I suppose for the time this was normal. Some select moments are pretty cool though. Can't imagine many games having character lie to you to hinder your progress for example. That still isn't something that's happening all that much.
Last thing I would mention is the music. Not all of it is amazing, but overall there are quite a few catchy tracks in this. I caught myself humming along quite a bit.
So yeah, a decent Metal Gear prototype that only continues to be build upon. I'd say this is worth your 3-4 hours you'd invest in it, but definitely have a guide ready, or maybe just use maps. It makes it all more tolerable and fun.
What a fucking game.
Yeah, it's obviously not perfect. The open world has some busy work, the ending will be controversial and leaves mixed feelings and it still has plenty of "hold the stick forward" moments, but it all doesn't subtract from the amazing package we've got.
I expected Square to go crazy when the Remake project reaches the open world portion. The original game always had tons of mini games and silly interactive moments but instead of getting rid of those they really went ALL IN. If something was a little mini game in the original that took a minute, it is now a full blown minigame with high scores and mechanics.
You can tell that they tried their utmost to please fans and not skip anything. And the things that are skipped will surely be in the final game, I'm absolutely confident nothing will be missing in the end.
The combat system feels even better than before, with aerial combat being improved for Cloud in particular and the added synergy attacks add a nice layer of strategy. The new controllable characters are really well integrated and I ended up using Red XIII for the majority of my playthrough.
The gigantic soundtrack is utterly ridiculous. The amount of remixes of classic titles kept throwing me off-guard and most of them are great! When the OST is uploaded on YT I'll definitely grind away at it.
Rebirth will certainly not be for everyone. People who are tired of big worlds and don't enjoy engaging with side activities will probably be annoyed and just want to get back to the main action. Which luckily are the best parts of the game at least.
Not 100% sure if the 5 stars will stick or if I'll go down to 4.5 later down the road, but in any case, this was an amazing time and the wait for Part 3 will be painful. Now excuse me, I still got some card games to play, arenas to beat and hard mode to tackle.
Yeah, it's obviously not perfect. The open world has some busy work, the ending will be controversial and leaves mixed feelings and it still has plenty of "hold the stick forward" moments, but it all doesn't subtract from the amazing package we've got.
I expected Square to go crazy when the Remake project reaches the open world portion. The original game always had tons of mini games and silly interactive moments but instead of getting rid of those they really went ALL IN. If something was a little mini game in the original that took a minute, it is now a full blown minigame with high scores and mechanics.
You can tell that they tried their utmost to please fans and not skip anything. And the things that are skipped will surely be in the final game, I'm absolutely confident nothing will be missing in the end.
The combat system feels even better than before, with aerial combat being improved for Cloud in particular and the added synergy attacks add a nice layer of strategy. The new controllable characters are really well integrated and I ended up using Red XIII for the majority of my playthrough.
The gigantic soundtrack is utterly ridiculous. The amount of remixes of classic titles kept throwing me off-guard and most of them are great! When the OST is uploaded on YT I'll definitely grind away at it.
Rebirth will certainly not be for everyone. People who are tired of big worlds and don't enjoy engaging with side activities will probably be annoyed and just want to get back to the main action. Which luckily are the best parts of the game at least.
Not 100% sure if the 5 stars will stick or if I'll go down to 4.5 later down the road, but in any case, this was an amazing time and the wait for Part 3 will be painful. Now excuse me, I still got some card games to play, arenas to beat and hard mode to tackle.
2015
Perfect game for turning your head off, destroying some enemy bases, flying around, doing some challenges and working on your "watch later" list on YT on the side.
2022
This game is entirely carried by it's soundtrack for me. Getting to hear the voices of the singers of bands like Arch Enemy, Trivium, Dark Tranquility and more made me feel super nostalgic about the time I actively listened to metal every single day. The original songs they wrote for this game were such a joy to listen to and getting your combo high enough for the vocals to set in was a fantastic motivator to try hard.
The actual level design, gameplay and story I did not really care for. The rhythmic shooting was fine and could get intense at times, but the entire I kept thinking how much I would prefer to just shoot these enemies normally.
The actual level design, gameplay and story I did not really care for. The rhythmic shooting was fine and could get intense at times, but the entire I kept thinking how much I would prefer to just shoot these enemies normally.
2023
The game made it super hard on itself by releasing a demo that gave people a very bad impression on it and then proceeding to make it worse by not handing out review codes to several media outlets ...
The game itself isn't terrible. The main issue comes from hiding many of it's mechanics from the player until they reach a certain point in the story. Once you realize that there's so much more to come in terms of skills and mechanics it gets quite motivating to continue. However, aside from the pretty fun combat and movement it still leaves lot to be desired.
The story is as basic as it gets, the banter isn't great and the game just doesn't offer any interesting characters to speak of. The open world stuff also is just super bland and I could not find interesting quest for the life of me.
If you concentrate on the story, only do a bit of open world fluff on the side and just play it as a wizard fighting simulator ... it can be quite entertaining. The effects are pretty stunning and the moveset is impressively large. The main story also has some cool setpieces to offer.
Do not play this if you're a completionist or "require" a good story to enjoy a game. It's not terrible, I'd say it's servicable, but it won't carry the experience at all.
The game itself isn't terrible. The main issue comes from hiding many of it's mechanics from the player until they reach a certain point in the story. Once you realize that there's so much more to come in terms of skills and mechanics it gets quite motivating to continue. However, aside from the pretty fun combat and movement it still leaves lot to be desired.
The story is as basic as it gets, the banter isn't great and the game just doesn't offer any interesting characters to speak of. The open world stuff also is just super bland and I could not find interesting quest for the life of me.
If you concentrate on the story, only do a bit of open world fluff on the side and just play it as a wizard fighting simulator ... it can be quite entertaining. The effects are pretty stunning and the moveset is impressively large. The main story also has some cool setpieces to offer.
Do not play this if you're a completionist or "require" a good story to enjoy a game. It's not terrible, I'd say it's servicable, but it won't carry the experience at all.
Seperate Ways, but good. The core problems of RE4R still exist in this one, but the campaign itself is more than I could've asked for. Really shocked that this DLC was only 10€, because they could've easily asked for 15 or even 20 and nobody would've complained. This DLC has about as much content as RE3R had.
The DLC uses some original areas, changes up old areas and even introduces some new bosses. The pacing is arguably better than it was in the original, too. The dreaded sidequests also are less plentiful and tedious, though I didn't do most of those anyway.
Pretty much a must get if you liked the main game.
Looking forward to whatever comes next, because RE5R seems inevitable at this point.
The DLC uses some original areas, changes up old areas and even introduces some new bosses. The pacing is arguably better than it was in the original, too. The dreaded sidequests also are less plentiful and tedious, though I didn't do most of those anyway.
Pretty much a must get if you liked the main game.
Looking forward to whatever comes next, because RE5R seems inevitable at this point.
1997
It's called Intelligent Qube, but it made me feel pretty stupid, ngl.
Might be my most replayed game of all time. Absolute masterpiece in both gameplay and story and I will never understand why it's so overhated.
Probably never felt as many emotions as I had playing this game. What a start to my PS3 journey back in the day!
Probably never felt as many emotions as I had playing this game. What a start to my PS3 journey back in the day!
1999
I really enjoyed my time with this game. The tense atmosphere, the possibilites in character building, the exploring, the audio logs, Shodan ... It all results in a really fantastic time. There are some tedious bits to it and I'd say it's a fairly "quicksave heavy" game but I can easily see myself go back to it and try out how differently I can play this one. I wouldn't be surprised if I'd end up raising the rating on a replay now that I figured out all of the systems and can play around with it more freely.
I was super close to giving this 4 stars, but that final mission was such a letdown that I couldn't help but subtract half a star for that ... The overall quality of the missions is pretty high, though. Shalebridge Cradle being the obvious one, but I also loved the seaside mansion and the museum heist.
Thief: Deadly Shadows is still a very good stealth title with great atmosphere and varied leveldesign. I think the previous games had even more variation and creativity, but DS is still strong in that regard.
What bothered me the most about it was the gameplay. The way your steps aren't really a big factor anymore really dragged the game down. Being able to just crouchwalk over metal and other loud surfaces felt unnecessarily dumbed down. I never used moss arrows as a result of that. The blackjack also feels ... off. Since you can't use it from crouching anymore, you have to line up awkwardly to an enemy and too often I fucked up the most basic takedown and had to reload. I ended up saving my game before taking down every guard and I wish that wasn't the case. Sitting enemies are also immune to the blackjack for some reason.
The hubworld is ... pointless. Well, almost. There is some merit in getting a feeling for the world and I kind of liked going shopping and selling my loot manually. But there's also so much wasted potential. Like, there is this landlord you can steal his debt money from ... It never gets addressed later on. I also kept stealing money from the same vendor, yet he never changed the location of his money and also never ran out of business. I think these kinds of changes would've gone a long way to make the place more alive. Because what's the point of repeatedly visiting the same location if it never changes? The constant loading times between areas didn't help either.
I still enjoyed my time with this game a lot, though. It's still Thief, the graphics look great, the leveldesign is really good and I just love hunting for loot and avoiding guards. It just could've used some additional polishing and work.
Thief: Deadly Shadows is still a very good stealth title with great atmosphere and varied leveldesign. I think the previous games had even more variation and creativity, but DS is still strong in that regard.
What bothered me the most about it was the gameplay. The way your steps aren't really a big factor anymore really dragged the game down. Being able to just crouchwalk over metal and other loud surfaces felt unnecessarily dumbed down. I never used moss arrows as a result of that. The blackjack also feels ... off. Since you can't use it from crouching anymore, you have to line up awkwardly to an enemy and too often I fucked up the most basic takedown and had to reload. I ended up saving my game before taking down every guard and I wish that wasn't the case. Sitting enemies are also immune to the blackjack for some reason.
The hubworld is ... pointless. Well, almost. There is some merit in getting a feeling for the world and I kind of liked going shopping and selling my loot manually. But there's also so much wasted potential. Like, there is this landlord you can steal his debt money from ... It never gets addressed later on. I also kept stealing money from the same vendor, yet he never changed the location of his money and also never ran out of business. I think these kinds of changes would've gone a long way to make the place more alive. Because what's the point of repeatedly visiting the same location if it never changes? The constant loading times between areas didn't help either.
I still enjoyed my time with this game a lot, though. It's still Thief, the graphics look great, the leveldesign is really good and I just love hunting for loot and avoiding guards. It just could've used some additional polishing and work.
Perfect proof that Uncharted does not need Nathan and Sully to be great.
Might be a hot take, but I don't think the series should end for good here.
Of course give it another few years to rest and let Naughty Dog do something else, but Uncharted is a franchise you could just keep going and it would always be nice to return to.
I'd be fine either way, though.
Might be a hot take, but I don't think the series should end for good here.
Of course give it another few years to rest and let Naughty Dog do something else, but Uncharted is a franchise you could just keep going and it would always be nice to return to.
I'd be fine either way, though.
A huge step-up from the first game. The added crouching and knocking on walls already give this a way more engaging stealth feel, but also the bigger levels, the radar and the different screens, guards can walk between, makes it feels way more like a huge place you're infiltrating.
The progression is not quite as cryptic as it was in Metal Gear 1 ... there were some instances where I looked at a guide real quick, but I'm confident you can beat this on your own without taking ages.
The keycard system luckily got a little better. There are now cards that combine multiple levels, so that you don't have to switch between all of them to try them out on a door. And generally the map/radar helps getting around the map a lot ... I never got lost, like I did in the first one. It's all really neat stuff.
Bosses are pretty well done in this game. Not all of them are great, but you can tell they tried to give all of them a unique gimmick and some of them require a specific strategy to overcome them. The Running Man in particular comes to mind. It's just a bit of a shame that the final onslaught of story-relevant bosses are kind of a cakewalk and especially the last one feels pretty lackluster in terms of gameplay.
The story still isn't nearly as intricate as they'll become later in the series, but there are a decent amount of twists and character moments and I'm pretty fond of the 4th wall breaks, even if they went a little overboard at times.
Good time, I can see myself replaying this one some time.
The progression is not quite as cryptic as it was in Metal Gear 1 ... there were some instances where I looked at a guide real quick, but I'm confident you can beat this on your own without taking ages.
The keycard system luckily got a little better. There are now cards that combine multiple levels, so that you don't have to switch between all of them to try them out on a door. And generally the map/radar helps getting around the map a lot ... I never got lost, like I did in the first one. It's all really neat stuff.
Bosses are pretty well done in this game. Not all of them are great, but you can tell they tried to give all of them a unique gimmick and some of them require a specific strategy to overcome them. The Running Man in particular comes to mind. It's just a bit of a shame that the final onslaught of story-relevant bosses are kind of a cakewalk and especially the last one feels pretty lackluster in terms of gameplay.
The story still isn't nearly as intricate as they'll become later in the series, but there are a decent amount of twists and character moments and I'm pretty fond of the 4th wall breaks, even if they went a little overboard at times.
Good time, I can see myself replaying this one some time.
Replayed the game in preparation for Rebirth. This time on PS5 for the first time and finally got to play the DLC.
My overall opinion on the game hasn't really changed. I love the foundation they built. The ingredients are all amazing: The way it looks, the character models, the voices, the characterization, the battle system, the materia system, the music ... It's utterly amazing.
The unthankful thing about the first part of the Remake trilogy is having such a small part of the original game to adapt. Stretching out the Midgar portion to an entire game is bound to lead to some filler content and while they really did their best to include meaningful content, there is plenty of downtime where you're squeezing through tight spaces, balancing over bars, slowly climbing around and having some unnecessary detours that are fun on a gameplay level but pretty bad for the pacing of the story.
I still think it's the best thing they could have done, because judging from the original there isn't really a better way to stop the first part for quite some time.
Nevertheless, the linear structure of the game, the lack of freedom and the amount of times you're left with only a few party members takes away lots of freedom in player agency. It only really opens up in the last stretch of the game and at that point you don't really have much content left to explore.
This might sound negative, but what I'm really trying to say is that it's sequel has ridiculous potential as far as I'm concerned. If they take what's in Part 1, add more to it and give the player some real freedom it could turn out to be a real masterpiece. I can't wait to explore Gaia, level my materia and experiment with all the characters.
The story of the remake is intriguing. I still find it fascinating how they're handling this remaking of FF7 and so far it hasn't disappointed. I really hope it won't blow up in our faces, but considering how on point the writing is so far I got no reason to be worried.
The Intermission DLC was a really great addition. Yuffie controls wonderfully, making aerial combat actually fun and her toolkit is pretty fun to play around with. I also really liked the Sector 7 bit with it's Fort Condor minigame, little cameos and turtle shop sidequest.
The additional bosses (which include one for the base game!) turned out to be a bit frustrating for me, but I ended up feeling rewarded after overcoming them. I think superbosses should be handled a bit better, but I'm glad they're here in the first place.
As for Yuffies characterization ... I love that they're giving her a serious side and that she ceases to be a comic relief character exclusively. Her backstory adds a nice layer to her behaviour and I'm even more curious about the Wutai part of the game. It's great how they're taking the optional parts of the original and expand them in a meaningful way.
The ending cutscenes just added to my hypelevel and at this point I really can't wait to play the sequel. It's so close!
My overall opinion on the game hasn't really changed. I love the foundation they built. The ingredients are all amazing: The way it looks, the character models, the voices, the characterization, the battle system, the materia system, the music ... It's utterly amazing.
The unthankful thing about the first part of the Remake trilogy is having such a small part of the original game to adapt. Stretching out the Midgar portion to an entire game is bound to lead to some filler content and while they really did their best to include meaningful content, there is plenty of downtime where you're squeezing through tight spaces, balancing over bars, slowly climbing around and having some unnecessary detours that are fun on a gameplay level but pretty bad for the pacing of the story.
I still think it's the best thing they could have done, because judging from the original there isn't really a better way to stop the first part for quite some time.
Nevertheless, the linear structure of the game, the lack of freedom and the amount of times you're left with only a few party members takes away lots of freedom in player agency. It only really opens up in the last stretch of the game and at that point you don't really have much content left to explore.
This might sound negative, but what I'm really trying to say is that it's sequel has ridiculous potential as far as I'm concerned. If they take what's in Part 1, add more to it and give the player some real freedom it could turn out to be a real masterpiece. I can't wait to explore Gaia, level my materia and experiment with all the characters.
The story of the remake is intriguing. I still find it fascinating how they're handling this remaking of FF7 and so far it hasn't disappointed. I really hope it won't blow up in our faces, but considering how on point the writing is so far I got no reason to be worried.
The Intermission DLC was a really great addition. Yuffie controls wonderfully, making aerial combat actually fun and her toolkit is pretty fun to play around with. I also really liked the Sector 7 bit with it's Fort Condor minigame, little cameos and turtle shop sidequest.
The additional bosses (which include one for the base game!) turned out to be a bit frustrating for me, but I ended up feeling rewarded after overcoming them. I think superbosses should be handled a bit better, but I'm glad they're here in the first place.
As for Yuffies characterization ... I love that they're giving her a serious side and that she ceases to be a comic relief character exclusively. Her backstory adds a nice layer to her behaviour and I'm even more curious about the Wutai part of the game. It's great how they're taking the optional parts of the original and expand them in a meaningful way.
The ending cutscenes just added to my hypelevel and at this point I really can't wait to play the sequel. It's so close!