maybe not the strongest game ever writing or story wise but conceptually and in execution for a jrpg from 1993 romancing saga 2 is incredibly interesting and a game i'll probably be thinking about for a long time. the only version available in english being an inferior remaster definitely doesn't do it any favors for a wider audience, but it's still something worth checking out if you care at all about the genre. my only hope from something like team asano or just the influx of more classic-inspired jrpgs in general is that we go back to an era where we get experimental titles like this again

100% achievements.

November 6th, 2023, marks the day I would begin my journey of playing Hellsinker. 5 months and a day to be exact. With interest spawning from a stray suggestion by a friend of mine, this would quickly result in an obsessive play-through which then graduated to an obsessive achievement hunt which would THEN go on infiltrate my personal life via absolutely wreaking havoc on my sleep schedule, even hijacking my dreams.

And I couldn't be more thankful.

Quite honestly, I'm not sure where to take this review, I'll let my fingers glide along the keyboard and post whatever crops up.

At 89.1 hours, Hellsinker sits comfortably at my #5 most played game on Steam. Despite this, I've only gone on to engage with the game in its entirety through the lens of 1 character. The game features 4 characters, 1 of which has 4 "Ordinance Packages" which change up their loadout. Essentially, this 1 character is 4 though their endings remain the same between loadouts. This leaves me with a staggering 1/7 true completion. In addition to this, each character does have a unique ending depending on their TLB progression, not viewable within the game's text sequence viewer. Though I've already gone ahead and watched a video showing their contents (SPOILERS (DUH!)), I'd still love to play the game to experience them firsthand.

Alright, what more is there left for me do? Surely after that I would have completed EVERYTHING there is to this game... right?

WRONG! THERE'S SO MUCH! THERE'S QUITE FRANKLY TOO MUCH! AND I THINK THE FUNNIEST PART HAS TO BE HOW ABSOLUTELY UNINTENDED MOST OF THE EXTRA STUFF IS!

I'll start by introducing this game's older sibling, Radio Zonde. Yes, I have played the game before, but I haven't really completed in a manner I find acceptable, so there's still this entire game for me to play. Much of the ideas regarding design both graphics and gameplay are very much seen within Hellsinker. 1CC for Radio Zonde TBD.

Following this game would then come Hellsinker but in the form of a demo, kinda? Colloquially the build is known as Hellsinker 0.95. This build is quite.... special. There's a bajillion changes from this version of the game to the Doujin and Steam releases and although I'd like to talk about them all day I'll spare this "review" the word count and cut to the main thing. This game, although presenting itself as a demo, actually holds within itself the entire game but more importantly the final stage(SPOILERS(AGAIN(DUH!))) accessible through dropping in some files graciously provided by the original poster. In a non-patched version, only stages 1-4 are playable. The cut special stages also feature 2 versions from what I understand looking at the channel. One version would then go on to become the Shrine seen in the Doujin and Steam release. The other version cut from the final releases feature something adjacent to a dungeon crawler style level (not spoilers).

Okay so. That's it right? Nothing more? There couldn't possibly be more?

But there is! All of these are from the game's Doujin release era (so like 2007-2011?) I'll tally up everything here:
>Doujin release (PURCHASED)
>Completion of said Doujin release (unsure if I'll do all characters TLB but I'll cross that bridge when I get there)
>Buying the fanzines (warning the page probably has some Not Safe For Work Ads so please use an adblocker <3 ) and then reading said fanzines (currently studying Japanese primarily for that)
>A 3D Hellsinker Railshooter fangame (Completed)
>A Puyo Puyo styled Hellsinker puzzle game (Completed)
>Another Hellsinker fangame though I don't really know what to compare this one to, check the IGDB page for more info (Completed)

...and that's it. At that point, I'll have fully exhausted myself on every possible official and unofficial expression of love for this game. Have I made it obvious enough how much I love this game?

I'm currently in ownership of pretty much every version of the game out there with their fan-patches in addition to the fan-games so if you'd like any of that please contact my either on Twitter or Discord @strawhatcanti. Thank you for reading. Until the next "review" goes up,

Keep your dignity.

The backwater swamps of Louisiana have darkness hiding deep in their midst. The Baker family estate oozes this darkness and invites you to look deeper. The siren call of the Baker estate is equal parts alluring and off-putting; it’s arguably the most well-designed and haunting setting within a horror game to date. Its derelict and rotted-out interiors are meticulously constructed in such a way as to leave you feeling unnerved and repulsed by the rot and mould that surrounds you. The gameplay also lends itself well to the game's setting and design, as it reigns in the camera to a first-person view and disempowers the player, which is in stark contrast to Resident Evil 4, 5, and 6, which upped the ante action-wise and emphasised faster gameplay. It’s a nice change of pace and helps strengthen the feeling of intimate slow-burn horror it sets out to achieve, which is nearly ever-present for most of the game. In almost all areas, Biohazard excels at everything it sets out to do and cements itself as a modern classic of survival horror.

Beneath the surface of Resident Evil 4 Remake’s 4K high-definition models, textures, and overly-polished sterile gameplay lies the rotting reactionary corpse of modernity. Resident Evil 4 Remake represents the logical end-point for art under late-stage capitalism, where creators are in a petrified state of artistic stasis where everything old must be modernised, updated, and ‘fixed’. I cannot bring myself to care about this game or the two remakes that preceded it. It’s become a homogenous and trite blob of nothingness, void of any soul or integrity.

this game gets really sold short just for not being as self serious as ff4 and not as grand as the series gets from 6 onward but it's a really spectacular game even outside of its stellar mechanics and practically outdoes ff4 in every way. definitely leans a bit more on comic relief than some people might like but there's some really great moments here and the cast is really strong, especially with galuf and bartz, and exdeath is undercut by fans for how interesting of an antagonist he is. neo exdeath is by far the coolest final boss design in this series to me other than safe sephiroth, and even if he's pretty stock standard on a surface level i think he deserves more credit as a villain. easily my favorite of the snes trilogy of final fantasy games and a game i can't recommend enough to fans of jrpgs

This is the only game I've ever played during which I've thought to myself "this is probably what it would be like to fight a dragon in real life."

From that thought, a lot can be gleaned about Dragon's Dogma. The animations and behaviours of its fictional fantasy creatures are remarkably lifelike, which bolsters its already strong immersive qualities, but the combat is arguably where it shines the most - and not just because its bows feel like semi-automatic rifles or because Arc of Deliverance is the single most satisfying move to use in any game ever made. Where a lesser game would typically have you fight a giant monster by whittling away at its ankles ad nauseam or some other comparably restrictive method, Dragon's Dogma lets you (among other things) climb onto it, knock it over, stun it, break off or cripple certain body parts, douse it in oil & light it on fire, lure it into a disadvantageous spot or environmental hazard, bring it crashing down to the ground while it's flying, send it flying through the air, freeze it, parry it, or jump off of it to reach a place you otherwise couldn't. It's like a power metal album cover come to life, with a soundtrack to match. It’s chaotic, it’s dynamic, and it’s absolutely drowning in techniques to try out.

That alone would be enough to set Dragon's Dogma above most other real-time combat systems, but what takes it to the next level is the genius pawn system. Few games offer satisfaction on the level of figuring out a golden tactic against a particularly troublesome enemy, watching your pawns become better and better at its execution over time, and being rewarded by other players for renting out your home-made killing machine to them. My mind was blown the first time I realised my pawn had learned to throw explosive barrels specifically when a tough enemy is near a ledge to kill them instantly, and almost a full decade later they continue to surprise with behaviours like this. There’s plenty else to enjoy about Dragon’s Dogma’s combat system, like the enormous playstyle diversity afforded by its classes or the chunky hitstop that provides great feedback on every attack, but it’s far from the only thing the game offers.

For one thing, Dragon’s Dogma sells the feeling of adventure very well. While not quite to the extent of in something like Breath of the Wild, you really do have to legitimately think about how to get from one place to another. Should I risk trying to clamber up that ledge or is it more practical to take the long way around, even if that means meeting more monsters? What time of day should I start my journey, or will it be short enough that I shouldn’t have to worry about all the beasties coming out when night falls? If night falls, do I have enough fuel for my lantern and is my character tall enough that it won't be extinguished by forging through bodies of water? You find yourself asking all these questions as you make your way to distant landmarks which you weren’t initially even sure if you could physically get to, which I think is enough to make the open world a net positive overall despite its blatant and unfortunate unfinished-ness. It helps that pretty much all of the dungeons in both Gransys and Bitterblack are rewarding to explore, with lots of goodies to find in hidden alternate pathways and enemy layouts which get dramatically overhauled in the post-game.

Beyond that, I’ll always stick up for the story of Dragon’s Dogma. Bingo Morihashi is seemingly cursed to always deliver well thought-out, thematically solid stories that everyone writes off as crap for some reason. Even if contextualising new game plus into it wasn’t rad as hell (and it is), the intentionally antiquated dialogue gives it so much character and it conveys such an immense, ambitious sense of progression in terms of scale. And speaking of scales (literally), Grigori is an all-timer in the realm of video game antagonists. Coupled with David Lodge’s masterful delivery, every line of his gives him such presence. He’s everything a dragon should be according to their traditional cultural depictions; not just huge, imposing and a fierce fighter, but also really intelligent and reserved to the point where it's not easy to classify him as a 'villain.' The fight against him having both style and substance in spades is just the cherry on top.

Daimon is also compelling, and his segment of the game is probably what’ll keep you coming back for more. Bitterblack Isle’s not just a wonderful, almost endlessly replayable DLC that marks a gold-standard for content density, it’s also a tantalising glimpse into Hideaki Itsuno’s full vision for Dragon’s Dogma. It was meant to have dozens of Bitterblack equivalents scattered throughout the world before its development was cut short, not the least of which included being able to travel to the moon and a massive MMO-like tower in which players could trade with one another and glimpse at each other’s worlds, endlessly stacked on top of each other. Had Itsuno and his team been allowed to carry out that vision, I’ve little doubt that Dragon’s Dogma would probably be my favourite game of all time. As it stands, it’s close enough already – all I think a hypothetical sequel would really need is for its open world to be more densely packed with content and a real-time healing system (outside of hotkeys and spells), like that of Nioh or a certain other ARPG series from the past decade or so that I hear is pretty popular.

It’s well known now that Capcom presented Itsuno with the choice to either develop Devil May Cry 5 or Dragon’s Dogma 2 a few years ago. Given the freedom that Capcom granted to him during the making of DMC5 and his recent teasing that his elusive new project is making good progress, I can’t help but have hope for the first time since release that aught is on the horizon. A Dragon’s Dogma sequel wouldn’t just be nice to see, it’d mark a victory for any and all game creators who want to see their vision fully realised.