THIS IS NOT A REVIEW OF THE GAMES IN THE COLLECTION! This is merely a review of the package. I have far more in-depth reviews written on each game in said package.

The Ace Attorney Trilogy is a beloved set of games with wacky turns and awesome attorneying fun. However when it comes to the quality of the package, I don't think much effort was put in to really make it a consumer "must-have". The HD visuals are indeed splendid, but for someone who may have played on the 3DS or even the original DS titles, it doesn't make too much of a difference. A good game is forever good, regardless of technical prowess. And unfortunately that's much of my issue with this collection, it is great for newcomers who just want to hop in, but for series vets the collection has very little to offer in terms of collectability or premium appeal. It is simply a package that holds three games with no extra fluff for the fans. No music player of any kind which is baffling considering how well loved the soundtracks for these titles are. No art gallery to look at concept art, case artwork, or even in-game CGs. The package itself isn't exactly crudely made or anything, but without any sort of special care, it feels extremely hard to care.

Mirror's Edge feels more like concept art than a finished product. That sounds extreme but I really mean it. Many parts of this game feel unfinalized or flat out incorrectly made. From level-design, art direction, gameplay styles, and much more. It wasn't exactly unfun, but so much of this game paints a picture of a game that wanted to be made but didn't have enough time in the oven...and maybe a couple of shitty seasonings put on by higher-ups. Can't say for sure.

Firstly, let's start with something actually positive about this game: the movement. A lot of the fundamentals of gameplay feel really good, though not exactly helped by the low FOV. Rolling around, wall-climbing on stuff, and just general movement feels very smooth...outside of the crouch slide which feels like coarse sand rubbing against my ass cheeks. I'm listing a lot of small grievances but overall it feels very fun and when the level design is actually good, the flow state one enters with the movement feels fantastic. Enough that my brain is imaging a much better designed game with the same movement system and loving it absolutely. Unfortunately though, this game was not it.

Why the devs felt they had to add combat to this game baffles me so much. You have two combat verbs, attack and disarm. Disarming barely works at all and attacking is just...not fun. You can punch by regularly pressing the attack button or kick by jumping/sliding then attacking. The issue is that combat was developed with disarming in mind as it instantly kills enemies whereas regular attacks do not. Then after you disarm, you must use the worst part of the combat: the gunplay. The guns in this game are just awful, nothing else to it. Shooting them isn't fun in the slightest, but worse than that it also takes out any challenge from fighting enemies at all. The best times when you deal with enemies is when you can simply avoid there attacks with clever movement and good planning. It should be telling that when you want to actively avoid encounters rather than pursue them, that maybe they aren't very good.

But luckily for the devs, trying to move around the environment is always all that fun either. Level design is a mixed bag in a lot of ways, most of the time you can very easily tell where you need to go due to the Runner Vision system and the level itself flows like water in the movement. However, that same Runner Vision system fucks up everything in this game. Sometimes I know exactly where I need to go and other times I completely don't because the game conditions you early to simply follow the red movement pieces but once they take them away or don't give you the full path itself, you completely lose any sense of direction and get frustrated. My number one phrase when playing this game was "they could've made that a little more fucking obvious," because honestly, they should've. Without fully committing to telling the player where to go or not, it ruins the players ability to actively engage with the environments. Which sucks even more when the design itself is so utterly shite that I can barely tell where I'm going even with the Runner Vision working as intended. Again, it isn't always this way, but holy fuck it's enough where it starting ruin the experience a whole lot.

This is a quick rant by fuck me I get that the art-direction was very intentional and specific so that the Runner Vision system could work among other cool futuristic-y things, but holy god is the bloom debilitating in this game. The bloom actively makes it impossible to see or perform at times which makes the existing problems more problematic.

Last but not least, the story is lackluster. Characters are boring but that's what I expected, but more so than that a majority of VA performances felt off-putting to the point of goofiness. The plot itself feels like so much nothing it's insane. However, I will chalk that up to the game being pretty short so it's whatever. On the other hand, the cutscenes are actually pretty good. The artstyle feels unique and authentic, reminds me of Batman Beyond tbh. I LOVE it. Those are the best part of any of the story, which is otherwise undercooked as all hell.

Most of this review is very negative, but for good reason because it has major issues. And it surprises me so much that so many people love this game and say it is amazing when it is so incredibly flawed. Maybe the sequel fixes my issues, maybe not, but I definitely hope that some game out there takes the parkour system of this game and refines it into something grand cause this could've been something great itself if not for the missteps.

Rise of the Tomb Raider is better than Tomb Raider 2013, but it isn't as good as it should be. A lot of my problems with 2013 have been fixed in this title, but some really core issues have had no changes whatsoever leading to a somewhat mixed bag still. While I think I can find myself recommending this title much more than the previous, overall the game does little to keep itself from being more than just a Tomb Raider 2013 sequel.

If you haven't read my Tomb Raider review, here's a short recap of my pros and cons from that title:
1. Combat was a rich puzzle-like experience with the four weapons at hand and the multiple ammo types. However, melee combat felt sluggish and unrefined, making it exceptionally hard to choose even when it should be a must in a scenario. And shield enemies weren't really designed all that well.

2. Exploration felt very hard to come by because most environments were so distinctly linear and all of the actual collectibles and exciting stuff like Tombs were either way too short or such a small off-road that they didn't feel exciting in any way. Environmental traversal was pretty alright all things considered, very triple A in nature, but still interesting enough to not have me bored.

3. The story and characters were laughably bad. There was barely any down time so it felt like the game was treating me like a toddler, and the game couldn't be assed to give Lara a consistent characterization both in and out of cutscene. Both ludo narrative and narrative dissonance at its finest.

4. Context Sensitivity plagues the game, from traversal to enemy encounters and more. The main offenders being climbing, stealth kills, and crouching or the general stealth state. Cover was inconsistent because it hinged on you being crouched, which wouldn't always occur because it was context sensitive. Crouching while in stealth was also a complete gamble as the moment you are caught you cannot go back into stealth no matter what.

Ok, so with that out of the way let's get to the meat of this review. First off is combat, which has had a major rehaul taking it from good to great. The main four weapons make a return: Bow, Pistol, Rifle, and Shotgun. However, this time around not only do we have multiple unique ammo types for each weapon, we also have different types of weapon. This gives the player a great amount of freedom when it comes to discovering a playstyle for themselves. The plethora of weapon choices and their accompanying upgrades give the combat a real edge over the predecessor. Another great thing is the melee combat, it isn't perfect but they really refined the movement and weight on the climbing axe to feel much better this time around. Overall, melee still feels like a last resort, but unlike Tomb Raider 2013, it feels like a resort I can at least rely on. The finisher system is still not exactly all that great though, it still very easily leaves you open and up for attacks while you kill an enemy. Oh and of course shield enemies! One specific change was made to make these enemies far more bearable and it comes in the form of a specific skill on the skill tree. By the time shield enemies become prominent in the game, you will almost guaranteed have the necessary perks to take care of shields quickly and effectively, solving my problem with them entirely. Each new piece of this combat system laying on top of each other leads to a similar feeling but ultimately more rich combat experience in the long term, which helps when the core game is so similar. Finally, the biggest change to combat was the ability to craft healing, special ammos, and makeshift throwables during a fight. This really spices up combat encounters a whole hell of a lot. Each thing you can craft requires specific resources which are used for those specific craftables and also for upgrading your weapons themselves. This leads to a pretty fun risk-reward system in the heat of battle where a player has to choose between resources that could save them from losing a fight to keeping said resources so they can improve weapons for later encounters. The craftable healing is especially an interesting forced decision-making tool... but only if you are on hard mode or higher. On hard or higher, the game will not heal you in an encounter if you just wait, you have to be combat-free to heal naturally. In this regard, I find the game on hard to be the definitive and intended design experience. The difficulties higher than hard are weird edge-cases that go against the core design and the diffs lower take this intended play loop and softens it up.

Exploration is up next and wow did they clean this part up! Environments on the whole have been designed with an exploration-first-structure leading to a very natural loop of entering a new open zone and entering some caves and finding stuff. With these larger traversal zones, the game also made the addition of quests. Some NPCs will be stationed in specific zones with random objectives you can complete for rewards, these range from weapon parts, outfits, and even key items. On the whole I think the system is a little bit shoddy but in general still a good idea. The main issue with quests is sometimes they require certain materials or certain areas that one could already have/completed. Thus making the quest complete by default. This isn't always the case, but it happened enough times to where I stopped taking any more quests at all. Now one of the most important exploration experiences is tombs, the supposed meat of a Tomb Raider game I'd wager. 2013's were a goddamn travesty, but compared to those, Rise is far and away better. Tombs are still mostly single puzzle rooms, however, the puzzles themselves, the act of entering the tombs, and the tombs' unique visual designs give each one a large charm that was not present before. However, I think the puzzles still need some work, most tomb puzzles are still far too simple for my liking. In general though, a tomb as a whole piece of the exploration experience feels worth going for now not just because the act of doing one feels more rewarding, but the game actual rewards you for doing them as well. This is a consistent thing across the game too, when exploring you are more often rewarded with genuine pieces that add to the core gameplay loop. This can range from parts of new weapons to even skills. The expanded pool of rewards makes the act of being a damn Tomb Raider that much more worth while which is exactly what was missing from 2013. And as a last note, environmental traversal has also gotten a tiny lift in Rise. Only a tiny bit because while a few select environments feel designed with multiple future items in mind, many of these environments still feel segmented so that a player could clear through them with what they have on hand at the moment they arrive. That's not necessarily a bad thing but it does make it harder to want to revisit areas due to this, meaning one of the only reasons to revisit places is for the new questing opportunities that appear as you progress...but like I said the quests feel a lot more superficial compared to a more rich environment.

Story has not been a big part of the Tomb Raider series, even with their supposed revitalized focus on it due to the more apparent triple A nature present in the reboot series. Rise is no exception to this rule, but unlike its predecessor it is a lot more confident in itself enough to actually have some breathing room. It doesn't show this off at first though, which leaves a bit of a bad first impression. In fact, the opening to Rise feels eerily similar at first to 2013's opening. Big huge bombastic, zero attention span opening with crazy moments and huge music stings and all that. Then the game rewinds the clock a bit to give some context which is the first genuine breather moment, and luckily the context actually makes some sense and means something this time around. The opening of 2013 did no such thing and ended up cursing the game before it even began. In comparison, after the player comes back to the present timeframe in Rise, the game is more willing to let the player enter into an environment and actually take a break. This is huge because it was the biggest pitfall of 2013's story experience. In that game, there was zero breaks the entire time leading to every single encounter expected to have something go wrong. Rise also finds itself pulling a lot of fast ones, but not constantly which I appreciate. Now, the actual story content itself is...still very lackluster... By the end especially, Rise feels like it loses steam and starts to copy from 2013's story just so it can make it to the finish line. Both in Rise and 2013, the stories were very bland stories with very little narrative depth or nuance. Don't expect anything different here. However, something that is different is Lara, and thank god for it! Lara Croft feels genuine in this game, and that is something that cannot be understated. Compared to the wishy-washy cake-having-but-cake-eating Lara of 2013, Rise's Lara feels consistent throughout the gameplay experience. She has lived through 2013 and toughened up because of it, leading her to not hesitate when it comes time to pull the trigger or to do something she thinks is right. In general, she stays feeling like a badass rather than flip-flopping between badass and bitchass. And the other characters aren't all that bad either, except for the one they brought back over from 2013 who...honest to god they barely give a reason for existing here. If they left him out, I don't think a single person would've been upset at all. His plotline in Rise feels so forced it brings in some genuine nonsense that annoyed the hell out of me. But I digress...

Now, we can't talk triple A slop games without taking about the good ol Context Sensitivity. Man...am I disappointed that they changed absolutely nothing. Basically every single thing that was context sensitive in 2013 is the same here. And it fucking sucks. Once again, climbing, stealth kills, the stealth state itself, crouching, all fucking context sensitive. I discussed why these are all bad before but I really wanna dig deep on one in particular here: Stealth. Stealth has been and continues to be a context sensitive state that is the only time during gameplay when the game will put up its hands and go "nuh uh, sorry buster, but this is not for you to choose," leading to many encounters where either preferred stealth or optional stealth feels more like an impossibility to stay in rather than a good way to get rid of some enemies prior to an encounter starting. When in an enemy encounter, you start engaged in stealth, this means you can crouch behind small boxes as well as in bushes. During this time, you can stealth kill someone if you get up close to them without being spotted, however stealth kills do make noise. Here is the issue: if for whatever reason you are ever spotted or thought to be spotted, stealth ends for that encounter and cannot be regained. When I say thought to be spotted, I mean it, sometimes the game will decide to say you have been found when you are still very clearly in hiding in a place that no one has been close to at all and since the investigative state began you have not left or even peaked out of. This genuinely happens. Once any dead enemy is spotted, stealth is basically immediately compromised. This feels really bad when in action because sometimes you are doing extremely well at stealth only for someone to decide you can't stealth anymore. And of course, once you are out of stealth, enemies ALWAYS know where you are regardless of any kind of vision parameter being met or anything. Sometimes, just the fact that you, the player, see an enemy, can cause them to spot you and lose the stealth state and be consistently known in location the entire encounter. Which seriously ruins any kind of potential in a stealth experience. I am not asking for Metal Gear Solid, I am simply asking for better. And this is still not it. Because even without stealth being as poor as it is, crouching is still context sensitive! Meaning the only option you have to keep yourself safe from bullets and behind cover isn't even up to you as a player. It is a choice you don't get to choose. And hell while I'm still angry, I might as well shit on the fact that the wall cover-system is a complete broken mess and has been since 2013. Rarely if ever does the wall cover work as intended. Sometimes you can get away with shooting at an enemy while being completely behind the wall. Other times you might find yourself begging God himself to please make Lara peak the left fucking wall I am right next to it, IT SHOULD FUCKING WORK. But no, it never works. More often than not, if I ever found myself trying to rely on the broken cover mechanics I would simply abuse a wall that an enemy couldn't get near me on the left from and kill everyone. It wasn't fun, but hey, neither is not being able to decide how my character responds to the environment in combat.

Before I finish up, here's a little bit of a extra tid bits category of random pros and cons. The game's skill system and upgrade system far outclasses 2013 in many ways. The limited resource system that holds up the risk-reward factor in combat as well as makes the upgrade trees themselves inherently interesting was a good choice even if at times the specific materials required feel out of the way. And the skill system is a complete overhaul from the first game, all three trees feel a lot more in-depth with some genuinely really great skills that make progressing feel good. Also you get skill points really easy in this game, and I am slightly indifferent on whether or not it is good or bad. On the whole, the game feels so similar to 2013 in core mechanics and design, it at times feels very easy, maybe even rudely so, a "Big DLC". I think the level of changes within the systems themselves remove any potential doubts about this being a sequel rather than a "Big DLC," but the sentiment is still there and has roots. In general, I think the environments in this game are a good bit more diversified compared to 2013, but the snowy Siberia setting for a good half of the game doesn't do it any favors. At times it can feel more samey than 2013, which is not a good feeling, even when I know it isn't true.

Rise of the Tomb Raider is the second game in the Tomb Raider Reboot series. While it is undoubtably the better game compared to 2013's Tomb Raider, the quality of the content and the systems still feels remarkably held back from what should have been a higher standard. Even with the fact that this game was made in essentially two years after the first reboot game, they could have taken time to really flesh out the mechanics some more and actually give some more player agency in controls and encounters. If you were a fan of 2013, Rise will be great for you, but if 2013 was not your cup of pee then don't even bother trying. This is not a new attempt at Tomb Raider, but at a refined 2013 experience. Also this game is completely playable without touching 2013, so, give it a try if 2013's laughably poor character writing and story made you wanna die. Cause this one does a little bit better! Here's to at least hoping they at least add a goddamn crouch button in the next reboot game.....

Pseudoregalia has pretty good movement huh? Too bad that's about the most it has going for it! While Pseudoregalia is a decently fun ride, most of that time is spent meandering through environments that are just similar enough to each other to make it easy to get lost, but just distinct enough where you wouldn't call it same-y.

Combat is very bland and boring, you start the game with a three-strike combo with very wonky hitboxes and you end the game with the exact same thing. Your dodge barely functions as a dodge since it's just a slide (I cannot tell if it even has I-frames or not) and the enemy variety is so sparse that avoiding combat is more fun than being in it.

To be fair though, the game's graphical style has quite a bit of charm. And the music also adds to make a much richer experience. In general, I am a complete sucker for the PS1-PS2 style of graphics and models. Pseudoregalia fits in this and definitely jumps out as a game that feels like it was released over twenty years ago when in reality it's a 2023 baby. That's a good thing, I like that.

Now, the movement. I think it's pretty good. There's a lot of hidden tech and as you continue to increase your arsenal it builds into a system that you weave quite naturally and feels very good. The air kick is very interesting and unique when it comes to movement systems, giving you the ability to kick off walls a limited amount of times and into the direction that you are trying to move towards. It gives the power of wall jump without letting it be infinite and making it feel more like a natural part of the kit. The ground pound jump, long jump, basically all the things you can think of from Mario 64 are here plus more. The best part is it all comes without the baggage of Mario 64's clunk! Moving Sybil around without any of the upgrades feels smooth and player-friendly. However, if you don't get those upgrades, it definitely feels like there is something missing. Without the map that was recently added, it is very easy to get lost and filtered before reaching your first movement ability. I know I did at first! But if you can get past that initial chunk where you feel pretty lacking, the movement does become something pretty special. Unfortunately, I think the movement would be better in a different kind of game, but I digress.

Lastly, the story. In stereotypical metroidvania fashion, the story is very sparse and you have to look for it. Unfortunately, Pseudoregalia is pretty short so the story has no time to flourish, and none of the flavor text really does much to give you much of a story. All the story you get is after you reach the final area of the game, where you can somewhat gleam hints at a story, but not much else. In that regard, it makes the journey of exploring the castle kind of forgettable. There isn't really a motivator to keep going or keep doing things outside of the idea that you are playing a game and games are fun. It doesn't bother me when a game's story is complicated or secretive, but it does bother me when there is basically no story at all. Unless you want your gameplay to speak for itself, most games need some main motivator, and Pseudoregalia just does not have one.

Pseudoregalia is a fun but jumbled mess. Most of the game feels clambered together without a good enough rhyme or reason. I understand the idea was to make a dreamy, aetheric atmosphere, but I think it fundamentally failed at hitting those notes when I struggled to discern the differences between each area. Nothing felt coherent outside of the movement, which while really good, could've been better in another game. Though for a solo dev, this is quite impressive, so I still look forward to what they do next.

8 years removed from the original, Mirror's Edge Catalyst manages to fix barely anything and replace old problems with new ones. For each good choice an equally poor one was made. I really had hope for this one too because, like its predecessor, the opening is incredibly well done...but much akin to its predecessor it is nothing but a tumble into mediocrity and bullshit.

Movement is the number one thing in Mirror's Edge, it is what sets it apart from everything else. The two big things that were fixed from the OG is an FOV slider and making sliding feel genuinely good by letting you roll out of one. However, movement was changed in a very specific way for Catalyst. While most of the original moveset is still there from the get-go, part of it is locked behind a skill point tree. In particular, the quick-turn and roll is locked off at the start. Why this change was made makes utterly no sense because not only does it just feel bad to play without them, it forces unnecessary use of the skill tree system. The three skill trees are Movement, Combat, and Exploration. Movement being the absolute most important thing in the game means you'll want to place all of your points there to feel good while playing. But, that simply exacerbates other issues like the awful combat system. Point is that forcing a choice between having fun with the game's core and being able to avoid or speed up combat encounters that are unenjoyable is a choice a player shouldn't have to make. And later on, the level design in the game is designed around having all of the movement tree unlocked which goes against the whole point of the pieces being unlockable. If you can't beat the main quest with purely your base skills then the skills required to beat it should be with you at the start. Anyway, I digress, the movement in Catalyst is a lot better than OG after you get all of the movement tree unlocked.

Combat is still the same shitty garbage that feels like utter poop to play. This time you can't disarm enemies for instant kills which I'd say is a good thing but unfortunately that makes me have to try harder so it balances out. Faith can light attack and heavy attack as well as dodge enemy attacks to try and get an opening. And well, it fucking sucks. Most enemies just flat out stop your attack and some will forcibly combo you to death if you "mess up". There are six enemy types and the only ones that matter are the dumb ones. The two "hardest" types can basically completely cut you out of your options and make combat a complete chore and slog. Both are designed around dealing minimal to no damage off of normal attacks, but if you do a movement attack (wallrun into attack) then you can actually manage to take down these guys. Or we would hope but they are fucking dumb. One can shoot an energy blast that hurts you from afar, it has zero indicator and if you are on a wall it can hit you anyway and you will fall. The other guy is about as fast as the player making trying to deal any damage a pain in the ass. AND if you are on a wall, they can just hit you in midair??? And if they hit you once, they WILL hit you again regardless of what you do. Combat doesn't feel fair in any way and most of all, it never feels fun because you have to abuse the same high damaging attacks or else you can't land anything at all. Why they ramp up the enemy encounters the further you get in the game when it is very obvious that it is not the meat of the game and also isn't fun is beyond me.

Here's where things get a little messy, instead of having pre-built levels flowing between each other via story, Catalyst is an open-world free-roam game. This...wasn't a very good idea. There is a lot of menial tasks you can perform while you are roaming around going to and from missions. Most of these tasks specifically stop you in your tracks to perform a meaningless animation that gives you xp and a number on a tracking list. Fantastic, instead of continuing to enjoy the movement I decided to stop and perform a checklist action because it exists. These actions are placed all around the game world and even during missions, important ones too. It should be pretty obvious but these are nothing but distractions from what should be a nice open world to traverse around. Some checklists are better than others though, specifically the "Runs" are a lot of fun as they take a segment of world traversal and turn it into a speedrunning puzzle. The worst of the checklists is the nigh mandatory Ubisoft fast travel towers. You go to them, do the platforming challenge, then you can actually fast travel to the hideouts in that designated area. With as much traversal as you do, you would hope it would be continually fun, but eventually you get really tired of doing the exact same route over and over again. Fast-travel is a solution to a problem that simply shouldn't exist. By having an open world with a mission-based structure the game becomes a chore to enjoy as you continually traverse the same environments, same obstacles, same enemy placements again and again and again. And not even all of the missions have unique locations, only about half do. That half is only nice because you are going through places you can literally never access normally, but once you complete a mission you are slapped back into the same open-world making them feel completely disconnected. And before I move on, let's talk Runner Vision. In the OG, Runner Vision was a fight between never having enough information to progress and having all the information which made the times you had none feel like you made a mistake. Catalyst overcorrects so hard on the Runner Vision so the player never has to worry about ever getting lost. Instead of simply the progression objects and obstacles being red (which they still are), you now have a continuously shat out red line that shows the exact pathing you need to take to go to where you need to go and do what you need to do. So now, instead of having to think at all you just follow the red line to wherever it says instead of at least using your eyes. There is an option to change the Runner Vision to the "classic" style but having a better design choice behind an option in a menu which you can completely skip over is pushing my level of care to the depths of hell. It doesn't matter if it exists, because the default play experience is garbage.

Worse than everything else, the story in this game is somehow even more non-existent than the original. Characters aren't interesting at all, plot twists are visible miles in advance, no one has a single fucking arc in any way, and most importantly basically nothing fucking happens. You can argue that stuff does occur in the story and that events do happen but I'm not buying it with the ending that I was given. While the original game gave me something undercooked, what I was delivered today was fucking raw. And the end-point is so un-definitive so a player can get right back to doing menial bullshit around a terrible open-world instead of closing off what should be an origin story for Faith. Oh right, did I forget to mention this game is a complete rewrite from the ground-up of the original? There is zero link to the first game making this game a borderline shitty remake! And the game constantly tells you to go read a comic to find out what events lead up to the opening of the game which is DUMB!!!

Mirror's Edge Catalyst somehow manages to be just as unsteady and underdeveloped as its predecessor while being leaps and bounds ahead in technology. 8 years in between the two and yet if I don't focus my eyes right, these games look identical. Both have so many issues in gameplay and story and both make me imagine a game without so many faults. The movement here is for sure better than the former, but I wish there was a latter that could fucking fix up this series that is destined to mediocrity.

Animal Well as an experience is better than Animal Well as a game. That doesn't mean Animal Well isn't a fun game, but it's not the kind of game that works nearly as well past a first playthrough. For most people, that's perfectly fine. You play through a game, find its secrets, and then quit. But for a game that actively encourages you to experience it, then continue to experience it again and again, the cracks begin to show pretty evidently.

Animal Well is a puzzle platformer metroidvania. You, some little slime dude, are dropped into the world with no information other than...well actually, just no information. A key element that brings out Animal Well's unique charm is how completely informationless you are and remain throughout the entire duration of play. No matter how far you get, no semblance of real narrative or lore is ever dropped on you. This combined with the game's stellar art and ambience gives the player a rich and mysterious atmosphere as they play. It's dripping in atmosphere all over, and it is gorgeous. On the other hand, though, the utter lack of information makes for a playthrough that's full of questioning. "Why am I doing this?" "What's my goal?" "Is there any reason for me to be here?" You aren't ever given any answers, and outside of the game-given goal of "getting the four flames", there is zero forward momentum within the game to drive a player. This is a divisive thing though, for some people, the intrigue will outweigh their need for answers. For me, however, I found it very difficult, especially after specific events to become very engaged with the game and its utter lack of clues. Depending on how long you play, the lack of anything other than your own ambition will set in harder and harder.

The best way to showcase the dichotomy of the game's failings (in my eyes) is through the game's three "layers". Layer 1 is collecting the four flames and reaching the credits. When you play through Layer 1 of this game, you will have gone through a majority of the screens, collected a decent amount of hidden easter eggs, and maybe glimpsed some deeper things, but not many. After reaching the credits, you enter "Layer 2" where your goal (if you continue playing) is to find any screens you missed, collect all the remaining easter eggs, and maybe find something new...hopefully. In this layer, the mostly filled-in map will be to your detriment. The remaining pieces of the game are harder and harder to find, and the retreading of screen after screen in search of an amorphous "second ending" of some kind will push any thoughts of fun out of the way. If you play genuinely blind, this is where things start to decline fast. And then you hit "Layer 3", the cryptic, unknowable, super-duper secret post-game puzzles that are designed specifically for sickos. For only certain people will this entertain, for me I turned the game off. The reward of more cryptic and more hidden puzzles after solving a bunch of cryptic and hidden shit isn't very rewarding. At no point do I learn anything interesting about the world or what's going on, and my only driving motivator to continue engaging with it is to "find secrets for secret's sake". At some point, the egg cracks. Many tout this game's insane depths as some sort of selling point and huge intrigue, but I find it quite the opposite. I really enjoyed playing through the metroidvania layer, finding new tools to utilize, and solving quick byte-sized puzzles. The different puzzle-solving tools are incredibly unique and interesting, combined with thoughtful level design and it becomes a fun experience.

But that's it. The best example of Animal Well's desire for you to replay what is essentially a game you are continually replaying just to find another secret is the fact that there is a reward you get for beating the entire game without dying and without saving. Sure, you could definitely argue that this is just a challenge for enthusiasts, but in a game so seeped in mysteries, are you really going to deny that people might unintentionally expect more clues for some deeper secret after beating the game deathless?

I know that this review is pretty harsh, but don't get me wrong, I think Animal Well is a fun game. I just don't think it's one I will really think about going back to. There is such a thing as too cryptic. And beyond the deeper puzzles, Animal Well just doesn't have enough going for it for me. It was fine, but...that's it...

Armored Core VI was my first AC game, with that in mind I really don't know who this game is made for and whether or not it is a good thing. Bits and pieces of the design feel completely foreign which is probably a good thing, but then it wrapped around to feeling at times way too "Elden Ring" which is very much not a good thing. And you know, maybe that's the point right? Elden Ring was the litmus test to see how a new AC game would do in the wild, but if that's the kind of action game FromSoft wishes to make I don't know if I want to be on this ride anymore.

To keep this from being all that negative, I wanna talk about how absolutely astounding good the controls are in this game. Without having played a prior AC title, ACVI not only perfectly teaches you how to play very quickly and very well, but also feels indescribably better to control and use in the hands compared to the likes of Elden Ring. Elden Ring's control scheme for lack of a better word is bloated, where ACVI is the perfect balance between complex and extremely playable. If you play with a controller, get one with paddles and customize to make the game feel even more incredible to experience.

Next, the atmosphere and music. The combo of these two has some incredible effects in this game and man oh man, did I love every second of it. ACVI has this drippy atmosphere of electricity and metal coming from the music and locals which perfectly complements the harshness of said environment. And this gets really good in some boss fights, in particular the Chapter 1 Boss, which still holds the candle for being one of the most incredible bosses FromSoft has made purely from an atmosphere standpoint. But design-wise...

Now I have to talk the in-between, Bosses. Some are really really good, and some are pretty bad. Overall, the experience is a lot more consistent and fun compared to Elden Ring's fights, but that design managed to seep in a few too many times for my liking. Hit-trading is the name of the game here, and I personally don't know if I really like it. I enjoy my Action games to be perfectible, something that both Elden Ring and this game lack hard. But, even more specifically, they only are that way because they force specific build design if you want to have a boss be even remotely possible at times. Personally, I used a pure medium build throughout the game, but many many times over it really felt like a heavy tank build was THE way to win and I hated that kind of pure hit-trade playstyle. Mechanically, some of these fights rock hard, even maybe harder than some peak Souls stuff, but that is only when hit-trading isn't the most important thing in the bosses design, which quite a few are just built for. Without going into spoilers that's all I can say.

On a different note, I found a majority of the missions incredibly fun. Moving forward with the control thing here, most missions are fairly open with lots of different terrains and enemies to deal with making them a long string of bite-sized movement and shooting challenges. They are consistently high-quality stuff, very rarely did they dip into underwhelming or even bad territory. The only ones that did are the incredibly, maybe even laughably short missions, but those don't show up so frequently as to be anything other than an afterthought.

Lastly is the story, which I think is decently good, not amazing. It doesn't really start to pick up in interest until after the first two chapters, which is enough time for people to stop caring. Luckily, I chose to care, and it offers some interesting thought choices due to the somewhat more nuanced narrative that gets brought forth. These choices are mission-based, picking one side over another. It is a very neat way of tying the game's mission structure with the narrative. It also poses some neat replayability into the game alongside the exclusive NG+ and NG++ missions/choices you unlock. In that regard, it offers far more reason to continue engaging with the game than any of the other FromSoft titles barring Sekiro.

ACVI is a great game, incredibly fun to play and an overall good experience. However, FromSoft needs to understand that building their core mechanics and bosses around having very granularly specific builds will alienate more and more players as they continue to create new titles. The peak of their boss design was in Dark Souls 3, when we were still on the edge tittering between methodical perfect play and super quick n' difficult bosses. I hope I see a return of that someday, but that isn't in this game. Or at the very least, it wasn't what I was hoping for.

Tomb Raider is a conflicted game. On the one hand it really adores its action set-pieces, to the point where it feels overwhelming. But, then it feels like the game really wants you to explore and take your time finding all of its collectibles and well, TOMBS. The story pacing and lack of downtime makes for an experience that wants to have its cake and eat it too. There is a lot I like about this game, almost as much as there is to dislike. Yet, there is just enough good fun and well-crafted moments to mostly overshadow the abundance of downfalls.

To start, combat in Tomb Raider is an ever-increasing puzzle that begins simple but becomes a rich and complex experience as the game progresses. You start with nothing but a bow and by the end you will be swapping between 4 unique weapons with multiple ammo types. This decent amount of player choice in combat always for encounters to flow quite distinctly from one another, where a player will constantly be moving from weapon to weapon based on the ammo they have and the environments surrounding them. If I had to pick out an example of a rough edge on the combat, it would have to be the melee attacks. They just don't perform as well as one would hope. Each swing feels like it directly conflicts the rest of the combat, being slow and weighty with long-ish cooldown on a miss. Using it puts you in a bad position more often than a good one due to the long time spent in the melee finisher state. In that time, enemies will find their way right behind you and simply wait to fuck you up. And the number one enemy that fucks this system is the shield enemies, which normally would be a good pace-changer. Except, having them ruins an encounter. Shield enemies can only be hit after they move their shield, which only happens if you get close and dodge away from their swing. During this time, it is extremely difficult to manage all of the fire metaphorical and literal coming at you. Just a frustration that feels out of place.

Exploration and environmental traversal is a big portion of this game. Pretty much every space you enter is one big puzzle requiring a couple of items and usually a lot of climbing. Yeah, triple A prestige climbing. However, credit where credit is due, it is at the very least a little more thought-provoking than normal triple A climbing. Not a lot more, but just a little. Most of the environment puzzles aren't super complicated, but hold just enough weight to make moving around an alright time. Sometimes it's even fun! The one big downside to the exploration is that you either are just looking for mostly useless collectibles (sometimes it's a journal which gives lore, those are passable) or entering tombs. The tombs should be the real meat and crux of the game, at least based on the title...but they aren't. Tombs are single room puzzles which while fun, feel far too short. They have such a large build-up for each one, shimming and walking and crawling until you reach the entrance to the tomb and then it ends just as quick as it began. A big let-down since the puzzles present are enjoyable, just not enough of them to feel like a real important thing to explore for.

Now, let's get to the real meat of this review: the Story. Oh boy, I have many gripes with this. For one, the game starts off with basically no character-explanation or really anything noteworthy other than wowie bombastic action sequence. The whole intro felt as if I was being treated like a toddler with zero attention span. Constant action sequence, action sequence, quick time event, action sequence. All so my low-iq could keep going woooah we gotta keep playing. And this is basically how the whole game is treated. We rarely if ever get any downtime to sit and relax a bit. Hell, we aren't even trusted to get to know why we are here or what our characters even are like until about an hour in. That's a long time before I can even begin to try and understand who Lara is and why she even is here. And about Lara, god it really feels like they couldn't decide whether or not they wanted her to be super cool badass or crybaby audience representative. The scenes where she isn't in a huge action set-piece feel like she is a completely different character. The two-sides to her Tomb-Raiding-self feel at odds with each other constantly. On one end, it feels like she should not be nearly as capable as she is, especially with the amount of bullshit that occurs every five minutes. But on the other hand, when she can shred through fifty dudes with nothing but a bow, it's hard to believe she isn't a stone-cold killer. And it doesn't help that the game can barely be assed to get us to care about any of the other characters. I wish I could care when something happens to XYZ person, but unfortunately, the game never told me that I should. Even THE person that has the most important role in the story feels little more than a damsel in distress with no connection to Lara except hey they are friends, care about them please. Also the fact that the game ends with Lara going "I will be a Tomb Raider now" is really ironic considering at one point she genuinely says "I hate tombs" in game.

Lastly, I got to talk my biggest gripe with this game, and while it isn't an original one, it certainly plagues the hell out of this game. Context Sensitivity. So many actions in this game are context sensitive. Climbing, stealth kills, and worst of all: crouching. Why in the fuck is crouching context sensitive??? Basically, if you are in combat but not in an alert state, you stay crouched. Once in an alert state, you crouch only when you are near something defined as cover, such as a short wall, etc. This forces the player into specific actions without their choice, which can ruin combat scenarios at times. Add this lack of choice into other context sensitive actions, in what should be a very context insensitive environment, and quickly encounters can overstay their welcome or become downright annoying and unfair due to the game removing control. It is a major issue, a lot of games have similar problems, but most of the time the combat system is designed to keep the player AWAY from too much context sensitivity as possible so as not to bother the combat experience. This isn't the case in Tomb Raider which bogs down an otherwise decent game. Certain encounters go from challenges to flat-out fucking stupid. The worst of the worst come later and later as you progress.

Tomb Raider is the reboot of the Tomb Raider series, and while it certainly attempted a whole lot, it mainly tried to become another triple A prestige action game with the greatest comparison being an Uncharted clone. While I wouldn't call it a clone or rip-off, the comparisons are uncanny enough to support the idea that maybe Crystal Dynamics were trying to create their own Uncharted to get big bucks from. While it somewhat worked out here, if major changes don't occur to both story, exploration, and the copious amounts of context sensitivity, this series can't go up from here.

I find the game, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney,
ALMOST. PERFECT.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney or as henceforth will be called AA1, is undoubtably one of the most thrilling, confusing, and downright incredible gaming experiences I have undergone. A nigh masterclass level of game design and story writing prowess that crafted an adventure that must be played to be understood. While this game may be seem to be mostly visual novel text-based adventure-esque dialogue trees for most of its runtime I can assure you with confidence, that being in the director's chair of those scenes is exactly where the gold comes from. You cannot watch someone play through AA1 and experience it fully, this is not a book or even a puzzle, it is the gold-standard of narrative writing that requires one's full undivided immersion. Not only is this game an impeccable work of player-character immersion, it also is a challenging and at times unfair whodunnit murder mystery. Every single little piece of this game was crafted in a manor to illicit the feelings felt while watching your best friend confront your worst enemy in a game of Rock-Paper-Scissors to the death.

The beginning of this experience is crafted starting with the main two types of gameplay. Investigating and Trials. The elements of these two types meld into one another often enough that its at times hard to see a difference between the two outside of the clear cut time-frames they are given. This is a good thing. When we begin AA1 the player is immediately thrown into their first trial with no build-up whatsoever. No on the ground investigation happens prior. This is an extremely important thing to do! The tutorial of the game mechanics comes in a manner so in your face confident that it barely even feels like a tutorial. You aren't being taught the tools of the trade, you are digesting them with a milkshake straw! In the first trial, the player is taught that a majority of their time will be spent gleaning information given from the happenings of conversations. From these conversations you can find evidence which can be used to either further a conversation or show a contradiction. This is the player's key action: presenting evidence. Sometimes this is physical evidence, sometimes it is a choice of words, either way it is navigating the current conversation to find the truth of the matter. Once the player has fully digested there tools in the first trial, the second case opens with the investigation gameplay experience. Investigating is built around looking around a room and gleaning what you can for evidence. In this regard it is fundamentally the same as courtroom conversations, but the presentation is different because WE feel in control. The player does not need to be taught how to find this evidence as they already know how to find it themselves. This makes story moments that start to unravel within the second case unfurl beautifully and without distraction. This...is incredible. As the game progresses, more and more opportunities of crossover in game mechanics occur until they bleed into each other so elegantly that a flow state of unparalleled magnitude wells up within a prospective player trying to solve their current case. From trial to investigation back to trial and so on, so forth. The player slowly chips away at a case from all angles until nothing but the undisputed truth gleams brightly in the face of the court.

None of this game design beauty however, would be anything without the visual novel's rich storytelling. And luckily, AA1 is a king of storytelling. For each case, we have a cold open that gives us clues as to how the story will unfurl before us. When we start the game, these cold opens more or less spoil the who in the dunnit, requiring the player only solve the how they dunnit and the why they didit. As the cases progress however, the clues become more and more vague to the point of genuinely trying to trick the player. This is an incredibly important detail. The goal of the story alongside the gameplay is to get the player more and more closely aligned with the current thought process of protagonist, Phoenix Wright. Of course, as this is a human being we do not know every single thing he does. However, when it comes to the cases themselves, we know ONLY what he does. At the very least, once the game allows the player to enter the flow state. As stated, the game starts with the first two cases giving us a head-start to Phoenix. Then, when it feels we are properly understating how trials and investigations go, they say "ok. Now figure this one out, for real". This is of course only the beginning. On a case by case basis, the stories and intertwining character narratives begin to become more and more complex. The first case being nothing but a tutorial has simple characters in a simple story. But, by the time we have reached case 4, that could not be further from the truth. Throughout the game, an overarching character narrative takes place. Every character on their own has their own arcs, but most important of those is Miles Edgeworth, Phoenix Wright's foil. On a base level, Edgeworth is the exact opposite of Wright. A prosecutor to Wright's defense attorney, red to Wright's blue, etc. This multi-case character arc that defines the journey of AA1 is the true story of the game. In cases 2 and 3, the game slowly hints and pokes at a potential bigger, larger picture taking place. But like the attorney you play, the game holds its cards close, leaving only a nibble. All the way until case 4, where the true nature of this story is revealed. The character arcs unfurl and with the satisfying conclusion, the adventure ends.

Or so one would think. With the DS version of AA1, the devs decided to pull one final trick. One final piece to finish their puzzle. Case 5. I saved the best for last. Without any spoilers, case 5 is more of an encore to their entirety of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney on the whole. From the highest level of gameplay-melding, to new an unique methods of investigation, to what is perhaps the most convoluted and crazy the plot of a case can get, it is not only the love letter to itself, it is the THESIS STATEMENT of why this game is incredible. In a twist unlike any other, AA1 says "you have seen my cards, there is nothing else to do but place them". Case 5 takes the major elements of every. other. case. and combines them into one super case to try and showcase everything possible all at once. Not only does it show you the cards, and tries to use them to trick you! The opening of the case actively tries to punish you for following the footsteps its predecessor's walked by LYING to your FACE. It uses this active deception in one final incredible swoop to try and pull its best attempt at complete immersion of player and character. You do not know where this case is going, you will not know where it is taking you, but you WILL be along for the ride. It is only by looking backward, by taking every single word, every single lie, every single cover-up the game has in its entirety that we can see the fuller truer picture that lay before us in the finale of this incredible game. We are not being asked to piece together a one-case puzzle, we are being asked by fucking Shu Takumi himself to solve his own fucking GAME. If that isn't the most in your face, piss your pants, you are gonna learn today statement in video games then I haven't played any!

However, this is one caveat to this experience, depending on who you are, how much you know, etc, will determine how much this game works for you. It all comes down to that player-character immersion. If you the player find yourself solving things before the characters or if you fall behind Phoenix the game can go from the most incredible flow-state to a chore of unbridled non-understanding. For me, this did not happen frequently and I am glad it did not. But the times it did occur left me completely stumped and floored in ways that left me disassociating from the experience slightly. This is why the game is ALMOST perfect, and not just perfect. If future Ace Attorney titles somehow manage to genuinely perfect this game-narrative cohesion, then I will be shocked and subsequently piss my pants so much to make up for the lack of pants pissage from each previous title it does not occur.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney is part game design gold and part narrative design platinum. In tandem, these elements work so exponentially well I could not and will not say nay to them. Video Games have come a long way since Ace Attorney, yet I might say, that we have not yet come close to matching it. Rarely does a game attempt so much and succeed at nearly everything. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney attempted a rare fusion of player and character and walked out to thunderous applause. Play it as blind as you can, you owe it to yourself.

Final Fantasy IV: The After Years is unequivocally one of the worst games I have ever played in my entire life. You'd think that's hyperbole and yet it isn't. I get that the game was designed for a bite-sized FF experience for mobile, but that kind of cope is reserved for before a title gets a release on other platforms. The PSP version inside the FFIV Complete Collection treats this game like a game on the same level as FFIV proper, and if that's how it is then this game gets the bullet. There is so little content in this game that I would call original because 99% of it is just FFIV but again. It even steps further and has the entire final dungeon completely waste my time, reusing boss fights from across all pixel-based FF games in an overly long, monotonous, and shitty final act.

Let's start with gameplay changes because boy are the ones here fucking awful. The two big things are Bands and Moon Phases. Bands are interesting in concept and maybe could've been cool but unfortunately, it is ruined by being locked behind specific character interactions. If two characters can work together, they can use a Band, which requires them to both have ATB and a good amount of MP to deal massive damage together. However, since it can only be used on specific characters between other specific characters, finding a Band between characters is a complete waste of time. The only part of the game where the system is remotely fleshed out is in the final tale where you are basically thrown Bands like they are potions. Though in the end you won't end up using most of them. Next is Moon Phases, the worst mechanic someone has ever come up with. Whether it's from performing a specific amount of actions or by resting in an inn/tent, the moon phase will change, which will change how specific core mechanics perform in battle. For instance, one moon phase will up the damage on black magic but worsen the damage of regular melee attacks. There are four different moon phases the game rotates through and each affects only two types of mechanics at a time between melee, black magic, white magic, and...throwables? I think? One will be upped, the other will be destroyed. It completely sucks to play around because it either requires hoping for the moon to randomly change or wasting precious items so you can have the correct moon phase for specific fights. And I say correct instead of best because a lot of fights are built around extremely specific fighting conditions to an obscene degree that many times over I wanted to rip my eyes out.

Oh yeah, remember all of the cool characters and story beats that FFIV went over? Ever wonder what it would be like if they were ripped away and spit on? No? WELL HAVE FUN BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT HAPPENED! Not a single character was spared from this shitstaining system. It's not funny. At all. The combined ballbusting talents of the writing, storyline, and game design combine together to ruin characters that had been finalized and had their story told. I can't even begin to explain why it is so bad, just know that it is not worth giving a single shit about any of this game's characters. Even the new ones aren't really that interesting or great. If I had to pick maybe ONE character who I think had a glow-up it would be Palom. Seriously, that's it.

While I'm at it let's talk about the tale system. Awful. I get that the game was released in chunks for mobile but in retrospect, they shouldn't have been ok with it back then either. NOTHING about this system is good in any way. For seven of the first eight tales you are basically repeating the entire same chunk of story but from a differing perspective each time. This does nothing but lead to the most abhorrent and unenjoyable slog through what is essentially "recap: the video game" for over fourteen hours. The ninth tale is also basically completely pointless and explains exactly one tiny thing for the final tale. And the main issue with the final tale is well, now that you have all of the previous tales done, use your save data in this last tale to progress the story. Bad news though, if you are under-leveled, KILL YOURSELF! And oh yeah, there are like twenty fucking characters to make a party from and oh yeah, you probably need to get at the very least six to seven of these characters OVER THIRTY LEVELS HIGHER THEN WHERE THEY MIGHT START. My characters started the final tale at around 20-25 for most of them. From what I could gather, the required level to start the final dungeon is around FOURTY. AND TO FINISH THE FUCKING TALE YOU NEED TO BE OVER SEVENTY!?! Like I said, KILL YOURSELF.

The antagonist sucks. Like I literally have nothing else to say, they are just fucking terrible. They have zero presence and all of the endgame reveals feel completely vapid and soulless like they just needed some justification to wrap shit up. Throughout the game, the antagonist just mocks the player for wanting to give a shit, and then in the ending, it mocks you even more for giving any shits because the whole thing flips on its head to reveal that nothing fucking mattered in the end. That this whole story was pointless.

For the third official sequel to a Final Fantasy title, but the first in terms of game chronology, this was such a complete step backward from anything and everything that made Final Fantasy IV even remotely decent as a video game. Instead of getting a helping of new characters and a unique and interesting plot, all I got was over thirty-five hours of hoping and praying that someone would give me a goddamn out so I could stop playing. Nothing happens, nothing is worth any fucks, and clearly, the developers didn't give any either. As of writing, I have never played a video game as blatantly fucking terrible as this, even within this series of games. I hope every person who worked to make this colossal fucking failure wakes up every night in a cold sweat crying to themselves and begging for forgiveness. Fuck you. Fuck me. Fuck this game. and fuck Final Fantasy.

Gravity Circuit is so Mega Man, that at times I wonder whether or not the game would be fun or interesting if I hadn't played a Mega Man game before. The game is consistently enjoyable, with a robust and tight moveset/combat system and level/boss design that feels completely ripped out of a Mega Man title...So...if it is so Mega Man, then what does the game necessarily bring that's unique in its own right? Well, that's one of my only real issues, it doesn't. Basically, everything down to the core is Mega Man through and through, some parts even being flat-out ripped straight from one with no changes. Hell, the game even rips the ENTIRE highway and highway boss from fucking Mighty No. 9! That's insane! It's better here than in MN9 but like still...really?

But let's start off with that gameplay dissection. The player has a melee attack with built-in unique directional attacks. Attacks have predetermined combo strings with a minor amount of depth on their own but not enough to be satisfied alone. Alongside the melee is a short-ranged attack called the Hookshot, which also allows the player to attach to walls and ceilings much like the namesake comes from. The Hookshot can also grab items and enemies to hold and on button release, throw into other enemies and objects for massive damage. You can only pick up an enemy if it has died. However, once you kill an enemy all the base combat fades away in turn for grab, throw, grab, repeat. Instant kill on all enemies the throw hits. But if you don't wanna use throws and instead want better base melee, the burst gauge is where things get a little interesting. You have up to four unique burst moves equipped corresponding to Neutral, Up, Down, and Left/Right specifically. Each move is a kind of mini super move with some i-frames and big damage locked behind one burst gauge pip. To fill the burst gauge you have to get burst energy from enemies, which is only given after they die, unless you are using the passive effect system. Flat out, the burst gauge should just fill on attack regardless of any required passive effect. The system complements the base combat to allow genuine personality but only when the player can ebb and flow in burst attacks at will. Without it, it becomes a continuous wailfest that sadly feels a little dull. It doesn't help that most of the time you really don't wanna use certain directional attacks because they have long wind-ups for no damage increase. Other than that though, the burst system is surprisingly robust, albeit most moves, and good ones especially are locked behind the different Circuits. One burst technique straight up breaks the combat system...yet feels depressingly built around it. We'll get to that later.

After combat, the next important part of a Mega Man-like, especially one with X and Zero DNA, is the movement feel. Luckily, Gravity Circuit has seriously fluid movement with some minor issues that can easily be avoided. Besides the basic left/right and jump movement, the player can wall jump infinitely on the same wall, as well as get a large jump when jumping away from said wall. The player can also slide which oddly enough has a specified duration that gets shorter the more times you have to slide consecutively. It's not really an issue but I think it would've made more sense if the slide continued through a slide tunnel if the player could not stand up. And lastly, there is a run button. The base movement is about the same as the movement speed of X from Mega Man X, which isn't all that slow. However, in this game, they wanted to crank the game speed up to match the much faster and punchy combat with a run button. The issue with the run button is that you pretty much should NEVER stop holding it down. There is basically no scenario in the entire game where it isn't expected that you are holding run. This is a problem I have with other run button-based platformers as well, but the problem is definitely exacerbated here. Luckily as stated prior, the fix is something they added in the options menu to invert the run button into a walk button. This should've been the default, no contest. On top of that, another function that isn't bound at first is an upwards-facing hookshot button, akin to the Super Metroid aim-up button. Using the hookshot for the hookshot-based platforming later in the game is NOT FUN if you do not use this function. Again, should've been the default.

While playing the game, the player occasionally garners a currency (that I could not name if you put a gun to my head) that can be used to purchase burst moves and passive effect chips. The passive effect chips also require a secondary collectible in the form of savable bots in levels but I have no qualms with those so I won't talk further on em. In general, I think there is a little bit too much of a focus on the currency during levels, and thusly in the shop functionality at all. The main reward for nearly all play during a level is money, which is still not enough to get things depending on your progress in the game/stages. Personally, I believe a much better system would instead keep the bot system for passives, and change to a much cooler and much rarer bolt collectible system found within levels for techniques. Scrap the money entirely as it's superfluous and doesn't necessarily contribute to the overall quality of the systems present. On that note, let's talk passives. The player can equip up to three and they vary wildly in effects, from increasing player range on melee, faster attacks, to the aforementioned gain burst energy on enemy hit. In general, I like the system! It once again is another layer of letting prospective players choose how they want to engage in combat uniquely which is almost always a good thing. The only issues are presented when you stack specific effects to wildly change the difficulty of combat. The burst effects especially can stack for a disgustingly nasty combo that can garner the player tons of burst energy that can not only heal the player but allow them to perform their actual burst moves. This compounds with the broken burst technique to decimate any shred of legitimacy in the combat experience, leaving a hollow husk in its wake.

This technique is a mid-combat heal. That may not sound like much, but when other passives stack with it, it can quickly change the combat from a unique Action Platformer with challenging bosses, to a needless spam of attacks to deal damage and still reward yourself with health back. There is very little risk with this strategy and that goes for the entire game after it is used. Perhaps luckily, almost the entire game can be done absolutely perfectly without said moves and is designed around NOT having it. That is...except for the final boss. The final boss is almost great, but the final phase fucks it up. In the final phase, the boss begins spawning enemies so that the player may gain a burst meter to destroy the fuck out of it. Or at least that's the intended reason for the random enemies. Unfortunately, the enemies still can launch attacks at you! While the final boss is also attacking you! This leads to a genuine clusterfuck that in no way was designed without a personal fucking heal kit in your back pocket every few attacks. Its design doesn't lend itself well to the combat system, and it sure as hell doesn't do the rest of the game any favors when it all but practically gives up on the finalest stretch possible. Which is a shame because the rest of the fight is very good, albeit a difficult learning curve.

Alright, last few minor things to talk about. Level design is incredibly strong, with each level having a very distinct core identity centered around a couple of unique gameplay ideas. And in the classic Mega Man fashion, all tethered around the specific robot master (or in this case, Circuit) of said level. This leads into the "Wily" stages of the game which as usual raise the difficulty floor of the platforming and combat as well as throw in multiple stage's ideas into one making a new unique platforming experience for each one.

Story isn't a big thing in Mega Man games, but it got a little bit of limelight here in Gravity Circuit. It isn't all that incredible, still being just fine at best, but I found it really interesting that the plot seemed to travel down a more...JRPG-esque plotline? If you play the game you'll understand what I mean. It was a fun plot while staying relatively simple which is the most you could ask for when it comes to Mega Man-likes.

And last minor thing is this review is based on the base Hard Mode experience. Enemy damage felt fair until the aforementioned final boss shenanigans and the health pool didn't become an issue until the "Wily" stages as well. On top of that, I also did not find any of the health upgrades and found only one burst gauge upgrade. In Mega Man X fashion, it is of course highly recommended to get those upgrades, but unlike X, you can find them on your first visits to levels...even if I didn't end up finding many. This of course doesn't impact my review that much, because I hold that the base kit should be more than capable of tackling all parts of the game, which in Gravity Circuit's case is almost entirely possible.

Gravity Circuit is an incredibly solid game. A lot of this review may have painted a different picture but I can assure you that my critiques are something that doesn't change the overall rating all that much. The game doesn't push boundaries, nor does it have an incredible quality to it... But every single piece of the game, from art direction, art quality, music, gameplay, and more exudes a love of the games it is based on. And most importantly, exudes consistent quality at a level of fun that any game worth its salt should wish to reach. Not all games have to be incredible 10 out of 10 masterpieces, sometimes, a game just has to be good quality fun. That is Gravity Circuit.

Hatsune Miku: Project Diva has the beginnings of a good rhythm game, but has some hiccups here and there that bring the experience down a whole lot. The game has a fantastic core that is both well-designed and very fun. However, getting to really delve into the core requires way too much effort and quite literally the credits roll before you can enjoy your richer depth. The game is designed as a love letter to Hatsune Miku and her fans, leading to many extra features and functions specifically for fan service, all of which are great. But because of such a great plethora of fan service for Miku, the other Vocaloids are barely present and so little was done to give them anything in this title.

In Project Diva, there are three levels of difficulty on each chart: Easy, Medium, and Hard. Each difficulty changes the amount of buttons required and the overall complexity of the chart itself. Easy features one button, Medium has two, and Hard requires all four main buttons. Those buttons are X, Circle, Triangle, and Square. Outside of those four buttons, no other buttons are required or possible to use during play. The rhythm element is presented like this: an outline for a note will appear on the screen along with a clock hand that turns to the pace of the song. The note corresponds to one of the four buttons which will begin to fly in from off-screen to meet up with the note outline. During this travel time, the clock hand will turn exactly 360 degrees clockwise, at which point the outline and note will exactly match. Once said note and the outline overlap, you press the corresponding button to clear said note from the screen, the better the timing, the better the score. The differing timings that you can press lead to different rhythm-based results. A Cool or Fine are the only two that increase the player's score and continue a combo. A Safe does not contribute to combo nor increase score, but you don't lose health from hitting one. A Bad or a Miss will cause the player to lose health, losing all of your health means you fail the song and have to start over. Depending on how well you do during a song there are three different grades you can get. A Standard is for a pass that is significantly shit for lack of a better word. A Great is for hitting a majority of notes with Cools and Fines but not quite a Perfect run. And a Perfect, which means hitting every single note with a Cool or a Fine. Or at least, in theory, that's how it should work, but the difference between a Standard and a Great is actually based on the player's ending score.

This is the first big issue with Project Diva, under normal circumstances being score-based for grading wouldn't make a difference unless the game had some sort of combo-based scoring. Which under normal circumstances, it doesn't. Scoring is primarily based on the player's accuracy. However, this all goes out the window with the game's strangest addition: Chance Time. Chance Time appears in every single song and for only that period of the song does the game change to a combo-scoring-based system, where the more consecutive notes you hit with a combo, the higher the score count for each note, capping out at 5000 per note. This SUCKS. Every run of a song ends up being mindless nothing until the Chance Time where you have to be as precise as possible if you want a Great rating. This means you could be pretty damn shit before Chance Time and recover everything too. There's also the problem that the moment Chance Time begins you can no longer see what your note accuracy is. Somehow this made it through!? You see, each note you hit is given the accuracy of during play, but only in the bottom right corner of the screen, completely away from the gameplay. That's already an issue in of itself, but once Chance Time starts, an overlay appears not letting the player see the accuracy, their health, or their score. Why the fuck was this done? I wish I knew...

Unfortunately, that isn't the only issue, but this next one has some layers to unpack. To unlock a song, you must first beat the previous song on the list (with minor exceptions). But when you get a song, you only have access to the Easy and Normal versions of said songs. To unlock Hard difficulty on a song you must beat the song on Normal at least once. So if you want access to all of the songs, you have to beat all of the songs on Normal first. Then this unlocks all of the hard versions of said songs with it. That doesn't sound bad at first, but remember that Normal only uses two of the four buttons during play. Without being able to touch Hard difficulty, the player is forced to play a significantly less interesting version of the game they could be playing. While the charting between Normal and Hard is relatively similar, they aren't the same, so not only is the difficulty reduced, but so is the overall button complexity. For someone entirely new, this might not seem that big a deal, but when you can only hit buttons with a single thumb and there are exactly two buttons to choose from, the game is not nearly as fun as it could be. I sorely wish I could be doing something with my other hand or maybe even other fingers but I really can't.

Before getting to the last bad thing, let's talk about something good: Chart complexity. Project Diva has a pretty decent selection of charts all with their own unique quirks and identities. This coupled with the game's innate unique rhythm experience leads to a match made in heaven. Notes can fly in on top of each other, from opposite directions, all around if they so please. The speed at which the notes travel can be heavily decreased or increased to match the chosen pace of the song. The note outlines can be placed literally anywhere on the screen, including on top of other note outlines. Hell, some charts even begin at a slower pace and then change midway through the chart. The possibilities are staggering and it leads to a mountain of fun to be had regardless of whether or not you like the song which is usually the biggest issue in a rhythm game.

Now, lastly, the lack of diversity. Hatsune Miku is just about the only singer in this game. Now this would've been more understandable if not for the fact that there do indeed exist optional outfits you can unlock that are the models of different Vocaloids. Kagamin Rin and Len, Megurine Luka, Kaito, Meiko, Yowana Haku, and Akita Neru. Out of these characters, two have two songs each, both of which are literally repeats of existing songs. The exact same chart, PV, and model movement, just a different singer. And to unlock these optional different voiced charts (which are counted as different songs mind you) you have to beat the original chart multiple times over. Three times to be exact. This seriously sucks because it clearly shows that this is simply a Miku game. I would be remiss to not mention that, yes, DLC did release after that came with new tracks specifically based on the other Vocaloids, but those aren't in the base game so, not in my house. If they wanted to include them later as completely DLC instead of having the models in-game locked behind arbitrary requirements with a paltry showing of songs to listen to from them, then that would've made more sense. What we have currently is just stupid.

Hatsune Miku: Project Diva is right on the cusp of being a great rhythm game, but this title makes major mistakes that take the experience way down. Gameplay is incredibly fun, and all of the nods to the fans are fantastic, but it just needs more time in the oven. With a little finetuning and maybe some parts completely removed, this little rhythm game could hit it real big.

Lunacid feels like a game that doesn't exist. With the cosmic horror/dark fantasy-inspired environments, Playstation 1 graphical style, and haunting but sometimes slamming music, Lunacid oozes a style out of this world. Every second I spent exploring the vast and rich depths of the Great Well, I absolutely LOVED IT. There are some minor caveats with the experience, and depending on your level of competency/insanity, a couple of things might reduce the impact of the world. To me, however, Lunacid is a lightning-in-a-bottle experience BECAUSE of its flaws, not in spite of them.

The game begins with our body being dropped into the Great Well, apparently for being a thief, before we are given our character creation menu. Everything besides the class is superfluous and is only there to help ground the player within the world, which I can vibe with. There are nine classes, all of which have different starting stats and some even come with special effects or events attached to them. The stats are Strength, Defense, Speed, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Resistance. Strength affects melee damage as well as max HP. Defense affects how much a player can guard before a block is broken...also max HP. Speed is max run speed. Dexterity is jump height and ranged damage. Intelligence is max MP, spell damage, and spell cast time. And finally, Resistance is how long status effects take to wear off. As you play, the player will gain XP from killing enemies and each level gives a couple of skill points that can be allocated into any of the stats. Other than Resistance, all other stats were pretty useful and fun to build around. While most other games have simple number changes, the ability to increase your jump height and run speed is not only integral to play but also gives the player an incredibly tangible difference to play with from the start to the end of the game. On top of that, the added benefits compound, letting the player access hidden areas or routes in previously explored places giving a new sense of wonder and intrigue. Beyond just flat stat increases, the game has three different types of weapons you can obtain: Melee, Ranged, and Magic. Melee is the most abundant of the three, in my whole playthrough I found very few ranged items and barely any real useful spells. That's not to say that ranged or magic is useless or unusable though, each piece of the puzzle was crafted pretty well and flows seamlessly in the combat experience, it's just a shame that most of the useful stuff outside of regular melee is found so late unless you seriously search for it.

That combat experience is done through two slots for melee/ranged, two magic ring slots, and up to five types of quick items. Melee/ranged attacks can be charged up to deal more damage or be more accurate in the ranged's case. On the other hand, spells take time to cast, requiring you to hold down the corresponding key for a certain spell slot until it is ready to activate and be used. Only one quick item can be in hand at a time, rotating in a set of five when you so choose. On top of all of this, spells and regular attacks can have elemental properties such as Normal, Fire, Ice, Poison, Light, Dark, and Blood. Most melee/ranged deal normal damage, but depending on the enemy that won't be effective so you'll need other types of elemental damages as you move through the game. Very luckily, the routing through the world has you stumbling upon elemental weaponry pretty close to when you need it or during the section it is needed. On the other side, enemies can deal different kinds of status effects, namely Poison, Bleeding, Burning, Curse, Blind, Slow, Mana Drain, and even XP Drain. So all of this sounds really good and fun, right? Well, that's where the first real issue comes in depending on who you are. Combat is really slow. It's the kind of slow that is nigh essential to the gameplay experience but also so deeply embedded in the core feel that getting rid of it would change the game entirely. But I can't outright say that the game doesn't feel somewhat sluggish to play when fighting enemies. It does feel janky, and it does feel weird. The jank affects your attacks, both normal and magic, as well as most enemies whose attacks and hitboxes are bizarre. And the blocking system is the cherry on top. When you press block, you enter a blocking state where if hit enough times, your block is broken and you take damage. Seems simple enough, but it gets a little weird when trying to actively utilize it in combat, especially against bosses. At times, it really just doesn't work very well, whether that's because attacks go right through the guard or because you are hit through the guard with status effects. The whole thing is a weird amalgamated mess of percentages and systems that jank right into the already somewhat janky combat.

The really juicy part of Lunacid is not in its combat though, if the game was just the combat, it wouldn't be nearly as good. Exploration is the bread and butter of this experience and Lunacid does so much to make it feel as rewarding and just downright interesting as possible. Every area is completely unique from one another, leading to a vast world full of different kinds of vibes, but even still nothing feels out of place as it flows wonderfully from area to area. Even at the times when the game is actively trying to get you lost (and boy, does it try at times), that feeling of being lost in the dark or in a dangerous land keeps you on your toes and makes the actual exploring really fun. From hidden walls to hidden loot, the world is hostile and doesn't give handouts, but that makes it so much more engaging to try and find your way around the at times labyrinthine-level design. Which might I add, is wonderfully structured in all areas. No stone was left unfilled in this adventure, making each new visit to a prior location just as potentially rewarding as the first. When combined with the unique and downright confusing puzzle design, it can lead to incredibly lengthy personal journeys spent delving into depths unexplored and vast stretches of seemingly empty voids to find solutions so unexpected yet intuitive I simply can't help but want another. But to be fair, the puzzles are another one of the said caveats in the design. Again, completely integral to the core, but many puzzles go from confusing to downright despair-inducing when the search for the solution ravels ever onward for potential hours on end. I found not too much issue with the puzzles at hand, but I can very easily see someone getting lost and confused over a puzzle mechanic that was not once taught to the player, yet expected to be understood. I wholeheartedly recommend trying to beat the game without a guide, but keep one close by if you find a certain puzzle to be unfortunately too unorthodox.

Lastly, I just wanna GUSH over the atmosphere of Lunacid. I already made it pretty clear before but it has a rich and vibrant style oozing from a game that feels unreal. Each corner of the Great Well feels like it stumbled out of a piece of concept art for some other grand RPG that I would have never seen otherwise. I'd pick out some personal favorites, but that would be like choosing a favorite kid when each unique environment has its own interesting flavor of cosmic fantasy terror. Combined with a soundtrack that feels half ripped from a Silent Hill game and half ripped from a "PSX Jungle/Breakcore/Lo-Fi Beats" video, I can't help but find this eclectic mish-mash of differing styles to do an incredible job accentuating each area's personalized flavor that much more. Rather than gameplay or story, this is one game that you simply have to experience for its masterful artistry and beautifully haunting music.

Speaking of story, there is a little to chew on, but like many FromSoft-inspired pies, it's light at first glance, but heavy in sub-text and hidden away actual text. I found the characters to be pretty charming and fun, especially in a world so desperately cruel feeling. And while the conclusion felt a little on the rushed side, the narrative at least gives enough puzzle pieces to the average player to make a picture that they can take with them forever onward. I really can't say much else, the narrative here was enjoyable but I am not a lore-master. Also, lots of parallels to Dark Souls...Obviously. Take of that what you will.

Lunacid is a game so unbelievably conceited that it was designed to exactly craft such a specific experience that every piece of its flawed puzzle was on purpose. I LOVE IT. Without being concerned about whether or not a certain piece could or could not be improved or changed, it instead serves the greater goal of giving a game that is wholly unique, inherently interesting, and completely unreal. From the janky combat to the over-the-top puzzles, the flaws are about as necessary to the core as the incredible world design and utterly impeccable art direction. Lunacid is not a perfect game, but all the better for it. Go play it, and get an unforgettable gaming experience that will persist with you until you wake up. Go forth Dreamer, seeketh the dreamscape.

Lies of P is so good, that it ascends from being just a soulslike to a bonafide Souls title itself. From the rich atmosphere, incredible combat, fantastic bosses, and a richly thematic story, Lies of P stays at such a consistent high that it outpaces even the likes of FromSoftware's works. Interspersed in between all of these great things are systems and ideas that make every player's unique playthrough have just enough individuality to brew interest in multiple playthroughs, while staying true to the Souls way of a communal experience in gameplay. In fact, out of my entire playthrough, I only have two pieces of criticism which isn't much!

First, let's talk about the vertical slice. Lies of P gives the player an opening choice from three non-specific archetypes. Strength, Dexterity, and Balanced. From a Souls perspective, this opening choice is quite ambiguous and even better doesn't lock a player into a specific kind of build. Each choice has some small differences in stats as well as weapons, but the opening choice is simply a taste test in the vast buffet of the game's length. If it wasn't obvious, this is fantastic. My only minor remark is that I just wish there was a level-one class, but I digress. Combat is presented like so: a light attack, heavy attack, block, and a legion arm on the four triggers. A dodge is on the Circle/B button, and Fable Arts are attached to Triangle/Y. Like every other Souls game, actions carry weight having both wind-ups and wind-downs on every action. Inputting an action also locks the player into committing to it, even allowing a player to buffer these inputs into one another during the other action's movement. Dodges have invincibility frames allowing one to dodge inside of a hurtbox produced by an enemy, but the dodge's i-frames are in the middle of the animation rather than the whole thing, akin to a regular attack. In this situation, combat becomes a weaving of dodges and attacks where one has to consider the weight of each action thoughtfully and carefully. However, Lies of P also offers another way to deal with oncoming damage with blocking and perfect blocking. When the play holds a block, they will block the attack but take chip damage. This chip damage can be healed back via attacking an enemy, however, if an enemy hits you during the process, the remaining chip damage plus the additional damage will be lost. This system is very akin to Bloodborne's own vampiric heal system but unlike that game, it is only in the case of regular blocks. But if you are truly skilled, you can time the block button to be within a handful of frames before an attack lands to perfect block it. A perfect block builds stagger and comes with no chip damage, but the drawback is how tight the timing is. After enough perfect blocks and attacks on an enemy, an invisible stagger gauge will fill allowing for a Fatal attack. To proc a Fatal, the player must perform a fully charged heavy attack which will stun the enemy allowing for massive damage. Depending on the enemy, you can also perform a Fatal by backstabbing (this can only be performed on smaller, more humanoid enemies). After doing enough attacks, the player will build up Fable, a resource that can be spent on Fable Attacks. The three kinds of Fable Attacks are powerful attacks that build stagger, guard or parry-based moves that build stagger, and passives like increased attack damage or special types of damage. But now that the player has done a lot of damage, the durability of their weapon is low, so they must refresh their durability mid-fight with the Grinder. If the durability gets too low, attacks won't be as effective and will deal less damage overall. And eventually, the weapon can even break, which is REALLY bad. All of these pieces make up a combat system that is intricately diverse and special in its own way already, but there are still more pieces to this combat puzzle.

The opening train station teaches the fundamental level design that the player will continue to see throughout the game. Progressing through a bunch of enemies in various corridors and open areas until finding a shortcut back to safety or another stargazer(bonfire). Sometimes to progress, however, the player must defeat a difficult enemy that holds either a key or just straight-up auto unlocks the next area. Usually, reaching these enemies is easy and they are close to either shortcuts or stargazers to give the player an easier time learning and defeating these more challenging foes. The level design in this regard is pretty forgiving to a new player, but also unfortunately quite samey. This level progression does not change throughout the entire game, which can lead to most levels functionally feeling quite similar even when the art direction of each location is very distinct. This is one of my few criticisms of the game. I will say that while the approach is generally pretty fun, the repetition of such might cause some yawns here and there, even when the actual parts themselves have unique ideas. The benefits of such a design though are that for every section that most would consider a challenge, you are given easy access to every single time. This includes difficult enemies, mini-bosses, and of course, regular bosses. Boss run-ups are a thing of the past, which is entirely helpful since as Souls games have gotten bigger and better, bosses have continued to get an upgrade. And Lies of P is no different...

Bosses are the biggest strength in Lies of P. There is so much juicy, fantastic design present that each one feels destined for larger dissection and analysis. But for this review, I'll keep it brief. The bosses here are if you took the best of Dark Souls III, Elden Ring, and Sekiro, mashed them all together, and spruced it up with the distinct, dark, Lies of P flair. For one, no bosses have input-reading! I shouldn't have to explain that this is fucking incredible. Going into a tough-as-nails fight but still being given room to breathe and learn is just as important as making something cool with lots of spectacle. Elden Ring forgot this, having many fights read when you try and heal to actively punish you. Lies of P chooses to keep things fair, giving ample time to breathe, but just as much pressure to keep things interesting. After you chug through a certain portion of the game, bosses begin to have second health bars like Elden Ring as well. And in most scenarios, they are way better designed too! Most second phases are designed to be simply an extension of the first phase, rather than an entirely new fight to learn. This allows a player to have a good chance at the second phase without beating them up and taking their lunch money before they even learn about the smallest thing. And again, this doesn't stop the fights from being difficult, if anything, it presses the player to improve even more to have a fighting chance against some really crazy fights. And the thing I think is most important about the boss design compared to Elden Ring, is bosses are designed to be doable with ANYTHING. You got a really heavy weapon you want to use? That works. How about a super perfect block build? Even better. You want to just dodge all attacks and take potshots when you can? Of fucking COURSE you can! Each and every boss aside from ONE is designed in a manner where everything works and is more than capable of winning. That one boss is the Green Monster of the Swamp btw. That is my second criticism of the game. Just that boss. I'm serious. The arena is poor for the kind of fight it is, many attacks are designed around specific strategies, and the second phase feels like a different fight entirely in a bad way. And compared to every other boss in the game? It does stick out as the one outlier of poop. AND I WILL TAKE IT! Having only one boss that sucks versus many mediocre fights is the definition of consistency! All of these fights are seriously kickass and put themselves in some of my favorites in all of the Souls series! And I haven't talked about how much I like the unblock/undodgeable attack system yet! Certain attacks on bosses (and even regular enemies) are unblockable and undodgeable, meaning the only way to deal with them is to either perfect guard or run the hell away. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't totally be a fan of this since it incentivizes changing your strategy for one kind of attack (which Swamp man does), but because this game is great, every single one of these attacks has either massive wind-ups or easy and unique tells to make learning when they are coming incredibly easy. It's just...AHH, IT'S SO FUCKING GOOD MAN! And as a last aside, the hitboxes are attacks on all bosses is so fair that it puts every goddamn fight in every Souls game to shame. It's almost too accurate at times, I swear...

A Soulslike is nothing without variety, and Lies of P has got you covered. There are three somewhat distinct kinds of enemies: Puppets, Humans, and Carcasses. Each type of enemy has very distinct behaviors and patterns, but what makes progression through Lies of P interesting is how much crossover the three types end up having. Throughout the game, you will experience puppets, half-puppet/half-carcasses, regular carcasses, hell sometimes you get a weird in-between mix of like 30/70 puppet and carcass. All the enemies have unique aspects that make each one an interesting challenge, but more than that, the variety presents a sliding scale of differing combat experiences. Since each type requires different kinds of strategies, the sliding scale changes each new area into a brand-new amalgamation of weird and strange new enemy types to try and figure out. It is absolutely wonderful. Especially since the later you get, the more the crossover ends up as a mix, leading to enemies that are more puppet and carcass than the sum would lead you to believe allowing for an even deeper diversity. If I had to pick one that shows up a little too infrequently it would of course be Humans. Rarely does the player get a chance to brawl with any until the very last few hours, which is a shame since they were already showing some unique qualities.

When it comes to Souls, the story is usually very subdued, offering very little to the player unless you choose to dive deep into item descriptions and small lore tidbits. However, regardless of all the smaller, richer world details, most of the story and ideas presented are thematic rather than concrete plot stuff. Unlike Souls, Lies of P chooses to tell a rather forward story with plot details and the like but still harnesses the power of thematic undertones in the whole. Themes of humanity, consciousness, religion, filial relations, death, etc. Really heavy topics that I am in no way able to dissect well, but can at the very least understand and grasp in a way that leaves some resounding emotional moments. Really, if I can get that out of your thematically rich game, you've already won. The more concrete details of the plot are pretty simple and surface-level, but easier to understand compared to a Souls title. The game ends up as a much darker and more sinister version of the Pinocchio fable, with Pinocchio having to stop the source of the puppets' outrage, as well as the petrification disease. Both of these are slowly wiping away humanity from the map, all the while dastardly figures stand in the background plotting all of the events. Unfortunately, any more would enter spoiler-territory, so just know that I quite like the story and how it is presented, especially due to the Humanity system. The Humanity system is what allows the player to interact and take the story into their own hands with each choice. By performing various actions, such as listening to music, being nice to people and puppets, as well as lying, Pinocchio slowly becomes more and more human. Lying of course is against the puppet code, making Pinocchio unique in his own way. Throughout the game, the player is given the option in various conversations to either tell the truth or lie. It is up to the player to decide whether or not they wish to do either and depending on the scenario, each choice isn't exactly an easy one to make. Much like being human, a simple lie or truth isn't always black and white, leading to a distinct and lovely way of player expression through narrative cohesion in gameplay.

And boy oh boy, that gameplay. It only expands after the initial slice into a goddamn masterpiece. For every normal weapon you receive, you obtain a handle and a blade. After a certain point, you can mix and match blades and handles to create entirely new weapons. Each blade determines the weapon type as well as the amount of base damage associated with the weapon, and the kinds of damage it can do best. The handle is the base moveset of the weapon alongside the stat scaling. On top of this, each blade and handle has associated Fable Arts, meaning you can mix and match those as well. This system breathes so much life into the base Souls combat, allowing a player to experiment as much as they want to find the kind of weapon that would fit them as a player. I mean hell, you can even adjust the scaling on the handles if you want to have even more customizability to your combat experience! This alongside the stat system which has trimmed all the fat leaving only six equally important stats, leads to gameplay asking and encouraging unique playstyles, experimentation, and most importantly FUN! Add on top of this the Legion Arm system which gives the player a Sekiro-esque prosthetic arm that requires no external resources. Each unique Legion Arm adds just enough to give the player even more interesting choices in and out of battle, with upgrades attached to each arm (that you can remove at any time), and a magic-like MP bar to incentivize using them during combat. There is so much freedom in this combat system, yet nothing is ever broken or overpowered, and vice-versa nothing ever feels underpowered or shitty. An immaculate balance of so many intricate and detailed pieces leading to unadulterated enjoyment. It is fucking incredible.

And yet, Lies of P doesn't stop at just having incredible gameplay, because my god does the art direction go crazy. As previously discussed, enemies have a wide variety of looks due to the differing types, but that goes into the world as well. For the most part, each part of the world is very interesting and unique. Some parts fall into what I perceive as the "Resident Evil 4 Village" aesthetic but overall the towns, factories, castles, and chapels were all pretty visually fun. However as I said a lot of areas suffer from the repetitive design, so at times it is hard to recall what makes an area special aside from its art direction. Now, the game's general art direction, that deserves lots of praise. The dark and lonely atmosphere of a post-disaster "London" clashes with the abundance of mechanical puppets in a beautifully rich portrait-esque world. Admittedly, I probably can't find any more special words or synonyms for "nice looking" so just take my word that the game looks really good. And sounds good too, I forgot to mention that the soundscape is incredible.

Alright, tiniest little thing before I wrap this up. Two Dragons Sword, my beloved. This sword takes the juicy gameplay from a 10 to an 11 with the parry charged heavy. Completely demolishes the game for an experienced player, but has just enough risk to compensate for all that power. I LOVE IT.

Lies of P is the best parts of the Souls franchise combined with the classical tale of Pinocchio. With gameplay at the forefront of design, leading to a player-experimentation focus with fair yet brutally challenging bosses. A story that is quite possibly the easiest to follow in a Souls game without losing out on heavy theming. And all of it wrapped in a bow by some of the best Art and Sound of this generation. It isn't an exaggeration to say that Lies of P beats FromSoft at its own genre. No matter what these devs do next, from DLC to a new game, I will follow. They deserve my money.