MeisterPear
2024
I’d been slightly interested in the Persona series since about 2018, when I tried and dropped Persona 5 on PS4. I didn’t like the turn-based combat, and so that was the end of that. Aside from that, the only exposure I had to the series was my friends occasionally discussing one of their favorite games and the characters in it: Persona 3. And so, when a remake for Persona 3 was announced for XBOX, I felt like I had grown enough as a gamer to suck it up and give another turn-based RPG a try. Why not see what all of the hype about the funny robot girl and the fighting dog was about? So, I bought the game on a whim in February 2024.
And well…this was a transformative experience. After spending most of the latter half of 2023 playing games I didn’t feel too strongly about that got me in a funk, experiencing Persona 3 Reload over the course of roughly four months was like a cold bucket of water to the face. Never in a million years could I have expected the absolute work of ART that this game has been for me. Not only did I actually end up really liking the turn-based combat, the story and character writing blew my damn socks off. And with the last four months being a stressful period for me, starting life after college, Persona 3 Reload became an escape for me, and yet showed me so many new perspectives on friendship, memory, and the future—at risk of sounding super corny, I think I really needed that.
Utterly unforgettable game, both story-wise and gameplay-wise. Wish me luck as I proceed to attempt dodging spoilers for The Answer for another four months! Now, onto the review. As usual, I’ll start with the pros.
I suppose I’ll start with the non-Tartarus gameplay. First of all: when you aren’t fighting enemies, Persona 3 is essentially a 3D visual novel with cutscenes, which is a gameplay style I really enjoy. Literally the first thing I wrote in my review notes too! Nothing wrong with 2D visual novels, of course, but I love getting to see characters move around in a 3D environment and emote as they speak to one another.
The calendar-based progression is also a very cool mechanic I never got to see in its entirety when I tried Persona 5. It's a really cool way to represent a double life—attend school and goof off with your friends during the day, murder Shadows (your enemies) at night. But by far the most fun thing about it is that you’re occasionally restricted in what you can do based on what time of day or year it is. Only being able to work in Chagall Cafe at night, not being able to do school Social Links because all your friends are studying for exams, getting days off of school on Japanese holidays…it’s such a good way to make the world feel real. Same goes for story events also being tied to the calendar, like going on a summer vacation trip to the island of Yakushima, or. It ensures the days don’t get monotonous, and that there’s always a change of pace in the gameplay right around the corner.
Speaking of Social Links, I really love how their connections to the calendar and certain times of day means you have to balance who you want to spend time with (or even if you want to do Social Links at all, as opposed to other things like social stats)—it’s just like real life, haha. You’ve got to pick some friends over others (unless you wanna optimize it), and sometimes your social stat or Tartarus obligations come first and you gotta miss out. I never would have expected a game would make me enjoy planning a weekly schedule, but here I am praising it. It really makes you value the time you get, and again, it makes the world feel lived in since everyone has things going on that you just have to work around.
And I’m glad that we still get opportunities to hang out with our teammates after school even before we get to do their Social Links. Walking Koromaru (feat. random Social Link appearances!), watching scary movies with Yukari, meal prepping with Akihiko…it's the little things that make these characters feel that much more real. Plus, they have actual continuity, at least until you finish them. It would have been so easy to have the same few hangouts and just reuse them over and over, but nope, they’re little vignettes. I was especially impressed with the characters in Koromaru’s walks referencing other hangouts, like when I walked him with Fuuka and she mentioned the film festival I saw with her a few days prior. Was genuinely shocked to see that kind of depth in what I assumed was a means to grind social stats.
Social stats themselves are a neat mechanic too, though it’s not like they’re some mindblowing invention of the Persona franchise. In some games, they can be a little tedious to get, but I didn’t think it was all that bad in Persona 3. Most activities you can do to increase social stats have some sort of other fun or useful thing tied to them, like getting the bag at a part-time job, or hanging out with your friends at night in the dorm having fun dialogue and granting them skills in Tartarus. A special shout-out for tying Charm increases to answering questions asked by teachers correctly, especially since those questions are actually difficult occasionally. On another note, it's cool that we have to answer those questions correctly on exams and pass an Academics check to get good scores. I had this whole issue of grinding Academics for good grades and still maxing Charm and Courage first. It was hilarious.
One more non-Tartarus gameplay feature before I dive into the combat mechanics: I really like that players have the option to connect to the network and get a glimpse of what other players did on any given day. It's cool to see how your level stacks up to others, or if other players have the same exquisite taste in Social Links that I had.
Okay, now onto Tartarus exploration and Shadow combat. First up is some of the basics. The combat animations are very clean and look so sick. Seeing Akihiko one-two punch a Shadow or watching Aigis light up some poor demon is so satisfying. They’ve all got a good weight to them, and the sound design for attacks holds up just as well. Those compliments are doubly true for the Persona based attacks—loving seeing Vorpal Blade invert all the colors on the screen and cover the arena in scars, or dropping an absolute nuclear bomb with Panta Rhei or Diamond Dust. The enemy animations are just as good, and perhaps more so given the variance in Shadow models, Seeing Dancers dip each other underneath a sword slash, Snakes tie themselves in a heart-shaped knot, or Hands snap their fingers and point in the direction of their attacks is just such creative design. Also really love seeing teammates dodge attacks in some of the goofiest, most cartoonish ways possible as they taunt the enemy that missed them. There's just so much character in the way they move.
Attack affinities are such a breath of fresh air coming off of the comparatively ocean-wide, puddle-deep type effectiveness of Pokemon. We’ve got three types of physical damage and six types of magical damage (plus the “true neutral” Almighty), which is both easily digestible and a great place for a new player like me to have started at. The fun part is how many types of effectiveness there are: it's not just weakness (high damage), resistance (low damage), or null (no damage), but there’s also reflection (damage comes back at you), and absorption (damage instead becomes enemy healing). To use a Pokemon comparison again, that’s already a way more complex battle system with like, a third of the damage types to struggle to remember.
The REAL bread and butter of Persona 3’s combat system was ailments for me. There’s a good few ailments that all have really fun effects to plan around. I think Fear is definitely my favorite of the complex ailments because of how dangerous it can be: sure, there’s a chance your teammates may be too scared to act, but straight up having a chance for them to RUN AWAY and become unavailable for the rest of the battle is one hell of a thing to consider when you’re desperately low on health and have to consider if healing with Yukari is worth it when she’s afflicted by Fear and might just run away and become unavailable for the rest of the fight.
Shock and Freeze are the most fun to inflict because they interact with another mechanic Persona 3 did really well: critical hits. Oh boy, do I fucking love critical chance in games. Any game with a meaningful enough crit system has me rolling the dice more than a gacha addict thinking that 90% of gamblers quit before they win big. Shock and Freeze both prevent characters from moving, but both of them also increase the chance of a critical hit when attacking with physical skills. There’s a lot of complexity that comes from that single attribute. It presents a meaningful difference between physical and magical skills, and when physical skills either cost HP as opposed to SP, or cost NOTHING so long as you’re cool with attacking with your weapon and not a Persona, trying to play around crits really becomes less of an RNG dice roll (funnily enough) and more of an exercise in calculated risk. Persona 3’s excellent combat animations also come into play with crits: landing one with your default attacks plays a sick-ass animation where you complete a full attack chain that culminates perfectly in a zoom-in to the character that dealt them. Seeing Makoto slowly wind up a powerful sword slash, or Koromaru dive bomb some clueless Maya with the knife in his mouth is a great way to make crits all the more satisfying.
Speaking of satisfying crits, there’s Down (also inflicted by striking weaknesses, but I couldn’t find a clean segue into that fact lol), which knocks the enemy down and prevents them from moving, but also gives you “1 More” chance to attack, during which you can Shift and switch the character you attack with. Knocking every enemy down in one fell swoop lets you perform the legendary All-Out Attack, where your entire party absolutely wails on all the enemies on the field. This is one of the most satisfying battle mechanics I have ever had the privilege of performing in a video game. The absolutely DESTRUCTIVE lines of attacks I downed enemies with cannot be spoken out loud for fear of offending the gods. It is so much fun to scan for the weaknesses of enemies (thanks Fuuka!) and then devise the most abominable way to obliterate every single one in a single turn. It turned an already good combat system into crack cocaine. And again, the combat animation for an All-Out Attack is just sublime. The entire team (sans those with ailments) lines up in a dope-ass action pose, with the last one to down an enemy calling the shots in the very front, and just goes to town on the Shadows. I was very impressed with how there’s a unique animation for each character depending on their position in the lineup—Koromaru gets up on his hind legs in the front, and jumps if he’s in the back. Aigis jumps down from above, Junpei tips his hat, Makoto gets down low with his sword…the framing is just so good. Maybe I’m just easily impressed but DAYUM!!! It’s so awesome.
We even get cool portraits of characters after they wipe an arena with an All-Out Attack! Seeing “Mass Destruction” behind some killer character art with a line like “Done and dusted” or “On to the next bout” (or even “Woof! Woof! Woof!) just goes crazy hard. We also have Shuffle Time giving us Major Arcana cards to pick up and stack buffs that persist until we leave Tartarus. Once you get into late game, getting Arcana like Temperance for social stat buffs and Lovers for Fusion buffs is just so rewarding. And even if you aren’t performing All-Out Attacks, it's occasionally viable since attacking a downed enemy with another crit or weakness makes them Dizzy and unable to move on the next turn! Atlus thought of EVERYTHING with this combat system!
Okay, finally I’m shutting up about ailments. I’m starting to suspect no one on Earth has dissected about Persona 3 ailments like I have just now. This is what you get when I have nothing else to do today except write this review. Anyway, advantage and stat boosts. Nothing crazy to say here, just that I like that you have to be proactive about attacking Shadows while roaring in Tartarus first, so that they don’t ambush you and gain extra moves. And I like that stat boosts are straightforward: attack boosts affect both physical and magical damage, and accuracy and evasion are a single stat. No sense in complicating things more than they need to be. Bonus points to Persona 3’s stat boosts for charging and concentrating to double attack damage, which became one of my favorite ways to chase big number.
Another element to the elusive big damage number (shout out to the 999 damage attack achievement!) is the Theurgy, which I learned is a new mechanic in Persona 3 Reload. I’m sure there’s a lot of those I haven’t discovered yet… Anyway, holy shit are the Theurgies badass. Most of them are the equivalent to hydrogen bombs with insanely good attack animations, which of course is awesome, but there are some with great utility like Ken’s with guaranteed reflects, and Fuuka’s with a random positive effect. Frankly I’d still use them even if they sucked because they’re just that damn cool. Scarlet Havoc my beloved.
Okay, we’re done with combat itself, onto exploration. Random floors are nice, but it only goes so far, which is why I’m glad to get mechanics like Gatekeepers and Monad doors to provide challenges in between encounters. I especially like that the enemies in those encounters usually have some sort of gimmick that makes them fun to strategize with. And I’m especially glad that there are tons of voicelines your teammates say to keep us sane in the dungeon. Hearing Junpei whine about having no girls in the party is hilarious. Clocks are also a godsend mechanic, allowing you to both extend your outing in Tartarus (never expected me to praise THAT now did you) and boost underused teammates to your own level.
To wrap up this little Tartarus combat deep dive in a nice little bow, I want to compliment the pacing of all these mechanics being introduced and taught to you. Never did I feel overwhelmed by all of the knowledge I just got dropped on me, and yet at the same time, I didn't feel like they were babying me by withholding information I wanted to know. I appreciated being able to figure ailments out by myself ahead of the tutorial for them.
Two more Tartarus-related things before I get into the story and characters. I hope you’re still here; this review is probably twice as long as any review I’ve made so far and I’m still not done. Elizabeth’s requests are fine—there’s nothing particularly surprising about having little fetch quests in a game like this, but I do like that some of them involve taking her out on the down in a pseudo-Social Link and showing her normal Earth things while she reacts like a caveman just discovered fire. “A soda fountain? The idea sends an electric tingle across my tongue.” yeah Elizabeth, I felt the same way when I saw a Coke Freestyle at Wawa for the first time. Secondly…the Reaper. All I gotta say. That MF is so fun.
OKAY, we’re finally done with gameplay. Now…onto the story and characters. I will not be spoiling any major plot points, however I will discuss some small character moments here and there. Still, this is technically meant to be a spoiler-free review, so most of the discussion will be on what I liked about the storytelling rather than my thoughts on the story itself. I’ll start off by echoing what I said in the intro to the review…the story is such a ride from start to finish. I will be the first to admit that the story itself, when looked at structurally, is not remarkable in and of itself. Its CHARACTERS are what makes Persona 3 so good. I fully understand how people get brainrot about this series now. I thought it was excessive with Persona 5 worship but man I get it now.
These characters aren’t one note. Some games treat their characters less as people and more as stories. Their development follows a clean path, and everything culminates in a neat little bow at the end. Obviously this isn't how people grow and mature in real life; their “development” doesn’t have an “end”. I think Persona 3’s main characters break this mold. They don’t have one sole problem that dominates their arc—they have multiple issues they solve that aren’t necessarily related and get resolved at different times, which is a better approximation of reality. The conclusion of their arc doesn’t feel like the climax of a bunch of connected issues, but rather a realization someone would have after thinking about their life and generalizing all the issues they’ve worked through. And since the story takes place over the course of about a year (with almost every single day being playable!), character growth hits harder and feels more natural because you can slowly see characters changing day by day, whether it's through their dialogue after major story events, or their voice lines after school in the form on a random Tuesday in August.
The themes and conversations we see in the story are also very sobering. There are a lot of mentions of the future, memory, and death, and those are very poignant themes for someone like myself who is still pretty young and currently going through a large transition in my life from college to working. Both in the main story and with the Social Links, I asked myself a lot of questions like “how would I feel if I was going through this,” or I’d take the observations characters made on their own relationships and issues and see how they’d apply to me.
Forgive me for detailing some story specifics, but a big moment of reflection for me was seeing Yukari talk about how she felt forced into the Special Extracurricular Execution Squad, and how she then felt guilty approaching Fuuka with the same deal. She began to lament being a prisoner to the circumstances, and eventually reacted not with resignation, but anger towards Mitsuru and Akihiko for benefiting from her, Makoto, and Junpei’s toil when neither of them really knew what they wanted out of Tartarus’ exploration. And the Yakushima arc only complicates this issue. My life isn’t nearly as tumultuous as hers (obviously I’m not fighting demons every evening), but I really sympathized with feeling like you’ve been forced into something you never wanted to do, and having no choice but to see it through. Junpei’s anxiety over the future and how being a part of SEES is all he has going for him resonated with me in a similar way. He worries about drifting through life without a plan, not knowing if you’ll be happy with where you end up because you don’t have any idea of where you’ll end up. I don’t know where I’ll be going in the future either. Anyway, it’s these kinds of personal connections to characters’ stories that kept me so invested in seeing how they ended up, and what makes me believe Persona 3 Reload has some of the best character writing of any game I’ve ever played. I think that’s all I’ll say on the matter; going any farther is beyond the scope of this review.
Social links have more straightforward development (a straightforwardness I was expecting from EVERYONE when I started playing), but nevertheless they are still very touching and enjoyable to see happen. Kazushi’s link is a good one; it sucks to be put in a situation where you can’t do the things you love because of factors out of your control. Bunkichi and Mitsuko’s is another great one; they’re very charming and provide a great contrast to the events SEES goes through, since SEES is very young and the couple is very old. Hidetoshi’s is another great story of learning to accept other’s perspectives, and Maiko’s is a great view into a child’s view on relationships.
There’s just something about this game’s writing that makes it so easy to reflect on your own life. Almost everything remotely emotional or vulnerable a character says can be empathized with—I found myself having conversations with my friends while playing this game about how they feel about the things brought up. As I said before, my playthrough of Persona 3 Reload comes at a transitory period in my life, and it became a way to cope with its stresses and even help process those emotions I felt. To a degree I feel like I’m giving this game too much credit. But games are subjective experiences, so they mean things to different people. And this is what this game’s story means to me.
Sorry for getting very personal there. Let me switch to something not-at-all applicable to my life—romance! Kind of a weird thing to talk about after I just poured my heart out, but I couldn’t think of a better place in the review to discuss it. I do like that you can romance female social links; though it goes without saying that the inability to romance male social links is kind of exclusionary. Regardless, I enjoyed what we got. It’s kind of difficult to properly discuss something like this since everyone’s feelings on who the “best” romance is are subjective, but I enjoyed romancing Yukari. Since she’s a SEES member, there’s a lot of opportunities to reexamine dialogue she was with or about Makoto through a romantic lens, and that’s something I think is pretty fun (not like people are romancing non-SEES members amirite?). I’m also satisfied with the romance-exclusive dialogue you get with your character of choice, such as during Christmas Eve and at the very end of the game, though I will for once admit it's less than I expected. I straight up thought we’d get a new set of Social Links with our romance that were all romance-coded, as opposed to having the final few normal Social Links be romance-coded if you decide to go ahead with it. Wishful thinking I suppose. Still gonna be a diehard Yukari/Makoto fan.
And of course, I can’t discuss the emotion of Persona 3’s characters without praising the absolutely FANTASTIC voice acting and direction. Hooooooooly shit. I think the winner for best voice acting is Zeno Robinson as Junpei. I wasn’t all that on board with Junpei as a character when I first started, admittedly, but Robinson’s performance of some of Junpei’s most vulnerable moments is absolutely mindblowing. A shame I can’t discuss my favorite line from him, since it’s neck deep in spoilers. Anyway, I was also very impressed with the performances of Heather Gonzalez (Yukari), Dawn M. Bennett (Aigis), Justice Lee (Ken), and Justice Slocum (Shinjiro). But every voice actor was very good, not just those few.
Now, let me discuss the concepts of some of the features of Persona. I’ve always been slightly interested in tarot card readings and the Major Arcana, so playing an entire game where each person is linked to a Major Arcana card and signifies said Arcana is very cool. I’m sure much more qualified people than me can discuss the symbolism of tarot in fiction; I'm just going to leave it at “that’s neat.” The concept of Personas and the Evoker is also incredibly interesting; the act of shooting oneself with a gun-shaped object isn’t a very subtle metaphor, but it's incredibly striking and frankly, a little badass.
As Personas (and Tartarus) represent a truth hidden from reality, the act of using an Evoker to summon one reads as killing the false self to reveal the inner self, the “true” self. This trope isn’t exactly uncommon either, but Persona seems to be one of the series to do it the best. It’s very cool to see how each character uses them as well; hopefully I’m not overanalyzing this, but I did notice that Yukari is the only person that places her Evoker where she can see it when she uses it, perhaps to indicate she is the most afraid of death? Like, she can’t place what she’s doing out of her mind and has to focus on it. Cool symbolism there. And since the Persona represents its wielder, it's neat to see that they can change as the individual changes—bonus points for said Persona changes also yielding gameplay changes.
The nature of the Dark Hour and Tartarus provide an enduring mystery throughout the game that’s pretty fun to speculate on. Tartarus in and of itself is a mix-and-match of various mythologies; same with the Shadows and Personas. I don’t have much to say other than that it looks very cool. And having it be known only to those with Personas gives us a great look at how a bunch of teenagers cope with balancing exams in the day and demon hunting at night. I think I’d just about have a mental breakdown.
Time to wind down the pros, and talk about some miscellaneous things. First up, I gotta say, Twitter was right when they praised this game’s UI. Holy shit, I think Persona 3 has one of the most fluid and beautiful pause menus of all time. I love the Stats screen, and how Makoto hold up a mirror shard that reflects the eyes of the teammate you’re looking at. The Social Link screen is very cool too, with Makoto holding the tarot card corresponding to each person’s Arcana. The combat UI is very clean as well; I like that it’s a bit less flashy than Persona 5’s, yet still just as dynamic. Bonus points for having Koromaru’s being smaller than everyone else’s since he’s a dog. So cute!
Finally, I can talk about the soundtrack… Oh man, it is so damn good. Like, it has NO RIGHT to be this good. Usually when I talk about a game soundtrack, I mention all the tracks I liked, but there are just too many for me to list them all. I will list a few though: Mass Destruction and It’s Going Down Now are some of the best combat themes I’ve ever heard (right up there with The Rebel Path from Cyberpunk 2077 for me), Changing Seasons is such a feel good track for me (and literally so damn catchy too), and I love the vibes of songs like Deep Mentality, Color Your Night, When The Moon’s Reaching Out Stars, and Master of Shadow.
Three more bonus things, and then I will FINALLY get to the few cons I have. One, I’m glad that not only is there a log, but that you can re-listen to voice lines from the log. While I do like the music in this game, there are a few emotional moments I think hit a lot harder when there’s no music playing while they’re said. Two, you can pet Koromaru. Yes, I am one of the people that always wonders “can you pet the dog” in a game. Reporting in—you can pet the dog, plus a lot more cute things! And three, the conclusion of Maya’s Social Link at the end of the game. That entire sequence had me HOWLING with laughter. Fantastic experience all around.
Okay, now we get to the cons. Important to note is that none of these problems ended up compromising my experience to the point where I think I have to take off points. The game was so damn good that these negatives were rendered almost entirely moot. Still, no game is perfect, so here I go.
Without specifying for fear of spoilers, I think Ikutsuki’s arc and Junpei’s arc with Chidori could be improved. The former didn’t add much to the story at all, and frankly didn’t really need to happen in the first place. Could have just nixed it entirely and the experience wouldn’t have really changed; in fact, the end of the game could have been more mysterious and climactic without it. The latter is saved by Junpei’s amazing voice acting and character writing, but a lot of the interactions between the two take place behind closed doors, and it lessens the impact of the arc’s conclusion a tad bit.
We also did not get our female protagonist Kotone (I think that’s her name) that was present in Persona 3 Portable. I imagine this was done because Atlus changed up the narrative so much with the remake, and they wanted to make sure the story stayed cohesive without having to balance making two versions of every story beat to reflect the different protagonists. Still a sad sight to see players robbed of a choice they had in the past.
Finally, this game does have a considerable amount of weird teenager fanservice I did not want to sit through. I do NOT think having the token ”girls’ swimsuit reveal” scene was at all necessary, nor do I appreciate stumbling into a hot springs scene where I have to pick the right dialogue options to escape from the girls only bath. Like, what the hell Junpei? I didn’t sign up for this shit. And don’t even get me started on the hidden camera scenes. Just saying a sentence like that is sus enough. Sorry to end the review on such a strange note, but I have to bring it up. I was half-tempted to omit this part from the review, if only to avoid having to discuss such a weird topic, but I’m not pulling any punches, or so Akihiko would say.
If you made it to the end of my review, I hope I didn’t bore you to death. It is already like, four times as long as any other review I’ve made, and basically qualifies as a college-level essay. In fact I’m certain I put more effort into this review than actual assignments for my degree. I just haven’t felt this way about a game in a few months…it means a lot to me. I was absolutely blown away by Persona 3 Reload and how much of an impact it had on me, both in terms of how fun it was to play, and by how much its story and characters resonated with me. It’s truly been an unforgettable experience. Now…onto the next bout! See you in September when the DLC drops.
Objective rating: 5 stars
Subjective rating: 5 stars
And well…this was a transformative experience. After spending most of the latter half of 2023 playing games I didn’t feel too strongly about that got me in a funk, experiencing Persona 3 Reload over the course of roughly four months was like a cold bucket of water to the face. Never in a million years could I have expected the absolute work of ART that this game has been for me. Not only did I actually end up really liking the turn-based combat, the story and character writing blew my damn socks off. And with the last four months being a stressful period for me, starting life after college, Persona 3 Reload became an escape for me, and yet showed me so many new perspectives on friendship, memory, and the future—at risk of sounding super corny, I think I really needed that.
Utterly unforgettable game, both story-wise and gameplay-wise. Wish me luck as I proceed to attempt dodging spoilers for The Answer for another four months! Now, onto the review. As usual, I’ll start with the pros.
I suppose I’ll start with the non-Tartarus gameplay. First of all: when you aren’t fighting enemies, Persona 3 is essentially a 3D visual novel with cutscenes, which is a gameplay style I really enjoy. Literally the first thing I wrote in my review notes too! Nothing wrong with 2D visual novels, of course, but I love getting to see characters move around in a 3D environment and emote as they speak to one another.
The calendar-based progression is also a very cool mechanic I never got to see in its entirety when I tried Persona 5. It's a really cool way to represent a double life—attend school and goof off with your friends during the day, murder Shadows (your enemies) at night. But by far the most fun thing about it is that you’re occasionally restricted in what you can do based on what time of day or year it is. Only being able to work in Chagall Cafe at night, not being able to do school Social Links because all your friends are studying for exams, getting days off of school on Japanese holidays…it’s such a good way to make the world feel real. Same goes for story events also being tied to the calendar, like going on a summer vacation trip to the island of Yakushima, or. It ensures the days don’t get monotonous, and that there’s always a change of pace in the gameplay right around the corner.
Speaking of Social Links, I really love how their connections to the calendar and certain times of day means you have to balance who you want to spend time with (or even if you want to do Social Links at all, as opposed to other things like social stats)—it’s just like real life, haha. You’ve got to pick some friends over others (unless you wanna optimize it), and sometimes your social stat or Tartarus obligations come first and you gotta miss out. I never would have expected a game would make me enjoy planning a weekly schedule, but here I am praising it. It really makes you value the time you get, and again, it makes the world feel lived in since everyone has things going on that you just have to work around.
And I’m glad that we still get opportunities to hang out with our teammates after school even before we get to do their Social Links. Walking Koromaru (feat. random Social Link appearances!), watching scary movies with Yukari, meal prepping with Akihiko…it's the little things that make these characters feel that much more real. Plus, they have actual continuity, at least until you finish them. It would have been so easy to have the same few hangouts and just reuse them over and over, but nope, they’re little vignettes. I was especially impressed with the characters in Koromaru’s walks referencing other hangouts, like when I walked him with Fuuka and she mentioned the film festival I saw with her a few days prior. Was genuinely shocked to see that kind of depth in what I assumed was a means to grind social stats.
Social stats themselves are a neat mechanic too, though it’s not like they’re some mindblowing invention of the Persona franchise. In some games, they can be a little tedious to get, but I didn’t think it was all that bad in Persona 3. Most activities you can do to increase social stats have some sort of other fun or useful thing tied to them, like getting the bag at a part-time job, or hanging out with your friends at night in the dorm having fun dialogue and granting them skills in Tartarus. A special shout-out for tying Charm increases to answering questions asked by teachers correctly, especially since those questions are actually difficult occasionally. On another note, it's cool that we have to answer those questions correctly on exams and pass an Academics check to get good scores. I had this whole issue of grinding Academics for good grades and still maxing Charm and Courage first. It was hilarious.
One more non-Tartarus gameplay feature before I dive into the combat mechanics: I really like that players have the option to connect to the network and get a glimpse of what other players did on any given day. It's cool to see how your level stacks up to others, or if other players have the same exquisite taste in Social Links that I had.
Okay, now onto Tartarus exploration and Shadow combat. First up is some of the basics. The combat animations are very clean and look so sick. Seeing Akihiko one-two punch a Shadow or watching Aigis light up some poor demon is so satisfying. They’ve all got a good weight to them, and the sound design for attacks holds up just as well. Those compliments are doubly true for the Persona based attacks—loving seeing Vorpal Blade invert all the colors on the screen and cover the arena in scars, or dropping an absolute nuclear bomb with Panta Rhei or Diamond Dust. The enemy animations are just as good, and perhaps more so given the variance in Shadow models, Seeing Dancers dip each other underneath a sword slash, Snakes tie themselves in a heart-shaped knot, or Hands snap their fingers and point in the direction of their attacks is just such creative design. Also really love seeing teammates dodge attacks in some of the goofiest, most cartoonish ways possible as they taunt the enemy that missed them. There's just so much character in the way they move.
Attack affinities are such a breath of fresh air coming off of the comparatively ocean-wide, puddle-deep type effectiveness of Pokemon. We’ve got three types of physical damage and six types of magical damage (plus the “true neutral” Almighty), which is both easily digestible and a great place for a new player like me to have started at. The fun part is how many types of effectiveness there are: it's not just weakness (high damage), resistance (low damage), or null (no damage), but there’s also reflection (damage comes back at you), and absorption (damage instead becomes enemy healing). To use a Pokemon comparison again, that’s already a way more complex battle system with like, a third of the damage types to struggle to remember.
The REAL bread and butter of Persona 3’s combat system was ailments for me. There’s a good few ailments that all have really fun effects to plan around. I think Fear is definitely my favorite of the complex ailments because of how dangerous it can be: sure, there’s a chance your teammates may be too scared to act, but straight up having a chance for them to RUN AWAY and become unavailable for the rest of the battle is one hell of a thing to consider when you’re desperately low on health and have to consider if healing with Yukari is worth it when she’s afflicted by Fear and might just run away and become unavailable for the rest of the fight.
Shock and Freeze are the most fun to inflict because they interact with another mechanic Persona 3 did really well: critical hits. Oh boy, do I fucking love critical chance in games. Any game with a meaningful enough crit system has me rolling the dice more than a gacha addict thinking that 90% of gamblers quit before they win big. Shock and Freeze both prevent characters from moving, but both of them also increase the chance of a critical hit when attacking with physical skills. There’s a lot of complexity that comes from that single attribute. It presents a meaningful difference between physical and magical skills, and when physical skills either cost HP as opposed to SP, or cost NOTHING so long as you’re cool with attacking with your weapon and not a Persona, trying to play around crits really becomes less of an RNG dice roll (funnily enough) and more of an exercise in calculated risk. Persona 3’s excellent combat animations also come into play with crits: landing one with your default attacks plays a sick-ass animation where you complete a full attack chain that culminates perfectly in a zoom-in to the character that dealt them. Seeing Makoto slowly wind up a powerful sword slash, or Koromaru dive bomb some clueless Maya with the knife in his mouth is a great way to make crits all the more satisfying.
Speaking of satisfying crits, there’s Down (also inflicted by striking weaknesses, but I couldn’t find a clean segue into that fact lol), which knocks the enemy down and prevents them from moving, but also gives you “1 More” chance to attack, during which you can Shift and switch the character you attack with. Knocking every enemy down in one fell swoop lets you perform the legendary All-Out Attack, where your entire party absolutely wails on all the enemies on the field. This is one of the most satisfying battle mechanics I have ever had the privilege of performing in a video game. The absolutely DESTRUCTIVE lines of attacks I downed enemies with cannot be spoken out loud for fear of offending the gods. It is so much fun to scan for the weaknesses of enemies (thanks Fuuka!) and then devise the most abominable way to obliterate every single one in a single turn. It turned an already good combat system into crack cocaine. And again, the combat animation for an All-Out Attack is just sublime. The entire team (sans those with ailments) lines up in a dope-ass action pose, with the last one to down an enemy calling the shots in the very front, and just goes to town on the Shadows. I was very impressed with how there’s a unique animation for each character depending on their position in the lineup—Koromaru gets up on his hind legs in the front, and jumps if he’s in the back. Aigis jumps down from above, Junpei tips his hat, Makoto gets down low with his sword…the framing is just so good. Maybe I’m just easily impressed but DAYUM!!! It’s so awesome.
We even get cool portraits of characters after they wipe an arena with an All-Out Attack! Seeing “Mass Destruction” behind some killer character art with a line like “Done and dusted” or “On to the next bout” (or even “Woof! Woof! Woof!) just goes crazy hard. We also have Shuffle Time giving us Major Arcana cards to pick up and stack buffs that persist until we leave Tartarus. Once you get into late game, getting Arcana like Temperance for social stat buffs and Lovers for Fusion buffs is just so rewarding. And even if you aren’t performing All-Out Attacks, it's occasionally viable since attacking a downed enemy with another crit or weakness makes them Dizzy and unable to move on the next turn! Atlus thought of EVERYTHING with this combat system!
Okay, finally I’m shutting up about ailments. I’m starting to suspect no one on Earth has dissected about Persona 3 ailments like I have just now. This is what you get when I have nothing else to do today except write this review. Anyway, advantage and stat boosts. Nothing crazy to say here, just that I like that you have to be proactive about attacking Shadows while roaring in Tartarus first, so that they don’t ambush you and gain extra moves. And I like that stat boosts are straightforward: attack boosts affect both physical and magical damage, and accuracy and evasion are a single stat. No sense in complicating things more than they need to be. Bonus points to Persona 3’s stat boosts for charging and concentrating to double attack damage, which became one of my favorite ways to chase big number.
Another element to the elusive big damage number (shout out to the 999 damage attack achievement!) is the Theurgy, which I learned is a new mechanic in Persona 3 Reload. I’m sure there’s a lot of those I haven’t discovered yet… Anyway, holy shit are the Theurgies badass. Most of them are the equivalent to hydrogen bombs with insanely good attack animations, which of course is awesome, but there are some with great utility like Ken’s with guaranteed reflects, and Fuuka’s with a random positive effect. Frankly I’d still use them even if they sucked because they’re just that damn cool. Scarlet Havoc my beloved.
Okay, we’re done with combat itself, onto exploration. Random floors are nice, but it only goes so far, which is why I’m glad to get mechanics like Gatekeepers and Monad doors to provide challenges in between encounters. I especially like that the enemies in those encounters usually have some sort of gimmick that makes them fun to strategize with. And I’m especially glad that there are tons of voicelines your teammates say to keep us sane in the dungeon. Hearing Junpei whine about having no girls in the party is hilarious. Clocks are also a godsend mechanic, allowing you to both extend your outing in Tartarus (never expected me to praise THAT now did you) and boost underused teammates to your own level.
To wrap up this little Tartarus combat deep dive in a nice little bow, I want to compliment the pacing of all these mechanics being introduced and taught to you. Never did I feel overwhelmed by all of the knowledge I just got dropped on me, and yet at the same time, I didn't feel like they were babying me by withholding information I wanted to know. I appreciated being able to figure ailments out by myself ahead of the tutorial for them.
Two more Tartarus-related things before I get into the story and characters. I hope you’re still here; this review is probably twice as long as any review I’ve made so far and I’m still not done. Elizabeth’s requests are fine—there’s nothing particularly surprising about having little fetch quests in a game like this, but I do like that some of them involve taking her out on the down in a pseudo-Social Link and showing her normal Earth things while she reacts like a caveman just discovered fire. “A soda fountain? The idea sends an electric tingle across my tongue.” yeah Elizabeth, I felt the same way when I saw a Coke Freestyle at Wawa for the first time. Secondly…the Reaper. All I gotta say. That MF is so fun.
OKAY, we’re finally done with gameplay. Now…onto the story and characters. I will not be spoiling any major plot points, however I will discuss some small character moments here and there. Still, this is technically meant to be a spoiler-free review, so most of the discussion will be on what I liked about the storytelling rather than my thoughts on the story itself. I’ll start off by echoing what I said in the intro to the review…the story is such a ride from start to finish. I will be the first to admit that the story itself, when looked at structurally, is not remarkable in and of itself. Its CHARACTERS are what makes Persona 3 so good. I fully understand how people get brainrot about this series now. I thought it was excessive with Persona 5 worship but man I get it now.
These characters aren’t one note. Some games treat their characters less as people and more as stories. Their development follows a clean path, and everything culminates in a neat little bow at the end. Obviously this isn't how people grow and mature in real life; their “development” doesn’t have an “end”. I think Persona 3’s main characters break this mold. They don’t have one sole problem that dominates their arc—they have multiple issues they solve that aren’t necessarily related and get resolved at different times, which is a better approximation of reality. The conclusion of their arc doesn’t feel like the climax of a bunch of connected issues, but rather a realization someone would have after thinking about their life and generalizing all the issues they’ve worked through. And since the story takes place over the course of about a year (with almost every single day being playable!), character growth hits harder and feels more natural because you can slowly see characters changing day by day, whether it's through their dialogue after major story events, or their voice lines after school in the form on a random Tuesday in August.
The themes and conversations we see in the story are also very sobering. There are a lot of mentions of the future, memory, and death, and those are very poignant themes for someone like myself who is still pretty young and currently going through a large transition in my life from college to working. Both in the main story and with the Social Links, I asked myself a lot of questions like “how would I feel if I was going through this,” or I’d take the observations characters made on their own relationships and issues and see how they’d apply to me.
Forgive me for detailing some story specifics, but a big moment of reflection for me was seeing Yukari talk about how she felt forced into the Special Extracurricular Execution Squad, and how she then felt guilty approaching Fuuka with the same deal. She began to lament being a prisoner to the circumstances, and eventually reacted not with resignation, but anger towards Mitsuru and Akihiko for benefiting from her, Makoto, and Junpei’s toil when neither of them really knew what they wanted out of Tartarus’ exploration. And the Yakushima arc only complicates this issue. My life isn’t nearly as tumultuous as hers (obviously I’m not fighting demons every evening), but I really sympathized with feeling like you’ve been forced into something you never wanted to do, and having no choice but to see it through. Junpei’s anxiety over the future and how being a part of SEES is all he has going for him resonated with me in a similar way. He worries about drifting through life without a plan, not knowing if you’ll be happy with where you end up because you don’t have any idea of where you’ll end up. I don’t know where I’ll be going in the future either. Anyway, it’s these kinds of personal connections to characters’ stories that kept me so invested in seeing how they ended up, and what makes me believe Persona 3 Reload has some of the best character writing of any game I’ve ever played. I think that’s all I’ll say on the matter; going any farther is beyond the scope of this review.
Social links have more straightforward development (a straightforwardness I was expecting from EVERYONE when I started playing), but nevertheless they are still very touching and enjoyable to see happen. Kazushi’s link is a good one; it sucks to be put in a situation where you can’t do the things you love because of factors out of your control. Bunkichi and Mitsuko’s is another great one; they’re very charming and provide a great contrast to the events SEES goes through, since SEES is very young and the couple is very old. Hidetoshi’s is another great story of learning to accept other’s perspectives, and Maiko’s is a great view into a child’s view on relationships.
There’s just something about this game’s writing that makes it so easy to reflect on your own life. Almost everything remotely emotional or vulnerable a character says can be empathized with—I found myself having conversations with my friends while playing this game about how they feel about the things brought up. As I said before, my playthrough of Persona 3 Reload comes at a transitory period in my life, and it became a way to cope with its stresses and even help process those emotions I felt. To a degree I feel like I’m giving this game too much credit. But games are subjective experiences, so they mean things to different people. And this is what this game’s story means to me.
Sorry for getting very personal there. Let me switch to something not-at-all applicable to my life—romance! Kind of a weird thing to talk about after I just poured my heart out, but I couldn’t think of a better place in the review to discuss it. I do like that you can romance female social links; though it goes without saying that the inability to romance male social links is kind of exclusionary. Regardless, I enjoyed what we got. It’s kind of difficult to properly discuss something like this since everyone’s feelings on who the “best” romance is are subjective, but I enjoyed romancing Yukari. Since she’s a SEES member, there’s a lot of opportunities to reexamine dialogue she was with or about Makoto through a romantic lens, and that’s something I think is pretty fun (not like people are romancing non-SEES members amirite?). I’m also satisfied with the romance-exclusive dialogue you get with your character of choice, such as during Christmas Eve and at the very end of the game, though I will for once admit it's less than I expected. I straight up thought we’d get a new set of Social Links with our romance that were all romance-coded, as opposed to having the final few normal Social Links be romance-coded if you decide to go ahead with it. Wishful thinking I suppose. Still gonna be a diehard Yukari/Makoto fan.
And of course, I can’t discuss the emotion of Persona 3’s characters without praising the absolutely FANTASTIC voice acting and direction. Hooooooooly shit. I think the winner for best voice acting is Zeno Robinson as Junpei. I wasn’t all that on board with Junpei as a character when I first started, admittedly, but Robinson’s performance of some of Junpei’s most vulnerable moments is absolutely mindblowing. A shame I can’t discuss my favorite line from him, since it’s neck deep in spoilers. Anyway, I was also very impressed with the performances of Heather Gonzalez (Yukari), Dawn M. Bennett (Aigis), Justice Lee (Ken), and Justice Slocum (Shinjiro). But every voice actor was very good, not just those few.
Now, let me discuss the concepts of some of the features of Persona. I’ve always been slightly interested in tarot card readings and the Major Arcana, so playing an entire game where each person is linked to a Major Arcana card and signifies said Arcana is very cool. I’m sure much more qualified people than me can discuss the symbolism of tarot in fiction; I'm just going to leave it at “that’s neat.” The concept of Personas and the Evoker is also incredibly interesting; the act of shooting oneself with a gun-shaped object isn’t a very subtle metaphor, but it's incredibly striking and frankly, a little badass.
As Personas (and Tartarus) represent a truth hidden from reality, the act of using an Evoker to summon one reads as killing the false self to reveal the inner self, the “true” self. This trope isn’t exactly uncommon either, but Persona seems to be one of the series to do it the best. It’s very cool to see how each character uses them as well; hopefully I’m not overanalyzing this, but I did notice that Yukari is the only person that places her Evoker where she can see it when she uses it, perhaps to indicate she is the most afraid of death? Like, she can’t place what she’s doing out of her mind and has to focus on it. Cool symbolism there. And since the Persona represents its wielder, it's neat to see that they can change as the individual changes—bonus points for said Persona changes also yielding gameplay changes.
The nature of the Dark Hour and Tartarus provide an enduring mystery throughout the game that’s pretty fun to speculate on. Tartarus in and of itself is a mix-and-match of various mythologies; same with the Shadows and Personas. I don’t have much to say other than that it looks very cool. And having it be known only to those with Personas gives us a great look at how a bunch of teenagers cope with balancing exams in the day and demon hunting at night. I think I’d just about have a mental breakdown.
Time to wind down the pros, and talk about some miscellaneous things. First up, I gotta say, Twitter was right when they praised this game’s UI. Holy shit, I think Persona 3 has one of the most fluid and beautiful pause menus of all time. I love the Stats screen, and how Makoto hold up a mirror shard that reflects the eyes of the teammate you’re looking at. The Social Link screen is very cool too, with Makoto holding the tarot card corresponding to each person’s Arcana. The combat UI is very clean as well; I like that it’s a bit less flashy than Persona 5’s, yet still just as dynamic. Bonus points for having Koromaru’s being smaller than everyone else’s since he’s a dog. So cute!
Finally, I can talk about the soundtrack… Oh man, it is so damn good. Like, it has NO RIGHT to be this good. Usually when I talk about a game soundtrack, I mention all the tracks I liked, but there are just too many for me to list them all. I will list a few though: Mass Destruction and It’s Going Down Now are some of the best combat themes I’ve ever heard (right up there with The Rebel Path from Cyberpunk 2077 for me), Changing Seasons is such a feel good track for me (and literally so damn catchy too), and I love the vibes of songs like Deep Mentality, Color Your Night, When The Moon’s Reaching Out Stars, and Master of Shadow.
Three more bonus things, and then I will FINALLY get to the few cons I have. One, I’m glad that not only is there a log, but that you can re-listen to voice lines from the log. While I do like the music in this game, there are a few emotional moments I think hit a lot harder when there’s no music playing while they’re said. Two, you can pet Koromaru. Yes, I am one of the people that always wonders “can you pet the dog” in a game. Reporting in—you can pet the dog, plus a lot more cute things! And three, the conclusion of Maya’s Social Link at the end of the game. That entire sequence had me HOWLING with laughter. Fantastic experience all around.
Okay, now we get to the cons. Important to note is that none of these problems ended up compromising my experience to the point where I think I have to take off points. The game was so damn good that these negatives were rendered almost entirely moot. Still, no game is perfect, so here I go.
Without specifying for fear of spoilers, I think Ikutsuki’s arc and Junpei’s arc with Chidori could be improved. The former didn’t add much to the story at all, and frankly didn’t really need to happen in the first place. Could have just nixed it entirely and the experience wouldn’t have really changed; in fact, the end of the game could have been more mysterious and climactic without it. The latter is saved by Junpei’s amazing voice acting and character writing, but a lot of the interactions between the two take place behind closed doors, and it lessens the impact of the arc’s conclusion a tad bit.
We also did not get our female protagonist Kotone (I think that’s her name) that was present in Persona 3 Portable. I imagine this was done because Atlus changed up the narrative so much with the remake, and they wanted to make sure the story stayed cohesive without having to balance making two versions of every story beat to reflect the different protagonists. Still a sad sight to see players robbed of a choice they had in the past.
Finally, this game does have a considerable amount of weird teenager fanservice I did not want to sit through. I do NOT think having the token ”girls’ swimsuit reveal” scene was at all necessary, nor do I appreciate stumbling into a hot springs scene where I have to pick the right dialogue options to escape from the girls only bath. Like, what the hell Junpei? I didn’t sign up for this shit. And don’t even get me started on the hidden camera scenes. Just saying a sentence like that is sus enough. Sorry to end the review on such a strange note, but I have to bring it up. I was half-tempted to omit this part from the review, if only to avoid having to discuss such a weird topic, but I’m not pulling any punches, or so Akihiko would say.
If you made it to the end of my review, I hope I didn’t bore you to death. It is already like, four times as long as any other review I’ve made, and basically qualifies as a college-level essay. In fact I’m certain I put more effort into this review than actual assignments for my degree. I just haven’t felt this way about a game in a few months…it means a lot to me. I was absolutely blown away by Persona 3 Reload and how much of an impact it had on me, both in terms of how fun it was to play, and by how much its story and characters resonated with me. It’s truly been an unforgettable experience. Now…onto the next bout! See you in September when the DLC drops.
Objective rating: 5 stars
Subjective rating: 5 stars
I never got the chance to play Pokemon Black 2 Version when it came out in 2012; I was much too preoccupied with playing the first Generation 5 games, as well as catching as many Pokemon as I could to transfer to the Generation 6 games when they released. Unfortunately for my wallet and I, fate played a dastardly trick and the games shot up to prohibitively expensive prices. Well, years later in December 2023, I emerged from a local game store 130 dollars lighter and with a legit Black 2 cartridge. I could finally put all the praise I heard about this game to the test. Well, was it a good Pokemon game?
Hell yes! Let’s get down to it!
(PS: Like my Pokemon Omega Ruby review, I won’t be reviewing features added to the Generation 5 games overall, just what Black 2 changed or added from it’s predecessor.)
Pros:
- I think I’ll start this review with changes to the map and region. B2 and W2 (White 2) were the “first” sequels to a Pokemon game (Gold and Silver were sequels, but not in the same way), and as such, many locations have been added or changed to reflect the passage of time. All new cities and Gyms have popped up, like in Aspertia or Humilau; new areas have been built or become accessible, like the Castelia Sewers and Strange; and many locations have been changed—Route 4 has finished construction, Relic Castle has been filled with sand, Victory Road has suffered a cave-in and now has a completely different layout…there’s a lot. It is frankly INSANE how many new areas there are to explore and it’s so cool to see that many changes have in-universe explanations, which makes the region feel so dynamic and lifelike—the most out of any Pokemon region. It truly felt like a new game.
- I could gush about the visuals of these areas for a long time. Marine Tube has changing 3D imagery based on the time of day, where you can see different marine life swimming by. Castelia Sewers connect Castelia all the way to Driftveil via the underground Relic Passage. The Strange House’s furniture changes every time you change rooms, letting your progress further into the building. And of course, the elephants in the room are Pokestar Studios and the Pokemon World Tournament, which I’ll discuss later. It’s all just so cool.
- There’s also a lot of gameplay-related changes that add some fun mechanics. The best change is undoubtedly the addition of non-Unova Pokemon to the main game, which was a large criticism of Black and White 1 and is more than welcome. The Pokedex now has the habitat list, which gives you a look at what Pokemon live in an area and if you’ve caught them—for once, the Pokedex is actually useful as a source of information! The XTranscivere isn’t just a voice chat machine; you can actually use it to learn what Abilities do and how to evolve certain Pokemon. And we’ve got the Medal Rally! By god, Pokemon has achievements now, and some of them are absolutely unhinged (beat the Pokemon League with Pokemon of only one type??? Get 1,000,000 experience in one day?!) All amazing changes that were sorely needed.
- We’ve also got a new “gamemode” in Pokestar Studios, which tasks you with following a movie script with your Pokemon. It plays almost like a puzzle game, where you’re given a Pokemon with certain moves and abilities and tasked with achieving a goal, like knocking out one Pokemon every turn, and it’s up to you to figure out how to do that in the timetable you’re given. And of course, who could forget the Pokemon World Tournament, which pits you against Gym leaders and Champions from past games in battles for BP, and with new ways of battling to boot with Rental Tournaments (battle with preset Pokemon) and Mix Tournaments (you and your opponent swap a Pokemon with each other). Absolutely puts the Battle Subway to shame. Not even CLOSE to being as cool as the PWT.
- Keeping with making the game feel like a true sequel with a dynamic world, returning characters reflect on their past experiences, and the previous protagonist’s impact can be seen in the world. NPCs you could interact with in the previous game comment on their interactions with that protagonist, Victini is absent from Victory Garden, Ghetsis mentions being bested by a Trainer two years earlier, and when you visit the home of the previous protagonist in Nuvema Town, the woman living there thinks your her child at first, which is actually really sad. I know that sequels referencing past events are kinda their whole thing, but it is an exceptional instance for Pokemon, so I feel compelled to praise it. Oh well.
- The central characters of the story also showcase the impact of the past game’s events through their development. Bianca went through with her reflection on battling not being as fun for her, and now she works with the Pokemon professor. Cheren has continued to hone his battling craft, and now heads a Gym. N, who comes in near the end of the game, has reformed a sect of Team Plasma and resolved himself to search for the protagonist in order to thank them for the impact they had on his life. I might be giving this game too much credit, since Pokemon games are usually allergic to character building except in rare instances like this, but whatever.
- I also just want to take a second to praise the visuals of this game. I truly believe Generation 5’s games were the peak of Pokemon graphics—they combined DS-era 3D overworld graphics with animated battle sprites (say, did I mention animated Trainer sprites? Because that’s AWESOME). The visuals in this game are amazing, and I’m so glad areas like Gyms and the Elite Four rooms received a facelift (Marshall’s podium staircase assembling itself in front of you is so badass) to showcase how banging they are.
- AND OF COURSE the soundtrack absolutely fucks. Pokemon has NEVER failed in this department and hooooooly shit they delivered some heat this time around. Hugh’s battle theme, Floccesy Ranch, Virbank Gym, Castelia Gym, Nimbasa Gym, the Strange House, the GODDAMN PLASMA THEME??? How did they make peak even peaker??? Black 2’s music joins Nimbasa City, Driftveil City, Route 7, the Elite Four battle theme, and Gear Station in the Pokemon soundtrack Hall of Fame.
- The postgame of Black 2 is also insanely expansive. There are tons of legendaries to catch postgame, and unlike some encounters in newer Pokemon games, actually require you to explore and discover them for yourself. The Regis have another suitable puzzle that also makes use of Unova Link (more on that later), Cresselia and Heatran require you to find items hidden in the Strange House and Route 18 respectively, and once you discover the Cave of Being, you can find Uxie, Mesprit, and Azelf. And to make up for the post-game routes of BW1 being main-game in their sequels, everything past Skyarrow Bridge and between Twist Mountain and the Moor of Icirrus has been rendered post-game in its stead. I actually loved this, especially for the novelty of the early-game routes of BW1 being the exact opposite, and the excitement of seeing what became of the BW1 protagonist once I reached Nuvema. I’m telling you, encountering level 60 Pokemon and Veteran trainers on Route 1 is a surreal experience. So is fighting Preschoolers with level 61 pseudo-legendaries. 10/10.
- Unova Link is a feature I couldn’t make use of, since it requires two DS systems with local communication, but it sounds like an insanely cool feature. I’ve grown to find paired Pokemon versions more of an annoyance than fun (version-exclusive Pokemon are so annoying…) but I could get behind it if they were implemented like Black and White 2. Unova Link lets you swap “keys” between the two versions, allowing you to access some of the features of the other version—namely White Forest/Black City and the corresponding Regi. Unova Link also allows for Memory Link, which not only lets you view events that happened between BW1 and BW2, but also carries over some features from that game, such as giving Cheren and Bianca Pokemon they had in the previous game, and viewing Pokedex certificates and Battle Subway trophies in the house of the previous protagonist. All interesting mechanics that Pokemon will assuredly never bother with ever again.
- One more tiny thing: Black 2 has the best credits sequence, showing the player traveling all the way back to their home from the Pokemon League, and having people congratulate them on their accomplishments along the way.
Cons:
- While I do really like the story insofar as it incorporates the events of previous games and the passage of time, I think it’s a step down from the emotional resonance that Black and White 1 had. Team Plasma was such an interesting adversary to fight because their goals were purportedly altruistic. They wanted to liberate Pokemon from their owners, since it’s not as if they could consent to being captured. This is legitimately the closest Pokemon has ever come to being self-aware of that harsh truth, which is actually really funny now that I’m thinking about it. Anyway, that’s gone in the sequel since Ghetsis is now just hellbent on conquering the Unova region like he originally wanted to in BW1, but since it’s now removed from the context that the “sympathetic” Team Plasma provided in BW1, it falls flat and makes him seem like any other bad guy. And it doesn’t help that N, the best character in BW1, only comes in at the very end of the game. I guess I’m trying to argue that BW2’s story is bad because it isn’t BW1…but whatever.
- Maybe I’m just a little stupid, but there are way too many online features spread too wide for me to make sense of. Game Sync, Feelings Check, Survey Radar, Entralink, Dream World, Xtransciever…Union Room, Global Trade, Random Matchups, all spread between the second floor of Pokemon Centers, the C-Gear, and the Main Menu. It’s a little overwhelming, though I’ll give credit for explaining them all pretty well. I still feel like they could have been consolidated a little bit more to be easier to digest.
- While I GREATLY appreciate Game Freak’s attempt to add a Challenge Mode and Easy Mode to Pokemon, it’s implementation is sorely lacking. You can only play it if you’re gifted a key via Unova Link, and you can only select it at the beginning of a new save file. This means not only do you have to get the key from someone who’s already beat the game—meaning you’re out of luck if you’re playing solo—but you will have to delete your save if you want to start a new one with either mode. PLUS, even though the new difficulties do change the levels of opposing Pokemon, the stats of the Pokemon still scale based off Normal Mode, making the change in levels only really affect EXP gain. Ironically that makes the early-game of Easy Mode harder since you’ll be getting less EXP every fight, and the Pokemon will still be just as strong as Normal Mode.
- Three smaller complaints: First, Pokemon Breeders always rematching you every time you reload the location they’re in is a clear downgrade from rematches. I don’t get why Trainer rematches haven’t been standard in every Pokemon game. I guess it is still an improvement since BW1 didn’t have this feature. Second, the Battle Subway was not updated for the new Unova Pokedex—they still use the same teams from BW1 (at least in the non-Super modes), which means it’s only Generation 5 Pokemon. And lastly, level grinding in this game sucks. It’s all Audino genocide all the way down. That’s certainly better than wild Pokemon with normal EXP distribution…but as I said above, it’s worse than rematches. Say what you want about Generation 6, but key item EXP Share made the inevitability of grinding at least tolerable.
Objective rating: 4.5 stars
Subjective rating: 4.5 stars
Hell yes! Let’s get down to it!
(PS: Like my Pokemon Omega Ruby review, I won’t be reviewing features added to the Generation 5 games overall, just what Black 2 changed or added from it’s predecessor.)
Pros:
- I think I’ll start this review with changes to the map and region. B2 and W2 (White 2) were the “first” sequels to a Pokemon game (Gold and Silver were sequels, but not in the same way), and as such, many locations have been added or changed to reflect the passage of time. All new cities and Gyms have popped up, like in Aspertia or Humilau; new areas have been built or become accessible, like the Castelia Sewers and Strange; and many locations have been changed—Route 4 has finished construction, Relic Castle has been filled with sand, Victory Road has suffered a cave-in and now has a completely different layout…there’s a lot. It is frankly INSANE how many new areas there are to explore and it’s so cool to see that many changes have in-universe explanations, which makes the region feel so dynamic and lifelike—the most out of any Pokemon region. It truly felt like a new game.
- I could gush about the visuals of these areas for a long time. Marine Tube has changing 3D imagery based on the time of day, where you can see different marine life swimming by. Castelia Sewers connect Castelia all the way to Driftveil via the underground Relic Passage. The Strange House’s furniture changes every time you change rooms, letting your progress further into the building. And of course, the elephants in the room are Pokestar Studios and the Pokemon World Tournament, which I’ll discuss later. It’s all just so cool.
- There’s also a lot of gameplay-related changes that add some fun mechanics. The best change is undoubtedly the addition of non-Unova Pokemon to the main game, which was a large criticism of Black and White 1 and is more than welcome. The Pokedex now has the habitat list, which gives you a look at what Pokemon live in an area and if you’ve caught them—for once, the Pokedex is actually useful as a source of information! The XTranscivere isn’t just a voice chat machine; you can actually use it to learn what Abilities do and how to evolve certain Pokemon. And we’ve got the Medal Rally! By god, Pokemon has achievements now, and some of them are absolutely unhinged (beat the Pokemon League with Pokemon of only one type??? Get 1,000,000 experience in one day?!) All amazing changes that were sorely needed.
- We’ve also got a new “gamemode” in Pokestar Studios, which tasks you with following a movie script with your Pokemon. It plays almost like a puzzle game, where you’re given a Pokemon with certain moves and abilities and tasked with achieving a goal, like knocking out one Pokemon every turn, and it’s up to you to figure out how to do that in the timetable you’re given. And of course, who could forget the Pokemon World Tournament, which pits you against Gym leaders and Champions from past games in battles for BP, and with new ways of battling to boot with Rental Tournaments (battle with preset Pokemon) and Mix Tournaments (you and your opponent swap a Pokemon with each other). Absolutely puts the Battle Subway to shame. Not even CLOSE to being as cool as the PWT.
- Keeping with making the game feel like a true sequel with a dynamic world, returning characters reflect on their past experiences, and the previous protagonist’s impact can be seen in the world. NPCs you could interact with in the previous game comment on their interactions with that protagonist, Victini is absent from Victory Garden, Ghetsis mentions being bested by a Trainer two years earlier, and when you visit the home of the previous protagonist in Nuvema Town, the woman living there thinks your her child at first, which is actually really sad. I know that sequels referencing past events are kinda their whole thing, but it is an exceptional instance for Pokemon, so I feel compelled to praise it. Oh well.
- The central characters of the story also showcase the impact of the past game’s events through their development. Bianca went through with her reflection on battling not being as fun for her, and now she works with the Pokemon professor. Cheren has continued to hone his battling craft, and now heads a Gym. N, who comes in near the end of the game, has reformed a sect of Team Plasma and resolved himself to search for the protagonist in order to thank them for the impact they had on his life. I might be giving this game too much credit, since Pokemon games are usually allergic to character building except in rare instances like this, but whatever.
- I also just want to take a second to praise the visuals of this game. I truly believe Generation 5’s games were the peak of Pokemon graphics—they combined DS-era 3D overworld graphics with animated battle sprites (say, did I mention animated Trainer sprites? Because that’s AWESOME). The visuals in this game are amazing, and I’m so glad areas like Gyms and the Elite Four rooms received a facelift (Marshall’s podium staircase assembling itself in front of you is so badass) to showcase how banging they are.
- AND OF COURSE the soundtrack absolutely fucks. Pokemon has NEVER failed in this department and hooooooly shit they delivered some heat this time around. Hugh’s battle theme, Floccesy Ranch, Virbank Gym, Castelia Gym, Nimbasa Gym, the Strange House, the GODDAMN PLASMA THEME??? How did they make peak even peaker??? Black 2’s music joins Nimbasa City, Driftveil City, Route 7, the Elite Four battle theme, and Gear Station in the Pokemon soundtrack Hall of Fame.
- The postgame of Black 2 is also insanely expansive. There are tons of legendaries to catch postgame, and unlike some encounters in newer Pokemon games, actually require you to explore and discover them for yourself. The Regis have another suitable puzzle that also makes use of Unova Link (more on that later), Cresselia and Heatran require you to find items hidden in the Strange House and Route 18 respectively, and once you discover the Cave of Being, you can find Uxie, Mesprit, and Azelf. And to make up for the post-game routes of BW1 being main-game in their sequels, everything past Skyarrow Bridge and between Twist Mountain and the Moor of Icirrus has been rendered post-game in its stead. I actually loved this, especially for the novelty of the early-game routes of BW1 being the exact opposite, and the excitement of seeing what became of the BW1 protagonist once I reached Nuvema. I’m telling you, encountering level 60 Pokemon and Veteran trainers on Route 1 is a surreal experience. So is fighting Preschoolers with level 61 pseudo-legendaries. 10/10.
- Unova Link is a feature I couldn’t make use of, since it requires two DS systems with local communication, but it sounds like an insanely cool feature. I’ve grown to find paired Pokemon versions more of an annoyance than fun (version-exclusive Pokemon are so annoying…) but I could get behind it if they were implemented like Black and White 2. Unova Link lets you swap “keys” between the two versions, allowing you to access some of the features of the other version—namely White Forest/Black City and the corresponding Regi. Unova Link also allows for Memory Link, which not only lets you view events that happened between BW1 and BW2, but also carries over some features from that game, such as giving Cheren and Bianca Pokemon they had in the previous game, and viewing Pokedex certificates and Battle Subway trophies in the house of the previous protagonist. All interesting mechanics that Pokemon will assuredly never bother with ever again.
- One more tiny thing: Black 2 has the best credits sequence, showing the player traveling all the way back to their home from the Pokemon League, and having people congratulate them on their accomplishments along the way.
Cons:
- While I do really like the story insofar as it incorporates the events of previous games and the passage of time, I think it’s a step down from the emotional resonance that Black and White 1 had. Team Plasma was such an interesting adversary to fight because their goals were purportedly altruistic. They wanted to liberate Pokemon from their owners, since it’s not as if they could consent to being captured. This is legitimately the closest Pokemon has ever come to being self-aware of that harsh truth, which is actually really funny now that I’m thinking about it. Anyway, that’s gone in the sequel since Ghetsis is now just hellbent on conquering the Unova region like he originally wanted to in BW1, but since it’s now removed from the context that the “sympathetic” Team Plasma provided in BW1, it falls flat and makes him seem like any other bad guy. And it doesn’t help that N, the best character in BW1, only comes in at the very end of the game. I guess I’m trying to argue that BW2’s story is bad because it isn’t BW1…but whatever.
- Maybe I’m just a little stupid, but there are way too many online features spread too wide for me to make sense of. Game Sync, Feelings Check, Survey Radar, Entralink, Dream World, Xtransciever…Union Room, Global Trade, Random Matchups, all spread between the second floor of Pokemon Centers, the C-Gear, and the Main Menu. It’s a little overwhelming, though I’ll give credit for explaining them all pretty well. I still feel like they could have been consolidated a little bit more to be easier to digest.
- While I GREATLY appreciate Game Freak’s attempt to add a Challenge Mode and Easy Mode to Pokemon, it’s implementation is sorely lacking. You can only play it if you’re gifted a key via Unova Link, and you can only select it at the beginning of a new save file. This means not only do you have to get the key from someone who’s already beat the game—meaning you’re out of luck if you’re playing solo—but you will have to delete your save if you want to start a new one with either mode. PLUS, even though the new difficulties do change the levels of opposing Pokemon, the stats of the Pokemon still scale based off Normal Mode, making the change in levels only really affect EXP gain. Ironically that makes the early-game of Easy Mode harder since you’ll be getting less EXP every fight, and the Pokemon will still be just as strong as Normal Mode.
- Three smaller complaints: First, Pokemon Breeders always rematching you every time you reload the location they’re in is a clear downgrade from rematches. I don’t get why Trainer rematches haven’t been standard in every Pokemon game. I guess it is still an improvement since BW1 didn’t have this feature. Second, the Battle Subway was not updated for the new Unova Pokedex—they still use the same teams from BW1 (at least in the non-Super modes), which means it’s only Generation 5 Pokemon. And lastly, level grinding in this game sucks. It’s all Audino genocide all the way down. That’s certainly better than wild Pokemon with normal EXP distribution…but as I said above, it’s worse than rematches. Say what you want about Generation 6, but key item EXP Share made the inevitability of grinding at least tolerable.
Objective rating: 4.5 stars
Subjective rating: 4.5 stars
2014
A few years ago, I would have claimed that Pokemon Omega Ruby was my favorite Pokemon game of all time. That might not be true anymore, but it’s still a damn good one. I racked up 260 or so hours in this game when it came out in middle school, and astonishingly I managed to beat that record with my newest playthrough, courtesy of my first National Dex completion and an (ongoing) Ralts shiny hunt. Omega Ruby does a fantastic job of “remixing” the original Ruby, updating its story, mechanics, and character designs to Generation VI standards.
That statement might sound a bit too “sterile” but honestly, I’ve always been unsure of how to review a Pokemon game. Almost all of them follow the same broad strokes, and thus praises and criticisms can be seen as systemic issues rather than specific to one particular game, for example the trend of decreasing difficulty, or discussion on the intricacy of battle mechanics. I could say a lot on that subject, but I don’t really feel like it, so I’m going to stick to the basics for my Omega Ruby review—cool Pokemon and character designs make brain produce nice chemicals.
NOTE: I won’t be talking about mechanics that are new to the Generation VI games in general, as I feel that would be better mentioned in an X and Y review, but if they relate enough to the differences between Ruby and Omega Ruby, I will. So I’ll mention 3D graphics, but not Pokemon-Amie, for example.
Pros:
- Let’s start with the story. Villainous Team Magma gets a slightly more complex goal, in that they want to create more land not just because “why not?” but because they want to create more land for human civilization and progress. Now, obviously anyone who thinks about this for more than two seconds realizes that trying to evaporate all the water on the planet is a stupid idea. But that’s why it’s so fun to watch these uber-nerds slowly turn into eco-terrorists.
- And of course, Team Magma’s leader and admins get much more personality, and dare I say a little depth to boot. The once optional opportunity for Maxie to realize the error of his ways and apologize is now part of the main story, and it’s really interesting to see Maxie slowly realize his plan was ill-fated as the weather over Sootopolis goes haywire, and eventually accept Archie’s offer of redemption after him and Tabitha convince Maxie it is worth trying. And as for “totally-not-a-robot” Courtney…well she’s certainly got something interesting going on, what with her weird manner of speaking and die-hard commitment to Maxie’s original goals. It’s really fun to listen to her speak.
- Team Magma aren’t the only characters worth paying attention to. Wally gets a much more substantive role as a rival—and now that I’m thinking about it, so does rival Brendan/May, albeit in a less competitive manner. We also get to see a lot more of Steven, mostly in the Delta Episode, where his friendship with equally-badass Wallace is shown (more on that in a second). Norman gets a cool moment after you beat his Gym Battle where he shows pride in his child, and several of the Gym Leaders and Elite Four members get additional appearances after the main story is complete, like Wattson and the New Mauville storyline. And of course, there are new characters like Lisia (we stan a Contest idol) and Zinnia (manic dragon woman) that are welcome additions to the Pokemon canon.
- Okay, NOW we talk about the Delta Episode. I know there are a lot of people upset we got Ruby and Sapphire remakes as opposed to an Emerald remake, but you have got to admit that the Delta Episode is just objectively awesome. Sure, catching Rayquaza at the Sky Pillar in Ruby is cool. But having Zinnia steal Key Stones to summon Rayquaza, upon which we get to ride that motherfucker into the sky, obliterate an incoming meteor, and fight DEOXYS (first non-event appearance!) all in goddamn SPACE??? If you aren’t impressed, you just have to hate fun. That is SICK. Plus we get to see more Steven, Maxie, Courtney, and Wallace, some of the best characters in Omega Ruby. I could gush about the Delta Episode all day. “Lorekeeper” Zinnia talking about “the final duty of the Draconid people” and mentioning “a Hoenn without Mega Evolution” (which is Ruby!!!) is just so cool.
- Moving past the story, Omega Ruby redesigns a lot of the region and characters from the ground up, which is a lot more than the recent Pokemon remakes have done. All of the Trainer redesigns are amazing, and thanks to the change from sprites to key art portraits during battles, we get to see the great art in a lot of detail. Maxie and Archie turn from “nerd” and “punk” to “cold-ass scientist” and “fucking pirate”, for example.
- The cities also look great updated in 3D, especially Mauville, which turns from a normal outdoor city to a completely indoor technological marvel, which is probably the most striking difference between cities of Ruby and Omega Ruby. Greater graphical fidelity and 3D models also let us get neat details like crystal clear water in Meteor Falls, camera angles panning up Mt. Pyre to show its scale, and stars reflected in the lakes on Route 120. The Abandoned Ship also turns into Sea Mauville, whose half-sunken ship platform lying diagonally out of the water is a much cooler image than the original in Ruby.
- Now let’s move onto gameplay, whether it's new in Omega Ruby, updated from Ruby, or still just as good as in 2002. Contests are my personal favorite “mechanic Game Freak refuses to make permanent” (there are a lot of those). I just love the idea of having a competition based not on battling, but STYLE, and how each move can do something completely different in Contests. Playing around excitement and jamming is genuinely really engaging, if lacking a bit of the depth of normal Pokemon battles. Brendan and May’s contest outfits also rule, and they match the cool and cute outfits of the new Cosplay Pikachu, which is just plain adorable and a nifty addition. The side-quest of Lisia and Chaz competing against you as you rise through the Contest ranks is also really neat, and it just leaves me wishing that we could have a Pokemon game that expands on the Contest world even more.
- Secret Bases are now Super Secret Bases, and receive a minor facelift in that you can recruit other players from their bases to serve as NPC Trainers in yours. I wish I spent more time on this mechanic as a kid, because it’s at least vaguely interesting, but I get the sense no one today really cares about it since Nintendo is shutting down 3DS servers in April 2024. At least I can capture flags and farm Berries and evolutionary stones in the meantime!
- The PokeNav is MASSIVELY expanded, as instead of serving solely as a way to rematch trainers, it now does that PLUS allow you to hunt for specific Pokemon in the wild once you catch them at least once (with DexNav). I love having this kind of control over encountering Pokemon, and I think it’s the best middle ground between preserving the excitement of rare spawns and letting you focus on catching the Pokemon you want. Plus, you can “chain” Pokemon with it when you encounter them several times in a row, which grants you access to hidden abilities, non-standard moves, and even increases the Shiny chance. Just amazing features all around. AreaNav also lets you rematch Trainers much sooner than in Ruby, now letting you face rematch teams right after getting your first Gym badge. I cannot tell you how much I’d rather battle trainers to level my team instead of wild Pokemon. This should be a standard in the series, but I guess Game Freak can’t let a good thing last.
- Diving spots have been reduced, which is a bummer, but in exchange, we get underwater Trainer battles and much nicer visuals. I’ll take it. I really like the ocean, and I wish we had this kind of underwater gameplay in newer games with better Pokemon spawns. Omega Ruby also introduces Soaring on the back of Mega Latias or Latios, which in turn lets you encounter Pokemon in midair (which is only occasionally annoying), and Mirage Spots, which allow you to encounter Pokemon not normally available in Omega Ruby. I have problems with the Mirage Spot mechanic, but overall, Soaring is a great feature and would have blown Ruby players’ socks off back then.
- Two more things, and then we’ll get into the cons. Omega Ruby’s soundtrack, like every Pokemon soundtrack, is consistently amazing, whether it’s New Mauville, the Lake trio encounters, the Sky Pillar theme, Slateport’s theme, or the Delta Episode’s credits. Maxie’s battle theme is undeniably my favorite; those trumpets (?) go INSANELY hard. The new Mega Evolutions are also great, both design-wise (just look at Rayquaza and Altaria) and gameplay-wise (Beedrill is finally viable!)
Cons:
- There aren’t that many criticisms I have of Omega Ruby specifically, as many of the problems with this game are shared by other Pokemon games. Generation VI was the beginning of the reduction of difficulty across the Pokemon series, with features such as the EXP Share as a key item (as opposed to only giving experience to one Pokemon) and catching experience that allowed one’s team to grow overleveled if left unchecked. I’ve mellowed out a bit on these changes as I got older, as I recognize that they make leveling MUCH less annoying, but I’m still kind of stuck on if I think they were the best choice. For now, I’ll leave them as cons.
- Ruby and Omega Ruby are also very heavy on HMs for navigation—while Soaring does allow a player to forsake Fly, this is the most Surf-heavy game in the series because of ALL THE DAMN WATER ROUTES. I’m going to say it—IGNs much memed “7.8 out of 10—too much water” was actually right. I wouldn’t have minded it much if the routes felt different enough from each other, but they really don’t. They have practically the same Pokemon encounter tables and all look basically the exact same. It doesn’t help that the routes around Mossdeep and Sootopolis have some of the most easily-accessible high level Pokemon (relative to the average level after the eighth Gym badge) outside of Victory Road, meaning that any grinding against wild Pokemon is only going to yield the best results on a water Route. The amount of Tentacool I blew through as a kid is too high to count. I probably put those squids on the endangered species list. Makes me shudder to think about it.
- I mentioned that Mirage Spots weren’t my favorite mechanic earlier—let me go into more detail. I know that many Pokemon players like when you can catch legendaries from previous games, but I don’t think attaching them to random portals on random islands is the right way to go. Getting a legendary Pokemon should feel special—it should either be tied to a story event, or some sort of secret that must be solved, like Groudon or the Regi trio. Omega Ruby even had their own example of a good legendary quest, that being Ho-Oh on the decks of the Sea Mauville. But placing legendaries like the Lake trio or Swords of Justice on some islands that you can just fly to isn’t fun at all. It trivializes their capture and makes the experience less special. This was the beginning of a trend that would reach its nadir in Pokemon Sword with the Max Lair.
- I also noticed that save for the Delta Episode, Game Freak was very reluctant to take anything from Emerald. You can’t rematch Gym Leaders like you could in that game (which sucks) and the Battle Frontier is replaced with the inferior Battle Resort, which features a carbon copy of the Battle Maison from X and Y. Just…why? You even had the Battle Tower in Ruby, why couldn’t that be the battle facility in this game? Game Freak definitely went too hard on making Ruby and Sapphire remakes—I get it’s so they could have a new set of paired versions, but I thought the Battle Frontier would have been a no-brainer.
- One last Omega Ruby-specific con: why can’t we use the dowsing machine underwater? No chance I’m going to swim around mashing A to find each individual Arceus plate. Absolutely baffled by that decision.
Objective rating: 4.0 stars
Subjective rating: 4.5 stars
That statement might sound a bit too “sterile” but honestly, I’ve always been unsure of how to review a Pokemon game. Almost all of them follow the same broad strokes, and thus praises and criticisms can be seen as systemic issues rather than specific to one particular game, for example the trend of decreasing difficulty, or discussion on the intricacy of battle mechanics. I could say a lot on that subject, but I don’t really feel like it, so I’m going to stick to the basics for my Omega Ruby review—cool Pokemon and character designs make brain produce nice chemicals.
NOTE: I won’t be talking about mechanics that are new to the Generation VI games in general, as I feel that would be better mentioned in an X and Y review, but if they relate enough to the differences between Ruby and Omega Ruby, I will. So I’ll mention 3D graphics, but not Pokemon-Amie, for example.
Pros:
- Let’s start with the story. Villainous Team Magma gets a slightly more complex goal, in that they want to create more land not just because “why not?” but because they want to create more land for human civilization and progress. Now, obviously anyone who thinks about this for more than two seconds realizes that trying to evaporate all the water on the planet is a stupid idea. But that’s why it’s so fun to watch these uber-nerds slowly turn into eco-terrorists.
- And of course, Team Magma’s leader and admins get much more personality, and dare I say a little depth to boot. The once optional opportunity for Maxie to realize the error of his ways and apologize is now part of the main story, and it’s really interesting to see Maxie slowly realize his plan was ill-fated as the weather over Sootopolis goes haywire, and eventually accept Archie’s offer of redemption after him and Tabitha convince Maxie it is worth trying. And as for “totally-not-a-robot” Courtney…well she’s certainly got something interesting going on, what with her weird manner of speaking and die-hard commitment to Maxie’s original goals. It’s really fun to listen to her speak.
- Team Magma aren’t the only characters worth paying attention to. Wally gets a much more substantive role as a rival—and now that I’m thinking about it, so does rival Brendan/May, albeit in a less competitive manner. We also get to see a lot more of Steven, mostly in the Delta Episode, where his friendship with equally-badass Wallace is shown (more on that in a second). Norman gets a cool moment after you beat his Gym Battle where he shows pride in his child, and several of the Gym Leaders and Elite Four members get additional appearances after the main story is complete, like Wattson and the New Mauville storyline. And of course, there are new characters like Lisia (we stan a Contest idol) and Zinnia (manic dragon woman) that are welcome additions to the Pokemon canon.
- Okay, NOW we talk about the Delta Episode. I know there are a lot of people upset we got Ruby and Sapphire remakes as opposed to an Emerald remake, but you have got to admit that the Delta Episode is just objectively awesome. Sure, catching Rayquaza at the Sky Pillar in Ruby is cool. But having Zinnia steal Key Stones to summon Rayquaza, upon which we get to ride that motherfucker into the sky, obliterate an incoming meteor, and fight DEOXYS (first non-event appearance!) all in goddamn SPACE??? If you aren’t impressed, you just have to hate fun. That is SICK. Plus we get to see more Steven, Maxie, Courtney, and Wallace, some of the best characters in Omega Ruby. I could gush about the Delta Episode all day. “Lorekeeper” Zinnia talking about “the final duty of the Draconid people” and mentioning “a Hoenn without Mega Evolution” (which is Ruby!!!) is just so cool.
- Moving past the story, Omega Ruby redesigns a lot of the region and characters from the ground up, which is a lot more than the recent Pokemon remakes have done. All of the Trainer redesigns are amazing, and thanks to the change from sprites to key art portraits during battles, we get to see the great art in a lot of detail. Maxie and Archie turn from “nerd” and “punk” to “cold-ass scientist” and “fucking pirate”, for example.
- The cities also look great updated in 3D, especially Mauville, which turns from a normal outdoor city to a completely indoor technological marvel, which is probably the most striking difference between cities of Ruby and Omega Ruby. Greater graphical fidelity and 3D models also let us get neat details like crystal clear water in Meteor Falls, camera angles panning up Mt. Pyre to show its scale, and stars reflected in the lakes on Route 120. The Abandoned Ship also turns into Sea Mauville, whose half-sunken ship platform lying diagonally out of the water is a much cooler image than the original in Ruby.
- Now let’s move onto gameplay, whether it's new in Omega Ruby, updated from Ruby, or still just as good as in 2002. Contests are my personal favorite “mechanic Game Freak refuses to make permanent” (there are a lot of those). I just love the idea of having a competition based not on battling, but STYLE, and how each move can do something completely different in Contests. Playing around excitement and jamming is genuinely really engaging, if lacking a bit of the depth of normal Pokemon battles. Brendan and May’s contest outfits also rule, and they match the cool and cute outfits of the new Cosplay Pikachu, which is just plain adorable and a nifty addition. The side-quest of Lisia and Chaz competing against you as you rise through the Contest ranks is also really neat, and it just leaves me wishing that we could have a Pokemon game that expands on the Contest world even more.
- Secret Bases are now Super Secret Bases, and receive a minor facelift in that you can recruit other players from their bases to serve as NPC Trainers in yours. I wish I spent more time on this mechanic as a kid, because it’s at least vaguely interesting, but I get the sense no one today really cares about it since Nintendo is shutting down 3DS servers in April 2024. At least I can capture flags and farm Berries and evolutionary stones in the meantime!
- The PokeNav is MASSIVELY expanded, as instead of serving solely as a way to rematch trainers, it now does that PLUS allow you to hunt for specific Pokemon in the wild once you catch them at least once (with DexNav). I love having this kind of control over encountering Pokemon, and I think it’s the best middle ground between preserving the excitement of rare spawns and letting you focus on catching the Pokemon you want. Plus, you can “chain” Pokemon with it when you encounter them several times in a row, which grants you access to hidden abilities, non-standard moves, and even increases the Shiny chance. Just amazing features all around. AreaNav also lets you rematch Trainers much sooner than in Ruby, now letting you face rematch teams right after getting your first Gym badge. I cannot tell you how much I’d rather battle trainers to level my team instead of wild Pokemon. This should be a standard in the series, but I guess Game Freak can’t let a good thing last.
- Diving spots have been reduced, which is a bummer, but in exchange, we get underwater Trainer battles and much nicer visuals. I’ll take it. I really like the ocean, and I wish we had this kind of underwater gameplay in newer games with better Pokemon spawns. Omega Ruby also introduces Soaring on the back of Mega Latias or Latios, which in turn lets you encounter Pokemon in midair (which is only occasionally annoying), and Mirage Spots, which allow you to encounter Pokemon not normally available in Omega Ruby. I have problems with the Mirage Spot mechanic, but overall, Soaring is a great feature and would have blown Ruby players’ socks off back then.
- Two more things, and then we’ll get into the cons. Omega Ruby’s soundtrack, like every Pokemon soundtrack, is consistently amazing, whether it’s New Mauville, the Lake trio encounters, the Sky Pillar theme, Slateport’s theme, or the Delta Episode’s credits. Maxie’s battle theme is undeniably my favorite; those trumpets (?) go INSANELY hard. The new Mega Evolutions are also great, both design-wise (just look at Rayquaza and Altaria) and gameplay-wise (Beedrill is finally viable!)
Cons:
- There aren’t that many criticisms I have of Omega Ruby specifically, as many of the problems with this game are shared by other Pokemon games. Generation VI was the beginning of the reduction of difficulty across the Pokemon series, with features such as the EXP Share as a key item (as opposed to only giving experience to one Pokemon) and catching experience that allowed one’s team to grow overleveled if left unchecked. I’ve mellowed out a bit on these changes as I got older, as I recognize that they make leveling MUCH less annoying, but I’m still kind of stuck on if I think they were the best choice. For now, I’ll leave them as cons.
- Ruby and Omega Ruby are also very heavy on HMs for navigation—while Soaring does allow a player to forsake Fly, this is the most Surf-heavy game in the series because of ALL THE DAMN WATER ROUTES. I’m going to say it—IGNs much memed “7.8 out of 10—too much water” was actually right. I wouldn’t have minded it much if the routes felt different enough from each other, but they really don’t. They have practically the same Pokemon encounter tables and all look basically the exact same. It doesn’t help that the routes around Mossdeep and Sootopolis have some of the most easily-accessible high level Pokemon (relative to the average level after the eighth Gym badge) outside of Victory Road, meaning that any grinding against wild Pokemon is only going to yield the best results on a water Route. The amount of Tentacool I blew through as a kid is too high to count. I probably put those squids on the endangered species list. Makes me shudder to think about it.
- I mentioned that Mirage Spots weren’t my favorite mechanic earlier—let me go into more detail. I know that many Pokemon players like when you can catch legendaries from previous games, but I don’t think attaching them to random portals on random islands is the right way to go. Getting a legendary Pokemon should feel special—it should either be tied to a story event, or some sort of secret that must be solved, like Groudon or the Regi trio. Omega Ruby even had their own example of a good legendary quest, that being Ho-Oh on the decks of the Sea Mauville. But placing legendaries like the Lake trio or Swords of Justice on some islands that you can just fly to isn’t fun at all. It trivializes their capture and makes the experience less special. This was the beginning of a trend that would reach its nadir in Pokemon Sword with the Max Lair.
- I also noticed that save for the Delta Episode, Game Freak was very reluctant to take anything from Emerald. You can’t rematch Gym Leaders like you could in that game (which sucks) and the Battle Frontier is replaced with the inferior Battle Resort, which features a carbon copy of the Battle Maison from X and Y. Just…why? You even had the Battle Tower in Ruby, why couldn’t that be the battle facility in this game? Game Freak definitely went too hard on making Ruby and Sapphire remakes—I get it’s so they could have a new set of paired versions, but I thought the Battle Frontier would have been a no-brainer.
- One last Omega Ruby-specific con: why can’t we use the dowsing machine underwater? No chance I’m going to swim around mashing A to find each individual Arceus plate. Absolutely baffled by that decision.
Objective rating: 4.0 stars
Subjective rating: 4.5 stars
Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky is probably the first non-educational video game I’ve ever played, barring maybe its predecessors Time and Darkness, or Pokemon Ranger: Shadows of Almia. The last time I played it was probably sometime between 2009-2012, so I knew nostalgia was going to be a big factor when I replayed it a whole decade later in 2023. Well…I am PLEASED TO REPORT that nostalgia does NOT carry this game because it is STILL SO DAMN GOOD TO THIS DAY. This is one of the best, if not the best, Pokemon game ever made. The story is equal parts entertaining, dramatic, emotional, and uplifting, and the dungeon crawler gameplay is similarly peak. Common old Pokemon W. Hopefully my review won’t be all over the place; I have a lot of thoughts about it.
PS: I called my exploration team Team Relic! I played as a Turtwig, and my partner was Skitty, and that is now canon and you can’t tell me otherwise! THEY DESERVE THE WORLD RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH
Pros:
- The feature most players talk about when they sing Sky’s praises is the story, and they should, because my god…this is 100% the best story in a Pokemon game. Without a doubt in my mind. Despite how simple some of the dialogue and plot points are, Sky’s story has an uncanny ability to cut right into your heart. I won’t be giving anything major away in this review, but Sky manages to blend both the intrigue of exploring uncharted horizons and bonding with a ride-or-die partner, and seeing that Partner Pokemon develop over time from a spooked but well-meaning Pokemon to one who is strong and cares fiercely for the one who inspired courage in them…I mean shit, you have to be heartless for that not to get you at least somewhat emotional.
- There are so many events that happen in this story worth mentioning, but I will stay my hand for spoilers’ sake. Plot points are introduced gradually, and soon one mystery becomes paramount above all, a mystery that concerns the fate of the Pokemon world and is at the whims of both time and darkness…okay, maybe I’m being too dramatic. Sky has great pacing, and a really high payout for most of its plot points, whether it's seeing how your Partner reacts with joy or fear, or starting down a legendary Pokemon that’s getting between you and your goal. And while I touched on it above…this game can make you both smile widely and ugly cry, especially the main story ending which has a bit of both. I am pleased to report that it is just as good as when I was a kid, Sky’s ending traumatized me as a kid. It's a weird thing to comment on, but the outbursts of emotion in this game are really well done.
- The characters in this game are not deep at all (save for you and your Partner, I’d say), but none of them feel trite or boring. All the dialogue from main characters in this game is dripping with personality, so even if a character has nothing crazy to say, they’ll still say it in a way that’ll make you smile (or in the case of enemies, make you go “Damn, that goes hard.”) I especially love how in some cases, the type of Pokemon a character is affects their personality…or actually, maybe this game was so influential on me, I began to project Sky’s personalities onto the POKEMON, instead of vice versa! Nevertheless, Wigglytuff is super fun and a great foil to the super serious Chatot, Team Charm is ICONIC, Loudred is a drill sergeant, Spinda and Wynaut are goofy silly little lads, and all of the Legendaries present command authority and strike fear into your heart (in the case of those who oppose you).
- Of course, this game with a beautiful story is also very visually beautiful as well. I always have a hard time critiquing art in games because I’m not an artist, but there’s something about Sky’s artstyle that makes me feel safe and right at home (definitely the nostalgia talking). Absolutely stunning pixel art at every turn; very cozy and atmospheric. Fogbound Lake is a great example. The sprites for the player and Partner are also super well done—it’s honestly amazing how much just a few expressions of happiness, sadness, confusion, anger, and the like can do to get you attached to a Pokemon. Sound design is stellar as well, and combined with attack and Legendary animations, you really feel the power of attacks and other things that Legendaries do. Another design choice I really liked was the choice for some events to be narrated over as characters move elsewhere in the world, it’s nothing crazy to see nowadays but that shit makes this game feel like a movie sometimes, which compliments that aforementioned sense of wonder really damn well.
- And yes, I’ve avoided speaking about it long enough…the soundtrack for this game is peak fiction. That’s it. Full stop. One hundred and sixty-six tracks of pure and utter mellifluence sent from the heavens. On a less dramatic note, the composers for this OST knew what they were doing and managed to devise a soundtrack that encapsulates every emotion you’ll feel while playing this game. Just listening to one of these songs is enough to take me back to my childhood and make me long for times that are no longer here.
- There are catchy songs that’ll have you stomping your foot to keep the beat (Wigglytuff’s Guild, Treasure Town, Boulder Quarry), wistful and atmospheric songs to pique your curiosity at mysteries (Time Gear Remix, Welcome to the World of Pokemon), songs that’ll get your blood pumping and get you ready for battle (Boss Battle, Oh No!), and songs that will absolutely tear your heart out because you aren’t ready to say goodbye (On the Beach at Dusk, Dont Ever Forget…). There are wayyyyyy too damn many bangers to mention, but screw it, I’m going to mention a bunch more anyway. Pokemon Exploration Team Theme, Top Menu Theme, Mt. Bristle, Outlaw!, Brine Cave, Temporal Tower, Temporal Spire, Defend Glove, Blizzard Island, Team Charm’s Theme, In the Hands of Fate, Ending Theme…aaaaaaaaaaaaand okay there are too many to list. Just listen to all of them.
- Sky’s gameplay also more than matches the quality of its story, art, and soundtrack. A lot of features got lost on me as a child, but replaying this game as an adult has shown me a lot of features I never used to their fullest. Let’s start with the basics. Movement is on a grid; the most notable thing to mention here is that holding Y lets you move diagonally which is a great feature for pre-joystick DS consoles. Some Pokemon can float on water, other’s on lava, some can even phase through walls. Some Pokemon have two abilities (Skitty has Cute Charm and Normalize, for example), and the effects of moves are adapted to a grid based format (for example, Roar sending Pokemon flying until they hit a wall as opposed to switching them out in the main games). All of this amounts to a drastically different experience than the mainline games, but still intuitive enough to figure out without research. STAB still exists, types still exist, Oran Berries still restore health, you get the gist.
- And then there are the cool ass features exclusive to Mystery Dungeon. Items are vastly different, there are Seeds that give special abilities when eaten, like Violent Seeds maximizing both Attack stats (a MUST for high level dungeons), Reviver Seeds to resurrect Pokemon upon fainting, and Blast Seeds that unleash pocket nukes one tile in front, to name a few. Orbs also introduce global effects like triggering harsh sunlight, warping all party members toward you, or petrifying all enemies in the room. They introduce an entire new dimension to combat and really ramp up the amount of thought and strategy that goes into every combat encounter. It is SO much fun to have to plan what to take at the risk of losing most of it upon death. I didn’t sign up for roguelike in my Pokemon, but boy am I glad its here. Also bonus points for the game showing you exactly how much damage you did to a Pokemon, regardless if its more than their HP. God, do I love seeing 346 damage done to a level 3 Shellos as it fades into the ether.
- You’ve also got Gummi (consumable items) that raise the IQ of Pokemon, giving them permanent boosts like higher EXP gain, the ability to counter attacks, and the ability to take hits for nearby low-HP Pokemon, as well as throwable items that can do long-range damage even if you don’t have ranged moves (you can also throw Seeds if you wanna get real crazy). Like, there are hundreds of different items in this game, all with their own uses, good and bad. There are probably items I still haven’t seen after 70+ hours.
- Players are also afforded a great deal of control over not only their own player Pokemon, but also their Partner. The AI in this game isn’t always great, so the ability to choose what move they use each turn (by restricting their movepool with the check system) is a godsend and in turn adds yet more strategy. If I want Skitty to use Sing to put an enemy to sleep, and then Wake-Up Slap to deal massive damage, I can make her do that! (and it is FUN to see). You can also Link moves, setting up a full chain of two or more moves in one turn with one button press (amazing for set-up moves followed by attacks), and you can even disable IQ skills on both you and your Partner if that’s your fancy. There are also tactics you can use to change Partner movement, from attacking everything they see to running away when low HP. The satisfaction of ordering Skitty to “get away from here” as I Invisfy Orb and Pure Seed to the staircase…pulling off plays like that is awesome.
- And there are just way more dungeon mechanics too, I didn’t want to go overboard but there is just so much depth to this game. Unlockable doors, Secret Bazaars, the dreaded Kecleon Shop (“THIEF, THIEF!”), a whole host of new status conditions (Whiffer, Cringing, Cross-Eyed), the nail-biting Monster House (the most intense chess game you’ll ever play), adding new team members, changing the player character, and there’s more I’m probably forgetting. Sky has no shortage of interesting gameplay elements. There are even things that won’t come up too often that are really fun to see, like Special Episode (more on that below) earnings carrying over to the main story, and alternate dialogue for losing boss fights.
- Outside of dungeons, you have job listings (the things that’ll get you IN THE dungeons) with variable rewards and difficulties, with different requirements to meet and objectives to satisfy, that shape your team’s missions into dungeons. They both increase in difficulty and unlock more types of objectives as you progress through the story. All of the Treasure Town vendors are very useful as well, providing services like a bank, shop, and storage, but my favorite is Spinda’s Cafe, which lets you mix drinks, get items, and unlock new dungeons by recycling unwanted items. You can’t help but chuckle when Ludicolo and Bellossom burst through the wall after a big Prize Ticket win from Wobbuffet.
- Another big thing I realized while replaying Sky is that there is a lot of content for a handheld game. You’ve got the entire main story, plus a post-game story that focuses more on legendary encounters, plus a series of difficult dungeons (the Seven Treasures and Zero Isle) that provide powerful items and cool challenges, PLUS five Special Episodes focusing on different playable characters and teams with their own stories that unlock as you progress through the main story. This game has some of the best post-game content of any game I’ve ever played. There is just so much game.
- Finally, one last minor pro is that the personality quiz you do to get your player Pokemon and Partner is really fun and cute. There are also guides online as to which answers to pick if you’d rather not leave it up to chance.
Cons:
- There aren’t many negatives I have about the game, but no game is perfect (reviewers certainly dragged this game when it released). While we’re given a lot of control over the AI’s movepool and tactics, for those that aren’t too into the idea of micromanaging their Partner every turn, this would get annoying quickly. Also not a fan of only being able to set one move at a time, meaning I have to go into the menu every time I want to use a move that isn’t set (ROM hacks on PC have fixes for this). Also don’t appreciate that I can’t bulk appraise Boxes (c’mon Xatu, Kangaskhan let’s me bulk store things!).
- Don’t see why my Partner is removed from my team every time it faints after unlocking Leader Swap (like…why???), and I HATE not being able to change the tactics or set moves of companion Pokemon not part of my team (would be nice if some companions weren’t TERRIBLE, Cresselia). What else…the Aegis Cave dungeon is a great concept with HORRIBLE execution; not only can I not pass without retrieving the item from a specific form of Unown, but they might not even drop it on KO? Finally, while I never ended up evolving my Pokemon, I really dislike that they only have one sprite as opposed to multiple for the base form. Really lessens the connection you have to them, which should only increase as you explore with them longer. Sorry for the rapid-fire nitpicking; the cons of this game are kind of all over the place in terms of subject, which in all honesty is pretty good. No major issues with core mechanics, just a few issues here and there.
- What’s probably the biggest problem with this game nowadays isn’t even Sky’s fault, moreso Nintendo’s fault. If you want to play Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky legally, you’re out of luck unless you want to work over $100 or more since Nintendo doesn’t reprint any of their old games because they hate us. Same deal with any Game Boy or DS-era Pokemon game. Luckily, younger me had the foresight to keep this game when I sold all of the rest of my DS games. You’re better off finding a way to emulate this one.
Subjective rating: 5 stars
Objective rating: 5 stars
PS: I called my exploration team Team Relic! I played as a Turtwig, and my partner was Skitty, and that is now canon and you can’t tell me otherwise! THEY DESERVE THE WORLD RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH
Pros:
- The feature most players talk about when they sing Sky’s praises is the story, and they should, because my god…this is 100% the best story in a Pokemon game. Without a doubt in my mind. Despite how simple some of the dialogue and plot points are, Sky’s story has an uncanny ability to cut right into your heart. I won’t be giving anything major away in this review, but Sky manages to blend both the intrigue of exploring uncharted horizons and bonding with a ride-or-die partner, and seeing that Partner Pokemon develop over time from a spooked but well-meaning Pokemon to one who is strong and cares fiercely for the one who inspired courage in them…I mean shit, you have to be heartless for that not to get you at least somewhat emotional.
- There are so many events that happen in this story worth mentioning, but I will stay my hand for spoilers’ sake. Plot points are introduced gradually, and soon one mystery becomes paramount above all, a mystery that concerns the fate of the Pokemon world and is at the whims of both time and darkness…okay, maybe I’m being too dramatic. Sky has great pacing, and a really high payout for most of its plot points, whether it's seeing how your Partner reacts with joy or fear, or starting down a legendary Pokemon that’s getting between you and your goal. And while I touched on it above…this game can make you both smile widely and ugly cry, especially the main story ending which has a bit of both. I am pleased to report that it is just as good as when I was a kid, Sky’s ending traumatized me as a kid. It's a weird thing to comment on, but the outbursts of emotion in this game are really well done.
- The characters in this game are not deep at all (save for you and your Partner, I’d say), but none of them feel trite or boring. All the dialogue from main characters in this game is dripping with personality, so even if a character has nothing crazy to say, they’ll still say it in a way that’ll make you smile (or in the case of enemies, make you go “Damn, that goes hard.”) I especially love how in some cases, the type of Pokemon a character is affects their personality…or actually, maybe this game was so influential on me, I began to project Sky’s personalities onto the POKEMON, instead of vice versa! Nevertheless, Wigglytuff is super fun and a great foil to the super serious Chatot, Team Charm is ICONIC, Loudred is a drill sergeant, Spinda and Wynaut are goofy silly little lads, and all of the Legendaries present command authority and strike fear into your heart (in the case of those who oppose you).
- Of course, this game with a beautiful story is also very visually beautiful as well. I always have a hard time critiquing art in games because I’m not an artist, but there’s something about Sky’s artstyle that makes me feel safe and right at home (definitely the nostalgia talking). Absolutely stunning pixel art at every turn; very cozy and atmospheric. Fogbound Lake is a great example. The sprites for the player and Partner are also super well done—it’s honestly amazing how much just a few expressions of happiness, sadness, confusion, anger, and the like can do to get you attached to a Pokemon. Sound design is stellar as well, and combined with attack and Legendary animations, you really feel the power of attacks and other things that Legendaries do. Another design choice I really liked was the choice for some events to be narrated over as characters move elsewhere in the world, it’s nothing crazy to see nowadays but that shit makes this game feel like a movie sometimes, which compliments that aforementioned sense of wonder really damn well.
- And yes, I’ve avoided speaking about it long enough…the soundtrack for this game is peak fiction. That’s it. Full stop. One hundred and sixty-six tracks of pure and utter mellifluence sent from the heavens. On a less dramatic note, the composers for this OST knew what they were doing and managed to devise a soundtrack that encapsulates every emotion you’ll feel while playing this game. Just listening to one of these songs is enough to take me back to my childhood and make me long for times that are no longer here.
- There are catchy songs that’ll have you stomping your foot to keep the beat (Wigglytuff’s Guild, Treasure Town, Boulder Quarry), wistful and atmospheric songs to pique your curiosity at mysteries (Time Gear Remix, Welcome to the World of Pokemon), songs that’ll get your blood pumping and get you ready for battle (Boss Battle, Oh No!), and songs that will absolutely tear your heart out because you aren’t ready to say goodbye (On the Beach at Dusk, Dont Ever Forget…). There are wayyyyyy too damn many bangers to mention, but screw it, I’m going to mention a bunch more anyway. Pokemon Exploration Team Theme, Top Menu Theme, Mt. Bristle, Outlaw!, Brine Cave, Temporal Tower, Temporal Spire, Defend Glove, Blizzard Island, Team Charm’s Theme, In the Hands of Fate, Ending Theme…aaaaaaaaaaaaand okay there are too many to list. Just listen to all of them.
- Sky’s gameplay also more than matches the quality of its story, art, and soundtrack. A lot of features got lost on me as a child, but replaying this game as an adult has shown me a lot of features I never used to their fullest. Let’s start with the basics. Movement is on a grid; the most notable thing to mention here is that holding Y lets you move diagonally which is a great feature for pre-joystick DS consoles. Some Pokemon can float on water, other’s on lava, some can even phase through walls. Some Pokemon have two abilities (Skitty has Cute Charm and Normalize, for example), and the effects of moves are adapted to a grid based format (for example, Roar sending Pokemon flying until they hit a wall as opposed to switching them out in the main games). All of this amounts to a drastically different experience than the mainline games, but still intuitive enough to figure out without research. STAB still exists, types still exist, Oran Berries still restore health, you get the gist.
- And then there are the cool ass features exclusive to Mystery Dungeon. Items are vastly different, there are Seeds that give special abilities when eaten, like Violent Seeds maximizing both Attack stats (a MUST for high level dungeons), Reviver Seeds to resurrect Pokemon upon fainting, and Blast Seeds that unleash pocket nukes one tile in front, to name a few. Orbs also introduce global effects like triggering harsh sunlight, warping all party members toward you, or petrifying all enemies in the room. They introduce an entire new dimension to combat and really ramp up the amount of thought and strategy that goes into every combat encounter. It is SO much fun to have to plan what to take at the risk of losing most of it upon death. I didn’t sign up for roguelike in my Pokemon, but boy am I glad its here. Also bonus points for the game showing you exactly how much damage you did to a Pokemon, regardless if its more than their HP. God, do I love seeing 346 damage done to a level 3 Shellos as it fades into the ether.
- You’ve also got Gummi (consumable items) that raise the IQ of Pokemon, giving them permanent boosts like higher EXP gain, the ability to counter attacks, and the ability to take hits for nearby low-HP Pokemon, as well as throwable items that can do long-range damage even if you don’t have ranged moves (you can also throw Seeds if you wanna get real crazy). Like, there are hundreds of different items in this game, all with their own uses, good and bad. There are probably items I still haven’t seen after 70+ hours.
- Players are also afforded a great deal of control over not only their own player Pokemon, but also their Partner. The AI in this game isn’t always great, so the ability to choose what move they use each turn (by restricting their movepool with the check system) is a godsend and in turn adds yet more strategy. If I want Skitty to use Sing to put an enemy to sleep, and then Wake-Up Slap to deal massive damage, I can make her do that! (and it is FUN to see). You can also Link moves, setting up a full chain of two or more moves in one turn with one button press (amazing for set-up moves followed by attacks), and you can even disable IQ skills on both you and your Partner if that’s your fancy. There are also tactics you can use to change Partner movement, from attacking everything they see to running away when low HP. The satisfaction of ordering Skitty to “get away from here” as I Invisfy Orb and Pure Seed to the staircase…pulling off plays like that is awesome.
- And there are just way more dungeon mechanics too, I didn’t want to go overboard but there is just so much depth to this game. Unlockable doors, Secret Bazaars, the dreaded Kecleon Shop (“THIEF, THIEF!”), a whole host of new status conditions (Whiffer, Cringing, Cross-Eyed), the nail-biting Monster House (the most intense chess game you’ll ever play), adding new team members, changing the player character, and there’s more I’m probably forgetting. Sky has no shortage of interesting gameplay elements. There are even things that won’t come up too often that are really fun to see, like Special Episode (more on that below) earnings carrying over to the main story, and alternate dialogue for losing boss fights.
- Outside of dungeons, you have job listings (the things that’ll get you IN THE dungeons) with variable rewards and difficulties, with different requirements to meet and objectives to satisfy, that shape your team’s missions into dungeons. They both increase in difficulty and unlock more types of objectives as you progress through the story. All of the Treasure Town vendors are very useful as well, providing services like a bank, shop, and storage, but my favorite is Spinda’s Cafe, which lets you mix drinks, get items, and unlock new dungeons by recycling unwanted items. You can’t help but chuckle when Ludicolo and Bellossom burst through the wall after a big Prize Ticket win from Wobbuffet.
- Another big thing I realized while replaying Sky is that there is a lot of content for a handheld game. You’ve got the entire main story, plus a post-game story that focuses more on legendary encounters, plus a series of difficult dungeons (the Seven Treasures and Zero Isle) that provide powerful items and cool challenges, PLUS five Special Episodes focusing on different playable characters and teams with their own stories that unlock as you progress through the main story. This game has some of the best post-game content of any game I’ve ever played. There is just so much game.
- Finally, one last minor pro is that the personality quiz you do to get your player Pokemon and Partner is really fun and cute. There are also guides online as to which answers to pick if you’d rather not leave it up to chance.
Cons:
- There aren’t many negatives I have about the game, but no game is perfect (reviewers certainly dragged this game when it released). While we’re given a lot of control over the AI’s movepool and tactics, for those that aren’t too into the idea of micromanaging their Partner every turn, this would get annoying quickly. Also not a fan of only being able to set one move at a time, meaning I have to go into the menu every time I want to use a move that isn’t set (ROM hacks on PC have fixes for this). Also don’t appreciate that I can’t bulk appraise Boxes (c’mon Xatu, Kangaskhan let’s me bulk store things!).
- Don’t see why my Partner is removed from my team every time it faints after unlocking Leader Swap (like…why???), and I HATE not being able to change the tactics or set moves of companion Pokemon not part of my team (would be nice if some companions weren’t TERRIBLE, Cresselia). What else…the Aegis Cave dungeon is a great concept with HORRIBLE execution; not only can I not pass without retrieving the item from a specific form of Unown, but they might not even drop it on KO? Finally, while I never ended up evolving my Pokemon, I really dislike that they only have one sprite as opposed to multiple for the base form. Really lessens the connection you have to them, which should only increase as you explore with them longer. Sorry for the rapid-fire nitpicking; the cons of this game are kind of all over the place in terms of subject, which in all honesty is pretty good. No major issues with core mechanics, just a few issues here and there.
- What’s probably the biggest problem with this game nowadays isn’t even Sky’s fault, moreso Nintendo’s fault. If you want to play Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky legally, you’re out of luck unless you want to work over $100 or more since Nintendo doesn’t reprint any of their old games because they hate us. Same deal with any Game Boy or DS-era Pokemon game. Luckily, younger me had the foresight to keep this game when I sold all of the rest of my DS games. You’re better off finding a way to emulate this one.
Subjective rating: 5 stars
Objective rating: 5 stars
2016
I’ve played Slime Rancher several times—in 2017, 2018 (same file as 2017), a second full playthrough in June 2021—and now, I recently finished my third playthrough that I started in September of this year and just recently decided to put down. Now, obviously since I’ve played this game three times, I like it. These slimes are so damn cute and the gameplay is really relaxing and satisfying to play. That being said, I put off playing this game a few times during my last playthrough because I was getting bored of it. Slime Rancher isn’t a bad game but I don’t think there’s that much reason to keep playing it after you’ve seen it all. I hope Slime Rancher 2’s full release can improve on some of the elements I don’t like about its predecessor.
Pros:
- First up, we’ve got the slimes, your adorable little money-makers. Every slime has a unique behavior, whether it's stealing food they don’t eat (tabby slimes), making giant tornados that pick up anything not bolted down and fling it miles away (dervish slimes), giving you lethal doses of ionizing radiation (rad slimes), or just…sitting around and doing their best (puddle slimes)! They all have their favorite food and toys, and it’s really enjoyable to just sit back and watch them dick around in their environment, devouring hapless chickens and just being adorable little idiots.
- The environments these slimes inhabit are also well-designed, although after seeing what Slime Rancher 2 cooked up I can’t say they hold up. Still, it’s a pretty visually interesting world with a few distinct biomes that have their own little cool lore bits (courtesy of the Slimepedia), such as the Dry Reef (beginning area) literally being a dried up ocean floor. There’s also a good range of environmental elements that have cool interactions with the player, such as the hologram-like phase lemon trees only giving their fruit if you part with one of yours, and tactus plants ensnaring items (and poor slimes) that get too close. There’s also a wide range of shortcuts and paths that intersect each other, which prevents it from feeling too linear.
- Once you start raking in the dough from selling plorts (which slimes shit out lol), upgrades you get make the environment a hell of a lot more interesting. You unlock the ability to…well, unlock Treasure Pods hidden out in the world, which give you decorations and other interactive elements to place around your ranch, and the vast majority of the decorations look AMAZING. I’m a sucker for cool plants and rocks in games, and this game has a whole lot of them you can put in your ranch. Exploration may also yield ornaments and echos (round decorative objects that hover where they’re placed) and Party Gordos, who are big-ass slimes just rocking it out to music. A lot of whimsy in the exploration, as you can see.
- Eventually you’ll unlock the dramatically-named Slime Science, which lets you manufacture technology you can use to make exploration and ranching a bit easier, like portable water spouts, bounce pads, mining drills, and best of all, DRONES! Drones are the single best thing Monomi Park added to Slime Rancher in the full release, and allow for basically full automation of the ranch and I love them for it.
- I also have a soft spot for the sole enemy type in this game (which can be turned off if you want full zen mode!), the Tarr, which are writhing masses of rainbow slime flesh that eat not only other slimes, but you as well. They add a pretty interesting dynamic to both ranching and exploration: they don’t spawn, instead they are created when a largo slime (a hybrid between two slimes) eats the plort of a third type of slime. What this means is that not only do you need to be careful with how you sort multiple types of slimes on your ranch, but also that staying in an area with three or more types of slimes is more likely to result in a Tarr outbreak. It feels very natural, as if its a normal part of the ecosystem, and helps prevent spaces from feeling too static and unchanging.
- Okay, I talked about the actual gameplay ramifications of slimes, drones, and Tarr. Now I can talk about HOW DAMN CUTE THEY ALL ARE AHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Slime Rancher is the cutest game on the entire fucking planet. Slimes have perpetual dorky smiles (unless a Tarr is nearby) and make the cutest little “woahs” and “wheees” as they bounce around (sometimes bouncing into you to give you a hug!!!!!!!!!!!!!) There are kitty slimes and slimes made of honey, and by god if you combine them into a honey tabby largo your head would explode from how ADORABLE they are! Puddle slimes just sit around and they get shy and blush if they’re near too many other puddle slimes, saber slimes have cute little tooths, boom slimes get dizzy if they explode, hunter slimes try to scare you when they’re invisible ehehehrhehehebewfjbfvds,bvqjvqaqa AND THE DRONES! THE DRONES!! They’re little bees with holographic faces and they smile when they do their tasks and they DO CUTE LITTLE BACKFLIPS when they finish one AND YOU CAN PUT LITTLE BOWS ON THEM WITH FASHION PODS OH MY GOD
- clears throat Ahem. Might have gotten a little carried away there. Anyway, the core gameplay loop is supported with some side gigs that other ranchers will offer you. Each of these gigs involves handling slimes in a significantly different way than normal—Mochi’s quicksilver slimes need to be fed with electricity as you zip around a racetrack trying to catch them, Viktor’s disguised glitch slimes need to be identified amongst others in his slime simulation, and Ogden’s feral saber slimes must be avoided as you collect his favorite fruit in a primeval nature reserve. These are great minigames that not only add flavor to the admittedly repetitive gameplay of Slime Rancher, but also provides a little insight into the characters that preside over them. Mochi is best girl and no I don’t take criticism.
- Like most tycoon games, Slime Rancher has an outlet for the exorbitant amounts of funds you’ll be receiving in the form of 7Zee Rewards, which are for the most part cosmetic but also do unlock a few gameplay-related items. It might just be me but I really liked being able to have a clear goal to direct my funds towards, even if the intrinsic value wasn’t that much. I also like that the game pretty much admits that its a waste of money, but do YOU have a three-tiered slime statue on your ranch? Didn’t think so. There’s also a “rush mode” where you have to get as much money as you can before time runs out if you want to get rich or die sliming (I just really wanted to use that pun, okay?), which is fun if you're into min-maxing your gameplay.
- Slime Rancher does have a story, albeit a very simplistic one. As you explore the Far, Far Range (the setting), you can find logs made by the previous owner of your ranch, Hobson, which give insight into his life before and during his stay on it, as well as his experience finding love and deciding if it outweighs his passion for adventure. It’s not that mindblowing of a story but I really liked it and it complements the relatively lonely gameplay very nicely.
- Finally, the flavor text in this game is really funny for no reason. I love the descriptions of the slime toys, such as the stuffed chicken (“Reduces agitation of nearby slimes, especially Hunter Slimes who love toys they can pretend to murder.”) and the glitch slime, which has a great joke on cryptocurrency.
Cons:
- The biggest gripe I have with this game is that basically the second you’ve obtained every slime and been to all the biomes, it gets boring. There is little to nothing to do in the game world after having explored it—no recurring events or rare occurrences or anything—save for the occasional fire storm in the Glass Desert that really only serves to make it harder to see and to get fire slimes. The only things to look for are Treasure Pods, which almost exclusively give you things to do on your ranch, and even those are almost all just decorations that don’t have much use beyond looking pretty. The side gigs are fun but again don’t have all that much to do once you’ve unlocked everything.
- Not even the slimes can help quench this boredom. There is definitely a degree of enjoyment from watching them just be cute, but the act of ranching them leaves a lot to be desired. The Slimepedia has a section on “rancher risks” that lists some of the difficulties of raising them, but aside from the puddle and fire slimes (which need specialized enclosures), these difficulties are all mitigated in the same way—just put them in a corral and buy all the upgrades. You only need to be picky with the upgrades when you don’t have that much money, and by the mid-game, you’ll have more than enough of it. This means that all the quirks of the slimes become essentially cosmetic, and they all act the same from a gameplay perspective. There’s little you can do to “spice up” Slime Rancher. Every playthrough plays the exact same.
- Performance-wise, Slime Rancher is fine but there are a few things that bugged me. The biggest is that you’ll often see frames drop and the game freeze for a split second whenever you load a new area, which always struck me as weird given how the textures in this game aren’t all that detailed. It’s probably something to do with the entities. It’s not that impactful but is visually jarring. The sprint in this game is also kind of wonky since it doesn’t spot immediately after you stop holding it.
- Two more minor things to complement the admittedly big problems I mentioned above. The end credits sequence is in a really strange place, being tied to you having emails your character receives from a friend/lover they had back on Earth. The content of those messages is just fine and I don’t have strong feelings about them one way or the other. But I think it’s weird that the credits (and thus, the end of the story) are tied to that and not finding Hobson’s last log, which I always thought was the more momentous accomplishment. Second, the artstyle in this game is great, but it kind of gives me a headache. I think it has something to do with the lack of fine detail and the color choice. It’s similar to a headache one might get when they play Minecraft. That might just be a me thing though.
Objective rating: 3.5 stars
Subjective rating: 4 stars
Pros:
- First up, we’ve got the slimes, your adorable little money-makers. Every slime has a unique behavior, whether it's stealing food they don’t eat (tabby slimes), making giant tornados that pick up anything not bolted down and fling it miles away (dervish slimes), giving you lethal doses of ionizing radiation (rad slimes), or just…sitting around and doing their best (puddle slimes)! They all have their favorite food and toys, and it’s really enjoyable to just sit back and watch them dick around in their environment, devouring hapless chickens and just being adorable little idiots.
- The environments these slimes inhabit are also well-designed, although after seeing what Slime Rancher 2 cooked up I can’t say they hold up. Still, it’s a pretty visually interesting world with a few distinct biomes that have their own little cool lore bits (courtesy of the Slimepedia), such as the Dry Reef (beginning area) literally being a dried up ocean floor. There’s also a good range of environmental elements that have cool interactions with the player, such as the hologram-like phase lemon trees only giving their fruit if you part with one of yours, and tactus plants ensnaring items (and poor slimes) that get too close. There’s also a wide range of shortcuts and paths that intersect each other, which prevents it from feeling too linear.
- Once you start raking in the dough from selling plorts (which slimes shit out lol), upgrades you get make the environment a hell of a lot more interesting. You unlock the ability to…well, unlock Treasure Pods hidden out in the world, which give you decorations and other interactive elements to place around your ranch, and the vast majority of the decorations look AMAZING. I’m a sucker for cool plants and rocks in games, and this game has a whole lot of them you can put in your ranch. Exploration may also yield ornaments and echos (round decorative objects that hover where they’re placed) and Party Gordos, who are big-ass slimes just rocking it out to music. A lot of whimsy in the exploration, as you can see.
- Eventually you’ll unlock the dramatically-named Slime Science, which lets you manufacture technology you can use to make exploration and ranching a bit easier, like portable water spouts, bounce pads, mining drills, and best of all, DRONES! Drones are the single best thing Monomi Park added to Slime Rancher in the full release, and allow for basically full automation of the ranch and I love them for it.
- I also have a soft spot for the sole enemy type in this game (which can be turned off if you want full zen mode!), the Tarr, which are writhing masses of rainbow slime flesh that eat not only other slimes, but you as well. They add a pretty interesting dynamic to both ranching and exploration: they don’t spawn, instead they are created when a largo slime (a hybrid between two slimes) eats the plort of a third type of slime. What this means is that not only do you need to be careful with how you sort multiple types of slimes on your ranch, but also that staying in an area with three or more types of slimes is more likely to result in a Tarr outbreak. It feels very natural, as if its a normal part of the ecosystem, and helps prevent spaces from feeling too static and unchanging.
- Okay, I talked about the actual gameplay ramifications of slimes, drones, and Tarr. Now I can talk about HOW DAMN CUTE THEY ALL ARE AHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Slime Rancher is the cutest game on the entire fucking planet. Slimes have perpetual dorky smiles (unless a Tarr is nearby) and make the cutest little “woahs” and “wheees” as they bounce around (sometimes bouncing into you to give you a hug!!!!!!!!!!!!!) There are kitty slimes and slimes made of honey, and by god if you combine them into a honey tabby largo your head would explode from how ADORABLE they are! Puddle slimes just sit around and they get shy and blush if they’re near too many other puddle slimes, saber slimes have cute little tooths, boom slimes get dizzy if they explode, hunter slimes try to scare you when they’re invisible ehehehrhehehebewfjbfvds,bvqjvqaqa AND THE DRONES! THE DRONES!! They’re little bees with holographic faces and they smile when they do their tasks and they DO CUTE LITTLE BACKFLIPS when they finish one AND YOU CAN PUT LITTLE BOWS ON THEM WITH FASHION PODS OH MY GOD
- clears throat Ahem. Might have gotten a little carried away there. Anyway, the core gameplay loop is supported with some side gigs that other ranchers will offer you. Each of these gigs involves handling slimes in a significantly different way than normal—Mochi’s quicksilver slimes need to be fed with electricity as you zip around a racetrack trying to catch them, Viktor’s disguised glitch slimes need to be identified amongst others in his slime simulation, and Ogden’s feral saber slimes must be avoided as you collect his favorite fruit in a primeval nature reserve. These are great minigames that not only add flavor to the admittedly repetitive gameplay of Slime Rancher, but also provides a little insight into the characters that preside over them. Mochi is best girl and no I don’t take criticism.
- Like most tycoon games, Slime Rancher has an outlet for the exorbitant amounts of funds you’ll be receiving in the form of 7Zee Rewards, which are for the most part cosmetic but also do unlock a few gameplay-related items. It might just be me but I really liked being able to have a clear goal to direct my funds towards, even if the intrinsic value wasn’t that much. I also like that the game pretty much admits that its a waste of money, but do YOU have a three-tiered slime statue on your ranch? Didn’t think so. There’s also a “rush mode” where you have to get as much money as you can before time runs out if you want to get rich or die sliming (I just really wanted to use that pun, okay?), which is fun if you're into min-maxing your gameplay.
- Slime Rancher does have a story, albeit a very simplistic one. As you explore the Far, Far Range (the setting), you can find logs made by the previous owner of your ranch, Hobson, which give insight into his life before and during his stay on it, as well as his experience finding love and deciding if it outweighs his passion for adventure. It’s not that mindblowing of a story but I really liked it and it complements the relatively lonely gameplay very nicely.
- Finally, the flavor text in this game is really funny for no reason. I love the descriptions of the slime toys, such as the stuffed chicken (“Reduces agitation of nearby slimes, especially Hunter Slimes who love toys they can pretend to murder.”) and the glitch slime, which has a great joke on cryptocurrency.
Cons:
- The biggest gripe I have with this game is that basically the second you’ve obtained every slime and been to all the biomes, it gets boring. There is little to nothing to do in the game world after having explored it—no recurring events or rare occurrences or anything—save for the occasional fire storm in the Glass Desert that really only serves to make it harder to see and to get fire slimes. The only things to look for are Treasure Pods, which almost exclusively give you things to do on your ranch, and even those are almost all just decorations that don’t have much use beyond looking pretty. The side gigs are fun but again don’t have all that much to do once you’ve unlocked everything.
- Not even the slimes can help quench this boredom. There is definitely a degree of enjoyment from watching them just be cute, but the act of ranching them leaves a lot to be desired. The Slimepedia has a section on “rancher risks” that lists some of the difficulties of raising them, but aside from the puddle and fire slimes (which need specialized enclosures), these difficulties are all mitigated in the same way—just put them in a corral and buy all the upgrades. You only need to be picky with the upgrades when you don’t have that much money, and by the mid-game, you’ll have more than enough of it. This means that all the quirks of the slimes become essentially cosmetic, and they all act the same from a gameplay perspective. There’s little you can do to “spice up” Slime Rancher. Every playthrough plays the exact same.
- Performance-wise, Slime Rancher is fine but there are a few things that bugged me. The biggest is that you’ll often see frames drop and the game freeze for a split second whenever you load a new area, which always struck me as weird given how the textures in this game aren’t all that detailed. It’s probably something to do with the entities. It’s not that impactful but is visually jarring. The sprint in this game is also kind of wonky since it doesn’t spot immediately after you stop holding it.
- Two more minor things to complement the admittedly big problems I mentioned above. The end credits sequence is in a really strange place, being tied to you having emails your character receives from a friend/lover they had back on Earth. The content of those messages is just fine and I don’t have strong feelings about them one way or the other. But I think it’s weird that the credits (and thus, the end of the story) are tied to that and not finding Hobson’s last log, which I always thought was the more momentous accomplishment. Second, the artstyle in this game is great, but it kind of gives me a headache. I think it has something to do with the lack of fine detail and the color choice. It’s similar to a headache one might get when they play Minecraft. That might just be a me thing though.
Objective rating: 3.5 stars
Subjective rating: 4 stars
I remember being fairly excited for the release of Master Detective Archives: Rain Code when I first heard of its development. I really enjoyed all the main entries in the Danganronpa series and thus I was interested in playing its spiritual successor. But now that I’ve completed it…I’m not quite sure what to make of it.
There were times I was on the edge of my seat to see what happened next, and mysteries that were insanely fun to put together. And Rain Code’s final two chapters were an incredibly strong finish. But still, there’s a lot I didn’t enjoy in this game, or features I felt were executed better in the Danganronpa series. Sometimes I thought it was unfair to compare the two…but given how similar Rain Code tries to be to its predecessors, I think avoiding comparison is a fruitless endeavor. I want to say I liked this game…but I don’t know for sure.
Pros:
- Overall, I think the story of Rain Code is a good one simply because it sets up a lot of good mysteries that have some pretty crazy payouts. This game employs the same type of storytelling as Danganronpa, where each “chapter” of the game imparts a larger piece of the puzzle until you have enough to solve the big mystery at the end. It’s a solid formula and good lord the climax to this story in the fourth and fifth chapters is just mind blowing. It’s pretty much impossible to sit there and not crack a smile as you hear it all laid out. I prefer to keep my reviews spoiler-free, so unfortunately I won’t be talking about specific moments but there were a TON of dope reveals and concepts that I gushed over.
- I will say that one thing Rain Code has going for it over Danganronpa in the mystery department is that its setting allows much more varied investigations. Yuma has a whole city to investigate in, and there are much less restrictions on what tools are available in each case since anything that could be reasonably acquired in a city is fair game. Chapters 2 and 4 were my favorite to solve because of how insane the mechanics the culprits used to carry out their crime were, and both of them had very emotional endings. The second chapter also had the most creative investigation mechanic in the game, full stop. Those two chapters more than matched some of Danganronpa’s best cases.
- Of course, a large part of the reason why these mysteries were so enjoyable to solve is because they’re presented alongside the Mystery Labyrinth, which has some insanely flashy and interesting designs in it. Each labyrinth looks different depending on the case it corresponds to, and in some cases the types of questions and the layout can change depending on what kind of questions need to be answered to solve the mystery. A lot of its cutscenes and quick time events are really fun to playthrough, especially when you’re rapid-firing answers to questions as you try to avoid collapsing platforms or attacks from ‘mystery phantoms’ that seek to inhibit your progress. And while I still prefer Danganronpa’s Nonstop Debate minigames, Yuma’s Solution Blade cutting through statements in the Reasoning Deathmatch is so fucking cool. The sound design is killer on that. Deduction Denouement, while essentially a re-treading of Danganronpa’s Closing Argument, is awesome because Closing Argument is awesome.
- I’d also say that the minigames in Rain Code trim a lot of the unnecessary fat from Danganronpa’s Class Trial sequences. Instead of having to try and spell out the word “knife” or play fucking Tetris or some shit to figure out the item you need to present as evidence, Rain Code often just asks you a question, and you use your dope-as-shit sword to cut through with the correct answer. My favorite minigame was definitely the crime scene recreations, where you're tasked with reconstructing the crime as it happened. Chapter 1 had a ton of those and it was sick. Each Mystery Labyrinth also has different types of minigames, which helped prevent them from getting too stale, although the labyrinths were so enjoyable I doubt it would have mattered if there weren’t.
- I also really enjoyed the addition of cutscenes, even if they are occasionally clunky (more on that in the cons section). I love Danganronpa’s sprites and CG art style, but being able to see characters move around in 3D is very neat. The cutscenes where Yuma monologues about the theme and events of the chapter that play just before starting it are a highlight for me, I love how dramatic and symbolic they are (and yes as you might expect, Chapter 2’s intro cutscene is my favorite lol). Having almost every single line be fully voice acted was also very cool, and I think many of the voice actors gave great performances, especially those of Yuma, Shinigami, Desuhiko, Fubuki, Seth, Guillaume, and Yomi.
- The artstyle is as always phenomenal. Rui Komatsuzaki is an incredibly talented character artist, and the design of Kanai Ward and its unending rain is great. Nothing much to say here; it’s just good. And while I think the Danganronpa OST is miles better than this game, Rain Code had a few standout tracks, especially the Reasoning Deathmatch track; that shit had me PUMPED.
Cons:
- I might get crucified for this one but I didn’t think many of the characters in Rain Code were that memorable. This is definitely the main reason I feel so conflicted as to what degree I enjoyed this game. Danganronpa has its fair share of underdeveloped characters, but in general character motivations and development were a natural consequence of the way its mysteries played out. In that series, you knew that any murder meant one of the characters you’ve seen develop and interact with others would die, and another character would be their killer, which got you invested. There’s no such hook in Rain Code, and since Yuma has the entire city as potential characters of interest in each mystery, you aren’t likely to get attached to anyone involved in any of the cases, thus reducing their emotional impact. It’s honestly impressive Chapters 2, 4, and 5 managed to have the impact they did.
- The core group of detective characters Yuma interacts with throughout the course of them game are interesting in personality alone, and rarely get any sort of meaningful development as the story progresses since so many of them are “tied” to the chapter they assist or oppose Yuma in and don’t get any time to shine otherwise. Sure, I enjoyed Halara being cold and efficient, Desuhiko being a goofy guy, and Fubuki being airheaded. But past that surface-level personality, I didn’t care much about them.
- While being able to explore Kanai Ward in an approximation of an open-world environment is cool on paper, I felt that it was largely pointless. Rain Code is a visual novel—I’m here to read and solve mysteries, not sit through what amounts to a really complicated loading screen as I walk to the next dialogue trigger. I was not at all interested in any of the sidequests the open world offered, and I was only marginally interested in collecting ‘memory shards’ (which unlock one-on-one conversations between Yuma and another detective). The Danganronpa series had social links in the form of free-time events, which were actually woven into the story at suitable points in the narrative. But Rain Code has you search out the shards to unlock these links—which if you’re like me and only cared about the main story—I’m not bothering to look for.
- Luckily, the mysteries in this game are pretty good so I don’t have that many complaints about them, save for Chapter 3 which honestly had the most random and nonsensical mystery in the entire game. The Chapter 4 investigation was great from a mystery standpoint, but the navigation around its crime scene was made annoying by both this game’s clunky movement (discussed below) and an element I can’t say for spoilers. And while Chapter 5’s Mystery Labyrinth was god-tier, the investigation went by very slowly as it was basically a walking simulator (again, why I don’t think a open-world was a good idea).
- Like the mysteries themselves, the Mystery Labyrinths were pretty consistently fun and creative. That being said, I really didn’t enjoy Shinigami Puzzle, partly because it's an only slightly improved version of Danganronpa’s worst minigame, and partly because it has super-omega cringe level fanservice that would prompt a very unenjoyable amount of questioning if someone saw me watching it on my TV screen. GOD Shinigami, while really fun, is also slightly uncomfortable to watch. Not really digging watching giantess Shinigami jiggle physics all over my screen lmao.
- Finally, this game’s open world might have been more tolerable if this game didn’t have super clunky movement and look controls. Absolutely no look smoothing and the walking is so stiff, it's a few removed movement vectors away from being grid-based. It’s not the worst thing in the world but just a bit better animations and walking everywhere could have at least looked pretty cool. Also the lip-syncing in cutscenes kinda sucks but whatever.
Objective rating: 3.5 stars
Subjective rating: 3.5 stars
There were times I was on the edge of my seat to see what happened next, and mysteries that were insanely fun to put together. And Rain Code’s final two chapters were an incredibly strong finish. But still, there’s a lot I didn’t enjoy in this game, or features I felt were executed better in the Danganronpa series. Sometimes I thought it was unfair to compare the two…but given how similar Rain Code tries to be to its predecessors, I think avoiding comparison is a fruitless endeavor. I want to say I liked this game…but I don’t know for sure.
Pros:
- Overall, I think the story of Rain Code is a good one simply because it sets up a lot of good mysteries that have some pretty crazy payouts. This game employs the same type of storytelling as Danganronpa, where each “chapter” of the game imparts a larger piece of the puzzle until you have enough to solve the big mystery at the end. It’s a solid formula and good lord the climax to this story in the fourth and fifth chapters is just mind blowing. It’s pretty much impossible to sit there and not crack a smile as you hear it all laid out. I prefer to keep my reviews spoiler-free, so unfortunately I won’t be talking about specific moments but there were a TON of dope reveals and concepts that I gushed over.
- I will say that one thing Rain Code has going for it over Danganronpa in the mystery department is that its setting allows much more varied investigations. Yuma has a whole city to investigate in, and there are much less restrictions on what tools are available in each case since anything that could be reasonably acquired in a city is fair game. Chapters 2 and 4 were my favorite to solve because of how insane the mechanics the culprits used to carry out their crime were, and both of them had very emotional endings. The second chapter also had the most creative investigation mechanic in the game, full stop. Those two chapters more than matched some of Danganronpa’s best cases.
- Of course, a large part of the reason why these mysteries were so enjoyable to solve is because they’re presented alongside the Mystery Labyrinth, which has some insanely flashy and interesting designs in it. Each labyrinth looks different depending on the case it corresponds to, and in some cases the types of questions and the layout can change depending on what kind of questions need to be answered to solve the mystery. A lot of its cutscenes and quick time events are really fun to playthrough, especially when you’re rapid-firing answers to questions as you try to avoid collapsing platforms or attacks from ‘mystery phantoms’ that seek to inhibit your progress. And while I still prefer Danganronpa’s Nonstop Debate minigames, Yuma’s Solution Blade cutting through statements in the Reasoning Deathmatch is so fucking cool. The sound design is killer on that. Deduction Denouement, while essentially a re-treading of Danganronpa’s Closing Argument, is awesome because Closing Argument is awesome.
- I’d also say that the minigames in Rain Code trim a lot of the unnecessary fat from Danganronpa’s Class Trial sequences. Instead of having to try and spell out the word “knife” or play fucking Tetris or some shit to figure out the item you need to present as evidence, Rain Code often just asks you a question, and you use your dope-as-shit sword to cut through with the correct answer. My favorite minigame was definitely the crime scene recreations, where you're tasked with reconstructing the crime as it happened. Chapter 1 had a ton of those and it was sick. Each Mystery Labyrinth also has different types of minigames, which helped prevent them from getting too stale, although the labyrinths were so enjoyable I doubt it would have mattered if there weren’t.
- I also really enjoyed the addition of cutscenes, even if they are occasionally clunky (more on that in the cons section). I love Danganronpa’s sprites and CG art style, but being able to see characters move around in 3D is very neat. The cutscenes where Yuma monologues about the theme and events of the chapter that play just before starting it are a highlight for me, I love how dramatic and symbolic they are (and yes as you might expect, Chapter 2’s intro cutscene is my favorite lol). Having almost every single line be fully voice acted was also very cool, and I think many of the voice actors gave great performances, especially those of Yuma, Shinigami, Desuhiko, Fubuki, Seth, Guillaume, and Yomi.
- The artstyle is as always phenomenal. Rui Komatsuzaki is an incredibly talented character artist, and the design of Kanai Ward and its unending rain is great. Nothing much to say here; it’s just good. And while I think the Danganronpa OST is miles better than this game, Rain Code had a few standout tracks, especially the Reasoning Deathmatch track; that shit had me PUMPED.
Cons:
- I might get crucified for this one but I didn’t think many of the characters in Rain Code were that memorable. This is definitely the main reason I feel so conflicted as to what degree I enjoyed this game. Danganronpa has its fair share of underdeveloped characters, but in general character motivations and development were a natural consequence of the way its mysteries played out. In that series, you knew that any murder meant one of the characters you’ve seen develop and interact with others would die, and another character would be their killer, which got you invested. There’s no such hook in Rain Code, and since Yuma has the entire city as potential characters of interest in each mystery, you aren’t likely to get attached to anyone involved in any of the cases, thus reducing their emotional impact. It’s honestly impressive Chapters 2, 4, and 5 managed to have the impact they did.
- The core group of detective characters Yuma interacts with throughout the course of them game are interesting in personality alone, and rarely get any sort of meaningful development as the story progresses since so many of them are “tied” to the chapter they assist or oppose Yuma in and don’t get any time to shine otherwise. Sure, I enjoyed Halara being cold and efficient, Desuhiko being a goofy guy, and Fubuki being airheaded. But past that surface-level personality, I didn’t care much about them.
- While being able to explore Kanai Ward in an approximation of an open-world environment is cool on paper, I felt that it was largely pointless. Rain Code is a visual novel—I’m here to read and solve mysteries, not sit through what amounts to a really complicated loading screen as I walk to the next dialogue trigger. I was not at all interested in any of the sidequests the open world offered, and I was only marginally interested in collecting ‘memory shards’ (which unlock one-on-one conversations between Yuma and another detective). The Danganronpa series had social links in the form of free-time events, which were actually woven into the story at suitable points in the narrative. But Rain Code has you search out the shards to unlock these links—which if you’re like me and only cared about the main story—I’m not bothering to look for.
- Luckily, the mysteries in this game are pretty good so I don’t have that many complaints about them, save for Chapter 3 which honestly had the most random and nonsensical mystery in the entire game. The Chapter 4 investigation was great from a mystery standpoint, but the navigation around its crime scene was made annoying by both this game’s clunky movement (discussed below) and an element I can’t say for spoilers. And while Chapter 5’s Mystery Labyrinth was god-tier, the investigation went by very slowly as it was basically a walking simulator (again, why I don’t think a open-world was a good idea).
- Like the mysteries themselves, the Mystery Labyrinths were pretty consistently fun and creative. That being said, I really didn’t enjoy Shinigami Puzzle, partly because it's an only slightly improved version of Danganronpa’s worst minigame, and partly because it has super-omega cringe level fanservice that would prompt a very unenjoyable amount of questioning if someone saw me watching it on my TV screen. GOD Shinigami, while really fun, is also slightly uncomfortable to watch. Not really digging watching giantess Shinigami jiggle physics all over my screen lmao.
- Finally, this game’s open world might have been more tolerable if this game didn’t have super clunky movement and look controls. Absolutely no look smoothing and the walking is so stiff, it's a few removed movement vectors away from being grid-based. It’s not the worst thing in the world but just a bit better animations and walking everywhere could have at least looked pretty cool. Also the lip-syncing in cutscenes kinda sucks but whatever.
Objective rating: 3.5 stars
Subjective rating: 3.5 stars
2019
After playing the Resident Evil 4 remake and absolutely loving it, I knew I had some Resident Evil-themed homework. So, I decided to play the Resident Evil 2 remake so I could get a taste of a more traditional survival horror experience (plus Leon :D) And after having played through it all the way to the true ending, I can safely call myself a Resident Evil fan because this game was insanely enjoyable. It took some getting used to for a bit, but I quickly learned how to conserve my ammo, manage my health, and chart paths through the environment and by god it was so fun. Oh, and scary too. This game scared the shit out of me. Quite often. I think I still prefer RE4 but RE2’s quality made that a hard pill to swallow.
Pros:
- While RE2 has more of a deemphasized narrative compared to RE4, it’s still a damn good story. Having seen Leon’s character in the sequel, it was really interesting to see the greenhorn that he was at the beginning of the nightmare in Raccoon City, and it gave me a greater appreciation of who he becomes in RE4. That’s not to underestimate Claire, whose interactions with her companion (not saying who for spoilers) were really nice to watch throughout her campaign as well. Even though I knew some of what had occurred in this game beforehand, the story was still really fun to watch play out. Also +1 to the companions’ segments—Leon’s companion for having a really cool puzzle gadget, and Claire’s companion for having a really cool perspective on what most people think of “horror” in horror video games.
- The gameplay in RE2 is 100% fucking sick as hell. Exploring and fighting through the RPD was insanely fun. The puzzle you need to complete to escape it has you going all around the station, finding ways into locked rooms with all sorts of items from elsewhere around the station, while of course having to ward off zombies and any other man-made horrors beyond your comprehension that you might stumble upon (more on those later). You’ve got to balance straight survival with managing the space in your inventory (not just for ammo and healing, but also puzzle items) and plotting the least dangerous route through the parts of the station you’ve explored thus far. The sewers and lab have a lot less going on in this regard, but to compensate RE2 spends A LOT of time in different parts of the RPD which was more than welcome for me.
- The puzzles themselves are really cool as well. In addition to the puzzles and locks you need to crack to actually progress, there are dial locks, safes, and armory lockers that you also get to root through if you’re looking for more ammo or other puzzle items—and some cases, hip pouches (for inventory space), weapon attachments, and even some whole weapons themselves. These puzzles aren’t always basic either. You’ve got a logic-basic chess piece puzzle, eight-digit portable safes, waveform matching (that one’s hard to explain in text form), and the dreaded “put exactly x amount of liquid into this container—no more, no less”. Plus, some items can be inspected more closely to reveal secrets you wouldn’t discover if you just crammed it into your inventory and kept walking. The creative puzzle solutions made RE2 so much fun to think through.
- The combat in this game is also super engaging and has a strategic element to it which I really appreciated. Aside from the ammo economy which is typical for survival horrors, players get “sub-weapons” like knives or grenades at their disposal. If you get grabbed by a zombie, you can tank the damage or use the sub-weapon to escape unharmed—at the cost of the sub-weapon. It’s a system I didn’t expect to see, but I really loved how it forces you to think close combat through.
- Of course, the gunplay is awesome too. All the guns feel pretty good; I especially loved the magnum that just makes heads disappear, as well as the Spark Shot for having a really cool firing mechanic (hold aim to increase damage). There are tons of little additional gameplay elements that add up to a great experience. You can board up windows, shoot grenades stuffed into zombies, there’s different types of healing items that do different things, THE MAP TELLS YOU IF YOU’VE GOT ALL THE ITEMS IN A ROOM, like that is just amazing.
- And yes, before you thought I forgot to mention it, holy shit yeah this game is fucking scary. Much, MUCH more so than RE4. RE4 was a walk in a sunny field of flowers compared to the sheer, pants-shittingly terrifying experience this game was, especially on the B campaign (more on that later). The standard zombies stagger around and rush you whenever you least expect it, and the killer sound design in this game carries their gargled moans and screams down dark hallways such that you can sometimes hear the mess you’re getting into. And other times? You’ll be running down a hallway and the quietest zombie ever to walk this earth screams out of nowhere and grabs you from behind. Zombies can also just randomly regenerate when you least expect it. I’ll give a shout out to the G-Adult and Ivy as well for both being really well-designed enemies that are also really interesting to fight (especially using fire to disable the latter), even if they aren’t that scary.
- Now, don’t even get me started on the Lickers and the Tyrant, those motherfuckers are getting a whole paragraph to themselves because the Reaper Leviathans from Subnautica and Regeneradors from RE4 ain’t got shit on these guys. Lickers punish the quick player while the Tyrant punishes the slow player and I LIVED for that experience. Lickers will violently react to you if you’re too loud, which happened quite often as I ran through doors without knowing what was on the other side. And they straight up lunge at you, to the point where it’s basically a jumpscare that can be triggered at any point while you traverse the room they’re in. And the Tyrant’s booming footsteps announcing his presence growing in volume as he inches ever closer, only pausing, never stopping… Having to balance outrunning the Tyrant with plotting routes that would minimize contact with any sort of enemy that might slow me down WHILE ALSO trying to complete puzzles to advance??? Holy shit. God forbid I have to manage both at once (I did).
- The graphics are also top notch, not much to complain about there. I did have an issue with my darkness not being “dark” enough but I think that was just my HDR settings being weird. The animations actually really impressed me, as there are animations for a lot of things I wasn’t expecting there to be. I really love how Leon and Claire will shove a zombie off of them should its corpse fall toward them. I also love that there’s animations for some really specific enemy interactions, like being attacked by two zombies at once, or having a zombie grab your ankle if you mantle onto a ledge above them.
- Now, while I don’t think the concept of a “B campaign” (a second run of the game you play as the alternate character) is completely without flaw, I was impressed with how different it ended up being despite pretty much being the same exact story a second time. Aside from the normal differences between Leon and Claire, encounters are made harder and the locations of enemies like Lickers are changed (my worst nightmare). The B campaign encounters are what finally got a game to make me verbally react to being suddenly scared. Having less resources is also a great way to make players utilize their skills from the first run.
- While I didn’t play all of them, I love that there are bonus modes with remixed encounters and occasional new mechanics and enemy types. It offers a new experience. My favorite was definitely The 4th Survivor. Having all of the resources you’ll use in the run given at the beginning of it really forced me to plan out the most economical way to get out. It was so fun to route. And the Tofu Survivor? Great gag mode that made me think “this is really just an official mod, isn’t it?”
- Two more little things: I love how Leon and Claire will say the most nonchalant “goddammit” or “son of a bitch” when the most dangerous encounters they’ve ever seen are in front of them. I don’t know if the casual voice direction the actors got there was intentional but it is so funny. I also like that the zombie designs in this game are so varied. There are zombies of different ethnicities and that made this zombie apocalypse feel so much more real than other games I’ve seen.
Cons:
- My one big gripe with this game is the execution of the two separate campaigns. Now, I wasn’t lying when I said that I liked the remixed encounters. But I found it really weird that the game is so wishy-washy on if both routes are canon or not. There are story moments that happen the same in both campaigns, just from either Leon or Claire’s perspective, so that would imply both are happening at the same time. But there’s also events that happen in the same exact place in both campaigns, as well as a character who behaves differently at the end of the game depending on who you’re playing as, which would imply both campaigns are separate. I wish it just stuck to one or the other for narrative’s sake.
- Additionally, while I didn’t mind it all that much, it really is kind of weird that you have to play the game a second time to get the true ending. Given how similar the RPD segments are for each character at the beginning, I can see why some players might be turned off to the idea. It also becomes a problem when you consider that the RPD is the most dynamic of the three areas, meaning that if you didn’t find the sewers or lab as fun to play through, you’re not going to enjoy doing it a second time. Didn’t faze me much however.
Objective rating: 4.5 stars
Subjective rating: 5 stars
Pros:
- While RE2 has more of a deemphasized narrative compared to RE4, it’s still a damn good story. Having seen Leon’s character in the sequel, it was really interesting to see the greenhorn that he was at the beginning of the nightmare in Raccoon City, and it gave me a greater appreciation of who he becomes in RE4. That’s not to underestimate Claire, whose interactions with her companion (not saying who for spoilers) were really nice to watch throughout her campaign as well. Even though I knew some of what had occurred in this game beforehand, the story was still really fun to watch play out. Also +1 to the companions’ segments—Leon’s companion for having a really cool puzzle gadget, and Claire’s companion for having a really cool perspective on what most people think of “horror” in horror video games.
- The gameplay in RE2 is 100% fucking sick as hell. Exploring and fighting through the RPD was insanely fun. The puzzle you need to complete to escape it has you going all around the station, finding ways into locked rooms with all sorts of items from elsewhere around the station, while of course having to ward off zombies and any other man-made horrors beyond your comprehension that you might stumble upon (more on those later). You’ve got to balance straight survival with managing the space in your inventory (not just for ammo and healing, but also puzzle items) and plotting the least dangerous route through the parts of the station you’ve explored thus far. The sewers and lab have a lot less going on in this regard, but to compensate RE2 spends A LOT of time in different parts of the RPD which was more than welcome for me.
- The puzzles themselves are really cool as well. In addition to the puzzles and locks you need to crack to actually progress, there are dial locks, safes, and armory lockers that you also get to root through if you’re looking for more ammo or other puzzle items—and some cases, hip pouches (for inventory space), weapon attachments, and even some whole weapons themselves. These puzzles aren’t always basic either. You’ve got a logic-basic chess piece puzzle, eight-digit portable safes, waveform matching (that one’s hard to explain in text form), and the dreaded “put exactly x amount of liquid into this container—no more, no less”. Plus, some items can be inspected more closely to reveal secrets you wouldn’t discover if you just crammed it into your inventory and kept walking. The creative puzzle solutions made RE2 so much fun to think through.
- The combat in this game is also super engaging and has a strategic element to it which I really appreciated. Aside from the ammo economy which is typical for survival horrors, players get “sub-weapons” like knives or grenades at their disposal. If you get grabbed by a zombie, you can tank the damage or use the sub-weapon to escape unharmed—at the cost of the sub-weapon. It’s a system I didn’t expect to see, but I really loved how it forces you to think close combat through.
- Of course, the gunplay is awesome too. All the guns feel pretty good; I especially loved the magnum that just makes heads disappear, as well as the Spark Shot for having a really cool firing mechanic (hold aim to increase damage). There are tons of little additional gameplay elements that add up to a great experience. You can board up windows, shoot grenades stuffed into zombies, there’s different types of healing items that do different things, THE MAP TELLS YOU IF YOU’VE GOT ALL THE ITEMS IN A ROOM, like that is just amazing.
- And yes, before you thought I forgot to mention it, holy shit yeah this game is fucking scary. Much, MUCH more so than RE4. RE4 was a walk in a sunny field of flowers compared to the sheer, pants-shittingly terrifying experience this game was, especially on the B campaign (more on that later). The standard zombies stagger around and rush you whenever you least expect it, and the killer sound design in this game carries their gargled moans and screams down dark hallways such that you can sometimes hear the mess you’re getting into. And other times? You’ll be running down a hallway and the quietest zombie ever to walk this earth screams out of nowhere and grabs you from behind. Zombies can also just randomly regenerate when you least expect it. I’ll give a shout out to the G-Adult and Ivy as well for both being really well-designed enemies that are also really interesting to fight (especially using fire to disable the latter), even if they aren’t that scary.
- Now, don’t even get me started on the Lickers and the Tyrant, those motherfuckers are getting a whole paragraph to themselves because the Reaper Leviathans from Subnautica and Regeneradors from RE4 ain’t got shit on these guys. Lickers punish the quick player while the Tyrant punishes the slow player and I LIVED for that experience. Lickers will violently react to you if you’re too loud, which happened quite often as I ran through doors without knowing what was on the other side. And they straight up lunge at you, to the point where it’s basically a jumpscare that can be triggered at any point while you traverse the room they’re in. And the Tyrant’s booming footsteps announcing his presence growing in volume as he inches ever closer, only pausing, never stopping… Having to balance outrunning the Tyrant with plotting routes that would minimize contact with any sort of enemy that might slow me down WHILE ALSO trying to complete puzzles to advance??? Holy shit. God forbid I have to manage both at once (I did).
- The graphics are also top notch, not much to complain about there. I did have an issue with my darkness not being “dark” enough but I think that was just my HDR settings being weird. The animations actually really impressed me, as there are animations for a lot of things I wasn’t expecting there to be. I really love how Leon and Claire will shove a zombie off of them should its corpse fall toward them. I also love that there’s animations for some really specific enemy interactions, like being attacked by two zombies at once, or having a zombie grab your ankle if you mantle onto a ledge above them.
- Now, while I don’t think the concept of a “B campaign” (a second run of the game you play as the alternate character) is completely without flaw, I was impressed with how different it ended up being despite pretty much being the same exact story a second time. Aside from the normal differences between Leon and Claire, encounters are made harder and the locations of enemies like Lickers are changed (my worst nightmare). The B campaign encounters are what finally got a game to make me verbally react to being suddenly scared. Having less resources is also a great way to make players utilize their skills from the first run.
- While I didn’t play all of them, I love that there are bonus modes with remixed encounters and occasional new mechanics and enemy types. It offers a new experience. My favorite was definitely The 4th Survivor. Having all of the resources you’ll use in the run given at the beginning of it really forced me to plan out the most economical way to get out. It was so fun to route. And the Tofu Survivor? Great gag mode that made me think “this is really just an official mod, isn’t it?”
- Two more little things: I love how Leon and Claire will say the most nonchalant “goddammit” or “son of a bitch” when the most dangerous encounters they’ve ever seen are in front of them. I don’t know if the casual voice direction the actors got there was intentional but it is so funny. I also like that the zombie designs in this game are so varied. There are zombies of different ethnicities and that made this zombie apocalypse feel so much more real than other games I’ve seen.
Cons:
- My one big gripe with this game is the execution of the two separate campaigns. Now, I wasn’t lying when I said that I liked the remixed encounters. But I found it really weird that the game is so wishy-washy on if both routes are canon or not. There are story moments that happen the same in both campaigns, just from either Leon or Claire’s perspective, so that would imply both are happening at the same time. But there’s also events that happen in the same exact place in both campaigns, as well as a character who behaves differently at the end of the game depending on who you’re playing as, which would imply both campaigns are separate. I wish it just stuck to one or the other for narrative’s sake.
- Additionally, while I didn’t mind it all that much, it really is kind of weird that you have to play the game a second time to get the true ending. Given how similar the RPD segments are for each character at the beginning, I can see why some players might be turned off to the idea. It also becomes a problem when you consider that the RPD is the most dynamic of the three areas, meaning that if you didn’t find the sewers or lab as fun to play through, you’re not going to enjoy doing it a second time. Didn’t faze me much however.
Objective rating: 4.5 stars
Subjective rating: 5 stars
2021
I happened to be lucky enough to find a physical Limited Run copy of Narita Boy at my local game store. Was it worth the $60 I paid for it? Sadly, no. BUT THAT BEING SAID…I still really enjoyed this game. When I wasn’t confused by its lackluster Metroidvania-like progression and infuriating combat system, I was awed by its insanely dope artstyle and animations, banger soundtrack, and lore that made me feel like a kid discovering an all-expansive world again. Studio Koba clearly put a lot of love into the Digital Kingdom of Narita Boy, so I hope if they get around to making a sequel, they can improve upon what they’ve made here and produce a kickass game. I truly believe that if they spruce up the combat and exploration, “Narita Boy 2” could become one of the indie greats. I almost feel bad for rating it as “low” as I did, but hey, 3 stars is above-average in my eyes.
Pros:
- I didn’t expect myself to get as immersed in the lore and world of Narita Boy as I did. The basic plot is that the Creator (a game developer) loses his memories to an evil sentient program in the game he designed, and you, as Narita Boy, must travel throughout the Digital Kingdom (the game world) to defeat the Stallions (hostile programs) and reassemble the Creator’s memories. The kicker here is that all of the NPCs that you meet in the Digital Kingdom are fully aware that they are in a simulated environment, and have taken to studying its source code in a techno-religious fashion. That’s just objectively awesome. Like, maybe I’m easily entertained, but like, c’mon.
- All the residents of the Digital Kingdom worship the ‘Trichroma’ and venerate the ‘Motherboard’ (who is your quest-giver by the way) and have little dialogue quirks like speaking in code (like, JavaScript type code) when they’re on the verge of death or referring to each other as ‘instances’. NPCs from different locations have different ways of looking at the source code and will mention areas that the player may or may not get to see. It really made me feel like this world was much larger than it actually is, in the same way that the book Ready Player One does. I ADORED it.
- The actual progression of the story is nice too. Most of it is your standard action hero journey stuff, but Narita Boy leans into it a lot so it never feels cheap. You also get to view the Creator’s memories that you find, and they tell an admittedly emotional story, though nothing super life-changing or anything. It definitely made me speculate a lot on his relation to his creation.
- The artstyle of this game is utterly fucking spectacular. It’s the artstyle of classic retro side scrollers, but what you saw in your imagination while you played them rather than what was actually on screen. It’s vibrant and has that hazy, dreamlike feel of CRT computer screens (with the rounded corners on the display to boot!). And the animation is just buttery smooth, it is genuinely so impressive.
- The clean style of the combat animations is probably one of the only good things I can say about that system. The attacks themselves look amazing; they have this weighty but smooth animation that works great with all the enemy death animations and makes you feel like you’re cutting through bamboo like a samurai. You’ve also got a shotgun that shoots laser beams and that’s just sick. Animation is what made the combat tolerable (see cons for everything else about the combat).
- And the soundtrack? Certified slapper. Salvinsky (the composer) walked into the studio and wrote nothing but Ws. Take chiptune EDM and vaporwave and put it in a blender, then add a bit of rock guitar, choral arrangements, and corny retro theme songs and you’ve got the Narita Boy soundtrack. I beg of you, PLEASE give this a listen. Stallion Threat, Techno-Sword, Narita Boy Theme, and Saving the World all go so hard.
- Now, because I really don’t like the combat of this game, I didn’t find many of the boss fights all that good. Some were just ‘fine’, and one I’ll mention in the cons section is soul-suckingly agonzing. But there were a few I actually really liked: Black Rainbow, Hex, White Noise, and the final boss fight were all very enjoyable, partly because the soundtracks of the same name were also great (listen to those too!). All the boss fights (and all the enemies for that matter) are also animated insanely well and that increases the fun as well. It’s no coincidence that these fights are also the fights where I felt like I had multiple options to approach them from.
- A minor praise here, but I liked the end credits sequence. The music was great and the art team made detailed pixel arts that (presumably) depict some of the developers and fans interacting with Narita Boy.
Cons:
- While I did praise the story, I will admit that a good portion of the lore is told to the player via large text boxes. There certainly is some environmental storytelling but it’s hard to discern with the pixel graphics at times. The dense dialogue in this game is made worse by the fact that most NPCs can only be spoken to once, meaning if you forgot what they said you’re out of luck. Naturally this can have dire consequences on your ability to progress.
- Exploration can also use some work. While I found a lot of the environments really aesthetically pleasing to walk through, Narita Boy is very linear and has a lot of areas that amount to little more than pretty loading screens while you walk to the next area. There is also no ability to backtrack into a House (kind of like levels) once you’ve left, meaning if you miss one of the four floppy disc collectibles to unlock a bonus Creator’s memory—oops, time to play the whole game again.
- Conceptually, I like that the game put you in a lot of situations where you would be wise to start picking up a pen and paper and writing down tips. I think it’s meant to invoke an era before online guides, where the rumors you heard on the playground at school meant getting an edge in your game. That’s being said, it just does not work here. Writing down codes for portals is fine I guess, but not having reference tools like an enemy bestiary or even a map is brutal. I constantly forgot the strategy to beat certain enemies and just had to rely on trial and error to defeat them, which with this game’s combat, made the experience a lot worse.
- Okay, I’m not going to hold back on the combat system. It is just not good. First, while all the abilities look really nice, a lot of them are really useless. The shoulder bash is just a dash with pitiful damage, and there’s no reason to use it over actually dashing and attacking. The downstab (a ground pound) is also basically useless and is more likely to get you killed since you lose all forward momentum when you do it.
- The summons and wildfires are a different breed of redundant. ONE summon is useful and a good game mechanic. THREE of them that ALL DO THE SAME THING just from different sides of the screen is pointless. There were exactly ZERO situations where the side of the screen the attack came from mattered.
- Wildfires (buffs that increase damage to enemies that match the wildfire color you have) are even more useless. Not only do they take time to activate (which can get you killed), but all three do the exact same thing. See an enemy with a yellow fire animation over their head, you use yellow wildfire. See one with blue fire? Blue wildfire. Red? You guessed it. This truthfully isn’t that bad until later in the game. This square-peg-square-hole-ass combat system gets even worse when there are multiple enemies with different wildfire types, and you need to dedicate a whole button press (that FREEZES YOU IN PLACE DAMMIT) to “un-wildfire”. Why you can’t just immediately switch from one type to the other is beyond me.
- What I’m about to say next might be a skill issue, but I’ll die on this hill. While enemies in this game get stronger, and encounters get longer, I never felt like I as a player got stronger. You never get a longer health bar, you never get a higher shotgun ammo capacity, and you never get more Trichroma energy (used for summons and health regen). Most of the abilities you get like the aforementioned shoulder bash, summons, downstab, and wildfire didn’t have much application in combat, save for the enemies where shoulder bashing their guard is literally the only way to defeat them.
- Mini-rant time but the train segment and the Glove bossfight can go to hell. That part of the game is so hard for absolutely no reason. Clown me all you want but that was just way too brutal. Like five different encounters before you got to an autosave point, meaning if you died you had to do it all again. That brute enemy with the big shield you can only bait into a vulnerable stance by dodging through him sent me back too many times. And the Glove is actually harder than the final boss. I’m really glad that the final boss fight was really enjoyable, because if the Glove was the final boss I would have rated this game even lower.
- One final thing about the combat: I think it would have been a better idea to allow players to use the D-pad (on console at least, I don’t know what PC controls are like) to control movement and combat. Directional controls aren’t as enjoyable using a stick since it's easier to mess them up.
- Okay, now I’m done with the combat. Sorry if that sounded a little toxic; I tried my best to stay objective while still being entertaining. One small nitpick left: I wish the button prompts were in pixel art style instead of being rendered as vector graphics. It would have fit the atmosphere better. Also, this isn’t really a con but when this game warns you about photosensitive epilepsy, heed its warning because DAMN there are a lot of flashing lights.
Objective rating: 3 stars
Subjective rating: 4 stars
Pros:
- I didn’t expect myself to get as immersed in the lore and world of Narita Boy as I did. The basic plot is that the Creator (a game developer) loses his memories to an evil sentient program in the game he designed, and you, as Narita Boy, must travel throughout the Digital Kingdom (the game world) to defeat the Stallions (hostile programs) and reassemble the Creator’s memories. The kicker here is that all of the NPCs that you meet in the Digital Kingdom are fully aware that they are in a simulated environment, and have taken to studying its source code in a techno-religious fashion. That’s just objectively awesome. Like, maybe I’m easily entertained, but like, c’mon.
- All the residents of the Digital Kingdom worship the ‘Trichroma’ and venerate the ‘Motherboard’ (who is your quest-giver by the way) and have little dialogue quirks like speaking in code (like, JavaScript type code) when they’re on the verge of death or referring to each other as ‘instances’. NPCs from different locations have different ways of looking at the source code and will mention areas that the player may or may not get to see. It really made me feel like this world was much larger than it actually is, in the same way that the book Ready Player One does. I ADORED it.
- The actual progression of the story is nice too. Most of it is your standard action hero journey stuff, but Narita Boy leans into it a lot so it never feels cheap. You also get to view the Creator’s memories that you find, and they tell an admittedly emotional story, though nothing super life-changing or anything. It definitely made me speculate a lot on his relation to his creation.
- The artstyle of this game is utterly fucking spectacular. It’s the artstyle of classic retro side scrollers, but what you saw in your imagination while you played them rather than what was actually on screen. It’s vibrant and has that hazy, dreamlike feel of CRT computer screens (with the rounded corners on the display to boot!). And the animation is just buttery smooth, it is genuinely so impressive.
- The clean style of the combat animations is probably one of the only good things I can say about that system. The attacks themselves look amazing; they have this weighty but smooth animation that works great with all the enemy death animations and makes you feel like you’re cutting through bamboo like a samurai. You’ve also got a shotgun that shoots laser beams and that’s just sick. Animation is what made the combat tolerable (see cons for everything else about the combat).
- And the soundtrack? Certified slapper. Salvinsky (the composer) walked into the studio and wrote nothing but Ws. Take chiptune EDM and vaporwave and put it in a blender, then add a bit of rock guitar, choral arrangements, and corny retro theme songs and you’ve got the Narita Boy soundtrack. I beg of you, PLEASE give this a listen. Stallion Threat, Techno-Sword, Narita Boy Theme, and Saving the World all go so hard.
- Now, because I really don’t like the combat of this game, I didn’t find many of the boss fights all that good. Some were just ‘fine’, and one I’ll mention in the cons section is soul-suckingly agonzing. But there were a few I actually really liked: Black Rainbow, Hex, White Noise, and the final boss fight were all very enjoyable, partly because the soundtracks of the same name were also great (listen to those too!). All the boss fights (and all the enemies for that matter) are also animated insanely well and that increases the fun as well. It’s no coincidence that these fights are also the fights where I felt like I had multiple options to approach them from.
- A minor praise here, but I liked the end credits sequence. The music was great and the art team made detailed pixel arts that (presumably) depict some of the developers and fans interacting with Narita Boy.
Cons:
- While I did praise the story, I will admit that a good portion of the lore is told to the player via large text boxes. There certainly is some environmental storytelling but it’s hard to discern with the pixel graphics at times. The dense dialogue in this game is made worse by the fact that most NPCs can only be spoken to once, meaning if you forgot what they said you’re out of luck. Naturally this can have dire consequences on your ability to progress.
- Exploration can also use some work. While I found a lot of the environments really aesthetically pleasing to walk through, Narita Boy is very linear and has a lot of areas that amount to little more than pretty loading screens while you walk to the next area. There is also no ability to backtrack into a House (kind of like levels) once you’ve left, meaning if you miss one of the four floppy disc collectibles to unlock a bonus Creator’s memory—oops, time to play the whole game again.
- Conceptually, I like that the game put you in a lot of situations where you would be wise to start picking up a pen and paper and writing down tips. I think it’s meant to invoke an era before online guides, where the rumors you heard on the playground at school meant getting an edge in your game. That’s being said, it just does not work here. Writing down codes for portals is fine I guess, but not having reference tools like an enemy bestiary or even a map is brutal. I constantly forgot the strategy to beat certain enemies and just had to rely on trial and error to defeat them, which with this game’s combat, made the experience a lot worse.
- Okay, I’m not going to hold back on the combat system. It is just not good. First, while all the abilities look really nice, a lot of them are really useless. The shoulder bash is just a dash with pitiful damage, and there’s no reason to use it over actually dashing and attacking. The downstab (a ground pound) is also basically useless and is more likely to get you killed since you lose all forward momentum when you do it.
- The summons and wildfires are a different breed of redundant. ONE summon is useful and a good game mechanic. THREE of them that ALL DO THE SAME THING just from different sides of the screen is pointless. There were exactly ZERO situations where the side of the screen the attack came from mattered.
- Wildfires (buffs that increase damage to enemies that match the wildfire color you have) are even more useless. Not only do they take time to activate (which can get you killed), but all three do the exact same thing. See an enemy with a yellow fire animation over their head, you use yellow wildfire. See one with blue fire? Blue wildfire. Red? You guessed it. This truthfully isn’t that bad until later in the game. This square-peg-square-hole-ass combat system gets even worse when there are multiple enemies with different wildfire types, and you need to dedicate a whole button press (that FREEZES YOU IN PLACE DAMMIT) to “un-wildfire”. Why you can’t just immediately switch from one type to the other is beyond me.
- What I’m about to say next might be a skill issue, but I’ll die on this hill. While enemies in this game get stronger, and encounters get longer, I never felt like I as a player got stronger. You never get a longer health bar, you never get a higher shotgun ammo capacity, and you never get more Trichroma energy (used for summons and health regen). Most of the abilities you get like the aforementioned shoulder bash, summons, downstab, and wildfire didn’t have much application in combat, save for the enemies where shoulder bashing their guard is literally the only way to defeat them.
- Mini-rant time but the train segment and the Glove bossfight can go to hell. That part of the game is so hard for absolutely no reason. Clown me all you want but that was just way too brutal. Like five different encounters before you got to an autosave point, meaning if you died you had to do it all again. That brute enemy with the big shield you can only bait into a vulnerable stance by dodging through him sent me back too many times. And the Glove is actually harder than the final boss. I’m really glad that the final boss fight was really enjoyable, because if the Glove was the final boss I would have rated this game even lower.
- One final thing about the combat: I think it would have been a better idea to allow players to use the D-pad (on console at least, I don’t know what PC controls are like) to control movement and combat. Directional controls aren’t as enjoyable using a stick since it's easier to mess them up.
- Okay, now I’m done with the combat. Sorry if that sounded a little toxic; I tried my best to stay objective while still being entertaining. One small nitpick left: I wish the button prompts were in pixel art style instead of being rendered as vector graphics. It would have fit the atmosphere better. Also, this isn’t really a con but when this game warns you about photosensitive epilepsy, heed its warning because DAMN there are a lot of flashing lights.
Objective rating: 3 stars
Subjective rating: 4 stars
2014
Subnautica is the second of two games I played in 2022 via Xbox Game Pass when it was gifted to me that holiday season (the first being Hades). My friend had played it long before I did, and spoke very highly of its ability to scare the living daylights out of him. Needless to say, I was interested. And boy, did this game deliver on that front. But aside from that, it was an incredibly beautiful game with ””relaxing”” gameplay (when massive sea monsters weren’t terrorizing me) and even a pretty solid narrative carried by its environmental storytelling. My most recent playthrough, I tried to do things a little differently to experience more of the game. It’s hard to top the feeling of your first playthrough of a game, but in some respects I had even more fun replaying this game the second time. It’s got a fair bit of jank, but overall it's a fantastic experience. Just don’t play if you have thalassophobia.
Pros:
- All of the biomes in Subnautica are just flat out amazing. Some of the most visually interesting and dynamic environments of any of the games I ever played. Every area has its own distinct atmosphere with different types of flora and fauna that all look variously comforting or disconcerting based on how deep you’ve descended. The designs and behavior of sea creatures are pretty interesting; I really like seeing Stalkers fight over metal scrap and Ampeels make electric drive-bys on unsuspecting fish.
- Speaking of “how deep”, while there are some issues with the progression I’ll mention in the cons section, I really enjoyed how Subnautica’s progression is directly tied to how deep you can dive into the ocean. Players unlock greater oxygen capacities, stronger dive suits, faster means of transportation, and eventually, vehicles that can resist the crushing pressure and horrific crimes against nature that exist in the depths.
- The sense of exploration is really strong with this game. Once you get the ability to move around faster and deeper, you really get the urge to push your limits in the hope of securing some valuable resource or exploring a new environment. I don’t play exploration games very often but Subnautica had me throwing caution to the wind just trying to see some new cool thing even if it meant drowning or dying horrifically.
- The vehicles in Subnautica are really fun to pilot. The Seamoth (nimble little craft) is super smooth and REALLY responsive to your controls, and the Cyclops submarine makes you feel utterly badass piloting your own gargantuan vessel (plus it has a lot of cool features). The Prawn suit feels a little weird to use with how awkward its movement is, but more utilitarian than anything so that’s not a big deal.
- The habitat construction in Subnautica is also insanely cool, although it has a few glaring flaws that I’ll mention later in my review. You can literally just plunk a base down wherever you want. You’ll have to contend with whatever conditions are down there though, which I also think is pretty cool. You might need lights to attract predators away from your base, or choose between solar or thermal power depending on how deep you’ve built. Interior customization is also pretty fun but a tad bit limited in scope. I really liked the alien containment, mostly because you can raise a Cuddlefish and that mf is adorable as HELL
- I’ve avoided talking about it long enough: Subnautica is scary as FUCK sometimes. The deeper you go, the scarier it gets. Everything gets more dangerous, from the biome to the creatures. The sound design is on POINT—Simon Chylinski (the soundtrack composer) needs a damn medal because Subnautica’s OST is super atmospheric and really conveys the utter isolation and hostility of the alien planet you’re on.
- The Leviathans are the obvious thing that comes to mind when I think about how scary Subnautica is. Encountering them for the first time was harrowing, but I actually think most of them were scarier the second time because I knew what was coming if I wasn’t careful. Swimming about in open water, its pitch black, and then your PDA assistant tells you “Multiple leviathan class lifeforms detected. Are you sure whatever you’re doing is worth it?” Like, excuse me PDA lady, I didn’t ask you. And then a Ghost Leviathan bullrushes you and you throw your controller into your TV screen. Amazing experience all around. Seeing the shadow of a Reaper Leviathan before I saw one was utterly horrifying and I wanted to pause the game and just curl up into a ball.
- The horror of this game coupled with the foreignness of some of the things you find makes Subnautica a great example of environmental storytelling done right. All of the “story” events are random triggers you get from just exploring and progressing, and each cutscene you experience and alien artifact you find just gets you deeper and deeper into the mystery of what exactly is going on in this planet. The resolution to the story (I won’t spoil) honestly got me a little emotional.
- Two more little pros before I get into the cons. First, I really appreciate whoever wrote the databank entries. They are really informative (as in, some of them will actually tell you information you can use to progress in the game) and I loved reading the entries on the flora and fauna. (bonus points for: “If you can hear it, the reaper can see you”) Second, I love the ability to make a time capsule when you [redacted for spoilers] that can then be found by other players. I put a nice message in mine with some resources I thought would be useful to other people that were once in my position. Very introspective. I still have a screenshot of my message.
Cons:
- At times, it can be very unclear what the player is meant to do to progress in Subnautica. I get that this was to encourage exploration, but the first time I played, there were a lot of times I had to ask a friend for help because I truly had no clue what was supposed to happen next. Going into the Aurora is a good example of this; while radio messages imply it, it’s never overtly stated. I think a good way to rectify this would be to have the PDA give occasional pushes in the right direction. My advice to anyone that struggles: go deeper.
- Habitat construction is very entertaining in this game but my god can it be so frustrating at times. Placement restrictions are really weird for some rooms. Sometimes you won’t be able to place a room just because it's too close to something else, even if the models don’t overlap at all. I had a lot of trouble with the “Large Room” piece and its dividers—you can’t place anything on a wall that also has a divider corner attached to it; sometimes picture frames clip into the wall and you can’t see them; doorways and dividers don’t match up—and that’s just scratching the surface. You can’t sit in chairs that clearly have enough space for a person, ladders in connectors block the walkway, vertical connectors just…don’t connect? There’s a lot of tiny annoyances that just built up as I played. Subnautica has a lot of great concepts for base building but I can’t lie, it’s far from perfect.
- This next con is definitely something that can be forgiven since it’s a swimming-based game, but movement on dry land (islands and in habitats) is super awkward. The sound effects grate on you since walk cycles repeat the same few sounds, jumping is super clunky, and the Prawn suit has the gravity of water on land. It just doesn’t feel nice at all.
- I also think the mid-game grind for blueprints and resources is a bit of a slog. There are some blueprints that are essential to completing the game (like the moonpool and Cyclops), and if you go into the game not knowing where to find them, it can take a long-ass time to locate them when you’d rather be exploring or progressing. Plus, that time between building a moonpool and building a Prawn suit is mostly just breaking limestone chunks hoping you’ll get copper and titanium. That part certainly isn’t fun either, but it doesn’t last long enough to completely kill your drive.
Objective rating: 4 stars
Subjective rating: 5 stars
Pros:
- All of the biomes in Subnautica are just flat out amazing. Some of the most visually interesting and dynamic environments of any of the games I ever played. Every area has its own distinct atmosphere with different types of flora and fauna that all look variously comforting or disconcerting based on how deep you’ve descended. The designs and behavior of sea creatures are pretty interesting; I really like seeing Stalkers fight over metal scrap and Ampeels make electric drive-bys on unsuspecting fish.
- Speaking of “how deep”, while there are some issues with the progression I’ll mention in the cons section, I really enjoyed how Subnautica’s progression is directly tied to how deep you can dive into the ocean. Players unlock greater oxygen capacities, stronger dive suits, faster means of transportation, and eventually, vehicles that can resist the crushing pressure and horrific crimes against nature that exist in the depths.
- The sense of exploration is really strong with this game. Once you get the ability to move around faster and deeper, you really get the urge to push your limits in the hope of securing some valuable resource or exploring a new environment. I don’t play exploration games very often but Subnautica had me throwing caution to the wind just trying to see some new cool thing even if it meant drowning or dying horrifically.
- The vehicles in Subnautica are really fun to pilot. The Seamoth (nimble little craft) is super smooth and REALLY responsive to your controls, and the Cyclops submarine makes you feel utterly badass piloting your own gargantuan vessel (plus it has a lot of cool features). The Prawn suit feels a little weird to use with how awkward its movement is, but more utilitarian than anything so that’s not a big deal.
- The habitat construction in Subnautica is also insanely cool, although it has a few glaring flaws that I’ll mention later in my review. You can literally just plunk a base down wherever you want. You’ll have to contend with whatever conditions are down there though, which I also think is pretty cool. You might need lights to attract predators away from your base, or choose between solar or thermal power depending on how deep you’ve built. Interior customization is also pretty fun but a tad bit limited in scope. I really liked the alien containment, mostly because you can raise a Cuddlefish and that mf is adorable as HELL
- I’ve avoided talking about it long enough: Subnautica is scary as FUCK sometimes. The deeper you go, the scarier it gets. Everything gets more dangerous, from the biome to the creatures. The sound design is on POINT—Simon Chylinski (the soundtrack composer) needs a damn medal because Subnautica’s OST is super atmospheric and really conveys the utter isolation and hostility of the alien planet you’re on.
- The Leviathans are the obvious thing that comes to mind when I think about how scary Subnautica is. Encountering them for the first time was harrowing, but I actually think most of them were scarier the second time because I knew what was coming if I wasn’t careful. Swimming about in open water, its pitch black, and then your PDA assistant tells you “Multiple leviathan class lifeforms detected. Are you sure whatever you’re doing is worth it?” Like, excuse me PDA lady, I didn’t ask you. And then a Ghost Leviathan bullrushes you and you throw your controller into your TV screen. Amazing experience all around. Seeing the shadow of a Reaper Leviathan before I saw one was utterly horrifying and I wanted to pause the game and just curl up into a ball.
- The horror of this game coupled with the foreignness of some of the things you find makes Subnautica a great example of environmental storytelling done right. All of the “story” events are random triggers you get from just exploring and progressing, and each cutscene you experience and alien artifact you find just gets you deeper and deeper into the mystery of what exactly is going on in this planet. The resolution to the story (I won’t spoil) honestly got me a little emotional.
- Two more little pros before I get into the cons. First, I really appreciate whoever wrote the databank entries. They are really informative (as in, some of them will actually tell you information you can use to progress in the game) and I loved reading the entries on the flora and fauna. (bonus points for: “If you can hear it, the reaper can see you”) Second, I love the ability to make a time capsule when you [redacted for spoilers] that can then be found by other players. I put a nice message in mine with some resources I thought would be useful to other people that were once in my position. Very introspective. I still have a screenshot of my message.
Cons:
- At times, it can be very unclear what the player is meant to do to progress in Subnautica. I get that this was to encourage exploration, but the first time I played, there were a lot of times I had to ask a friend for help because I truly had no clue what was supposed to happen next. Going into the Aurora is a good example of this; while radio messages imply it, it’s never overtly stated. I think a good way to rectify this would be to have the PDA give occasional pushes in the right direction. My advice to anyone that struggles: go deeper.
- Habitat construction is very entertaining in this game but my god can it be so frustrating at times. Placement restrictions are really weird for some rooms. Sometimes you won’t be able to place a room just because it's too close to something else, even if the models don’t overlap at all. I had a lot of trouble with the “Large Room” piece and its dividers—you can’t place anything on a wall that also has a divider corner attached to it; sometimes picture frames clip into the wall and you can’t see them; doorways and dividers don’t match up—and that’s just scratching the surface. You can’t sit in chairs that clearly have enough space for a person, ladders in connectors block the walkway, vertical connectors just…don’t connect? There’s a lot of tiny annoyances that just built up as I played. Subnautica has a lot of great concepts for base building but I can’t lie, it’s far from perfect.
- This next con is definitely something that can be forgiven since it’s a swimming-based game, but movement on dry land (islands and in habitats) is super awkward. The sound effects grate on you since walk cycles repeat the same few sounds, jumping is super clunky, and the Prawn suit has the gravity of water on land. It just doesn’t feel nice at all.
- I also think the mid-game grind for blueprints and resources is a bit of a slog. There are some blueprints that are essential to completing the game (like the moonpool and Cyclops), and if you go into the game not knowing where to find them, it can take a long-ass time to locate them when you’d rather be exploring or progressing. Plus, that time between building a moonpool and building a Prawn suit is mostly just breaking limestone chunks hoping you’ll get copper and titanium. That part certainly isn’t fun either, but it doesn’t last long enough to completely kill your drive.
Objective rating: 4 stars
Subjective rating: 5 stars
2023
My recent dive through survival horror finally led me to the Dead Space remake, and I must say, this game DEFINITELY puts the “horror” in survival horror. I knew the first time it forced me to turn off the lights MYSELF that this was going to be scarier than I had expected. The only things I had ever heard about the Dead Space series when I was younger was that it was supposed to be the scariest game ever, and while I imagine that might have been a bit of an exaggeration, it definitely had moments that had me yelling curses into the void. Incredibly glad that I decided to give it a try. Signalis, RE4, now Dead Space…can I say I’m a survival horror fan now?
Pros:
- The atmosphere and environment design is what makes Dead Space so good. From the moment engineer Isaac Clarke steps onto the USG Ishimura mining vessel, the cold and uninviting hunk of metal is already eerie enough without the necromorphs (the main enemy) popping out of vents and climbing over walls. There are all sorts of different sounds to keep you company…whether it's the distant sound of machinery or alien roars or the very loud and sudden sound of a vent fan overloading and shooting right out of its housing.
- Of course the visuals are just as good as the audio. Nothing about the environment is welcoming at all and it made me dread what kind of mess I was going to find myself in next. The infected parts of the ship were the worst parts for me. Walking across pulsating, lattice-like organic matter as it squelches beneath my feet was just absolutely uncomfortable and it’s probably my favorite part of the world design. The minimal HUD makes this even cooler since all your attention is on the environment. It really made me feel like there was no “escape” from the horror since there wasn’t that degree of abstraction to reassure you.
- The combat was INSANELY awesome. It happens essentially randomly since a lot of encounters are procedurally generated, so you’re always on your toes. I had a lot of fun with the whole limb-cutting mechanic, and it ended up making the Plasma Cutter one of my favorite weapons, alongside the Ripper (buzzsaw go brrrrr) and the Contact Beam (wanna see this necromorph disappear?) Dead Space also has a great variety of enemies, some of which are super freaky like the crawlers that are just undead, lab-grown infants. Like, what the hell? That’s disturbing as shit.
- The gunplay wasn’t the only gameplay aspect I had fun with. I loved picking things up and launching them with Kinesis, especially when the thing I picked up and launched impales enemies to the wall. Stasis also is great to slow enemies down and cut them down to size like a surgeon. The zero gravity mechanic was also really well done since it’s super enjoyable (and scary) to have to dodge enemies that might be jumping at you from any angle while you float helplessly in the center of the room. The gore is great and also intensifies the horror, and I loved the sections where you have to choose between “game progress” and “not being in scary-ass pitch darkness” with the circuit breakers.
- The story is probably one of the only things this game doesn’t do too well in, but it does its job for the game and leads to some great moments and encounters (which is the point anyway). Put alien infection and cults into a blender and bam, Dead Space. Love it. Chapter 1 goes right into the action and was a really strong start, meanwhile Chapter 4 with the spacewalk to shoot down asteroids was probably one of the coolest events in the game. Chapters 5, 6, 9, and 12 had great end sequences, meanwhile Chapter 10 was probably the most eerie since most of it is done in relative silence with only the sounds of the Ishimura to listen to. The worldbuilding is done mostly through text and audio logs, and while it is kind of verbose, it’s really interesting to see what the rest of the Ishimura’s crew went through while the infection tore through them.
Cons:
- The only problem I really had with Dead Space is that the characters are just whatever. They don’t have much going for them in the way of personality and I never felt for them when something didn’t go their way (if you know what I mean). The narrative is the one thing holding this game back from being a truly flawless experience, but with how entertaining literally everything else is, it doesn’t bother me much. The actual sequence of events and what happens in the story gameplay-wise was good though.
- I think the oxygen mechanic is really pointless and doesn’t bring anything to the table. Nothing about having a limited supply of oxygen made the game any harder, more scary, or more fun. If anything it was annoying having to worry about running out of air, but at least it’s only confined to a few segments here and there. If the developers removed this mechanic I would have no complaints.
Objective rating: 4.5 stars
Subjective rating: 4.5 stars
Pros:
- The atmosphere and environment design is what makes Dead Space so good. From the moment engineer Isaac Clarke steps onto the USG Ishimura mining vessel, the cold and uninviting hunk of metal is already eerie enough without the necromorphs (the main enemy) popping out of vents and climbing over walls. There are all sorts of different sounds to keep you company…whether it's the distant sound of machinery or alien roars or the very loud and sudden sound of a vent fan overloading and shooting right out of its housing.
- Of course the visuals are just as good as the audio. Nothing about the environment is welcoming at all and it made me dread what kind of mess I was going to find myself in next. The infected parts of the ship were the worst parts for me. Walking across pulsating, lattice-like organic matter as it squelches beneath my feet was just absolutely uncomfortable and it’s probably my favorite part of the world design. The minimal HUD makes this even cooler since all your attention is on the environment. It really made me feel like there was no “escape” from the horror since there wasn’t that degree of abstraction to reassure you.
- The combat was INSANELY awesome. It happens essentially randomly since a lot of encounters are procedurally generated, so you’re always on your toes. I had a lot of fun with the whole limb-cutting mechanic, and it ended up making the Plasma Cutter one of my favorite weapons, alongside the Ripper (buzzsaw go brrrrr) and the Contact Beam (wanna see this necromorph disappear?) Dead Space also has a great variety of enemies, some of which are super freaky like the crawlers that are just undead, lab-grown infants. Like, what the hell? That’s disturbing as shit.
- The gunplay wasn’t the only gameplay aspect I had fun with. I loved picking things up and launching them with Kinesis, especially when the thing I picked up and launched impales enemies to the wall. Stasis also is great to slow enemies down and cut them down to size like a surgeon. The zero gravity mechanic was also really well done since it’s super enjoyable (and scary) to have to dodge enemies that might be jumping at you from any angle while you float helplessly in the center of the room. The gore is great and also intensifies the horror, and I loved the sections where you have to choose between “game progress” and “not being in scary-ass pitch darkness” with the circuit breakers.
- The story is probably one of the only things this game doesn’t do too well in, but it does its job for the game and leads to some great moments and encounters (which is the point anyway). Put alien infection and cults into a blender and bam, Dead Space. Love it. Chapter 1 goes right into the action and was a really strong start, meanwhile Chapter 4 with the spacewalk to shoot down asteroids was probably one of the coolest events in the game. Chapters 5, 6, 9, and 12 had great end sequences, meanwhile Chapter 10 was probably the most eerie since most of it is done in relative silence with only the sounds of the Ishimura to listen to. The worldbuilding is done mostly through text and audio logs, and while it is kind of verbose, it’s really interesting to see what the rest of the Ishimura’s crew went through while the infection tore through them.
Cons:
- The only problem I really had with Dead Space is that the characters are just whatever. They don’t have much going for them in the way of personality and I never felt for them when something didn’t go their way (if you know what I mean). The narrative is the one thing holding this game back from being a truly flawless experience, but with how entertaining literally everything else is, it doesn’t bother me much. The actual sequence of events and what happens in the story gameplay-wise was good though.
- I think the oxygen mechanic is really pointless and doesn’t bring anything to the table. Nothing about having a limited supply of oxygen made the game any harder, more scary, or more fun. If anything it was annoying having to worry about running out of air, but at least it’s only confined to a few segments here and there. If the developers removed this mechanic I would have no complaints.
Objective rating: 4.5 stars
Subjective rating: 4.5 stars
2018
Hades was the first game I tried out when Xbox gifted some of its users Game Pass Ultimate over the 2021-2022 holiday season. Having never played a roguelike before, I wasn’t able to reach the credits; nevertheless I instantly fell in love with the game. It was an eye-opening experience, being one of the first “indie” games I ever played. My first thoughts were something along the lines of “AAA games really don’t hit like this, do they?” For a time, it was the only game I have ever played I didn’t have a single issue with. After finally finishing the Platinum replay I started in June…I can safely say it’s still an utterly fantastic experience, although I now have issues with the game lol. Still gaming though. Hades II will irreparably damage my social life for weeks when it releases.
Pros:
- The story of Hades is well-crafted, though it's a lot different from how other games handle their narratives. You play as Zagreus, son of Hades, who is assisted by the Olympian gods as he attempts to escape his father's domain for Mount Olympus. If he dies, he returns to his father’s house, where players often gain insight into his motives, and variously hear encouragement or criticism from the other denizens in the House of Hades. The narrative is almost wholly character driven, and for the most part occurs “in between” gameplay (i.e. escape attempts) rather than during the gameplay itself. This already gets a win from me, because dying doesn’t often feel frustrating since it moves the story along.
- The characters that impart the story are arguably more important than the narrative itself. Every character feels natural and interacts with Zagreus in their own special way. The Olympians that appear to aid Zagreus during escape attempts all have dialogue that suits their domain and status in Greek mythology: Aphrodite is flirty, Dionysus loves a good time, and Hermes is straight to the point. But they all have a unique flair that differentiates them from most other pop culture depictions of Greek mythology. Poseidon acts like the “cool uncle”, Artemis is slightly aloof and socially awkward (she’s always out on hunts!), and Ares is quite cordial and matter-of-fact about his “death-dealing.”
- The occupants of the House of Hades feel a bit more down-to-earth, which almost feels intentional given that they are literally closer in proximity to Zagreus than the Olympians, and thus have more complex attitudes overall toward the young prince. While some are supportive of his desire to leave, like Nyx (a motherly figure) and Achilles (a mentor of sorts), others question his decision and if it's worth sowing discord amongst the house, like Megaera, who doesn’t appreciate the situation Zagreus is forcing her into. Hades himself serves to taunt Zagreus and sway him from his mission, and it's through him you realize how deep the animosity between father and son goes. If I had to pinpoint a “theme” of Hades, I’d say it's “generational trauma”, best exemplified by these two.
- The dialogue these characters have with Zagreus is actually insane. There are metric FUCKTONS of lines of dialogue; most players will never hear them all, and most players will never hear the same one twice. ALL OF IT sounds amazing, whether it's profound, emotional, casual, humorous, or badass—it does not miss. All of the voice actors nailed their roles. If I had to pick a favorite…I’d say Achilles. His voice actor did a great job voicing a solemn, listless warrior who’s found renowned purpose. Zagreus himself is also a fantastic character; they didn’t drop the ball on their main protagonist. He is a little basic, being very amiable and friendly with mostly everyone he meets, but he shows surprising depth when speaking to characters he has a history with. I won’t say any more for fear of spoilers.
- The gameplay is really hard to sum up all at once. We’ll start with the weapons. All of them feel punchy and satisfying to use, and there’s a weapon for every playstyle. Do you like hard-hitting ranged attacks? Try out the bow? Fast melee damage? The fists are your friend. Tanky and defensive gameplay? Pick up the shield. These have ways to be augmented both temporarily during a run (Daedaelus Hammer upgrades) and permanently between runs (Aspects). There are even secret Aspects that MASSIVELY change the way a weapon is used that were pretty fun to stumble across.
- During a run, you’ve got access to the boons of the Olympians, which form the core of a build. Each Olympian has a particular forte; Dionysus has “Hangover” which does damage over time, Aphrodite has “Weak” which weakens the attacks of enemies, and so on and so forth. The massive amount of combinations you can make with these boons is what keeps the combat in this game from getting stale even after HUNDREDS of hours played. You can get stupidly overpowered if you play your cards right.
- And even if you die, and fail a run, you’ve got items that you can use to increase your chance of succeeding on the next one. Darkness and Keys help unlock talents in the Mirror of Night, which provides permanent buffs that don’t disappear upon death. No matter how badly you get your ass kicked, EVERY death means progress. Not only is this great from a gameplay perspective, but it really helps you identify with Zagreus, who is willing to escape at any cost no matter how long it takes.
- The characters and story intertwine with Nectar and Ambrosia, items retained between runs that you can give to a character to strengthen your relationship. I don’t think this is a perfect mechanic by any means, but the conversations you unlock with them really flesh out the concerned characters and the way Zagreus interacts with them. PLUS, they unlock Keepsakes players can equip for different effects that can be swapped out between regions during a run.
- The artstyle for this game goes hard as hell, no pun intended. I mean…just LOOK at it. Incredibly detailed environments, amazing ambience, super distinctive, what more could you want? Some of the character designs in Hades have straight up become the definitive way I envision characters in Greek mythology. I will also give props to the KILLER soundtrack; it’s not my personal cup of tea but it really fits this game, relying heavily on stringed instruments evocative of lyres mixed with sick-ass electric guitar solos.
- The customizations players can make to the House of Hades between runs also adds an unexpectedly enjoyable base-building experience that lessens the sting of dying. Some of the things you can buy with the “House Contractor” also carry story weight or provide more utility than just cosmetics, so it doesn’t feel tacked on or unimportant either. The final purchases are insanely expensive though, so it's up to you if it's worth the grind.
- Bonus points for Zagreus’ dry wit. He’s really funny, sometimes unintentionally because he sounds super nonchalant during casual conversation.
Cons:
- The main thing preventing me from giving Hades full marks is the utter grind it is to get Nectar. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the conversations Nectar gifts get you, but rather the amount of gifts you need to give to get them. This is something I only discovered trying on my second playthrough trying to max my friendship with every character. You’re telling me with how uncommon and random it is to find Nectar during a run, I have to give one character SIX OF THEM to see all their interactions????? I almost quit the 100% run because of this. Somehow getting Ambrosia (item for the final interactions) is easier, but then they “balance” that out by making some characters require three of them? I hope they tweak this in Hades II.
- There are also a few instances where dialogue doesn’t mesh well with the narrative. Since most lines are designed to make sense whether you hear them before beating the game or after, some of them dance past some major developments that occur after the credits roll. It's not enough to take you out of the experience, but just enough to roll your eyes a little. I also think the process of giving Olympians Nectar and Ambrosia is clunky, since you can only give them out (and thus hear their gift dialogue) before you accept their boons. So when you accept their boons and hear THAT dialogue, it can sound a little off when they speak as if this is the first time they’ve spoken to you during the interaction. This one is more of a nitpick though.
- Finally, I do agree with some people that give this game a lower score when they say it gets repetitive after a while. I think Hades has an abundance of things to see, hear, and do even after you reach the epilogue, but the fact of the matter is that you still play through the same stages and environments over and over again. This only really bothered me at the VERY end of my 100-something hour playthrough, but I get why some others might be put off by it.
Objective rating: 4.5 stars
Subjective rating: 4.5 stars
Pros:
- The story of Hades is well-crafted, though it's a lot different from how other games handle their narratives. You play as Zagreus, son of Hades, who is assisted by the Olympian gods as he attempts to escape his father's domain for Mount Olympus. If he dies, he returns to his father’s house, where players often gain insight into his motives, and variously hear encouragement or criticism from the other denizens in the House of Hades. The narrative is almost wholly character driven, and for the most part occurs “in between” gameplay (i.e. escape attempts) rather than during the gameplay itself. This already gets a win from me, because dying doesn’t often feel frustrating since it moves the story along.
- The characters that impart the story are arguably more important than the narrative itself. Every character feels natural and interacts with Zagreus in their own special way. The Olympians that appear to aid Zagreus during escape attempts all have dialogue that suits their domain and status in Greek mythology: Aphrodite is flirty, Dionysus loves a good time, and Hermes is straight to the point. But they all have a unique flair that differentiates them from most other pop culture depictions of Greek mythology. Poseidon acts like the “cool uncle”, Artemis is slightly aloof and socially awkward (she’s always out on hunts!), and Ares is quite cordial and matter-of-fact about his “death-dealing.”
- The occupants of the House of Hades feel a bit more down-to-earth, which almost feels intentional given that they are literally closer in proximity to Zagreus than the Olympians, and thus have more complex attitudes overall toward the young prince. While some are supportive of his desire to leave, like Nyx (a motherly figure) and Achilles (a mentor of sorts), others question his decision and if it's worth sowing discord amongst the house, like Megaera, who doesn’t appreciate the situation Zagreus is forcing her into. Hades himself serves to taunt Zagreus and sway him from his mission, and it's through him you realize how deep the animosity between father and son goes. If I had to pinpoint a “theme” of Hades, I’d say it's “generational trauma”, best exemplified by these two.
- The dialogue these characters have with Zagreus is actually insane. There are metric FUCKTONS of lines of dialogue; most players will never hear them all, and most players will never hear the same one twice. ALL OF IT sounds amazing, whether it's profound, emotional, casual, humorous, or badass—it does not miss. All of the voice actors nailed their roles. If I had to pick a favorite…I’d say Achilles. His voice actor did a great job voicing a solemn, listless warrior who’s found renowned purpose. Zagreus himself is also a fantastic character; they didn’t drop the ball on their main protagonist. He is a little basic, being very amiable and friendly with mostly everyone he meets, but he shows surprising depth when speaking to characters he has a history with. I won’t say any more for fear of spoilers.
- The gameplay is really hard to sum up all at once. We’ll start with the weapons. All of them feel punchy and satisfying to use, and there’s a weapon for every playstyle. Do you like hard-hitting ranged attacks? Try out the bow? Fast melee damage? The fists are your friend. Tanky and defensive gameplay? Pick up the shield. These have ways to be augmented both temporarily during a run (Daedaelus Hammer upgrades) and permanently between runs (Aspects). There are even secret Aspects that MASSIVELY change the way a weapon is used that were pretty fun to stumble across.
- During a run, you’ve got access to the boons of the Olympians, which form the core of a build. Each Olympian has a particular forte; Dionysus has “Hangover” which does damage over time, Aphrodite has “Weak” which weakens the attacks of enemies, and so on and so forth. The massive amount of combinations you can make with these boons is what keeps the combat in this game from getting stale even after HUNDREDS of hours played. You can get stupidly overpowered if you play your cards right.
- And even if you die, and fail a run, you’ve got items that you can use to increase your chance of succeeding on the next one. Darkness and Keys help unlock talents in the Mirror of Night, which provides permanent buffs that don’t disappear upon death. No matter how badly you get your ass kicked, EVERY death means progress. Not only is this great from a gameplay perspective, but it really helps you identify with Zagreus, who is willing to escape at any cost no matter how long it takes.
- The characters and story intertwine with Nectar and Ambrosia, items retained between runs that you can give to a character to strengthen your relationship. I don’t think this is a perfect mechanic by any means, but the conversations you unlock with them really flesh out the concerned characters and the way Zagreus interacts with them. PLUS, they unlock Keepsakes players can equip for different effects that can be swapped out between regions during a run.
- The artstyle for this game goes hard as hell, no pun intended. I mean…just LOOK at it. Incredibly detailed environments, amazing ambience, super distinctive, what more could you want? Some of the character designs in Hades have straight up become the definitive way I envision characters in Greek mythology. I will also give props to the KILLER soundtrack; it’s not my personal cup of tea but it really fits this game, relying heavily on stringed instruments evocative of lyres mixed with sick-ass electric guitar solos.
- The customizations players can make to the House of Hades between runs also adds an unexpectedly enjoyable base-building experience that lessens the sting of dying. Some of the things you can buy with the “House Contractor” also carry story weight or provide more utility than just cosmetics, so it doesn’t feel tacked on or unimportant either. The final purchases are insanely expensive though, so it's up to you if it's worth the grind.
- Bonus points for Zagreus’ dry wit. He’s really funny, sometimes unintentionally because he sounds super nonchalant during casual conversation.
Cons:
- The main thing preventing me from giving Hades full marks is the utter grind it is to get Nectar. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the conversations Nectar gifts get you, but rather the amount of gifts you need to give to get them. This is something I only discovered trying on my second playthrough trying to max my friendship with every character. You’re telling me with how uncommon and random it is to find Nectar during a run, I have to give one character SIX OF THEM to see all their interactions????? I almost quit the 100% run because of this. Somehow getting Ambrosia (item for the final interactions) is easier, but then they “balance” that out by making some characters require three of them? I hope they tweak this in Hades II.
- There are also a few instances where dialogue doesn’t mesh well with the narrative. Since most lines are designed to make sense whether you hear them before beating the game or after, some of them dance past some major developments that occur after the credits roll. It's not enough to take you out of the experience, but just enough to roll your eyes a little. I also think the process of giving Olympians Nectar and Ambrosia is clunky, since you can only give them out (and thus hear their gift dialogue) before you accept their boons. So when you accept their boons and hear THAT dialogue, it can sound a little off when they speak as if this is the first time they’ve spoken to you during the interaction. This one is more of a nitpick though.
- Finally, I do agree with some people that give this game a lower score when they say it gets repetitive after a while. I think Hades has an abundance of things to see, hear, and do even after you reach the epilogue, but the fact of the matter is that you still play through the same stages and environments over and over again. This only really bothered me at the VERY end of my 100-something hour playthrough, but I get why some others might be put off by it.
Objective rating: 4.5 stars
Subjective rating: 4.5 stars
2016
Like so many others, Titanfall 2 fell under my radar for a long time, releasing under the shadow of Battlefield 1 and Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare back in 2016. When I finally picked it up for the first time in 2019, I was blown away by how much of an improvement it was over the original. And I STILL feel that way today. With a solid campaign with creative level design and an INSANELY FUN multiplayer experience that never gets old, it's a crime Respawn has thrown it to the wayside in favor of its moneymaker Apex Legends.
(NOTE: I will be reviewing both the campaign and multiplayer, so this review might be a little longer than usual.)
Pros:
- Naturally, the standout feature of Titanfall 2 in both its campaign and multiplayer is its movement system. Players can wallrun, double jump, and slide all around the environment, picking up speed as they do so which then factors into their momentum. It’s fluid and sickeningly enjoyable, and I think Titanfall 2 handles it best for newcomers to the “movement shooter” genre. It's not hard at all to visualize and execute the most efficient (and stylish) route to a target, and the level and map design of course takes this into consideration.
- The Pilot (your soldier) gunplay is superb; you’ve got your standard automatic rifles, shotguns, submachine guns, and your more exotic…checks notes “rocket launcher that fires balls of arcing electricity.” Huh. Each weapon has its own quirks that give each one a distinct personality, for lack of a better term—the CAR is more accurate while wallrunning, the Flatline has ONLY horizontal recoil, the Cold War charges up bursts of energy grenades…I could go on.
- And of course…the Titans. Good lord. How much more badass can it get than calling a Titan down from orbit in real time, leaping into it in midair, and seamlessly transferring into “giant death robot” mode? The Titan loadouts are just as dope (perhaps more so) than the Pilot loadouts, featuring the likes of railguns (Northstar), massive swords (Ronin), thermite launchers (Scorch), shields that redirect projectiles (Ion), and massive salvos of missiles (Tone). I’ll get into them more when I talk about multiplayer.
- I’ll start with the campaign, where players take control of Militia Pilot Jack Cooper and his Titan BT-7274 as they attempt to stop the imperialistic IMC from activating a superweapon that will destroy the Militia planet of Harmony. The real magic of this campaign lies not in its narrative but its level design. As mentioned above, all of the levels are designed to incorporate as much wallrunning, sliding, and double jumping as physically possible, keeping the linear mission design engaging and providing lots of ways to approach a gunfight. Action set pieces are abundant, but unlike many other FPS games are unique enough to sustain player’s attention.
- Specific levels deserve a mention for their setpieces, though I won’t spoil them. “Into The Abyss” and “Effect and Cause” are notable for these level designs; the latter of those two even has a damn WIKIPEDIA page because of how unique its puzzle was for a first person shooter at the time of its release. And yeah, I can say I was blown away by that one when I first played it. It really is something you should experience if you’re tired of straightforward FPS games. “The Ark” (“Voodoo One, Viper on station, Your journey ends here, pilot.”) and “The Fold Weapon” (“Trust me.”) are also great missions to play through.
- I won’t go so far as to say the campaign has fantastic characters, because I would be lying to you. That being said, the interactions between Cooper and BT are pretty heartwarming and entertaining to see even if their personalities amount to “soldier” and “big robot”. For all its faults, the story does a great job of bonding you to your Titan, plus having a big robot buddy to keep you company as you mow down waves of enemies keeps things from feeling too monotonous.
- Now let’s move to Titanfall 2’s multiplayer, which is by far one of the best on the market right now (see cons for the tragic reality of this statement). The gunplay is largely the same from the campaign, albeit with a few new guns and “anti-Titan weapons” added, while movement is the same, save for the addition of an optional grapple ability that can latch onto walls, players, and enemy Titans.
- The Titan gameplay feels WAY more badass in the multiplayer, with more visceral executions, better control over abilities, and the ability to call in a Titanfall and have that big guy crush anything below it when it lands. I cannot stress how epic it is to call in a giant robot, watch it break the atmosphere, and slide under its legs and have it gently place you into its cockpit. Like, if that’s not sick to you I don’t know what to say.
- Both Pilots and Titans have access to the same loadouts from the campaign (except for Brute D:), but the multiplayer gets to do way cooler things than the campaign since it's not bound by story or anything. Pilots can ride on the back of friendly Titans, they can rodeo enemy Titan and steal their batteries to give to allied Titans, and Titans can eject their pilots upon being doomed (instead of just reloading the checkpoint when BT dies lol), either sending them out automatically with a stealth eject, or literally going full nuclear, blowing up and taking out anything around them.
- The premier game mode (and the only one you’ll ever get to play, see cons below) is Attrition, where AI grunts, Spectres, Stalkers, and Reapers (robot enemies also in the campaign) fight alongside players. This is hectic in a good way; even if you can’t kill any Pilots or Titans, you can still earn a score (a lot of it) from killing the AI enemies. And a win or loss isn’t the end of the match—a ship comes to evacuate the losing team, and players either have to make it to extraction or destroy the ship before it takes off, depending on which side they’re on. This feature alone makes losing much less frustrating than in other FPS games. You can try to escape or defend your teammates to the bitter end.
- I’ll give some bonus points to the multiplayer for also having actually useful tooltips. Almost every time you die, you’ll get pointers on the function of the thing you used last before you died (weapons, Titans, ordnance), and given the complexity of the multiplayer sandbox, these actually help a lot when you’re using a new weapon. Like damn, how was I supposed to know the Gravity Star bends projectiles that travel around it?
Cons:
- Starting with the campaign, the narrative is nothing crazy and is pretty unremarkable. You get a Titan, go places, shoot some guys, and win the war. Oversimplified of course but that’s basically what it boils down to—the same as pretty much every other multiplayer-focused shooter’s campaign.
- It doesn’t have interesting characters either. Your protagonist and BT are only as interesting as a conversation between a random soldier and his giant pet killer robot can be. Everyone is completely one-note. All of the antagonists, save for maybe Blisk, are just random people that say some snarky thing then get obliterated. Par for the course.
- As for the multiplayer, while I wasn't lying when I said it was one of the best shooters on the market, actually getting into a match is a challenge in and of itself. The servers for this game are terrible, perhaps because Respawn (the developers) are dedicating all of them to host Apex Legends, which is their clear focus. At most, I can get three or four matches in before some network error kicks me to the main menu and prevents me from reconnecting for twenty minutes. (If you’re on PC, check out the Titanfall 2 Northstar Client, which is unofficial software that lets players mod their game and host their own servers.)
- And because of the server issues, if you try to play multiplayer outside of peak hours, you are not getting a full game. Still enough players to actually play the game, but you have to play at the right time. Again, a consequence of both bad servers and Respawn’s inattentiveness to hacking after Apex Legends came out.
- Titanfall 2 no longer gets updates, which means the weapons that were meta at the end of the game will be meta forever. The Spitfire (high ammo capacity machine gun) is the favorite gun of rooftops campers that forsake all movement in favor of their kill/death ratio, and the CAR (submachine gun with buffs while wallrunning) is basically the most used gun in the game for those high level players determined to prevent you from enjoying a match.
Objective rating: 4 stars
Subjective rating: 5 stars
(NOTE: I will be reviewing both the campaign and multiplayer, so this review might be a little longer than usual.)
Pros:
- Naturally, the standout feature of Titanfall 2 in both its campaign and multiplayer is its movement system. Players can wallrun, double jump, and slide all around the environment, picking up speed as they do so which then factors into their momentum. It’s fluid and sickeningly enjoyable, and I think Titanfall 2 handles it best for newcomers to the “movement shooter” genre. It's not hard at all to visualize and execute the most efficient (and stylish) route to a target, and the level and map design of course takes this into consideration.
- The Pilot (your soldier) gunplay is superb; you’ve got your standard automatic rifles, shotguns, submachine guns, and your more exotic…checks notes “rocket launcher that fires balls of arcing electricity.” Huh. Each weapon has its own quirks that give each one a distinct personality, for lack of a better term—the CAR is more accurate while wallrunning, the Flatline has ONLY horizontal recoil, the Cold War charges up bursts of energy grenades…I could go on.
- And of course…the Titans. Good lord. How much more badass can it get than calling a Titan down from orbit in real time, leaping into it in midair, and seamlessly transferring into “giant death robot” mode? The Titan loadouts are just as dope (perhaps more so) than the Pilot loadouts, featuring the likes of railguns (Northstar), massive swords (Ronin), thermite launchers (Scorch), shields that redirect projectiles (Ion), and massive salvos of missiles (Tone). I’ll get into them more when I talk about multiplayer.
- I’ll start with the campaign, where players take control of Militia Pilot Jack Cooper and his Titan BT-7274 as they attempt to stop the imperialistic IMC from activating a superweapon that will destroy the Militia planet of Harmony. The real magic of this campaign lies not in its narrative but its level design. As mentioned above, all of the levels are designed to incorporate as much wallrunning, sliding, and double jumping as physically possible, keeping the linear mission design engaging and providing lots of ways to approach a gunfight. Action set pieces are abundant, but unlike many other FPS games are unique enough to sustain player’s attention.
- Specific levels deserve a mention for their setpieces, though I won’t spoil them. “Into The Abyss” and “Effect and Cause” are notable for these level designs; the latter of those two even has a damn WIKIPEDIA page because of how unique its puzzle was for a first person shooter at the time of its release. And yeah, I can say I was blown away by that one when I first played it. It really is something you should experience if you’re tired of straightforward FPS games. “The Ark” (“Voodoo One, Viper on station, Your journey ends here, pilot.”) and “The Fold Weapon” (“Trust me.”) are also great missions to play through.
- I won’t go so far as to say the campaign has fantastic characters, because I would be lying to you. That being said, the interactions between Cooper and BT are pretty heartwarming and entertaining to see even if their personalities amount to “soldier” and “big robot”. For all its faults, the story does a great job of bonding you to your Titan, plus having a big robot buddy to keep you company as you mow down waves of enemies keeps things from feeling too monotonous.
- Now let’s move to Titanfall 2’s multiplayer, which is by far one of the best on the market right now (see cons for the tragic reality of this statement). The gunplay is largely the same from the campaign, albeit with a few new guns and “anti-Titan weapons” added, while movement is the same, save for the addition of an optional grapple ability that can latch onto walls, players, and enemy Titans.
- The Titan gameplay feels WAY more badass in the multiplayer, with more visceral executions, better control over abilities, and the ability to call in a Titanfall and have that big guy crush anything below it when it lands. I cannot stress how epic it is to call in a giant robot, watch it break the atmosphere, and slide under its legs and have it gently place you into its cockpit. Like, if that’s not sick to you I don’t know what to say.
- Both Pilots and Titans have access to the same loadouts from the campaign (except for Brute D:), but the multiplayer gets to do way cooler things than the campaign since it's not bound by story or anything. Pilots can ride on the back of friendly Titans, they can rodeo enemy Titan and steal their batteries to give to allied Titans, and Titans can eject their pilots upon being doomed (instead of just reloading the checkpoint when BT dies lol), either sending them out automatically with a stealth eject, or literally going full nuclear, blowing up and taking out anything around them.
- The premier game mode (and the only one you’ll ever get to play, see cons below) is Attrition, where AI grunts, Spectres, Stalkers, and Reapers (robot enemies also in the campaign) fight alongside players. This is hectic in a good way; even if you can’t kill any Pilots or Titans, you can still earn a score (a lot of it) from killing the AI enemies. And a win or loss isn’t the end of the match—a ship comes to evacuate the losing team, and players either have to make it to extraction or destroy the ship before it takes off, depending on which side they’re on. This feature alone makes losing much less frustrating than in other FPS games. You can try to escape or defend your teammates to the bitter end.
- I’ll give some bonus points to the multiplayer for also having actually useful tooltips. Almost every time you die, you’ll get pointers on the function of the thing you used last before you died (weapons, Titans, ordnance), and given the complexity of the multiplayer sandbox, these actually help a lot when you’re using a new weapon. Like damn, how was I supposed to know the Gravity Star bends projectiles that travel around it?
Cons:
- Starting with the campaign, the narrative is nothing crazy and is pretty unremarkable. You get a Titan, go places, shoot some guys, and win the war. Oversimplified of course but that’s basically what it boils down to—the same as pretty much every other multiplayer-focused shooter’s campaign.
- It doesn’t have interesting characters either. Your protagonist and BT are only as interesting as a conversation between a random soldier and his giant pet killer robot can be. Everyone is completely one-note. All of the antagonists, save for maybe Blisk, are just random people that say some snarky thing then get obliterated. Par for the course.
- As for the multiplayer, while I wasn't lying when I said it was one of the best shooters on the market, actually getting into a match is a challenge in and of itself. The servers for this game are terrible, perhaps because Respawn (the developers) are dedicating all of them to host Apex Legends, which is their clear focus. At most, I can get three or four matches in before some network error kicks me to the main menu and prevents me from reconnecting for twenty minutes. (If you’re on PC, check out the Titanfall 2 Northstar Client, which is unofficial software that lets players mod their game and host their own servers.)
- And because of the server issues, if you try to play multiplayer outside of peak hours, you are not getting a full game. Still enough players to actually play the game, but you have to play at the right time. Again, a consequence of both bad servers and Respawn’s inattentiveness to hacking after Apex Legends came out.
- Titanfall 2 no longer gets updates, which means the weapons that were meta at the end of the game will be meta forever. The Spitfire (high ammo capacity machine gun) is the favorite gun of rooftops campers that forsake all movement in favor of their kill/death ratio, and the CAR (submachine gun with buffs while wallrunning) is basically the most used gun in the game for those high level players determined to prevent you from enjoying a match.
Objective rating: 4 stars
Subjective rating: 5 stars
2023
The first time I played the Resident Evil 4 remake was when I tried out the demo to see what I would be getting into should I decide to purchase it. By the end of that first chapter, I was already sold. I knew there was no way this game could be uninteresting. It was literally impossible. And those feelings rang true as I made my way through the full release. Resident Evil 4 is some of the BEST gaming can get. There is just nothing else that needs to be said about it. It is FUN, with a capital F, U, and N. This game kicks MAJOR ASS, and I already want to buy more entries in the series. Consider me a diehard Resident Evil fan. In the interest of not making this short intro bit several paragraphs long (because I can absolutely GUSH about how much I loved this game), I’ll just get into it already.
Pros:
- The story…oh my god the story. I have legitimately never played a game that had me as excited for the next chapter as this game did. I have a policy of no major spoilers in my reviews, so sadly I will not be able to mention most of it in detail. I was on the edge of my damn seat for most, if not all, of my playthrough. Resident Evil 4 is not only packed with creative and action-heavy setpieces I would have never expected to find, but also doesn’t hold back when it comes to emotional moments. All the characters are likable in one way or another, and filled with intrigue that just makes you want to keep pushing forward to see what becomes of them next. I would list which chapters had my favorite moments, but at that point it might be more efficient to mention which chapters DIDN’T have cool moments. I think Chapter 9 might be my favorite for its…“alternate moveset”, if I may. But the final four chapters of the game are really hard to beat.
- I also really appreciated how “simple” the story is: US agent Leon Kennedy is here to save the president’s daughter, Ashley Graham, from the Los Illuminados cult in rural Spain. But these cultists are no normal wackjobs. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love a good story that’s deep and complex, but Resident Evil 4’s “simple” story makes it very easy for newcomers to get into the series, and allows players to focus on what’s happening right in front of them as opposed to how it fits into the grander picture.
- The dialogue of this game deserves special mention because of how it strikes a balance between being very emotionally charged (like when Leon talks about his duty to protect Ashley) and SUPER campy in the “action flick” style. This isn’t an insult in any way—Leon is utterly hilarious when he’s roundhouse kicking ganado villagers and complementing his fighting prowess to Ashley (or even no one in particular). Listening to the dialogue between Leon and Ashley was nothing short of entertaining; they have this chemistry that is plain to hear in their interactions, whether its Leon encouraging Ashley in moments of stress, or the two having some casual banter as Leon jumps across a chandelier in the castle (“Jumping across chandeliers? Who does that?” “What are you, my mother?”) There are too many good lines of dialogue to mention; it really leaves you wanting to see more of the pair even after the game is done. And on another note, these voice actors did an AMAZING job at portraying these characters. I have to give special mention to Ashley’s VA for NAILING her horrified screams whenever she’s carried away or the player dies.
- And of course, the CHARACTERS that deliver this dialogue are just as good as the dialogue itself. Leon is a fantastic protagonist that is not only enjoyable to listen to and play as, but has real trauma over his inability to protect someone (I didn’t play RE2 but that’s what I gathered) and carry out his mission. He not only sees his task of defending Ashley as a mission to be carried out, but as a second chance for him to redeem himself. This point comes to a head when he fights [REDACTED] in Chapter 14. Ashley’s character is no pushover either; from reading other reviews, I’ve gotten the impression that the RE4 remake really progressed her character into someone who is more than just a damsel in distress. She is an active agent in her own rescue, helping Leon out and coming to terms with her feelings in her predicament. I won’t say much about them because of spoilers, but the characters of Ada and especially Luis are also really interesting as well.
- And finally, we get to the part of the review where I actually talk about the gameplay. The gameplay in Resident Evil 4 is nothing short of epic. The combat is difficult but it never feels like the player is given a challenge they are unable to complete. Ammo and resources are given somewhat sparingly (but at steady intervals), which puts pressure on the player to make every shot count. That’s not to say the combat is slow paced—it’s methodical, but Leon needs to make split second decisions and choose his battles wisely if he’s going to survive. The gun (and knifeplay) feels weighty; enemies take several shots before they’re defeated, but their staggered and pained reactions to being shot ensures they don’t feel like bullet sponges. Melee takedowns are visceral and INCREDIBLY satisfying to pull off, especially when Leon’s roundhouse kick takes out several enemies at once.
- The enemies themselves are very well-designed. They carry a variety of different weapons and…appendages (some of which the player can parry to create an opening; that is most certainly also satisfying to do) and range from parasite-infected villagers to eldritch abominations that are legitimately horrifying to go up against. I’m looking at you, Regeneradors and Iron Maidens. Those enemies actually unnerve me. It’s hard to sum up every enemy’s behavior in one small paragraph because each one brings something else to the fight. Some are mild inconveniences to deal with, some are worthy adversaries, and some straight-up one shot Leon. They’re insanely fun to fight and play around.
- Having to protect Ashley during all of this adds a whole new dimension to the standard third-person shooter experience. She doesn’t feel at all like tacked-on weight. The player can command her to stick close to get past enemies quickly, stay back to avoid injury, or hide to remove her from the fight entirely. Her AI is very good; not once did I feel like she was in the way. Resident Evil 4 even implemented a “ducking” mechanic, where if Leon aims her gun at an enemy behind her, she will duck so that he can fire with a clear shot. This was insanely cool to see in action. Outside of combat, she can help Leon open locked doors, squeeze through tight spaces, and boost him to higher floors, so even when combat is sparse, she is well-integrated into the game. And as I mentioned above, she has a great character, so at no point did I feel like she was a burden to protect. I’d also like to mention Chapters 7 (defense from a distance) and 14 (wrecking ball) for having fun setpieces that took full advantage of the protection system.
- Lucky me got to experience Resident Evil 4 on my Xbox Series X, and it looks absolutely AMAZING. Like, holy ambience. The environments are insanely detailed and do a great job at setting the tense and overwhelming mood that just encourages players to dive deeper into the nightmare. The animations are very cool too; some of my favorite little details include Leon holding his pistol canted when he’s fighting in close quarters (a real thing some people do), Leon checking the chamber of his weapons if he hasn’t drawn them for a while, and Leon stumbling if he runs into the side of a wall. The music and sound design is also spot on; as you walk through decrepit buildings, you’ll hear the creaking of floorboards, trash and plants shifting as you step, and the echoes of distant enemies reciting their mantras. Incredibly atmospheric…and best played at night!
Cons:
- I’m gonna be honest, I can’t think of anything really worth mentioning here, which is a pro in and of itself. I’ve got three nitpicks though, none of which take anything away from this amazing experience. First off, Ashley never gets a single speck of dirt or blood on her despite trudging through mud and water and getting picked up by sweaty, parasite-infested men twice her size. It’s noticeable but not a big deal in the slightest. I actually think it's kind of funny. Maybe Leon is just that good at protecting her? Second is that the minecart section in Chapter 11 doesn’t have any music. I don’t know if it was a bug or intentional, but that scene would have definitely been enhanced with a banging soundtrack. And then finally, the catapult section in Chapter 7 can go fuck itself. That was the only time I got legitimately frustrated with this game. As soon as you get up from the impact of one catapult, another hits you. That’s probably a skill issue though.
Objective rating: 5 stars
Subjective rating: 5 stars
Pros:
- The story…oh my god the story. I have legitimately never played a game that had me as excited for the next chapter as this game did. I have a policy of no major spoilers in my reviews, so sadly I will not be able to mention most of it in detail. I was on the edge of my damn seat for most, if not all, of my playthrough. Resident Evil 4 is not only packed with creative and action-heavy setpieces I would have never expected to find, but also doesn’t hold back when it comes to emotional moments. All the characters are likable in one way or another, and filled with intrigue that just makes you want to keep pushing forward to see what becomes of them next. I would list which chapters had my favorite moments, but at that point it might be more efficient to mention which chapters DIDN’T have cool moments. I think Chapter 9 might be my favorite for its…“alternate moveset”, if I may. But the final four chapters of the game are really hard to beat.
- I also really appreciated how “simple” the story is: US agent Leon Kennedy is here to save the president’s daughter, Ashley Graham, from the Los Illuminados cult in rural Spain. But these cultists are no normal wackjobs. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love a good story that’s deep and complex, but Resident Evil 4’s “simple” story makes it very easy for newcomers to get into the series, and allows players to focus on what’s happening right in front of them as opposed to how it fits into the grander picture.
- The dialogue of this game deserves special mention because of how it strikes a balance between being very emotionally charged (like when Leon talks about his duty to protect Ashley) and SUPER campy in the “action flick” style. This isn’t an insult in any way—Leon is utterly hilarious when he’s roundhouse kicking ganado villagers and complementing his fighting prowess to Ashley (or even no one in particular). Listening to the dialogue between Leon and Ashley was nothing short of entertaining; they have this chemistry that is plain to hear in their interactions, whether its Leon encouraging Ashley in moments of stress, or the two having some casual banter as Leon jumps across a chandelier in the castle (“Jumping across chandeliers? Who does that?” “What are you, my mother?”) There are too many good lines of dialogue to mention; it really leaves you wanting to see more of the pair even after the game is done. And on another note, these voice actors did an AMAZING job at portraying these characters. I have to give special mention to Ashley’s VA for NAILING her horrified screams whenever she’s carried away or the player dies.
- And of course, the CHARACTERS that deliver this dialogue are just as good as the dialogue itself. Leon is a fantastic protagonist that is not only enjoyable to listen to and play as, but has real trauma over his inability to protect someone (I didn’t play RE2 but that’s what I gathered) and carry out his mission. He not only sees his task of defending Ashley as a mission to be carried out, but as a second chance for him to redeem himself. This point comes to a head when he fights [REDACTED] in Chapter 14. Ashley’s character is no pushover either; from reading other reviews, I’ve gotten the impression that the RE4 remake really progressed her character into someone who is more than just a damsel in distress. She is an active agent in her own rescue, helping Leon out and coming to terms with her feelings in her predicament. I won’t say much about them because of spoilers, but the characters of Ada and especially Luis are also really interesting as well.
- And finally, we get to the part of the review where I actually talk about the gameplay. The gameplay in Resident Evil 4 is nothing short of epic. The combat is difficult but it never feels like the player is given a challenge they are unable to complete. Ammo and resources are given somewhat sparingly (but at steady intervals), which puts pressure on the player to make every shot count. That’s not to say the combat is slow paced—it’s methodical, but Leon needs to make split second decisions and choose his battles wisely if he’s going to survive. The gun (and knifeplay) feels weighty; enemies take several shots before they’re defeated, but their staggered and pained reactions to being shot ensures they don’t feel like bullet sponges. Melee takedowns are visceral and INCREDIBLY satisfying to pull off, especially when Leon’s roundhouse kick takes out several enemies at once.
- The enemies themselves are very well-designed. They carry a variety of different weapons and…appendages (some of which the player can parry to create an opening; that is most certainly also satisfying to do) and range from parasite-infected villagers to eldritch abominations that are legitimately horrifying to go up against. I’m looking at you, Regeneradors and Iron Maidens. Those enemies actually unnerve me. It’s hard to sum up every enemy’s behavior in one small paragraph because each one brings something else to the fight. Some are mild inconveniences to deal with, some are worthy adversaries, and some straight-up one shot Leon. They’re insanely fun to fight and play around.
- Having to protect Ashley during all of this adds a whole new dimension to the standard third-person shooter experience. She doesn’t feel at all like tacked-on weight. The player can command her to stick close to get past enemies quickly, stay back to avoid injury, or hide to remove her from the fight entirely. Her AI is very good; not once did I feel like she was in the way. Resident Evil 4 even implemented a “ducking” mechanic, where if Leon aims her gun at an enemy behind her, she will duck so that he can fire with a clear shot. This was insanely cool to see in action. Outside of combat, she can help Leon open locked doors, squeeze through tight spaces, and boost him to higher floors, so even when combat is sparse, she is well-integrated into the game. And as I mentioned above, she has a great character, so at no point did I feel like she was a burden to protect. I’d also like to mention Chapters 7 (defense from a distance) and 14 (wrecking ball) for having fun setpieces that took full advantage of the protection system.
- Lucky me got to experience Resident Evil 4 on my Xbox Series X, and it looks absolutely AMAZING. Like, holy ambience. The environments are insanely detailed and do a great job at setting the tense and overwhelming mood that just encourages players to dive deeper into the nightmare. The animations are very cool too; some of my favorite little details include Leon holding his pistol canted when he’s fighting in close quarters (a real thing some people do), Leon checking the chamber of his weapons if he hasn’t drawn them for a while, and Leon stumbling if he runs into the side of a wall. The music and sound design is also spot on; as you walk through decrepit buildings, you’ll hear the creaking of floorboards, trash and plants shifting as you step, and the echoes of distant enemies reciting their mantras. Incredibly atmospheric…and best played at night!
Cons:
- I’m gonna be honest, I can’t think of anything really worth mentioning here, which is a pro in and of itself. I’ve got three nitpicks though, none of which take anything away from this amazing experience. First off, Ashley never gets a single speck of dirt or blood on her despite trudging through mud and water and getting picked up by sweaty, parasite-infested men twice her size. It’s noticeable but not a big deal in the slightest. I actually think it's kind of funny. Maybe Leon is just that good at protecting her? Second is that the minecart section in Chapter 11 doesn’t have any music. I don’t know if it was a bug or intentional, but that scene would have definitely been enhanced with a banging soundtrack. And then finally, the catapult section in Chapter 7 can go fuck itself. That was the only time I got legitimately frustrated with this game. As soon as you get up from the impact of one catapult, another hits you. That’s probably a skill issue though.
Objective rating: 5 stars
Subjective rating: 5 stars
2017
This game marks one of the first steps into an almost untouched genre for me—that of the 3D platformer, of which I have played…hmm… Does Skylanders count? Anyway, I wanted to start with a game that I heard a lot about a few years ago via smug dancing memes, A Hat In Time. I wasn’t confident I was going to like a game that played so differently than what I was used to, but I ended up having a lot more fun than I anticipated. I’m not sure if it completely sold me on the genre, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.
(NOTE: My copy of the game came bundled with the first DLC, Seal the Deal, and thus I will mention content from there in my review.)
Pros:
- Save for a few reservations that I’ll discuss in the cons section, by and large the gameplay and traversal is incredibly fun. I don’t really know how to review platforming movement systems, so all I can really say is that it's very smooth. From chaining sprint jumps, dive canceling, bouncing on tightropes, and swinging around with the hookshot getting around quickly and in style felt really satisfying. This is helped along by Hat Kid’s (the protagonist's) animations–she’s very light on her feet, bouncing around as she runs and doing back and front flips like it’s nobody’s business.
- The story of A Hat in Time is simple but pretty nice: Hat Kid’s spaceship crashes on her way home, and she loses the ‘Time Pieces’ she needs to fuel her return trip, so she descends to the nearest planet to retrieve them. Along the way she encounters a strangely seedy cast of characters and finds herself in a surprising amount of crimes (more on this below). It's not a mindblowing plot by any means, but it is very entertaining and allowed the developers to go all in with crazy ideas for their levels.
- The level design the story enables is the real magic of this game. Each Act has its own distinct charm, and while I liked some more than others (Subcon Forest is my favorite), all of them were really fun to play. I won’t explicitly spoil anything, so if you know, you know. From a murder mystery in Dead Bird Studio (“What would your pet’s pet name be?”), to a horror game in Subcon Forest (that balloon popping on the candle…), the free roam wonder of Alpine Skyline, and managing swaying dishes in Arctic Cruise with some…gentle pressure, it all adds so much flavor to the gameplay which I’m glad was more than just hopping around and parkour.
- The type of humor Gears For Breakfast aimed for with this game is peak. The juxtaposition between a silly, adorable child, working with the mafia (AND the yakuza if you own DLC), finding loopholes in legal contracts, fighting people using ACTUAL LETHAL FORCE using bombs and knives, breaking into secure locations (and wrack up one hell of a bill), intentionally sinking a cruise ship, and benefiting from what amounts to a suicide pact (exaggerating for effect; I’m talking about the final boss fight)...all with a dumb smile? Utterly surreal.
- The characters also make the humor rise even higher. It’s as if none of them are aware of how bizarre the circumstances they find themselves in are. The Mafia of Cooks (NPCs in Act 1) talk about completely mundane things like catching their favorite TV shows despite ostensibly being violent criminals. DJ Grooves being completely oblivious to the Conductor’s animosity (Those two are in Act 2), and the extremely cute but HORRIFYINGLY stupid seals in Act 6 (Arctic Cruise, the first DLC). Hat Kid herself is also really funny, shown by her diary entries in her secret lair (I’m not telling you where it is), and her emotes.
- The highlight in this category is indisputably the Snatcher, the main NPC in Act 3 (Subcon Forest). He’s hilariously over the top; the voice actor absolutely crushed it. I will never get tired of him making fun of Hat Kid for agreeing to do anything he says, and getting all sad when he realizes she will not be stopped by his increasingly difficult demands. Certainly my favorite character, and he made Subcon Forest my favorite chapter despite its difficult platforming. His best line is definitely his introduction “AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…FOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!!!
- The soundtrack is pretty good as well, not my favorite but definitely not my least favorite of the games I’ve played recently. The composer is very good at setting the mood for each stage. The best track for me is the final boss fight battle theme (You Are All Bad Guys). Slaps super hard.
- A Hat In Time gets bonus points from me for having the most unexpectedly hilarious ending of any game I’ve ever played. Please do yourself a favor and avoid spoilers for it because it had me HOWLING with laughter. Hat Kid is actually super based.
Cons:
- By far most of my annoyance with this game came with some of the platforming mechanics that I felt were a bit too restrictive. After doing a wall-climb, you can only jump backwards and not to the side, which I don’t think makes much sense and limits successful use of the wall-climb to specific circumstances. I also think mantling onto something should move you ON TOP of it rather than OVER it. Most of the time, it just took me from one side of a small platform to the other side, sending me back to the floor. Also, you can only dive in the direction you’re standing, and not the direction you are looking, forcing you to move the camera quickly if you’re trying to dive or dive cancel out of a sudden fall. Finally, bouncing when you hit the ground after catching fire, while amusing to look at, often just prevents you from maneuvering out of the way and causing you to take more damage.
- Some other gameplay aspects also rubbed me the wrong way. Time Rifts (small platforming minigames whose entrances are found within levels) force you back to the hub upon completion instead of dropping you back into the level you entered them from, forcing you to reload the level if you want to look for more. Also, in some of the boss fights, dialogue forces you out of the action by stopping the gameplay, as opposed to playing dialogue as the fight continues. This was especially jarring in the final boss fight, which had the longest piece of dialogue for a fight. Finally, one of the strangest design choices is how levels cannot be completed in their numbered order because the items needed to complete them are found in later Acts. Why even number them then?
- The design of the game is great, but something about the graphics hurts my eyes with HDR. I think it's the vibrancy of all the colors, combined with the simple palette and lack of complex shadows. Lowering the brightness helped, so it's not really that much of an issue if you just go to the settings. The performance being 30 frames by default also sucked, but again, this can be solved with
- I know it’s an indie game, but I did feel a bit underwhelmed with A Hat In Time’s length. The story was very entertaining with its humor, but I think it would have been a lot better if we saw some of the backstory of its various characters sprinkled into some of the main levels instead of being relegated to small comics unlockable in the Time Rifts. Most of the time I spent playing this game was mostly looking for collectables instead of doing the actual story.
Objective rating: 4 stars
Subjective rating: 4.5 stars
(NOTE: My copy of the game came bundled with the first DLC, Seal the Deal, and thus I will mention content from there in my review.)
Pros:
- Save for a few reservations that I’ll discuss in the cons section, by and large the gameplay and traversal is incredibly fun. I don’t really know how to review platforming movement systems, so all I can really say is that it's very smooth. From chaining sprint jumps, dive canceling, bouncing on tightropes, and swinging around with the hookshot getting around quickly and in style felt really satisfying. This is helped along by Hat Kid’s (the protagonist's) animations–she’s very light on her feet, bouncing around as she runs and doing back and front flips like it’s nobody’s business.
- The story of A Hat in Time is simple but pretty nice: Hat Kid’s spaceship crashes on her way home, and she loses the ‘Time Pieces’ she needs to fuel her return trip, so she descends to the nearest planet to retrieve them. Along the way she encounters a strangely seedy cast of characters and finds herself in a surprising amount of crimes (more on this below). It's not a mindblowing plot by any means, but it is very entertaining and allowed the developers to go all in with crazy ideas for their levels.
- The level design the story enables is the real magic of this game. Each Act has its own distinct charm, and while I liked some more than others (Subcon Forest is my favorite), all of them were really fun to play. I won’t explicitly spoil anything, so if you know, you know. From a murder mystery in Dead Bird Studio (“What would your pet’s pet name be?”), to a horror game in Subcon Forest (that balloon popping on the candle…), the free roam wonder of Alpine Skyline, and managing swaying dishes in Arctic Cruise with some…gentle pressure, it all adds so much flavor to the gameplay which I’m glad was more than just hopping around and parkour.
- The type of humor Gears For Breakfast aimed for with this game is peak. The juxtaposition between a silly, adorable child, working with the mafia (AND the yakuza if you own DLC), finding loopholes in legal contracts, fighting people using ACTUAL LETHAL FORCE using bombs and knives, breaking into secure locations (and wrack up one hell of a bill), intentionally sinking a cruise ship, and benefiting from what amounts to a suicide pact (exaggerating for effect; I’m talking about the final boss fight)...all with a dumb smile? Utterly surreal.
- The characters also make the humor rise even higher. It’s as if none of them are aware of how bizarre the circumstances they find themselves in are. The Mafia of Cooks (NPCs in Act 1) talk about completely mundane things like catching their favorite TV shows despite ostensibly being violent criminals. DJ Grooves being completely oblivious to the Conductor’s animosity (Those two are in Act 2), and the extremely cute but HORRIFYINGLY stupid seals in Act 6 (Arctic Cruise, the first DLC). Hat Kid herself is also really funny, shown by her diary entries in her secret lair (I’m not telling you where it is), and her emotes.
- The highlight in this category is indisputably the Snatcher, the main NPC in Act 3 (Subcon Forest). He’s hilariously over the top; the voice actor absolutely crushed it. I will never get tired of him making fun of Hat Kid for agreeing to do anything he says, and getting all sad when he realizes she will not be stopped by his increasingly difficult demands. Certainly my favorite character, and he made Subcon Forest my favorite chapter despite its difficult platforming. His best line is definitely his introduction “AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…FOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!!!
- The soundtrack is pretty good as well, not my favorite but definitely not my least favorite of the games I’ve played recently. The composer is very good at setting the mood for each stage. The best track for me is the final boss fight battle theme (You Are All Bad Guys). Slaps super hard.
- A Hat In Time gets bonus points from me for having the most unexpectedly hilarious ending of any game I’ve ever played. Please do yourself a favor and avoid spoilers for it because it had me HOWLING with laughter. Hat Kid is actually super based.
Cons:
- By far most of my annoyance with this game came with some of the platforming mechanics that I felt were a bit too restrictive. After doing a wall-climb, you can only jump backwards and not to the side, which I don’t think makes much sense and limits successful use of the wall-climb to specific circumstances. I also think mantling onto something should move you ON TOP of it rather than OVER it. Most of the time, it just took me from one side of a small platform to the other side, sending me back to the floor. Also, you can only dive in the direction you’re standing, and not the direction you are looking, forcing you to move the camera quickly if you’re trying to dive or dive cancel out of a sudden fall. Finally, bouncing when you hit the ground after catching fire, while amusing to look at, often just prevents you from maneuvering out of the way and causing you to take more damage.
- Some other gameplay aspects also rubbed me the wrong way. Time Rifts (small platforming minigames whose entrances are found within levels) force you back to the hub upon completion instead of dropping you back into the level you entered them from, forcing you to reload the level if you want to look for more. Also, in some of the boss fights, dialogue forces you out of the action by stopping the gameplay, as opposed to playing dialogue as the fight continues. This was especially jarring in the final boss fight, which had the longest piece of dialogue for a fight. Finally, one of the strangest design choices is how levels cannot be completed in their numbered order because the items needed to complete them are found in later Acts. Why even number them then?
- The design of the game is great, but something about the graphics hurts my eyes with HDR. I think it's the vibrancy of all the colors, combined with the simple palette and lack of complex shadows. Lowering the brightness helped, so it's not really that much of an issue if you just go to the settings. The performance being 30 frames by default also sucked, but again, this can be solved with
- I know it’s an indie game, but I did feel a bit underwhelmed with A Hat In Time’s length. The story was very entertaining with its humor, but I think it would have been a lot better if we saw some of the backstory of its various characters sprinkled into some of the main levels instead of being relegated to small comics unlockable in the Time Rifts. Most of the time I spent playing this game was mostly looking for collectables instead of doing the actual story.
Objective rating: 4 stars
Subjective rating: 4.5 stars
2023
After a month or three of solely playing games that I had bought physically, I decided it was time to put my Xbox Game Pass subscription to good use and try out one of the indie games that recently released on it. Dordogne was that game; it looked pretty interesting and very beautiful, and I felt optimistic that I would enjoy it. That did not turn out to be true, despite how much I tried. Unfortunately, this game is very middling, and dare I say, not worth playing. Like so many bad indie games, Dordogne is a solid idea executed poorly, and is perhaps a story better fit for a different medium. But even then, I have my doubts.
Pros:
- The watercolor-inspired artstyle is the main aspect of Dordogne that drew me in, and in an ocean of questionable design decisions, I can safely say this is not one of them. It is an indisputable FACT that this game is absolutely gorgeous, and that might be one of the only reasons I continued to play it. It is a shame that the artists that designed Dordogne’s environments weren’t working on a better game. The art is very unique and works great with the fixed-perspective 3D; the kayaking segments and the marketplace have to be my favorite environments.
- I feel like I praise this in every game, but the music is wonderful. It’s this ambient, contemplative electropop soundtrack that suits a game about discovering lost memories. It's relaxing and for lack of a better phrase, almost gets you lost in thought. Supernaive and the other composers did a fantastic job, and even if you don’t play the game, the OST might be worth a listen if you like the genre. Currents is the best track by the way.
- The only story-related thing that I will praise is Chapter 7. While the gameplay is just as clunky as the rest of the game (see below), the visuals and music reached their peak for me at this point.
Cons:
- The premise for Dordogne is fine, but its presentation is slow and fails to hit the emotional beats it tried to build up. It follows the protagonist Mimi as she unearths summer memories from her childhood in her late grandmother’s house. The story progresses as Mimi finds items that then send the player back into their associated memories, as they try to piece together what exactly happened that summer. The thing is that there is little concern with the supposed mystery of that summer’s events, and instead the game seems to speed past that in favor of presenting a feel-good, slice-of-life-style sequence of outings…of which there are not enough to really establish a connection with the characters.
- There’s nothing special about the dialogue or voice acting either, which doesn’t help the lack of emotion this game brings. And Dordogne ends SUPER abruptly too, right after I was beginning to think the story was getting more interesting. I was left thinking “that’s it?” I’m not going to pretend that games need to have hyper-complex characters to be interesting, but the characters in this game aren’t anything crazy. The most I was able to learn about some of them was in a few scattered letters between family members, which I kept thinking would be addressed in the main narrative, to no avail.
- The gameplay itself might be the worst part, which is why I said that Dordogne might be a story better told in a different medium—like a short film or web series–or at the very least, a different game genre (like a visual novel). Gameplay actions in this game are unreasonably contrived. Opening a jar with a book in it consisted of:
1. clicking and dragging to flip the jar lid open
2. clicking and dragging on three items to take out each of them individually
3. clicking on the book to open it, then clicking and dragging to turn EACH PAGE to flip to what I needed
It felt as if gameplay segments like this were added solely to ensure this could actually be sold as a ‘video game’ and not a ‘cutscene simulator.’ There were a few other minigames here and there, but nothing really worth mentioning save for the kayaking segments I mentioned earlier, which I thought were pretty nice.
- Complementing the lackluster gameplay is an admittedly interesting idea, where past Mimi gets to make scrapbook pages using poems, photographs, tape recordings, and stickers. Unfortunately, finding these poems and stickers amounts to wandering around the same game space each chapter, hoping you’ll stumble upon the indicator that one lies nearby.
- Acquiring the photographs and tape recordings is marginally more interesting, since the player is free to aim around and look for good scenes to capture, but the opportunities to do this are few and far between, and limited to only a handful of areas. The scrapbooking itself isn’t terrible (the poem fragments were pretty well-written), but you can’t even view the completed scrapbook once the game concludes, just the final page you made.
Objective rating: 2 stars
Subjective rating: 2.5 stars
Pros:
- The watercolor-inspired artstyle is the main aspect of Dordogne that drew me in, and in an ocean of questionable design decisions, I can safely say this is not one of them. It is an indisputable FACT that this game is absolutely gorgeous, and that might be one of the only reasons I continued to play it. It is a shame that the artists that designed Dordogne’s environments weren’t working on a better game. The art is very unique and works great with the fixed-perspective 3D; the kayaking segments and the marketplace have to be my favorite environments.
- I feel like I praise this in every game, but the music is wonderful. It’s this ambient, contemplative electropop soundtrack that suits a game about discovering lost memories. It's relaxing and for lack of a better phrase, almost gets you lost in thought. Supernaive and the other composers did a fantastic job, and even if you don’t play the game, the OST might be worth a listen if you like the genre. Currents is the best track by the way.
- The only story-related thing that I will praise is Chapter 7. While the gameplay is just as clunky as the rest of the game (see below), the visuals and music reached their peak for me at this point.
Cons:
- The premise for Dordogne is fine, but its presentation is slow and fails to hit the emotional beats it tried to build up. It follows the protagonist Mimi as she unearths summer memories from her childhood in her late grandmother’s house. The story progresses as Mimi finds items that then send the player back into their associated memories, as they try to piece together what exactly happened that summer. The thing is that there is little concern with the supposed mystery of that summer’s events, and instead the game seems to speed past that in favor of presenting a feel-good, slice-of-life-style sequence of outings…of which there are not enough to really establish a connection with the characters.
- There’s nothing special about the dialogue or voice acting either, which doesn’t help the lack of emotion this game brings. And Dordogne ends SUPER abruptly too, right after I was beginning to think the story was getting more interesting. I was left thinking “that’s it?” I’m not going to pretend that games need to have hyper-complex characters to be interesting, but the characters in this game aren’t anything crazy. The most I was able to learn about some of them was in a few scattered letters between family members, which I kept thinking would be addressed in the main narrative, to no avail.
- The gameplay itself might be the worst part, which is why I said that Dordogne might be a story better told in a different medium—like a short film or web series–or at the very least, a different game genre (like a visual novel). Gameplay actions in this game are unreasonably contrived. Opening a jar with a book in it consisted of:
1. clicking and dragging to flip the jar lid open
2. clicking and dragging on three items to take out each of them individually
3. clicking on the book to open it, then clicking and dragging to turn EACH PAGE to flip to what I needed
It felt as if gameplay segments like this were added solely to ensure this could actually be sold as a ‘video game’ and not a ‘cutscene simulator.’ There were a few other minigames here and there, but nothing really worth mentioning save for the kayaking segments I mentioned earlier, which I thought were pretty nice.
- Complementing the lackluster gameplay is an admittedly interesting idea, where past Mimi gets to make scrapbook pages using poems, photographs, tape recordings, and stickers. Unfortunately, finding these poems and stickers amounts to wandering around the same game space each chapter, hoping you’ll stumble upon the indicator that one lies nearby.
- Acquiring the photographs and tape recordings is marginally more interesting, since the player is free to aim around and look for good scenes to capture, but the opportunities to do this are few and far between, and limited to only a handful of areas. The scrapbooking itself isn’t terrible (the poem fragments were pretty well-written), but you can’t even view the completed scrapbook once the game concludes, just the final page you made.
Objective rating: 2 stars
Subjective rating: 2.5 stars