Okameiyo
9 reviews liked by Okameiyo
This review contains spoilers
the Hearthians are born into a world without choice. you are going down with the ship, so to speak, whether you want to or not. the base game toys with the idea that maybe you might be able to stop this, maybe you can evacuate everyone, maybe you can just fight and do.... Something, anything in the face of inevitable annihilation. slowly through exploration, you learn more and come to terms with your fate. pulling the warp core from the Ash Twin project is looking your own death in the face and choosing Yes, like a warm handshake of a deal for one last goodbye to all of your friends. you understand what Solanum has known for what must feel like an eternity. the Nomai were wrong: the Eye of the Universe was not malicious or cruel, it simply Is. and we Were.
in Echoes of the Eye, it reframes this question. who are we to deny the universe the privilege of hearing the siren's call of the Eye? how do you come to terms with your world's inevitable death when your species is what caused it? how do you cope with the fact that your people destroyed their only home in the stars in pursuit of an unknowable power, only to discover they were wrong about it from the beginning?
the answer is that you do this violently. you hide yourself from the public world. you destroy the evidence of what you've done. you imprison your own kind. you kill intruders. you enact this so that you can maintain the idea that things can go back to The Way They Were, despite the glaring cracks in the façade. it is these cracks that the player is able to exploit and push through, and eventually cause the dam to break.
only at the end of everything, after the waters have flooded and put out every fire keeping the Strangers alive, The Prisoner accompanying you to the Eye is able to see what their kind was so afraid of: Uncertainty.
how strange to meet obliteration this way... not alone by blowing out your own lantern in a prison cell, but surrounded by new strangers that care for you. i wish we had more time together. ah, oh well... until we meet again
in Echoes of the Eye, it reframes this question. who are we to deny the universe the privilege of hearing the siren's call of the Eye? how do you come to terms with your world's inevitable death when your species is what caused it? how do you cope with the fact that your people destroyed their only home in the stars in pursuit of an unknowable power, only to discover they were wrong about it from the beginning?
the answer is that you do this violently. you hide yourself from the public world. you destroy the evidence of what you've done. you imprison your own kind. you kill intruders. you enact this so that you can maintain the idea that things can go back to The Way They Were, despite the glaring cracks in the façade. it is these cracks that the player is able to exploit and push through, and eventually cause the dam to break.
only at the end of everything, after the waters have flooded and put out every fire keeping the Strangers alive, The Prisoner accompanying you to the Eye is able to see what their kind was so afraid of: Uncertainty.
how strange to meet obliteration this way... not alone by blowing out your own lantern in a prison cell, but surrounded by new strangers that care for you. i wish we had more time together. ah, oh well... until we meet again
that deer owl pussy tho
Silent Hill 3
2003
if games had stopped aiming for graphical fidelity/realism beyond what this game achieves the medium would be lightyears ahead as a vehicle of storytelling & communication (and a more ethical one at that). anything beyond heather's model is diminishing returns.
The story is like Kingdom Hearts, it makes no sense but at least the people are hot.
This is a long game. After the first forty hours or so, the novelty of it really starts to fade, and you're left with just the combat system to carry the experience.
The combat system itself is great, but alas, this also becomes dull pretty quickly. You'll spend most of your playtime using the same strategies and the same abilities to win battles, and your arsenal will be expanding so slowly that you may not notice how vast your hotbar has actually become.
That last statement summarises the game for me: It is long and slow. Progression is slow, combat is slow and methodical, your characters run around slowly. All of it adds up to make a very deliberate game. Combined with the design of the game frequently forcing you to go back to grind to level up before facing an encounter that you've already... encountered, and it always feels like there's always something to do, until the game just... ends.
All in all, the combat in this game is a lot of fun, and there are often somewhat imaginative ways to solve quests (depending on how imaginative cheesing things with deathfog and teleportation for the twentieth time seems to you) but the whole experience is just slow and meticulous, and you either need a specific mindset (something which I don't have, this being my first proper CRPG experience) or lots of free time to sink into the game to get the enjoyment out of it.
(Copied from Steam)
The combat system itself is great, but alas, this also becomes dull pretty quickly. You'll spend most of your playtime using the same strategies and the same abilities to win battles, and your arsenal will be expanding so slowly that you may not notice how vast your hotbar has actually become.
That last statement summarises the game for me: It is long and slow. Progression is slow, combat is slow and methodical, your characters run around slowly. All of it adds up to make a very deliberate game. Combined with the design of the game frequently forcing you to go back to grind to level up before facing an encounter that you've already... encountered, and it always feels like there's always something to do, until the game just... ends.
All in all, the combat in this game is a lot of fun, and there are often somewhat imaginative ways to solve quests (depending on how imaginative cheesing things with deathfog and teleportation for the twentieth time seems to you) but the whole experience is just slow and meticulous, and you either need a specific mindset (something which I don't have, this being my first proper CRPG experience) or lots of free time to sink into the game to get the enjoyment out of it.
(Copied from Steam)
Pretty cool I used to play with my step-dad before he would beat me
inenarrável
Mega Man ZX
2006
Capcom's attempt at metroidvania but they apparently didn't understand how metroidvanias work. In this game rather than having everything connected physically, it's comprised of a bunch of separate areas with doors that teleport you between them. So you spend most of your time looking for these doors and backing out of them until you find the one that takes you where you needed to go. You can bring up a 'map' which is just a bunch of Scrabble tiles suspended on a black background with lines drawn between them. The doors' actual locations are not marked nor where they lead to.
Doom
2016
lol rip and tear am i right reddit
fun but very vanilla and broken
fun but very vanilla and broken
