Glad to say that Ubisoft Montpellier delivered. After resurrecting the Rayman franchise in a spectacular fashion and then being stuck with working on Beyond Good & Evil 2 for years, they came back swing and revived another beloved franchise and ended up creating what I now consider my favorite Prince of Persia game.
The Lost Crown is a visually stunning game that manages to tell a compelling story. The whole gang surrounding main character Sargon consists of fun characters and especially for a metroidvania, a genre that isn't particularly known for good stories, it's really well done.
It seems like the developers tried to rethink some of the genre conventions and focused a lot on quality of life improvements. For example checkpoints are heavily hinted at with a golden glimmer, indicating which direction you need to go for a safe haven and there's the option to instantly restart bossfights if you end up losing, saving you potentially multiple trips.
My favorite mechanic however are the memory shards. I can't count the amount of times I was stuck in a metroidvania game and totally forgot which paths on the map needed a specific ability. In PoP you can just press a button and create a screenshot that shows exactly what 'problem' stopped your progress in an area, making it very easy to check back where to go with your new unlocked ability or gadget.
The abilities are mostly your typical stuff like a double jump and dash but there are also some creative skills that lead to interesting puzzle solving and even found their way into combat. None of the abilities feel restrictive or forced.
Which leads me to the combat, which is ridiculously in-depth for a 2D game. We're talking multiple combos, launchers, sweeps, chargables, animation cancelling, parries ... all that good stuff. There's even a training area that lets you practice combos and tutorials which reveal combat possibilities I myself have not thought of until that point.
Bosses are not always launchable and therefore it's harder to style on them, but due to the fast pacing of combat you barely have any downtime and are able to keep attacking. There are rarely phases where you need to constantly dodge to then get one or two hits in, which I was thankful for. Unlockable super attacks added a nice touch, especially since trying to fill the gauge leads to more tactical risk/reward aspects. Like parrying an attack is harder than simply dodging, but it also fills up your 'Athra' by a decent amount. But getting hit also lets you lose some of it.
The platforming passages feel very fluid and provided a nice challenge. There is even an equivalent to Celestes strawberries in the form of coins you can only collect by safely returning to a safe zone landing on your feet. The platforming might even be my favorite aspect of the game, even though the fights, puzzles and exploration are also great.
I have very little critcism about the game. I think the RPG elements, like upgrading your weapons and amulets (which are just straight-up the charms of Hollow Knight) are not really needed and maybe it could need some more bosses, but it never really bothered me much. Even the length of the game felt fine because I kept unlocking new abilities and areas feel very much different from each other. They knew how to mix things up over the 20+ hours it took me to beat the game. The side quests are also a nice touch that manage to tell some nice stories and are never forced on you.
The worst I can say about the game is probably that it feels like a "best of Metroidvania". There aren't many original aspects to the game and they happily helped themselves to mechanics of other popular games. However, it's all executed very well and never feels shoehorned in.
The 50 bucks feel like a fair price considering the quality and length of the game and it would be nice seeing this game succeed because having Ubisoft develop more AA singleplayer experiences like this would be great.
The Lost Crown is a visually stunning game that manages to tell a compelling story. The whole gang surrounding main character Sargon consists of fun characters and especially for a metroidvania, a genre that isn't particularly known for good stories, it's really well done.
It seems like the developers tried to rethink some of the genre conventions and focused a lot on quality of life improvements. For example checkpoints are heavily hinted at with a golden glimmer, indicating which direction you need to go for a safe haven and there's the option to instantly restart bossfights if you end up losing, saving you potentially multiple trips.
My favorite mechanic however are the memory shards. I can't count the amount of times I was stuck in a metroidvania game and totally forgot which paths on the map needed a specific ability. In PoP you can just press a button and create a screenshot that shows exactly what 'problem' stopped your progress in an area, making it very easy to check back where to go with your new unlocked ability or gadget.
The abilities are mostly your typical stuff like a double jump and dash but there are also some creative skills that lead to interesting puzzle solving and even found their way into combat. None of the abilities feel restrictive or forced.
Which leads me to the combat, which is ridiculously in-depth for a 2D game. We're talking multiple combos, launchers, sweeps, chargables, animation cancelling, parries ... all that good stuff. There's even a training area that lets you practice combos and tutorials which reveal combat possibilities I myself have not thought of until that point.
Bosses are not always launchable and therefore it's harder to style on them, but due to the fast pacing of combat you barely have any downtime and are able to keep attacking. There are rarely phases where you need to constantly dodge to then get one or two hits in, which I was thankful for. Unlockable super attacks added a nice touch, especially since trying to fill the gauge leads to more tactical risk/reward aspects. Like parrying an attack is harder than simply dodging, but it also fills up your 'Athra' by a decent amount. But getting hit also lets you lose some of it.
The platforming passages feel very fluid and provided a nice challenge. There is even an equivalent to Celestes strawberries in the form of coins you can only collect by safely returning to a safe zone landing on your feet. The platforming might even be my favorite aspect of the game, even though the fights, puzzles and exploration are also great.
I have very little critcism about the game. I think the RPG elements, like upgrading your weapons and amulets (which are just straight-up the charms of Hollow Knight) are not really needed and maybe it could need some more bosses, but it never really bothered me much. Even the length of the game felt fine because I kept unlocking new abilities and areas feel very much different from each other. They knew how to mix things up over the 20+ hours it took me to beat the game. The side quests are also a nice touch that manage to tell some nice stories and are never forced on you.
The worst I can say about the game is probably that it feels like a "best of Metroidvania". There aren't many original aspects to the game and they happily helped themselves to mechanics of other popular games. However, it's all executed very well and never feels shoehorned in.
The 50 bucks feel like a fair price considering the quality and length of the game and it would be nice seeing this game succeed because having Ubisoft develop more AA singleplayer experiences like this would be great.
2023
A game I like on paper but not one I like to play.
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!
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.
1997
Desperately wanted to like this one, but the high encounter rate mixed with the extremely slow animations and loading times makes me feel miserable. Not sure why it bothers me so much here because normally I can stomach this kind of stuff well.
Also doesn't help that the system with the different masters and the acquiring of new skills is extremely unintuitive ... And almost feels pointless given how you can just auto battle through everything. At least in the first 10 hours.
A shame, because the music and artstyle is great and I enjoyed the characters. Maybe I should just watch an LP on the side or something.
Also doesn't help that the system with the different masters and the acquiring of new skills is extremely unintuitive ... And almost feels pointless given how you can just auto battle through everything. At least in the first 10 hours.
A shame, because the music and artstyle is great and I enjoyed the characters. Maybe I should just watch an LP on the side or something.
2013
Dead Rising 3 lost pretty much everything that was good about the series to begin with. Lots of people never understood the appeal, but it was always about time management, familiarizing with the environment, goofy humour and exploration.
This game just throws all of that out of the window. The time is ridiculously generous to the point where I wasn't even sure there was a timer running for most of the game and barely mattered. I fucked around a lot and still did every single sidequest without really trying too hard. It felt like I was working off a list instead of frantically trying to rescue as many people as possible.
The game also just throws items, combo cards and even cars at you. While in the other games it was a powerful moment to get permanent access to a car, they're now everywhere and readily available. Even combo cars that wreck a whole district worth of zombies.
It also doesn't help that every single collectible is shown on the map. Just randomly entering buildings and stores feels like a waste of time since you can tell where the next item is lying anyway. Fun and random side activities like the casino are also gone. The game still has it's funny moments, but they're so far and few between that they feel even more out of place than before. Also really wasn't a fan of the soundtrack in this game. The psychopath themes and mall music were always a real delight to listen to and here there's just nothing.
Still, the controls of the game are an improvement and the A.I. is less frustrating to deal with (for better and worse). I like how you can pick up items in the middle of running and throw them without going into aiming mode. The new weapon combinations are also really creative and fun to use. Just wish the items weren't lying right next to each other ALL the time. The skill system is an okay idea if you're not into the randomness of the previous games, but at the same time just feels uninteresting. This might be a preference thing though, I like to be surprised.
Dead Rising 3 is fine if you're just in the mood of randomly fucking up zombies, wreck stuff with a whole gang of companions or coop partners and play around with creative weapons. The storyline was fine, but even that was done better before and the ending feels extremely rushed.
This game just throws all of that out of the window. The time is ridiculously generous to the point where I wasn't even sure there was a timer running for most of the game and barely mattered. I fucked around a lot and still did every single sidequest without really trying too hard. It felt like I was working off a list instead of frantically trying to rescue as many people as possible.
The game also just throws items, combo cards and even cars at you. While in the other games it was a powerful moment to get permanent access to a car, they're now everywhere and readily available. Even combo cars that wreck a whole district worth of zombies.
It also doesn't help that every single collectible is shown on the map. Just randomly entering buildings and stores feels like a waste of time since you can tell where the next item is lying anyway. Fun and random side activities like the casino are also gone. The game still has it's funny moments, but they're so far and few between that they feel even more out of place than before. Also really wasn't a fan of the soundtrack in this game. The psychopath themes and mall music were always a real delight to listen to and here there's just nothing.
Still, the controls of the game are an improvement and the A.I. is less frustrating to deal with (for better and worse). I like how you can pick up items in the middle of running and throw them without going into aiming mode. The new weapon combinations are also really creative and fun to use. Just wish the items weren't lying right next to each other ALL the time. The skill system is an okay idea if you're not into the randomness of the previous games, but at the same time just feels uninteresting. This might be a preference thing though, I like to be surprised.
Dead Rising 3 is fine if you're just in the mood of randomly fucking up zombies, wreck stuff with a whole gang of companions or coop partners and play around with creative weapons. The storyline was fine, but even that was done better before and the ending feels extremely rushed.
1997
That final level almost broke me, but aside from the awful platforming at the end it was a very enjoyable experience. The camera is a bit fucked, menus should be faster and the difficulty is kind of all over the place, but customizing your AC and seeing it in action is pretty fun. A solid foundation for sure.
2020
What a unique game. When I started Teardown I expected it to be more action heavy. Quickly pulling off your heist before you get caught and in a way that's what it is, but 95% of the time you're in preparation mode and clearing up your upcoming path and figuring out how to approach your goal.
I feel like too many missions boil down to collecting stuff in 60 seconds. They mix it up quite nicely at times by making you put cars into water or make you deal with difficult terrain, but it still turns out a little bit repetitive when you're just going from goal to goal, blowing up walls to create your path. It's funny because in the last third of the game they introduce some new ideas that should've been used more often.
In any case, I enjoyed the game quite a lot and I can see myself going back to complete all of the optional targets with the additional equipment I gathered, but it still feels like some potential was missed.
Would love to see an iteration on the formula some day.
I feel like too many missions boil down to collecting stuff in 60 seconds. They mix it up quite nicely at times by making you put cars into water or make you deal with difficult terrain, but it still turns out a little bit repetitive when you're just going from goal to goal, blowing up walls to create your path. It's funny because in the last third of the game they introduce some new ideas that should've been used more often.
In any case, I enjoyed the game quite a lot and I can see myself going back to complete all of the optional targets with the additional equipment I gathered, but it still feels like some potential was missed.
Would love to see an iteration on the formula some day.