NightDuck
Excellent story about how much you do and do not know about internet friends you have known for a long time.
Its a gacha game without micro transactions, which means it's an incredibly good gameplay loop that lets you grind forever in a good way!
It reminds me of Xenoblade Chronicles X because of the freeform exploration with a ridiculously high floaty jump, but I like the combat and enemy designs way more, and it's way, way less tedious to progress!
I think the game has a good balance between 1) having varied gameplay styles for the different characters that all have some mechanic to keep you on your toes in combat and 2) letting you turn down the difficulty or grind to over level almost any mission. That is a really difficult balance that very few games are able to pull off.
I like the idea of the side story arcs for each character (Fate episodes), even though I don't particularly like any of the ones I have seen so far.
It reminds me of Xenoblade Chronicles X because of the freeform exploration with a ridiculously high floaty jump, but I like the combat and enemy designs way more, and it's way, way less tedious to progress!
I think the game has a good balance between 1) having varied gameplay styles for the different characters that all have some mechanic to keep you on your toes in combat and 2) letting you turn down the difficulty or grind to over level almost any mission. That is a really difficult balance that very few games are able to pull off.
I like the idea of the side story arcs for each character (Fate episodes), even though I don't particularly like any of the ones I have seen so far.
This review contains spoilers
The gameplay is a neat idea that is weird at first, but feels good and makes sense once you get used to it. I like the structure of the challenges (way more straightforward than in Theatrhythm) and I think the difficulty ramps up at a reasonable pace.
However, I hated the ending so much and it dragged everything down for me. They have Kairi on the front cover, but you can only play as her for 1/3 of the final level, and then she gets her ass kicked embarrassingly in a cutscene, so you can fight Xehanort as Sora. Again. And then the epilogue is to setup that she probably won't be in the next game?! Square truly hates Kairi so much, I don't understand why they can't just let her be a character that does stuff, like Axel, or Leon, or Riku's Meow Wow.
However, I hated the ending so much and it dragged everything down for me. They have Kairi on the front cover, but you can only play as her for 1/3 of the final level, and then she gets her ass kicked embarrassingly in a cutscene, so you can fight Xehanort as Sora. Again. And then the epilogue is to setup that she probably won't be in the next game?! Square truly hates Kairi so much, I don't understand why they can't just let her be a character that does stuff, like Axel, or Leon, or Riku's Meow Wow.
2023
This review contains spoilers
Forspoken is like Twilight in that there's a lot of serious, legitimate complaints about it, but they're all overshadowed in mainstream discourse by people hating it because the lead is a teenage girl.
Legitimate criticisms:
• SE has the worst fucking marketing department in the world. Not just this game, they have been so bad at marketing literally every game over the past few years. They picked by far the worst dialogue in the game for that trailer and didn't include anything from the first 20 min, which is far more interesting?! Also, the trailer made the game seem super PG when this is an M-rated game and the intro is dour and gritty?! Most of the game takes itself very seriously and Fray is serious and mature in a lot of scenes, the banter stuff is mostly just when it's her and Cuff alone and I actually didn't think it felt grating or cringe.
• This is a story about a black woman in NYC who is an orphan and a repeat offender, who avoids major jail time because the black woman judge decides to give her a second chance. This is explicitly a story about American blackness, but they didn't have a single black writer working on the game. I like that premise for an isekai and there are a lot of interesting possibilities there, but an affluent white writer is absolutely not the right person to tell that story!
• The "twist" and ending are infuriating because you can tell the writers think they're so fucking clever, but it's obvious, cliche, and dodges all of the difficult and interesting aspects of the story to do a boring "The power was within you all along" happy ending. Things not addressed: Tanta Cinta thought New York City in 2001 was the most peaceful and wonderful place on earth? And nothing happened around then to change that perspective? Frey's dad didn't take care of her and didn't have any friends/family to take care of her either? Is that because he died in 9/11 around the same time the corruption started in Athia?! If the premise for your game is that this fantasy apocalypse happened at the same time as 9/11, why don't you address that?!
• Reading the archive entries after the fact, they directly tell you that the Rheddig invaded Athia and found Susurrus, a demon defeated by the first Tanta, locked away in the Locked Labyrinths and considered him a hidden super weapon, so they freed him as they were retreating after losing the war. That's an interesting and reasonable story and it's fitting that Frey has to seal Susurrus away again, like the first Tanta did, and like the 4 Tantas were unable to do. However, in the dialogue in the story quests, the Tantas say they started the war with the Rheddig (no reason given) and wiped them from the face of the Earth and then Susurrus implies he's the last of the Rheddig and doing this to get revenge for them? What the fuck?! You absolutely cannot say that the victims of ethnic cleansing are in the wrong in your story!!! Why is there such a huge disconnect between these two things?! The first makes Frey wearing Cuff again seem like a fun "Devil on your shoulder" frenemies thing (which is the tone they want for him), but the second feels like you're enslaving the last person of the race your mom genocided, which is extremely fucked up.
Gameplay:
• The magic parkour feels like Jet Set Radio Fantasy, which makes me wish Cuff was more like Professor K.
• The combat clicked for me when I encountered a horde of 20-30 zombies. There were so many of them that the AOE and crowd control aspects of the spells really shone.
• The combat and movement absolutely rule once you get a feel for it. Circle-strafing enemies and holding O to automatically dodge attacks feels so good when you're cartwheeling through the air while shooting a machine gun behind your back. Cycling through spells to put them all on cooldown makes me feel really cool and smart, even though it's not that complex to do and I'm not using that much strategy.
Legitimate criticisms:
• SE has the worst fucking marketing department in the world. Not just this game, they have been so bad at marketing literally every game over the past few years. They picked by far the worst dialogue in the game for that trailer and didn't include anything from the first 20 min, which is far more interesting?! Also, the trailer made the game seem super PG when this is an M-rated game and the intro is dour and gritty?! Most of the game takes itself very seriously and Fray is serious and mature in a lot of scenes, the banter stuff is mostly just when it's her and Cuff alone and I actually didn't think it felt grating or cringe.
• This is a story about a black woman in NYC who is an orphan and a repeat offender, who avoids major jail time because the black woman judge decides to give her a second chance. This is explicitly a story about American blackness, but they didn't have a single black writer working on the game. I like that premise for an isekai and there are a lot of interesting possibilities there, but an affluent white writer is absolutely not the right person to tell that story!
• The "twist" and ending are infuriating because you can tell the writers think they're so fucking clever, but it's obvious, cliche, and dodges all of the difficult and interesting aspects of the story to do a boring "The power was within you all along" happy ending. Things not addressed: Tanta Cinta thought New York City in 2001 was the most peaceful and wonderful place on earth? And nothing happened around then to change that perspective? Frey's dad didn't take care of her and didn't have any friends/family to take care of her either? Is that because he died in 9/11 around the same time the corruption started in Athia?! If the premise for your game is that this fantasy apocalypse happened at the same time as 9/11, why don't you address that?!
• Reading the archive entries after the fact, they directly tell you that the Rheddig invaded Athia and found Susurrus, a demon defeated by the first Tanta, locked away in the Locked Labyrinths and considered him a hidden super weapon, so they freed him as they were retreating after losing the war. That's an interesting and reasonable story and it's fitting that Frey has to seal Susurrus away again, like the first Tanta did, and like the 4 Tantas were unable to do. However, in the dialogue in the story quests, the Tantas say they started the war with the Rheddig (no reason given) and wiped them from the face of the Earth and then Susurrus implies he's the last of the Rheddig and doing this to get revenge for them? What the fuck?! You absolutely cannot say that the victims of ethnic cleansing are in the wrong in your story!!! Why is there such a huge disconnect between these two things?! The first makes Frey wearing Cuff again seem like a fun "Devil on your shoulder" frenemies thing (which is the tone they want for him), but the second feels like you're enslaving the last person of the race your mom genocided, which is extremely fucked up.
Gameplay:
• The magic parkour feels like Jet Set Radio Fantasy, which makes me wish Cuff was more like Professor K.
• The combat clicked for me when I encountered a horde of 20-30 zombies. There were so many of them that the AOE and crowd control aspects of the spells really shone.
• The combat and movement absolutely rule once you get a feel for it. Circle-strafing enemies and holding O to automatically dodge attacks feels so good when you're cartwheeling through the air while shooting a machine gun behind your back. Cycling through spells to put them all on cooldown makes me feel really cool and smart, even though it's not that complex to do and I'm not using that much strategy.
2020
They radically changed the aesthetic and lighting (which was the best part of the original), but kept all the mechanics identical (which is the weakest part). This version doesn't look good, it looks expensive.
2016
Yes, this is one of the biggest examples of the 2010s trend of needlessly turning existing franchises into open world games. Yes, it doesn't look great on PS4 or run great on Vita. Yes, combat often devolves into mashing your special attack button. However, I still really really like this game. I think the weapons are cool and varied, there's a good amount of mechanics to manage, and a good variety of viable builds.
I think this game would be more popular/ more people would know it even exists if:
1) Monster Hunter World didn't come out less than a year later and blow every other hunting game out of the water
2) KT ever put there games on sale literally ever. Seriously, why is this game still so expensive.
I think this game would be more popular/ more people would know it even exists if:
1) Monster Hunter World didn't come out less than a year later and blow every other hunting game out of the water
2) KT ever put there games on sale literally ever. Seriously, why is this game still so expensive.
I like this as a game design 101 and I like that Sony is somehow supporting small educational games like this, but I don't agree with the conclusions.
I don't think SotC is that good for the same reasons the narrator complains about explicit systems: there's only a single solution available to the player in order to progress. The final boss (and SotC) don't allow much player expression: the only way to win is to stand in a certain spot, shoot specific spots in a specific order, jump at a specific time, and use the grapple in a specific place. I don't really care whether I hit the jump button or interact button to climb when there's only a single spot where it will actually succeed.
I think Dishonored, Hitman, or any other immersive sim are better examples of fully interactive systems. Those games are all about giving you a sizeable toolkit and then the player discovering and exploiting the reactions caused by your actions on the game and allow a large degree of player freedom in how you progress through the game.
I don't think SotC is that good for the same reasons the narrator complains about explicit systems: there's only a single solution available to the player in order to progress. The final boss (and SotC) don't allow much player expression: the only way to win is to stand in a certain spot, shoot specific spots in a specific order, jump at a specific time, and use the grapple in a specific place. I don't really care whether I hit the jump button or interact button to climb when there's only a single spot where it will actually succeed.
I think Dishonored, Hitman, or any other immersive sim are better examples of fully interactive systems. Those games are all about giving you a sizeable toolkit and then the player discovering and exploiting the reactions caused by your actions on the game and allow a large degree of player freedom in how you progress through the game.
2013
Puppeteer is so gorgeous and clever, but all I can think about is how Capcom seemingly stole the main mechanic for Nero's arms in DMC5 from this game.
It's not for me because I generally don't like platformers, but I respect the hell out of every aspect it.
It's not for me because I generally don't like platformers, but I respect the hell out of every aspect it.
I have heard nothing but rave reviews about this and I don't really get why people like it so much? Having different attacks when you mash buttons vs holding buttons doesn't feel good to me, it seems you can't cancel combos by blocking, and dodging is often useless because of the extreme tracking on some attacks (I once saw a fireball swerve 90 degrees in air to hit me after I dodged), so it's not clear how the game wants you to play? I haven't played the base game in a while though, so maybe it's just that I've gotten really rusty at this combat system.
I also feel like you have a lot of options right from the jump, but I didn't see any clear synergies, so I wasn't sure what abilities I should chain together. However, it also didn't seem to matter on normal difficulty because Art of War is both a buff and a powerful attack with great tracking that doesn't cost any mp, so I mostly just ended up spamming that.
I also feel like you have a lot of options right from the jump, but I didn't see any clear synergies, so I wasn't sure what abilities I should chain together. However, it also didn't seem to matter on normal difficulty because Art of War is both a buff and a powerful attack with great tracking that doesn't cost any mp, so I mostly just ended up spamming that.
2023
This is an incredible game! The gameplay mechanics are a really neat, tight combination of Persona time management and action roguelike combat (it's not actually a roguelike, but feels similar) and the writing is actually very good!
First off, I understand if anyone is uninterested because of the horniness, but it's way less leery than I would expect from any game, especially a dating sim. It reminds me of "Welcome to the NHK" in that it's talking seriously about pervy people, but the camera for the show/game itself isn't leery. The game also doesn't objectify the love interests as much as I expected? Most of the dating scenes are focused on the characters talking about their feelings and encouraging each other, which I really like.
The combat feels like an action roguelike to me because it's focused on perfect dodging attacks to create an opening and managing limited healing. I really like that there's no XP, so you don't get more powerful from anything in the dungeon, you only get more powerful by spending time with other characters. It's a neat little addition that adds a lot to the "My friends are my power" theme. This also means that you want to get through the dungeons as fast and clean as you can to get as far as possible in a single day fighting as few enemies as possible.
I like the time management stuff a lot better here than in Persona because this is a way shorter game, so I can easily replay it again later to see other routes, so I don't need a guide to tell me the optimal route and can instead just... play the game myself. The scenes are short and you can save frequently, so it's also pretty easy to redo anything that you feel like you messed up.
First off, I understand if anyone is uninterested because of the horniness, but it's way less leery than I would expect from any game, especially a dating sim. It reminds me of "Welcome to the NHK" in that it's talking seriously about pervy people, but the camera for the show/game itself isn't leery. The game also doesn't objectify the love interests as much as I expected? Most of the dating scenes are focused on the characters talking about their feelings and encouraging each other, which I really like.
The combat feels like an action roguelike to me because it's focused on perfect dodging attacks to create an opening and managing limited healing. I really like that there's no XP, so you don't get more powerful from anything in the dungeon, you only get more powerful by spending time with other characters. It's a neat little addition that adds a lot to the "My friends are my power" theme. This also means that you want to get through the dungeons as fast and clean as you can to get as far as possible in a single day fighting as few enemies as possible.
I like the time management stuff a lot better here than in Persona because this is a way shorter game, so I can easily replay it again later to see other routes, so I don't need a guide to tell me the optimal route and can instead just... play the game myself. The scenes are short and you can save frequently, so it's also pretty easy to redo anything that you feel like you messed up.
2023
Square Enix did the unthinkable and released a normal video game somewhat on time.
I like the combat a lot. I think the story sucks and there's way too many cutscenes. It's also very racist, very misogynous, and a little bit homophobic.
I like the combat a lot. I think the story sucks and there's way too many cutscenes. It's also very racist, very misogynous, and a little bit homophobic.
2014
The combat is okay, but all of the ridiculous rules in-between missions are A-plus satire.
2023
The Rock Band format doesn't work nearly as well with a controller or a keyboard instead of a plastic instrument. However, I really like the multiplayer aspect. It's a lot of fun to join a random lobby and see Donatello run up to the set list and immediately put down "Bad Romance" and then I say "Hell yeah, and then lets play some NIN" and then we start dancing while waiting for the other two people to decide what they want to add.
The rotating selection of limited songs hasn't been an issue for me so far because they're almost all bangers, including the original music. I guess we'll see how long they can keep that up.
The rotating selection of limited songs hasn't been an issue for me so far because they're almost all bangers, including the original music. I guess we'll see how long they can keep that up.
My New Year's Resolution is to become even more of a Devil May Cry hater because I have never liked these games and I'm tired of pretending they're good.
Shitty camera, shitty control scheme, and boring enemy design. I didn't like it at the time and I don't like it now. I truly don't get what people see in this game.
I'm giving it two stars though because I do like Dante's Bollywood energy in the cutscenes.
Shitty camera, shitty control scheme, and boring enemy design. I didn't like it at the time and I don't like it now. I truly don't get what people see in this game.
I'm giving it two stars though because I do like Dante's Bollywood energy in the cutscenes.
2020
I think the story is good, I like the characters, I think showing the dice roll for skill checks feels great, and they make some very good improvements to the combat of DnD 5e.
However, it controls like shit, like, way worse than other CRPGs I have played. It's very easy to do random stupid stuff to screw things up (e.g. steal garbage right in front of someone making them hostile, or attack your ally instead of the enemy next to them), but its hard to do the normal things you do in an RPG to progress the story (e.g. see the names of NPCs so you know who to talk to, or click on a plaque to read it).
I genuinely think the combat and gameplay is worse than Dragon Age II and that's not really that high of a bar. This is the game everyone has been losing their mind over all year?
However, it controls like shit, like, way worse than other CRPGs I have played. It's very easy to do random stupid stuff to screw things up (e.g. steal garbage right in front of someone making them hostile, or attack your ally instead of the enemy next to them), but its hard to do the normal things you do in an RPG to progress the story (e.g. see the names of NPCs so you know who to talk to, or click on a plaque to read it).
I genuinely think the combat and gameplay is worse than Dragon Age II and that's not really that high of a bar. This is the game everyone has been losing their mind over all year?