Chaos from start to finish.

Silly and funny and unique.

Cannae believe this was made by a 19 year old.

I'm still in awe that this was built in Dreams.

If you'd told me that one of my favourite games this year was gonnae be a puzzler where you play as a toy train capable of doin' boosts and flips to earn gold ratings on insane wee tracks I'd have beaten you around the head and neck.

Cannot recommend it enough, just a shame it's locked into Dreams because I know that will put a lot of people off. My advice is to not let it. You're missing out.

I can't stop thinking about how the first game starts you off with a single zombie coming into a room, and you can fight it off with hand to hand or barricade the entrances, but this time you're immediately up against maybe five enemies all wielding guns and all you've got are Carnby's fists and feet.

From the get-go they really lean into the shooting, and it doesn't become any easier once you secure some firearms of your own. This made even clearer by me finishing the game using just a sword while I still had several pistols and a tommy gun in my inventory, all with full ammo.

It's still decently fun, but just doesn't hit the same way as the first game. It wasn't until the last half that it felt like AitD again.

Oh aye, there was a bizarre moment reading a totally throwaway note that mentions "Elisha Commstock" and a fella named "De Witt". Did Ken Levine name Bioshock Infinite characters after one-time mentions in a game from 1993?

There are some cool improvements, and the game is good fun, but it just doesn't hold a candle to the first.

I basically rinsed almost every boss (except one) after 2-3 attempts. Too many of them felt like you were just fighting a dude who was a bit taller than you. The story itself and general lore felt shallower than the previous game. I spent lots of time on stream theorising on stuff in the original, and this time it just kinda felt like nothing really happened. I mean, it definitely did, but just quite a step down quality-wise.

I think I'm more disappointed than anything else, which sounds silly when you're giving something 4 stars, but I can't stop comparing how I feel now to the way I did at the end of the original.

There's the very welcome new weapons, but their existence means that what was always a unique execution animation is now just the same one of the Penitent One slamming a hand into the ground, and thorns/branches engulfing the enemy. I get it, you can't be expected to do three shit-hot pixel death animations for every enemy, but I'd trade the Ruego Al Alba and Veredicto if it meant that Sarmiento & Centella was the only one in the game with cool animations. But that then conflicts with the puzzles involving the new weapons and weapon switching.

(I'm suddenly hit with how complicated it must be balancing this shit when making a game)

Overall there's a great game here, but it's a bad sequel. The best way I can think to describe it is that this feels like it came first, trying some stuff out and finding their feet, and that the original game was them hitting their stride, fully confident in what they'd made.

I'm a polyglot now. I'll demonstrate below.

ᎩᎧᏬ ᏗᏒᏋ ᏁᎧᏖᏂᎥᏁᎶ ᎷᎧᏒᏋ ᏖᏂᏗᏁ Ꮧ ᏖᎥᏁᎩ ᏇᎧᏒᎷ

ςгคฬɭ ยק๏ภ Շђє ﻮг๏ยภ๔

尺乇ㄒㄩ尺几 ㄒㄖ ㄒ卄乇 ᗪ丨尺ㄒ 乃丨ㄒ匚卄

There's some great stuff in here with the doors opened by the new powers, but it all still suffers from the same issues BOTW had.

These new Zelda games have a real problem with rewarding the player. You're given all the upgrades in the first couple of hours, which means almost every chest you open for the rest of the game is either a weapon that will be broken in 2 minutes, or often a piece of armour from the previous entry. It made me end up feeling deflated at the end of most quests.

This isn't helped by it all taking place in a world you already know with some changes. It's less "The Sequel to Breath of the Wild" as it is BOTW 1.5. I'm desperate for the next mainline entry to be a well curated semi-linear joint. Take me back.

It just plays like total shit. I've seen the old trailers showing fake gameplay, I knew it would never be like that, but deary me it is miles away from what they promised.

Guns are somehow inaccurate, and yet also able to kill a dude by shooting vaguely close to his body. Sword fighting is a case of praying that the game decides whether or not to recognise that you moved the wiimote and nunchuck. They put checkpoints at the start of unskippable minute long cutscenes and then throw you into these bullshit sword fights that skill doesn't seem to enter into. It's maddening.

When I felt like I was nearing the end I did a quick google to see just how much I had left, and said "FUCK OFF" out loud when I saw that I was a quarter of the way through, and my playtime was only two and a half hours. I would have bet you money I'd sank ten hours into it easily.

It's a disappointment in every way, and despite featuring plenty East Asian actors, feels racist in a way that's hard for a man of my intelligence to articulate. Please avoid. Don't let curiosity get the better of you like it did me.

It's not fun when you're playing a Castlevania and just feel bored. I wish I could put my finger on exactly what it was about this, but it just didn't hit the way the others have for me.

The DSS system is cool but feels underbaked. Most of the combos seem useless, and just trying to get cards for it is tedious. Nothing screams "Castlevania" like exiting and entering a room again and again to kill a single enemy while hoping for the RNG to be nice to you.

Honestly feels more like a fan game.