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I feel so sorry for all non-Spanish speakers who will never understand just how funny the name ‘’Señor Chirridos’’ is; like… is not a bad translation of Mr. Scratch by any means, but it’s so fucking funny and it surprises me even more they just didn’t keep the original name… but I’m so glad they didn’t.
If Alan Wake is the main TV series, then American Nightmare feels like a Halloween special, which seems to be exactly what they were going for. Despite the original game having such an open finale and this going directly after it, it doesn’t really build upon the pre-established narrative beyond Alan’s character and his conflict with his doppelgänger, and that’s fine! I’m totally up for a shorter, more fast-paced story in this world, and American Nightmare does have a super interesting premise.
I actually liked how the combat worked in the first game, so expanding on that with more weapons and enemies while using the backdrop of a Night Springs episode and introducing a time-loop is the kind of craziness I can get behind, and AM does succeed at creating more interesting combat encounters than the original game ever did… but doesn’t try to go for more than that despite its many opportunities.
It does show a promising start; the three main areas of Arizona are interesting and fun to go through and a perfect excuse to battle the Taken, getting more manuscript pages, see more of Mr. Scratch and the little interactions with each of the characters, while not as natural as any of the conversations with the fellas of Bright Falls, are pretty neat. With the addition of a couple of weapons and enemies, this feels like the kind of combat sections they wanted to make the first time around; they even took out the driving section! We are freed from this accursed blight!
And we even get to hear how Barry and the Old Gods of Asgard are doing, glad to know they are still putting out pure fire!
It’s a pretty good time, a simple one, but it has some cool moments, I really liked the battles, and overall is just an entertaining time!... and then the second loop begins.
I absolutely love the idea of time-loops as a gameplay system, getting to learn more of the world and levels and using that knowledge to do tasks way faster and m is the best, however, poorly implemented time-loops can turn into doing the exact same thing x amount of times only with a different objective or two and with some new enemies… guess what American Nightmare decides to do. Each time loop is shorter than the last one, but not because you actively take decisions that make things speed up, but because either what were multiple objectives is only one now or because a NPC did the thing way before you. It doesn’t help that the major set-pieces don’t change at all; watching the petrol extractor is a cool sequence, but not one I would have liked to go through three times, and no, putting rock songs, as good as hey sound, doesn’t make it different or better.
Going through the motions the first time was fine, but having to walk through the same rope two other times is a chore, even if gets shorter every time. Worst part is that they really could have given you more openness if they really wanted; the NPCs you encounter also remember the time loops and no matter what, you can only truly win at the end of the last one, so diving you more lenience on how you deal with things wouldn’t have really affected thing at all, and we have here is just an excuse to turn 3 levels into 9.
As the loops go on, more enemies get introduced, and… listen, I really do like the combat way more on here, and some of the new enemies are pretty interesting; the Taken that throws projectiles and explosives and the one that divides each time you shine light on him are super cool ideas from a gameplay-wise and as ideas on their own but the rest of them… in many ways they feel like a waste. The enemies that replace the birds from the original game are faster to deal with but just as annoying, the giants are bullet sponges with no interest move-sets on their own, and the spiders are cool story wise, since they apparently are not part of the Taken perse and instead are part of the Dark Place fauna, but they being just big spiders feels like a wasted opportunity to create something way more cool and alien, and alsoWHY THE FUCK DID THEY HAVE TO BE SPIDERS OH MY GOD-
American Nightmare doesn’t create challenges by throwing enemies with interesting sets of moves, it just throws at you guys that really know how to take damage or a ton of them at the same time, best exemplified on the Arcade mode. I do know and understand that this is a more gameplay-focused entry, but when in the main story you go through the same beats over and over with some minor alterations, and the arcade mode —which by the way, has some unique level themes that I would have preferred to see much more in the main story instead of going through the Observatory three times — is just Wake against waves of enemies and see what score you can get… at a certain point the game loses me, and it doesn’t pull from the creativeness that I know it has and can have to keep me glued to it.
The Taken stay completely silent, and the creepy charm that was found on hearing their grunts and lines amongst the trees is completely gone; the manuscript pages are way less interesting this time around, and the opportunity of this being based around and taking place in a Night Springs episode Alan wrote isn’t taken advantage of at any point, making for a way less interesting story, and use of the reality- bending pages.
In the end, the thing that really kept me more intrigued and wanting to see the game to the finale was, who else, Mr. Scratch himself. I enjoyed most of the villains in the original Alan Wake, but NONE feel like Mr. Scratch; the sound distorting every time Wake says his name, the way he taunts Alan and how he ENJOYS being the worst of him, a true monster all the way through, it’s a disturbing delight every time he’s on screen (literally) and the uneasiness he carries is one I didn’t expected to be done so well. I wished he and Alan had more opportunities to bounce each other, ‘cause every time they did it was a delight, and luckily it seems that American Nightmare isn’t that important to the overall Alan Wake narrative, so hopefully he didn’t kick the bucket, I’d love to see more of him…
There’s still that Alan Wake attention to detail and story in here, but it didn’t go as deep as it could have, and we have is a story that, while fun at times and with some cool extras and secrets, it still is what is: a Halloween special that doesn’t want to be a real successor or groundbreaking, but it also doesn’t take advantage of the potential it itself sets, and it can drag on at times… Still fun and funny at times, tho!
We’ll meet again, Champion of Light
I’ll see you soon, Herald of Darkness
If Alan Wake is the main TV series, then American Nightmare feels like a Halloween special, which seems to be exactly what they were going for. Despite the original game having such an open finale and this going directly after it, it doesn’t really build upon the pre-established narrative beyond Alan’s character and his conflict with his doppelgänger, and that’s fine! I’m totally up for a shorter, more fast-paced story in this world, and American Nightmare does have a super interesting premise.
I actually liked how the combat worked in the first game, so expanding on that with more weapons and enemies while using the backdrop of a Night Springs episode and introducing a time-loop is the kind of craziness I can get behind, and AM does succeed at creating more interesting combat encounters than the original game ever did… but doesn’t try to go for more than that despite its many opportunities.
It does show a promising start; the three main areas of Arizona are interesting and fun to go through and a perfect excuse to battle the Taken, getting more manuscript pages, see more of Mr. Scratch and the little interactions with each of the characters, while not as natural as any of the conversations with the fellas of Bright Falls, are pretty neat. With the addition of a couple of weapons and enemies, this feels like the kind of combat sections they wanted to make the first time around; they even took out the driving section! We are freed from this accursed blight!
And we even get to hear how Barry and the Old Gods of Asgard are doing, glad to know they are still putting out pure fire!
It’s a pretty good time, a simple one, but it has some cool moments, I really liked the battles, and overall is just an entertaining time!... and then the second loop begins.
I absolutely love the idea of time-loops as a gameplay system, getting to learn more of the world and levels and using that knowledge to do tasks way faster and m is the best, however, poorly implemented time-loops can turn into doing the exact same thing x amount of times only with a different objective or two and with some new enemies… guess what American Nightmare decides to do. Each time loop is shorter than the last one, but not because you actively take decisions that make things speed up, but because either what were multiple objectives is only one now or because a NPC did the thing way before you. It doesn’t help that the major set-pieces don’t change at all; watching the petrol extractor is a cool sequence, but not one I would have liked to go through three times, and no, putting rock songs, as good as hey sound, doesn’t make it different or better.
Going through the motions the first time was fine, but having to walk through the same rope two other times is a chore, even if gets shorter every time. Worst part is that they really could have given you more openness if they really wanted; the NPCs you encounter also remember the time loops and no matter what, you can only truly win at the end of the last one, so diving you more lenience on how you deal with things wouldn’t have really affected thing at all, and we have here is just an excuse to turn 3 levels into 9.
As the loops go on, more enemies get introduced, and… listen, I really do like the combat way more on here, and some of the new enemies are pretty interesting; the Taken that throws projectiles and explosives and the one that divides each time you shine light on him are super cool ideas from a gameplay-wise and as ideas on their own but the rest of them… in many ways they feel like a waste. The enemies that replace the birds from the original game are faster to deal with but just as annoying, the giants are bullet sponges with no interest move-sets on their own, and the spiders are cool story wise, since they apparently are not part of the Taken perse and instead are part of the Dark Place fauna, but they being just big spiders feels like a wasted opportunity to create something way more cool and alien, and alsoWHY THE FUCK DID THEY HAVE TO BE SPIDERS OH MY GOD-
American Nightmare doesn’t create challenges by throwing enemies with interesting sets of moves, it just throws at you guys that really know how to take damage or a ton of them at the same time, best exemplified on the Arcade mode. I do know and understand that this is a more gameplay-focused entry, but when in the main story you go through the same beats over and over with some minor alterations, and the arcade mode —which by the way, has some unique level themes that I would have preferred to see much more in the main story instead of going through the Observatory three times — is just Wake against waves of enemies and see what score you can get… at a certain point the game loses me, and it doesn’t pull from the creativeness that I know it has and can have to keep me glued to it.
The Taken stay completely silent, and the creepy charm that was found on hearing their grunts and lines amongst the trees is completely gone; the manuscript pages are way less interesting this time around, and the opportunity of this being based around and taking place in a Night Springs episode Alan wrote isn’t taken advantage of at any point, making for a way less interesting story, and use of the reality- bending pages.
In the end, the thing that really kept me more intrigued and wanting to see the game to the finale was, who else, Mr. Scratch himself. I enjoyed most of the villains in the original Alan Wake, but NONE feel like Mr. Scratch; the sound distorting every time Wake says his name, the way he taunts Alan and how he ENJOYS being the worst of him, a true monster all the way through, it’s a disturbing delight every time he’s on screen (literally) and the uneasiness he carries is one I didn’t expected to be done so well. I wished he and Alan had more opportunities to bounce each other, ‘cause every time they did it was a delight, and luckily it seems that American Nightmare isn’t that important to the overall Alan Wake narrative, so hopefully he didn’t kick the bucket, I’d love to see more of him…
There’s still that Alan Wake attention to detail and story in here, but it didn’t go as deep as it could have, and we have is a story that, while fun at times and with some cool extras and secrets, it still is what is: a Halloween special that doesn’t want to be a real successor or groundbreaking, but it also doesn’t take advantage of the potential it itself sets, and it can drag on at times… Still fun and funny at times, tho!
We’ll meet again, Champion of Light
I’ll see you soon, Herald of Darkness
Ico
2012
Ico is the type of game I dread to play, critically acclaimed, landmark classic of the medium, influenced various games and designers I love. I dread playing those because of a fear I have, a fear that's come true : I don't like ICO, in fact, I think I might hate ICO. And now I will have to carry that like a millstone around my neck, "that asshole who doesn't like ICO". Its not even really that external disapproval I dread, its the very reputation that causes me to second guess my own sincerely held opinions. I thought I liked minimalism in game design, and cut-scene light storytelling and relationships explored through mechanics but I guess I don't. There's some kinda dissonance, cognitive or otherwise reading reviews by friends and writers I respect and wondering if there's something wrong with me or if I didnt get it or played it wrong or any other similar foolishness that gets bandied around in Internet discussions. "I wish we could have played the same game" I think, reading my mutuals' reviews of ICO. Not in a dismissive asshole way of accusing them of having a warped perception, but moreso in frustration that I didnt have the experience that has clearly touched them and countless others.
But enough feeling sorry for myself/being insecure, what is my problem with ICO exactly? I don't really know. Genuinely. I wasnt even planning on writing a review originally because all it would come down to as my original unfiltered reaction would be "Playing it made me miserable". Thankfully the upside of minimalism in game design is that its easier to identify which elements didnt work for me because there are few in the game. I think the people who got the most out of ICO developed some kind of emotional connection to Yorda, and thats one aspect which absolutely didn't work for me. As nakedly "gamey" and transparently artificial as Fallout New Vegas' NPCs (and Skyrim and F3 etc) locking the camera to have a dialogue tree, they read to me as infinitely more human than the more realistic Yorda; for a few reasons. Chief among them is that despite some hiccups and bugs the game is known for, you are not asked to manage them as a gameplay mechanic beyond your companions and well, my main interaction with Yorda was holding down R1 to repeatedly yell "ONG VA!" so she'd climb down the fucking ladder. She'd climb down, get halfway through and then decide this was a bad idea and ascend again.
ICO has been to me a game of all these little frustrations piling up. Due to the nature of the puzzles and platforming, failing them was aggravating and solving them first try was merely unremarkable. It makes me question again, what is the value of minimalism genuinely? There was a point at which I had to use a chain to jump across a gap and I couldnt quite make it, I thought "well, maybe theres a way to jump farther" and started pressing buttons randomly until the circle button achieved the result of letting me use momentum to swing accross. Now, if instead a non-diegetic diagram of the face buttons had shown up on the HUD instead what would have been lost? To me, very little. Sure, excessive direction can be annoying and take me out of the game, but pressing buttons randomly did the same, personally. Nor did "figuring it out for myself" feel particularly fulfilling. Thats again what I meant, victories are unremarkable and failures are frustrating. The same can be said for the combat which, honestly I liked at first. I liked how clumsy and childish the stick flailing fighting style was, but ultimately it involved hitting the enemies over and over and over and over again until they stopped spawning. Thankfully you can run away at times and rush to the exit to make the enemies blow up but the game's habit of spawning them when you're far from Yorda or maybe when she's on a different platform meant that I had to rely on her stupid pathfinding to quickly respond (which is just not going to happen, she needs like 3 business days to execute the same thing we've done 5k times already, I guess the language barrier applies to pattern recognition as well somehow) and when it inevitably failed I would have to jump down and mash square until they fucked off.
I can see the argument that this is meant to be disempowering somehow but I don't really buy it. Your strikes knock these fuckers down well enough, they just keep getting back up. Ico isnt strong, he shouldnt be able to smite these wizard of oz monkeys with a single swing, but then why can they do no damage to ICO and get knocked down flat with a couple swings? Either they are weak as hell but keep getting remotely CPRd by the antagonist or they're strong but have really poor balance. In the end, all I could really feel from ICO was being miserable. I finished the game in 5 hours but it felt twice that. All I can think of now is that Im glad its done and I can tick it off the bucket list. I am now dreading playing shadow of the colossus even harder, and I don't think I ever want to play The Last Guardian, it just looks like ICO but even more miserable. I'm sure I've outed myself as an uncultured swine who didnt get the genius of the experience and will lose all my followers but I'm too deflated to care. If there is one positive to this experience is that I kept procrastinating on finishing the game that I got back into reading. I read The Name of the Rose and Rumble Fish, pretty good reads. Im going to read Winesburg Ohio next I think.
But enough feeling sorry for myself/being insecure, what is my problem with ICO exactly? I don't really know. Genuinely. I wasnt even planning on writing a review originally because all it would come down to as my original unfiltered reaction would be "Playing it made me miserable". Thankfully the upside of minimalism in game design is that its easier to identify which elements didnt work for me because there are few in the game. I think the people who got the most out of ICO developed some kind of emotional connection to Yorda, and thats one aspect which absolutely didn't work for me. As nakedly "gamey" and transparently artificial as Fallout New Vegas' NPCs (and Skyrim and F3 etc) locking the camera to have a dialogue tree, they read to me as infinitely more human than the more realistic Yorda; for a few reasons. Chief among them is that despite some hiccups and bugs the game is known for, you are not asked to manage them as a gameplay mechanic beyond your companions and well, my main interaction with Yorda was holding down R1 to repeatedly yell "ONG VA!" so she'd climb down the fucking ladder. She'd climb down, get halfway through and then decide this was a bad idea and ascend again.
ICO has been to me a game of all these little frustrations piling up. Due to the nature of the puzzles and platforming, failing them was aggravating and solving them first try was merely unremarkable. It makes me question again, what is the value of minimalism genuinely? There was a point at which I had to use a chain to jump across a gap and I couldnt quite make it, I thought "well, maybe theres a way to jump farther" and started pressing buttons randomly until the circle button achieved the result of letting me use momentum to swing accross. Now, if instead a non-diegetic diagram of the face buttons had shown up on the HUD instead what would have been lost? To me, very little. Sure, excessive direction can be annoying and take me out of the game, but pressing buttons randomly did the same, personally. Nor did "figuring it out for myself" feel particularly fulfilling. Thats again what I meant, victories are unremarkable and failures are frustrating. The same can be said for the combat which, honestly I liked at first. I liked how clumsy and childish the stick flailing fighting style was, but ultimately it involved hitting the enemies over and over and over and over again until they stopped spawning. Thankfully you can run away at times and rush to the exit to make the enemies blow up but the game's habit of spawning them when you're far from Yorda or maybe when she's on a different platform meant that I had to rely on her stupid pathfinding to quickly respond (which is just not going to happen, she needs like 3 business days to execute the same thing we've done 5k times already, I guess the language barrier applies to pattern recognition as well somehow) and when it inevitably failed I would have to jump down and mash square until they fucked off.
I can see the argument that this is meant to be disempowering somehow but I don't really buy it. Your strikes knock these fuckers down well enough, they just keep getting back up. Ico isnt strong, he shouldnt be able to smite these wizard of oz monkeys with a single swing, but then why can they do no damage to ICO and get knocked down flat with a couple swings? Either they are weak as hell but keep getting remotely CPRd by the antagonist or they're strong but have really poor balance. In the end, all I could really feel from ICO was being miserable. I finished the game in 5 hours but it felt twice that. All I can think of now is that Im glad its done and I can tick it off the bucket list. I am now dreading playing shadow of the colossus even harder, and I don't think I ever want to play The Last Guardian, it just looks like ICO but even more miserable. I'm sure I've outed myself as an uncultured swine who didnt get the genius of the experience and will lose all my followers but I'm too deflated to care. If there is one positive to this experience is that I kept procrastinating on finishing the game that I got back into reading. I read The Name of the Rose and Rumble Fish, pretty good reads. Im going to read Winesburg Ohio next I think.
A Short Hike
2019
a short review
masterful use of spare time by flying over a deserted island in fucking nowhere
a short hike is a game that i played a lot of time ago and forgot to review because im dumb as shit but i just wanted to play it again for how cozy comfy and short it is and here i am
being one of those games in the vein of TOEM i was absolutely dumbfounded at how relaxing this game is (take notes unpacking or whatever that shit was called) just going around this lonely little piece of land getting to know its inhabitants and all their quirks and traits while the gentle summer breeze passes by and the sun shines bright in the sky just losing yourself into this small but incredibly alive world to such an extent that after a couple playthrough you can just speedrun through the game for how restrained the whole experience is
youre a furry bird on a vacation with her furry bird aunt just camping in this beautiful place and youre left with no other choice then exploring the surrounding since the cellphone got zero internet and in the meanwhile you will find so many different people who will give you some side quests here and there and with only the main objective or reaching the peak of the mountain but you can actually take your time and enjoy the view and just walking around the place to see what the others are up to and what the scenery is like
the art style of this game is incredibly tight its definitely on the cartoony side and the whole game is done in a pixelated fashion (you can actually turn that shit off but i liked the mid pixel setting to be the most interesting for me) and the town and characters have these super saturated models that just scream summertime on the shore and thats such a fucking vibe
ideally the gameplay should be devoid of any kind of depth but exploring is the main focus of the game just chilling out in this small diorama of an island like its a snowglobe and just interacting with people finding treasures here and there and slowly ascending to the mountain
to do that as the protagonist is a bird youre gonna use your wings to fly around but thats not enough you will be required to find golden feathers around for some double jumps and climbing power (a la breath of the wild) either by exploring or doing side quests here and there and you can take your time with it and youre not obliged to take them all nor the game exploits you in doing so you get as many as you want and try to climb the mountain on your own see what awaits you there and conquer the summit
the finale made me also think about TOEM as in youre just you yourself and a natural phenomenon that looks insanely chaotic and calm at the same time like the final hours in outer wilds or majoras mask and then you realise that the entire thing was worth it even for the journey alone of idling under the sun and breathing the environment in and youre left with an emotional convo that really is the cherry on top of the entire experience sure its a bit wild that you can get 5G on top of a mountain but who am i to judge
a short hike comes and goes too fast for my own good i wouldve loved to have a longer and more expansive idea but maybe that wouldve ruined the entire premise of the game so im left with a warm and pleasant experience to revisit from time to time
everyone should play this game it just has some of the most peaceful and joyful atmosphere ive ever seen in any game maybe even more than kirby as a whole somehow this is something special that i will absolutely replay again some time in the future and i advice anyone whos interested in a super short experience that will stuck with you to play this one and if you do check it out what i can say is see you at the top
masterful use of spare time by flying over a deserted island in fucking nowhere
a short hike is a game that i played a lot of time ago and forgot to review because im dumb as shit but i just wanted to play it again for how cozy comfy and short it is and here i am
being one of those games in the vein of TOEM i was absolutely dumbfounded at how relaxing this game is (take notes unpacking or whatever that shit was called) just going around this lonely little piece of land getting to know its inhabitants and all their quirks and traits while the gentle summer breeze passes by and the sun shines bright in the sky just losing yourself into this small but incredibly alive world to such an extent that after a couple playthrough you can just speedrun through the game for how restrained the whole experience is
youre a furry bird on a vacation with her furry bird aunt just camping in this beautiful place and youre left with no other choice then exploring the surrounding since the cellphone got zero internet and in the meanwhile you will find so many different people who will give you some side quests here and there and with only the main objective or reaching the peak of the mountain but you can actually take your time and enjoy the view and just walking around the place to see what the others are up to and what the scenery is like
the art style of this game is incredibly tight its definitely on the cartoony side and the whole game is done in a pixelated fashion (you can actually turn that shit off but i liked the mid pixel setting to be the most interesting for me) and the town and characters have these super saturated models that just scream summertime on the shore and thats such a fucking vibe
ideally the gameplay should be devoid of any kind of depth but exploring is the main focus of the game just chilling out in this small diorama of an island like its a snowglobe and just interacting with people finding treasures here and there and slowly ascending to the mountain
to do that as the protagonist is a bird youre gonna use your wings to fly around but thats not enough you will be required to find golden feathers around for some double jumps and climbing power (a la breath of the wild) either by exploring or doing side quests here and there and you can take your time with it and youre not obliged to take them all nor the game exploits you in doing so you get as many as you want and try to climb the mountain on your own see what awaits you there and conquer the summit
the finale made me also think about TOEM as in youre just you yourself and a natural phenomenon that looks insanely chaotic and calm at the same time like the final hours in outer wilds or majoras mask and then you realise that the entire thing was worth it even for the journey alone of idling under the sun and breathing the environment in and youre left with an emotional convo that really is the cherry on top of the entire experience sure its a bit wild that you can get 5G on top of a mountain but who am i to judge
a short hike comes and goes too fast for my own good i wouldve loved to have a longer and more expansive idea but maybe that wouldve ruined the entire premise of the game so im left with a warm and pleasant experience to revisit from time to time
everyone should play this game it just has some of the most peaceful and joyful atmosphere ive ever seen in any game maybe even more than kirby as a whole somehow this is something special that i will absolutely replay again some time in the future and i advice anyone whos interested in a super short experience that will stuck with you to play this one and if you do check it out what i can say is see you at the top
A Short Hike
2019
There's really only so many ways you can say "that was a lovely little game" without repeating yourself but I think my main takeaway is that A Short Hike is the game I kind of needed right now. Not in a "This game really touched me at a time where I was emotionally vulnerable" type way but more in a "the game's Ive played lately were too long, exhausting, demanding or a combination of all three, and an hour long (depending on playstyle, 1-4 hours) cozy light platformer sounds really good right about now".
I think a Short Hike achieves the non insignificant accomplishment of being mechanics focused enough to not be a pure walking sim (not that there is anything wrong with being a walking sim, inherently), with a nice sense of progression and discovery with the mastering of its hiking/gliding mechanics + the ever increasing amount of golden feathers making the player feel as if they are conquering this initially daunting island. Having the feathers give you an extra jump each is very simple but works wonderfully in how the environment unfolds overtime. The added wrinkle when you get high enough that your stamina doesnt regenerate due to the cold gives enough of a final complication to make reaching Hawk Peak a satisfying conclusion.
At first I thought it was an odd decision for a platformer where you can quickly glide through in many different directions to be both isometric and have a fixed camera, but other than during the final glide it never became disorienting due to generally good map design and trying to minimize the amount of scenarios where you could be quickly turned around in >90 degree angles. Other than that I really only feel like plugging Nerdietalk's insightful review of the game that goes more into the recent-ish phenomenon of "cozy" indie games. Personally I quite enjoy them, but I can see how they might start to be maligned through overexposure if the trend continues in earnest.
I think a Short Hike achieves the non insignificant accomplishment of being mechanics focused enough to not be a pure walking sim (not that there is anything wrong with being a walking sim, inherently), with a nice sense of progression and discovery with the mastering of its hiking/gliding mechanics + the ever increasing amount of golden feathers making the player feel as if they are conquering this initially daunting island. Having the feathers give you an extra jump each is very simple but works wonderfully in how the environment unfolds overtime. The added wrinkle when you get high enough that your stamina doesnt regenerate due to the cold gives enough of a final complication to make reaching Hawk Peak a satisfying conclusion.
At first I thought it was an odd decision for a platformer where you can quickly glide through in many different directions to be both isometric and have a fixed camera, but other than during the final glide it never became disorienting due to generally good map design and trying to minimize the amount of scenarios where you could be quickly turned around in >90 degree angles. Other than that I really only feel like plugging Nerdietalk's insightful review of the game that goes more into the recent-ish phenomenon of "cozy" indie games. Personally I quite enjoy them, but I can see how they might start to be maligned through overexposure if the trend continues in earnest.
A Short Hike
2019
Today I was kinda depressed, and this was the warmth I needed in my heart. Just explore an island, get some golden feathers and hike...
Venba
2023
If you thought that the hidden-cat-like games were thriving this year, wait until you see how the introspective-cooking genre did this year; we got a ton of them and the ones I played were bangers!... Sure, I might just have played two, but still!
There's a sweetness to Venba that feels distant and incredibly familiar both at the same time: the elements that comprise its story aren’t anything new, these beats and themes have been seen time and time again in a myriad of ways, but what makes this little tale so special is how it uses all off them to create something unique, so deeply personal, like a delicious meal which contains ingredients time and time again, but prepared in such a way it forms its own special flavor… or like tasting food that now only persists in your childhood memories.
I’m completely alien to Tamil culture, a statement which I sadly could repeat when talking about many others, and I was raised in the land my family and ancestors were born, and yet nothing is lost on me; far more capable and intelligent people than me have talked about this in great length, but the globalization and specifically the ‘’Americanization’’ of the west is a sight that bears terrible results in the long run; instead of different cultures interacting with one another and understanding each other’s traditions and evolving and changing together, we see how little by little everything changes into not an unification, but to a macroculture of sorts imposed by multinationals and enterprises in every facet of the day to day life, only taking what sees of value and implementing it while treating the rest as lesser or nothing more that a novelty to look at and treat as a toy, like a hoarding dragon burning everything on its wake but adding the shiny stuff he finds to its pile. Venba doesn’t analyze these problems directly, but it speaks about its consequences through the life of a immigrant Indian family in Canada. Kavin neglects its culture not because he doesn’t care, not because he likes that his schoolmates call him Kevin, but because he’s terrified at the idea of being cast away by his peers and society because of it, he’s deeply scared of presenting himself as ‘’odd’’, as something that doesn’t fit, something alien. That sentiment persists through adulthood, only now its peers treat his past which he couldn’t really never connect as something ‘’neat’’, a cool thing to put on TV that’s aesthetically pleasing, something that can only exist on its vacuum, being judged while expected to be nice to look at. The moment Kavin finally reconnects with his mother and what he didn’t want to face is beautiful for many reasons, but one of them is that is an act of defiance and perseverance, and even if he doesn’t know everything about his roots, it doesn’t matter, he’s learning, he’s improving what came before and completing it, all through just having a nice cooking session with his mother, and that’s just… beautiful, there isn’t any other way to put it.
Preparing said dishes isn’t nothing really complicated or actually involved, but it manages to make it feel like it; you aren’t merely clicking and dragging on sone stuff, you are deciphering and learning ways to prepare plates of Venba’s past, seeing her remember in what order everything is needed to be done until everything is second nature to her, and it’s appetizing as it is cathartic. The game has achievements for making everything perfect, but also for screwing up, and I cannot think of another way of showing what this is all about beyond the game itself; it doesn’t matter if you fumble de bag, you are cooking, you are learning, and maybe you’ll do that mistake 4 times more but it doesn’t matter, ‘cause it’s still fun and fulfilling… and that’s what brought back memories.
I was originally gonna make fun of a moment that reminded me of that scene in Ratatouille (you know the one) but then I realized how insincere and condescending I sounded, ‘cause it’s also a moment I myself have experienced, the memory of my parents, my mother, my father, showing my how to prepare food, how to make desserts that to this day I cherish, but some that I haven’t tasted since then. Venba is not only a story about culture and its loss, it also can be seen about family and bonds, about sharing the little moments, both good and bad, and of ultimately you yourself deciding what you want to do or who you want to be, but your true loved one being always there during the whole process. It’s about regrets, the regrets of Venba, the regrets of Paavalan, and the regrets of Kavin, and the hardships of them all.
A stroll through the steam reviews shows just how many people have connected to this story, many driven to tears, to remember their past and their lives, reflected through this little 90 minute experience. I myself connected to it in a different way, and I just look at Venba wishing it sometimes was a bit slower, that it took the time to explore certain ideas, because I really wanted to see more, to experience more passages of this fragmented story, to see this family’s life, both in its happy and sad times.
And still, in just seven chapters, Venba makes me relish the past, my own memories, and it’s simple worth being seen, worth being valued… and why nor, worth crying for.
This year, over here a staggering amount of kids and even teenagers celebrated Halloween during the 31 of October and 1st of November, effectively making the festivity that would usually take place in Galicia during those days, Samain, completely ignored, and with it, its specific plates and traditions. As I said, at the end, everyone is free to choose what they wish to do, what they wish to celebrate it, and I’m not villainizing this fact whatsoever… but I want to truly appreciate those that still kept the tradition because they truly wanted too, because they really like it, because they consider it a part of themselves, and that goes for everyone in the world, of every country, of every culture.
That isn’t something to be ashamed of.
That’s something to be celebrated unlike any other thing.
There's a sweetness to Venba that feels distant and incredibly familiar both at the same time: the elements that comprise its story aren’t anything new, these beats and themes have been seen time and time again in a myriad of ways, but what makes this little tale so special is how it uses all off them to create something unique, so deeply personal, like a delicious meal which contains ingredients time and time again, but prepared in such a way it forms its own special flavor… or like tasting food that now only persists in your childhood memories.
I’m completely alien to Tamil culture, a statement which I sadly could repeat when talking about many others, and I was raised in the land my family and ancestors were born, and yet nothing is lost on me; far more capable and intelligent people than me have talked about this in great length, but the globalization and specifically the ‘’Americanization’’ of the west is a sight that bears terrible results in the long run; instead of different cultures interacting with one another and understanding each other’s traditions and evolving and changing together, we see how little by little everything changes into not an unification, but to a macroculture of sorts imposed by multinationals and enterprises in every facet of the day to day life, only taking what sees of value and implementing it while treating the rest as lesser or nothing more that a novelty to look at and treat as a toy, like a hoarding dragon burning everything on its wake but adding the shiny stuff he finds to its pile. Venba doesn’t analyze these problems directly, but it speaks about its consequences through the life of a immigrant Indian family in Canada. Kavin neglects its culture not because he doesn’t care, not because he likes that his schoolmates call him Kevin, but because he’s terrified at the idea of being cast away by his peers and society because of it, he’s deeply scared of presenting himself as ‘’odd’’, as something that doesn’t fit, something alien. That sentiment persists through adulthood, only now its peers treat his past which he couldn’t really never connect as something ‘’neat’’, a cool thing to put on TV that’s aesthetically pleasing, something that can only exist on its vacuum, being judged while expected to be nice to look at. The moment Kavin finally reconnects with his mother and what he didn’t want to face is beautiful for many reasons, but one of them is that is an act of defiance and perseverance, and even if he doesn’t know everything about his roots, it doesn’t matter, he’s learning, he’s improving what came before and completing it, all through just having a nice cooking session with his mother, and that’s just… beautiful, there isn’t any other way to put it.
Preparing said dishes isn’t nothing really complicated or actually involved, but it manages to make it feel like it; you aren’t merely clicking and dragging on sone stuff, you are deciphering and learning ways to prepare plates of Venba’s past, seeing her remember in what order everything is needed to be done until everything is second nature to her, and it’s appetizing as it is cathartic. The game has achievements for making everything perfect, but also for screwing up, and I cannot think of another way of showing what this is all about beyond the game itself; it doesn’t matter if you fumble de bag, you are cooking, you are learning, and maybe you’ll do that mistake 4 times more but it doesn’t matter, ‘cause it’s still fun and fulfilling… and that’s what brought back memories.
I was originally gonna make fun of a moment that reminded me of that scene in Ratatouille (you know the one) but then I realized how insincere and condescending I sounded, ‘cause it’s also a moment I myself have experienced, the memory of my parents, my mother, my father, showing my how to prepare food, how to make desserts that to this day I cherish, but some that I haven’t tasted since then. Venba is not only a story about culture and its loss, it also can be seen about family and bonds, about sharing the little moments, both good and bad, and of ultimately you yourself deciding what you want to do or who you want to be, but your true loved one being always there during the whole process. It’s about regrets, the regrets of Venba, the regrets of Paavalan, and the regrets of Kavin, and the hardships of them all.
A stroll through the steam reviews shows just how many people have connected to this story, many driven to tears, to remember their past and their lives, reflected through this little 90 minute experience. I myself connected to it in a different way, and I just look at Venba wishing it sometimes was a bit slower, that it took the time to explore certain ideas, because I really wanted to see more, to experience more passages of this fragmented story, to see this family’s life, both in its happy and sad times.
And still, in just seven chapters, Venba makes me relish the past, my own memories, and it’s simple worth being seen, worth being valued… and why nor, worth crying for.
This year, over here a staggering amount of kids and even teenagers celebrated Halloween during the 31 of October and 1st of November, effectively making the festivity that would usually take place in Galicia during those days, Samain, completely ignored, and with it, its specific plates and traditions. As I said, at the end, everyone is free to choose what they wish to do, what they wish to celebrate it, and I’m not villainizing this fact whatsoever… but I want to truly appreciate those that still kept the tradition because they truly wanted too, because they really like it, because they consider it a part of themselves, and that goes for everyone in the world, of every country, of every culture.
That isn’t something to be ashamed of.
That’s something to be celebrated unlike any other thing.
Alan Wake
2010
Shout out to small rural towns overtaken by an evil or dark presence that corrupts them or brings hellish creatures. Gotta be one of my favorite genders.
Deemon, the incompetent reviewer, started off his write-off with one of his usual jokes, so unfunny that one might wonder if he was doing it on purpose or if he really has such poor comedy taste. He was trying to hide the fact that he really didn’t know where to start; the path to take might seem clear, but like the streets and forest of Bright Falls, it’s more deceiving than it may look at first, like a maze that’s also a downward spiral.
Deemon pondered, searching for a way to salvage the review, desperately trying to find out which step he should take, what words he should use. He sighed. He decided to let the words write themselves, to let out all the thoughts that had formed while the darkness and light of the town surrounded Alan Wake. He surrendered himself to the unknown, one that might be already written after all… Though he knows he had to talk about the music for sure, that selection of bangers had to be celebrated somehow.
Ambition almost killed Alan Wake, in more ways than one. I mean, I may not know much about Remedy Studios, in fact, it is the very first game of theirs I have ever played and beaten, but I do know the story of Bright Falls and how it was initially going to be something else, an open world of sorts, something that didn’t quite work, as it seems. Translating an already crafted open world into a linear style of game is such a monumental task that if I were in that predicament, I’d have considered outright scrapping everything and starting from zero, but that probably wasn’t even a realistic option for the team to begin with.
But that’s not even what I’m specifically referring to. Alan Wake, the game, the package, the copy made out of code and specific sections, is riddled with hiccups and bumps; it’s filled with padding, sections of trees and mist than don’t offer much aside from one or two manuscripts pages and combat sections that can feel overbearing at times, the remnants of its troubled production remain in aspects such as the barren areas and driving sections that don’t have much of a place and are so frustrating to playthrough even if you ignore any cars I just wish they were taken out —tho it’s kind of cute how it also uses the same light mechanic as the rest of the game—, the encounters with the Taken or the groups of mad crows often lack imagination and enemy variety or don’t jam very well with how the camera works in the case of the camera, and at one point I just kept thinking how much the experience would have benefited if some sections were repurposed in different ways or outright removed.
The imperfections of Alan Wake mostly come from this, factors outside of the game itself, of its story, but they still impact it negatively; I can’t scratch off the feeling of something being lost a bit when all of the boss enemies behave the exact same, the only thing that changes being the creepy lines they spat out and the character model. If the game wasn’t anything more than a series of levels where you shoot at things, then these issues would have rotted its pages…
…luckily, it has a dragon.
Wouldn’t it be funny if I started to praise the actual combat itself after spending two paragraphs criticizing some gameplay sections? Yeah, it would be hilarious! ... ANYWAYyeah I fucking adore the way Al controls. It occupies that same space as Simon from Castlevania, where how slow and imprecise it feels actually benefits the gameplay. You truly get the feeling Alan has never picked a gun in his life in any major capacity; he’s slow, clunky, imprecise, and I wouldn’t want it any other way. The tense dance of using light to weaken the Taken and gen emptying the chambers of them, or hell, simply using a flare and trying to activate the closest generator, it’s a super straight-forward system, and I love it. It’s incredibly satisfying to come out of encounters on top, because even if there isn’t much scarcity in resources (even if you start off each chapter with nothing each time), they are still somewhat limited, especially the most powerful weapons, and little things like mashing X to reload faster or the camera panning out to warn you of nearby enemies are things I didn’t know I needed until now.
It would be a far cry to call it a survival horror, but it’s tense; it’s tense to try to manage the purge while a bulldozer is charging full speed at you; it’s tense to try to outspeed a force you cannot do nothing against; and Alan gets progressively more and more tired. I can make the argument that there should be less of it or at least more variety in what it offers enemy-wise, but nothing will take away from the fact that the core itself is some fantastic shit.
Like… there’s something about fighting against waves of enemies on stage while the sickest rock tune ever plays in the background and the lights and flames fill your eyes that I can only call ‘’fucking awesome’’.
Deemon knew that wasn’t just it. He could talk about flaws and shooting Taken all he wanted, but something else lied within the light. He ran into it.
‘’But there’s something else’’, he said
But there’s something else.
A story already written, touched by the darkness. Written already as a part of it before birth, its muse trying to corrupt it. An ending yet to be typed out.
I have never seen a videogame story that trusts so much that the player will be intrigued enough by it to stick with it and engage with it all the way through. The tale Alan Wake, Alice, Barry, Sarah, and the whole town get tangled into is not intriguing; it is fascinating. I have never felt such closure from getting answers to questions I never realized where there in the first place. From being pretty disappointed about how Nightingale and Mott had such a poor presence as antagonists to being in awe of how their actions fell into place after the truth of this unfortunate series of events was revealed. Alan Wake offers a hell of a mystery. Alan Wake solves it.
The pages of the manuscript are as essential as the cinematics and interactions, so many pieces of the puzzle fit, it’s almost like getting spoiled before something happens, which in a way is exactly what’s happening. At first, I felt pretty disappointed that this would be a jarring light vs darkness story mixed with a thriller. Then it ended up being a meta-narrative within its own meta-narrative. The fact they did that without it feeling overcomplicated or screwing it up is ovation worthy.
But I also feel a huge sense of admiration for the micro-stories at play; hearing and talking to the inhabitants of Bright Falls, listening to Maine’s night radio, the echoes of the Taken and stellar ambience sounds ringing through my ears, the fucking incredible Night Springs shorts that had me HOOKED... It was the little things scattered in the trees and buildings and the small talk that gave this spiraling world even more meaning.
It ends with the darkness hungry for more, just like me. I’ve seen people call Alan Wake ‘’the most 6/7 out of ten game I’ve ever played’’, and even though I do not sympathize with that statement at all because it feels reductive in any context, I kind of get what people mean by it. Alan Wake is profoundly flawed, but most of them do not come from the game itself, but rather from the complicated production it had to go through. In the face of such adversity, I’ve never seen such confidence, such talent, or such a desire to tell a tale like this. Alan Wake isn’t just *a* story, there’s more to be written and read, but at the end of the day, it’s also its own story. And what a story it is.
Maybe this isn’t what the champion of light could have been if the circumstances were different, but the hardships cannot be avoided, and even after going through them, they really sold me on this novel.
Deemon, the incompetent reviewer, started off his write-off with one of his usual jokes, so unfunny that one might wonder if he was doing it on purpose or if he really has such poor comedy taste. He was trying to hide the fact that he really didn’t know where to start; the path to take might seem clear, but like the streets and forest of Bright Falls, it’s more deceiving than it may look at first, like a maze that’s also a downward spiral.
Deemon pondered, searching for a way to salvage the review, desperately trying to find out which step he should take, what words he should use. He sighed. He decided to let the words write themselves, to let out all the thoughts that had formed while the darkness and light of the town surrounded Alan Wake. He surrendered himself to the unknown, one that might be already written after all… Though he knows he had to talk about the music for sure, that selection of bangers had to be celebrated somehow.
Ambition almost killed Alan Wake, in more ways than one. I mean, I may not know much about Remedy Studios, in fact, it is the very first game of theirs I have ever played and beaten, but I do know the story of Bright Falls and how it was initially going to be something else, an open world of sorts, something that didn’t quite work, as it seems. Translating an already crafted open world into a linear style of game is such a monumental task that if I were in that predicament, I’d have considered outright scrapping everything and starting from zero, but that probably wasn’t even a realistic option for the team to begin with.
But that’s not even what I’m specifically referring to. Alan Wake, the game, the package, the copy made out of code and specific sections, is riddled with hiccups and bumps; it’s filled with padding, sections of trees and mist than don’t offer much aside from one or two manuscripts pages and combat sections that can feel overbearing at times, the remnants of its troubled production remain in aspects such as the barren areas and driving sections that don’t have much of a place and are so frustrating to playthrough even if you ignore any cars I just wish they were taken out —tho it’s kind of cute how it also uses the same light mechanic as the rest of the game—, the encounters with the Taken or the groups of mad crows often lack imagination and enemy variety or don’t jam very well with how the camera works in the case of the camera, and at one point I just kept thinking how much the experience would have benefited if some sections were repurposed in different ways or outright removed.
The imperfections of Alan Wake mostly come from this, factors outside of the game itself, of its story, but they still impact it negatively; I can’t scratch off the feeling of something being lost a bit when all of the boss enemies behave the exact same, the only thing that changes being the creepy lines they spat out and the character model. If the game wasn’t anything more than a series of levels where you shoot at things, then these issues would have rotted its pages…
…luckily, it has a dragon.
Wouldn’t it be funny if I started to praise the actual combat itself after spending two paragraphs criticizing some gameplay sections? Yeah, it would be hilarious! ... ANYWAYyeah I fucking adore the way Al controls. It occupies that same space as Simon from Castlevania, where how slow and imprecise it feels actually benefits the gameplay. You truly get the feeling Alan has never picked a gun in his life in any major capacity; he’s slow, clunky, imprecise, and I wouldn’t want it any other way. The tense dance of using light to weaken the Taken and gen emptying the chambers of them, or hell, simply using a flare and trying to activate the closest generator, it’s a super straight-forward system, and I love it. It’s incredibly satisfying to come out of encounters on top, because even if there isn’t much scarcity in resources (even if you start off each chapter with nothing each time), they are still somewhat limited, especially the most powerful weapons, and little things like mashing X to reload faster or the camera panning out to warn you of nearby enemies are things I didn’t know I needed until now.
It would be a far cry to call it a survival horror, but it’s tense; it’s tense to try to manage the purge while a bulldozer is charging full speed at you; it’s tense to try to outspeed a force you cannot do nothing against; and Alan gets progressively more and more tired. I can make the argument that there should be less of it or at least more variety in what it offers enemy-wise, but nothing will take away from the fact that the core itself is some fantastic shit.
Like… there’s something about fighting against waves of enemies on stage while the sickest rock tune ever plays in the background and the lights and flames fill your eyes that I can only call ‘’fucking awesome’’.
Deemon knew that wasn’t just it. He could talk about flaws and shooting Taken all he wanted, but something else lied within the light. He ran into it.
‘’But there’s something else’’, he said
But there’s something else.
A story already written, touched by the darkness. Written already as a part of it before birth, its muse trying to corrupt it. An ending yet to be typed out.
I have never seen a videogame story that trusts so much that the player will be intrigued enough by it to stick with it and engage with it all the way through. The tale Alan Wake, Alice, Barry, Sarah, and the whole town get tangled into is not intriguing; it is fascinating. I have never felt such closure from getting answers to questions I never realized where there in the first place. From being pretty disappointed about how Nightingale and Mott had such a poor presence as antagonists to being in awe of how their actions fell into place after the truth of this unfortunate series of events was revealed. Alan Wake offers a hell of a mystery. Alan Wake solves it.
The pages of the manuscript are as essential as the cinematics and interactions, so many pieces of the puzzle fit, it’s almost like getting spoiled before something happens, which in a way is exactly what’s happening. At first, I felt pretty disappointed that this would be a jarring light vs darkness story mixed with a thriller. Then it ended up being a meta-narrative within its own meta-narrative. The fact they did that without it feeling overcomplicated or screwing it up is ovation worthy.
But I also feel a huge sense of admiration for the micro-stories at play; hearing and talking to the inhabitants of Bright Falls, listening to Maine’s night radio, the echoes of the Taken and stellar ambience sounds ringing through my ears, the fucking incredible Night Springs shorts that had me HOOKED... It was the little things scattered in the trees and buildings and the small talk that gave this spiraling world even more meaning.
It ends with the darkness hungry for more, just like me. I’ve seen people call Alan Wake ‘’the most 6/7 out of ten game I’ve ever played’’, and even though I do not sympathize with that statement at all because it feels reductive in any context, I kind of get what people mean by it. Alan Wake is profoundly flawed, but most of them do not come from the game itself, but rather from the complicated production it had to go through. In the face of such adversity, I’ve never seen such confidence, such talent, or such a desire to tell a tale like this. Alan Wake isn’t just *a* story, there’s more to be written and read, but at the end of the day, it’s also its own story. And what a story it is.
Maybe this isn’t what the champion of light could have been if the circumstances were different, but the hardships cannot be avoided, and even after going through them, they really sold me on this novel.
Alan Wake Remastered
2021
3.0/3.5 stars
Alan wake is a somewhat strange game. A confusing and somewhat complex story, but the worst thing about this game is the gameplay, I didn't like it at all, the idea is good, but it needs polishing, it's repetitive and boring, apart from not looking like a survival horror due to the amount of loot and meaningless enemies every 2 seconds,It's Max Payne, but with light and darkness, and the protagonist makes the script from himself. I have to play the DLCs, and I'm going to force myself to play Alan Wake 2 in the future, but it is too heavy, the character's stamina is disgusting, and pretentious trying to give a little more terror due to fatigue and desperation. Screamers in places that hardly scare you.
The best thing about the game is the chaotic narrative and plot, along with Sam Lake on television.
I hope Alan Wake 2 is much better and from what I've seen it is.
Alan wake is a somewhat strange game. A confusing and somewhat complex story, but the worst thing about this game is the gameplay, I didn't like it at all, the idea is good, but it needs polishing, it's repetitive and boring, apart from not looking like a survival horror due to the amount of loot and meaningless enemies every 2 seconds,It's Max Payne, but with light and darkness, and the protagonist makes the script from himself. I have to play the DLCs, and I'm going to force myself to play Alan Wake 2 in the future, but it is too heavy, the character's stamina is disgusting, and pretentious trying to give a little more terror due to fatigue and desperation. Screamers in places that hardly scare you.
The best thing about the game is the chaotic narrative and plot, along with Sam Lake on television.
I hope Alan Wake 2 is much better and from what I've seen it is.
One of my favorite units in any RTS are the AoE2 Teutonic Knights, which like many things in this have been historically modified for the sake of gameplay.
The real Teutonic Knights were a bunch of catholic dudes on horseback, while in this game they fight on foot and walk very slowly towards their opponents with their swords at their sides and beat the shit out of cavalry, trebuchets, and entire castles with nothing but that same sword. They're little tin can armor fellas in capes with stats equivalent to Mammoth Tanks from Command & Conquer, except they'd probably solo Kirov Airships too if you gave them jetpacks. Hell, could you imagine what would happen if you gave them a skateboard or a set of rollerblades? It's nightmarish imagining such a scenario, every archer would piss their pants at the sight of these guys sliding at them downhill with their swords pointed towards them.
Simplicity is sometimes the most endearing thing.
This had to have been my dad's favorite game ever at least on the ol' piece of shit Gateway PC. He was always a sucker for medieval warfare, and honestly I ain't exactly straying from the same path of interests he had, at least in this instance. It was an all too common occurrence to constantly hear the "under attack" alert ring out through the apartment. It was only slightly less funnier than the Empire Earth alert that was some pompous bastard bellowing "WE'RE UNDER ATTACK" even when an unthreatening bronze age slinger was bouncing stones off a space age chicken walker.
Between playing this, Balatro, and Picross I can't help but feel like I'm slowly turning into a hodgepodge of both my dad and my grandma. ;-;
The real Teutonic Knights were a bunch of catholic dudes on horseback, while in this game they fight on foot and walk very slowly towards their opponents with their swords at their sides and beat the shit out of cavalry, trebuchets, and entire castles with nothing but that same sword. They're little tin can armor fellas in capes with stats equivalent to Mammoth Tanks from Command & Conquer, except they'd probably solo Kirov Airships too if you gave them jetpacks. Hell, could you imagine what would happen if you gave them a skateboard or a set of rollerblades? It's nightmarish imagining such a scenario, every archer would piss their pants at the sight of these guys sliding at them downhill with their swords pointed towards them.
Simplicity is sometimes the most endearing thing.
This had to have been my dad's favorite game ever at least on the ol' piece of shit Gateway PC. He was always a sucker for medieval warfare, and honestly I ain't exactly straying from the same path of interests he had, at least in this instance. It was an all too common occurrence to constantly hear the "under attack" alert ring out through the apartment. It was only slightly less funnier than the Empire Earth alert that was some pompous bastard bellowing "WE'RE UNDER ATTACK" even when an unthreatening bronze age slinger was bouncing stones off a space age chicken walker.
Between playing this, Balatro, and Picross I can't help but feel like I'm slowly turning into a hodgepodge of both my dad and my grandma. ;-;
Have you ever heard someone say that a game was "objectively good"? A stupid thing to say of course, quality is massively subjective to personal opinion and experience. If there WAS such a thing as objectively good, I imagine a lot of valve games would fit the mold and in a way thats why Ive never vibed super hard with them. That might seem contradictory and obviously I'll explain : HL2EP2 and a lot of Valve games are too good.
I think most games need flaws to make their good/great aspects to shine. Would dark souls 1's excellent first half be as fondly remembered without the shitty second half? Would so many fondly remembered early 3d games still be as such without their jank? Would Fallout : New Vegas be so acclaimed for its RPG elements and storytelling without running like absolute shit and crashing to desktop every 45 minutes?
HL2EP2 makes me think to myself "hmm yes very well signposted, good setpiece, etc" all the time. There is a moment where you need to jump by pulling down a metal plate down and tossing a grenade underneath it as you stand on top of the plate such that it launches you upwards. This is mainly achieved by having an explosion mark and a pallet of hand grenades in the room. I understood this inmediately and that is impressive. At the same time though, it always takes me out of the game despite being "good", everything is so transparently playtested to the extreme. To quote a sweary british man "if someone stared at a wall for more than 5 seconds they put a big sign on it saying 'stop looking at this wall' ". I was especially annoyed with the vortigaunt companion in the early bits who might as well have called himself Developer McSurrogate.
Another thing that annoyed me character wise is a thing that might not bother you but I find hard to unnotice when I start to think about it : everyone is so cheerful. You remember in HL2 in City17 how the citizens lived in constant fear of metrocop raids and tried to cope with living under a fascist occupying force? Well clearly those guys should have all joined the resistance cause either Dr Kleiner has spiked their water supply with Prozac or everything is fun and games fighting the combine in the wilderness. I did like Dr Magnusson, even if the attempt to tie everything to half life 1 through community inside jokes continues to be as cringeworthy and unnecessary as always.
Okay, okay, now that Ive gotten that out of the way, I have to agree with the consensus, much better than episode one. I must admit that I have never really gotten all the acclaim that the half life series got after 1. 1 is great but it peaks really early and then slowly becomes kind of tedious culminating in Xen which almost feels like a different game : deliberately alien of course but doesnt feel like a proper conclusion to the previous 3/4ths of the game. That being said, HL2EP2 is for the most part a pretty excellent game which combines OK gunplay with more creative combat encounters especially in the last bit of the game against the striders. The variety, use of puzzles and vehicle sequences and masterful pacing make the game a very smooth experience as the scifi story unfolds and the trademark facial capture and source engine graphics honestly hold up pretty well in my view, but then I did spend most of my early teens playing Gmod.
EDIT : I will say, for everyone who complains about it in modern AAA games, here they have the decency to quip AFTER you have already put the pieces of the puzzle together, rather than just blurting out the answer after 0.5 seconds
I think most games need flaws to make their good/great aspects to shine. Would dark souls 1's excellent first half be as fondly remembered without the shitty second half? Would so many fondly remembered early 3d games still be as such without their jank? Would Fallout : New Vegas be so acclaimed for its RPG elements and storytelling without running like absolute shit and crashing to desktop every 45 minutes?
HL2EP2 makes me think to myself "hmm yes very well signposted, good setpiece, etc" all the time. There is a moment where you need to jump by pulling down a metal plate down and tossing a grenade underneath it as you stand on top of the plate such that it launches you upwards. This is mainly achieved by having an explosion mark and a pallet of hand grenades in the room. I understood this inmediately and that is impressive. At the same time though, it always takes me out of the game despite being "good", everything is so transparently playtested to the extreme. To quote a sweary british man "if someone stared at a wall for more than 5 seconds they put a big sign on it saying 'stop looking at this wall' ". I was especially annoyed with the vortigaunt companion in the early bits who might as well have called himself Developer McSurrogate.
Another thing that annoyed me character wise is a thing that might not bother you but I find hard to unnotice when I start to think about it : everyone is so cheerful. You remember in HL2 in City17 how the citizens lived in constant fear of metrocop raids and tried to cope with living under a fascist occupying force? Well clearly those guys should have all joined the resistance cause either Dr Kleiner has spiked their water supply with Prozac or everything is fun and games fighting the combine in the wilderness. I did like Dr Magnusson, even if the attempt to tie everything to half life 1 through community inside jokes continues to be as cringeworthy and unnecessary as always.
Okay, okay, now that Ive gotten that out of the way, I have to agree with the consensus, much better than episode one. I must admit that I have never really gotten all the acclaim that the half life series got after 1. 1 is great but it peaks really early and then slowly becomes kind of tedious culminating in Xen which almost feels like a different game : deliberately alien of course but doesnt feel like a proper conclusion to the previous 3/4ths of the game. That being said, HL2EP2 is for the most part a pretty excellent game which combines OK gunplay with more creative combat encounters especially in the last bit of the game against the striders. The variety, use of puzzles and vehicle sequences and masterful pacing make the game a very smooth experience as the scifi story unfolds and the trademark facial capture and source engine graphics honestly hold up pretty well in my view, but then I did spend most of my early teens playing Gmod.
EDIT : I will say, for everyone who complains about it in modern AAA games, here they have the decency to quip AFTER you have already put the pieces of the puzzle together, rather than just blurting out the answer after 0.5 seconds
Over the course of time, specific genres in video games have become staples of the industry, to where we wouldn’t be able to imagine it without them nowadays. Platformers, adventure games, metroidvanias, first-person shooters, visual novels, and of course, role-playing games, or RPGs are just a few of the genres that continue to be relevant to this very day, through brand new releases that either try to reinforce what the genre is capable of delivering, or even ones that try to elevate the genre to new heights that weren’t thought possible before. However, it wasn’t always like this, for some genres like RPGs weren’t always as big of a staple on the industry as they are now, in America anyways, being outshined by other genres like platformers, shmups, and fighting games at every turn. Some developers would take notice of this, and as a result, they would try to make these types of games more “accessible” to audiences in these territories, all for the better… and for the worst. One such instance of this would be with one odd-ball of a title known as Final Fantasy Mystic Quest.
At this point in time, Squaresoft, the primary developers of the Final Fantasy series, had been working towards making RPGs more accessible through audiences in several ways, such as with the release of Final Fantasy IV in the US being noticeably much easier than the original version, because Americans just can’t handle a game with normal difficulty! They are too stupid, obviously! With this mindset in mind after changing up that title like that, they would then go onto making Mystic Quest, the first side game in the series that was specifically made with the U.S. market in mind, which, as we have seen from games like ActRaiser 2, isn’t exactly the best mindset to have when you are making anything. But nevertheless, the game was released, and has gone onto having a divisive reputation ever since. I only played through the game for the first time a few months ago, and from that experience, I can say that, as a whole, the game is… ok. It definitely has some interesting ideas and quirks that do make it stand out from the rest, but it is primarily a repetitive and sluggish experience, one that never elevates much further then what you are presented with.
The story is, appropriately, extremely basic, where a young adventurer by the name of Benjamin has his village destroyed seemingly out of nowhere, and he is informed by a strange old man that, because of this, he must fulfill the “knight’s prophecy”, where he must travel across the four continents, gather the four crystals, and use them to defeat the demon king, so Benjamin then sets out to do just that, which is a very basic premise, one that is way simpler then what FFIV gave us, but it does fall in line with previous FF games, and it is as simple as they are wanting, so I guess I can excuse it. The graphics are good, having plenty of good monster and dungeon designs, but a lot of it does feel uncreative and artificial, much like the rest of this game, the music is pretty good, having plenty of great tracks that I enjoyed listening to like the battle theme, but it doesn’t quite reach the heights of previous games’ soundtracks, and the gameplay/control is very familiar to those who have played any other Final Fantasy game before this, except now it is much more simplistic to the point where a toddler could play this game and have an easy time with it.
The game is a traditional turn-based RPG, where you primarily take control of Benjamin, go across a vast overworld through four different continents, talk to the many inhabitants of the world who will either give you helpful hints/advice or help you on your journey in some way, find plenty of items that you can use to either upgrade your defense, mobility, or attack, purchase items from the shop, or heal yourself whenever you need to, and naturally, get into random battles, where you will attack your opponent using either your main weapon or whatever spells or items you have lying around in your pockets, gain experience points, and level up to increase your stats. Any RPG veteran knows this set-up by heart, and they will be able to get used to how this game works pretty quickly… in fact, too quickly, if you ask me, and while a lot of it is passable and appealing to said veterans of the genre, it is also completely shallow in its execution in many areas.
If I were to describe this game in one sentence, I would say it is a Final Fantasy game made for babies. Everything about the game, which we have seen time and time again from previous games in the series, has been extremely simplified and dumbed down for the player, which could aid less experienced players along, yes, but it also becomes mind-numbing and unengaging as a result, therefore making it tedious to trek through. Some stuff in the game remains the same, such as walking through towns and dungeons, talking to people, buying items from the shops, and sleeping at inns, so that is all well and good, but in terms of the raw gameplay, the meat and potatoes of what any player would come to an RPG for, that has all been completely changed around for the worse.
Starting off, we have the overworld of the game, which is no longer a vast open land that you can explore freely to see what kinds of locations and creatures you can find, but instead, it has turned into a world map from a Mario game. You travel from location to location with nothing in-between, which does make things faster and more convenient, yes, but it also completely removes any sense of an adventure or its grand scale from this entire journey, making it feel empty and lifeless. The same can be said about the battles themselves, which are no longer random, but instead, every single enemy you can fight in this game appears on the map, to where a lot of the time, you can simply avoid them if you don’t feel like fighting them. Not only that, but instead of encountering enemies while walking along the overworld, you now have these designated enemy spaces, where you can fight 10 different battles in the row to get a certain reward.
Once again, this is a very beginner-friendly approach to something you would typically find in one of these games, which I am all for, but the problem with this is, to make up for this, they spam the fuck out of these enemies, especially in later parts of the game. If you choose to fight every single creature so that you can get as strong as possible (which I tend to do in most RPGs), then you will be spending hours just fighting these random enemies over and over and over again, each one dealing out the same EXP every time, and it is, once again, an absolute slog to go through. Yeah, you can avoid plenty of these fights, but there will be many instances where you CAN’T avoid these fights at all, and will be forced to take on every single thing in your way, and you can imagine how fun that would be.
And speaking of which, the battles themselves aren’t that much better than what you find outside of them. The Active Time Battle system is gone from this game, and we are back to the traditional turn-based system, and it works pretty much how you would expect it to, with the only real difference in this being how the perspective is shifted from the back rather than the side. That is cool and all, but what makes these battles so boring would be because of, again, how simplistic they are. The enemies barely do anything that’ll cause too much harm for you, and even if they do, you can just easily remedy that in a matter of seconds, given how much money you are given to purchase potions and elixirs for healing and revive spells, and the only thing you need to do in order to win these battles is just to spam the attack button and then wait until you win. Not all battles are like this, but it is rare you will find a fight that needs a little more strategy then that to win, and while this is, again, beginner friendly, it is still extremely mind-numbing and boring, especially with the previously mentioned abundance of foes that you will need to take on, a lot of the time at once.
However, with all that being said, I can’t say in good conscience that this game is bad, because it really isn’t. It lacks any of the complexity and innovation that previous Final Fantasy games had, and it can be a chore to go through, but it does manage to accomplish the one goal that it sets out to accomplish: being an RPG for beginners. I could definitely see someone who isn’t really familiar with RPGs at all being able to sit down, play this game, and have a good time with it, even if it wouldn’t be my first recommendation for someone who isn’t all too familiar with the genre. In addition, while a lot of the gameplay features here have been dumbed or are just not that fun to deal with, I do like some of the mechanics and ideas that this game tries out.
For one thing, in a lot of the dungeons and towns you go through, you can interact with various things using your weapons that will help you proceed forward, such as with cutting down trees with your axe, pressing buttons with your sword, or climbing along walls using your claw. It doesn’t offer too much variety, but it does offer some more mobility through these dungeons that hasn’t been seen previously, which is nice. Not to mention, you can jump as well, which also increases the mobility you have in a lot of areas, and as a personal note, I also like how, whenever you are dealing damage to an enemy, their appearance changes depending on how much health they have. It isn’t much, but it is a neat little touch that makes battles somewhat more enjoyable.
Overall, despite its beginner-friendly nature and some interesting ideas that I enjoyed messing around with, Final Fantasy Mystic Quest is one of the most bland and basic RPGs that I have ever played in my life, one that doesn’t offer anything revolutionary or interesting for this series or genre as a whole, and instead ends up being a repetitive slog that you can beat in a single day if you spam through a lot of the fights by just attacking over and over again with no thought. I would recommend it for those who are HUGE RPG fanatics, or for those of you who aren’t familiar with them and want to give the genre a shot, because despite all my gripes with it, who knows: it could potentially become a new favorite of yours. Although, if you are asking me, I would recommend a Pokemon game for your first RPG, preferably FireRed or LeafGreen. Those games at least have adorable creatures you can catch and battle with. This game has some creatures that you could say are adorable, but I can’t catch them……..
Game #543
At this point in time, Squaresoft, the primary developers of the Final Fantasy series, had been working towards making RPGs more accessible through audiences in several ways, such as with the release of Final Fantasy IV in the US being noticeably much easier than the original version, because Americans just can’t handle a game with normal difficulty! They are too stupid, obviously! With this mindset in mind after changing up that title like that, they would then go onto making Mystic Quest, the first side game in the series that was specifically made with the U.S. market in mind, which, as we have seen from games like ActRaiser 2, isn’t exactly the best mindset to have when you are making anything. But nevertheless, the game was released, and has gone onto having a divisive reputation ever since. I only played through the game for the first time a few months ago, and from that experience, I can say that, as a whole, the game is… ok. It definitely has some interesting ideas and quirks that do make it stand out from the rest, but it is primarily a repetitive and sluggish experience, one that never elevates much further then what you are presented with.
The story is, appropriately, extremely basic, where a young adventurer by the name of Benjamin has his village destroyed seemingly out of nowhere, and he is informed by a strange old man that, because of this, he must fulfill the “knight’s prophecy”, where he must travel across the four continents, gather the four crystals, and use them to defeat the demon king, so Benjamin then sets out to do just that, which is a very basic premise, one that is way simpler then what FFIV gave us, but it does fall in line with previous FF games, and it is as simple as they are wanting, so I guess I can excuse it. The graphics are good, having plenty of good monster and dungeon designs, but a lot of it does feel uncreative and artificial, much like the rest of this game, the music is pretty good, having plenty of great tracks that I enjoyed listening to like the battle theme, but it doesn’t quite reach the heights of previous games’ soundtracks, and the gameplay/control is very familiar to those who have played any other Final Fantasy game before this, except now it is much more simplistic to the point where a toddler could play this game and have an easy time with it.
The game is a traditional turn-based RPG, where you primarily take control of Benjamin, go across a vast overworld through four different continents, talk to the many inhabitants of the world who will either give you helpful hints/advice or help you on your journey in some way, find plenty of items that you can use to either upgrade your defense, mobility, or attack, purchase items from the shop, or heal yourself whenever you need to, and naturally, get into random battles, where you will attack your opponent using either your main weapon or whatever spells or items you have lying around in your pockets, gain experience points, and level up to increase your stats. Any RPG veteran knows this set-up by heart, and they will be able to get used to how this game works pretty quickly… in fact, too quickly, if you ask me, and while a lot of it is passable and appealing to said veterans of the genre, it is also completely shallow in its execution in many areas.
If I were to describe this game in one sentence, I would say it is a Final Fantasy game made for babies. Everything about the game, which we have seen time and time again from previous games in the series, has been extremely simplified and dumbed down for the player, which could aid less experienced players along, yes, but it also becomes mind-numbing and unengaging as a result, therefore making it tedious to trek through. Some stuff in the game remains the same, such as walking through towns and dungeons, talking to people, buying items from the shops, and sleeping at inns, so that is all well and good, but in terms of the raw gameplay, the meat and potatoes of what any player would come to an RPG for, that has all been completely changed around for the worse.
Starting off, we have the overworld of the game, which is no longer a vast open land that you can explore freely to see what kinds of locations and creatures you can find, but instead, it has turned into a world map from a Mario game. You travel from location to location with nothing in-between, which does make things faster and more convenient, yes, but it also completely removes any sense of an adventure or its grand scale from this entire journey, making it feel empty and lifeless. The same can be said about the battles themselves, which are no longer random, but instead, every single enemy you can fight in this game appears on the map, to where a lot of the time, you can simply avoid them if you don’t feel like fighting them. Not only that, but instead of encountering enemies while walking along the overworld, you now have these designated enemy spaces, where you can fight 10 different battles in the row to get a certain reward.
Once again, this is a very beginner-friendly approach to something you would typically find in one of these games, which I am all for, but the problem with this is, to make up for this, they spam the fuck out of these enemies, especially in later parts of the game. If you choose to fight every single creature so that you can get as strong as possible (which I tend to do in most RPGs), then you will be spending hours just fighting these random enemies over and over and over again, each one dealing out the same EXP every time, and it is, once again, an absolute slog to go through. Yeah, you can avoid plenty of these fights, but there will be many instances where you CAN’T avoid these fights at all, and will be forced to take on every single thing in your way, and you can imagine how fun that would be.
And speaking of which, the battles themselves aren’t that much better than what you find outside of them. The Active Time Battle system is gone from this game, and we are back to the traditional turn-based system, and it works pretty much how you would expect it to, with the only real difference in this being how the perspective is shifted from the back rather than the side. That is cool and all, but what makes these battles so boring would be because of, again, how simplistic they are. The enemies barely do anything that’ll cause too much harm for you, and even if they do, you can just easily remedy that in a matter of seconds, given how much money you are given to purchase potions and elixirs for healing and revive spells, and the only thing you need to do in order to win these battles is just to spam the attack button and then wait until you win. Not all battles are like this, but it is rare you will find a fight that needs a little more strategy then that to win, and while this is, again, beginner friendly, it is still extremely mind-numbing and boring, especially with the previously mentioned abundance of foes that you will need to take on, a lot of the time at once.
However, with all that being said, I can’t say in good conscience that this game is bad, because it really isn’t. It lacks any of the complexity and innovation that previous Final Fantasy games had, and it can be a chore to go through, but it does manage to accomplish the one goal that it sets out to accomplish: being an RPG for beginners. I could definitely see someone who isn’t really familiar with RPGs at all being able to sit down, play this game, and have a good time with it, even if it wouldn’t be my first recommendation for someone who isn’t all too familiar with the genre. In addition, while a lot of the gameplay features here have been dumbed or are just not that fun to deal with, I do like some of the mechanics and ideas that this game tries out.
For one thing, in a lot of the dungeons and towns you go through, you can interact with various things using your weapons that will help you proceed forward, such as with cutting down trees with your axe, pressing buttons with your sword, or climbing along walls using your claw. It doesn’t offer too much variety, but it does offer some more mobility through these dungeons that hasn’t been seen previously, which is nice. Not to mention, you can jump as well, which also increases the mobility you have in a lot of areas, and as a personal note, I also like how, whenever you are dealing damage to an enemy, their appearance changes depending on how much health they have. It isn’t much, but it is a neat little touch that makes battles somewhat more enjoyable.
Overall, despite its beginner-friendly nature and some interesting ideas that I enjoyed messing around with, Final Fantasy Mystic Quest is one of the most bland and basic RPGs that I have ever played in my life, one that doesn’t offer anything revolutionary or interesting for this series or genre as a whole, and instead ends up being a repetitive slog that you can beat in a single day if you spam through a lot of the fights by just attacking over and over again with no thought. I would recommend it for those who are HUGE RPG fanatics, or for those of you who aren’t familiar with them and want to give the genre a shot, because despite all my gripes with it, who knows: it could potentially become a new favorite of yours. Although, if you are asking me, I would recommend a Pokemon game for your first RPG, preferably FireRed or LeafGreen. Those games at least have adorable creatures you can catch and battle with. This game has some creatures that you could say are adorable, but I can’t catch them……..
Game #543
Abzu
2016
This style of game simply isn’t for me at all. I honestly don’t think I will try another game like it. I tried Journey twice because of the people raving about it and just didn’t enjoy myself at all. So I thought I’d give the genre one more try and I wish I didn’t. I get that it’s relaxing to many people and maybe even therapeutic but for me I’d rather just watch a video about ocean life on YouTube.
Chrono Trigger
1995
Chrono Trigger’s reputation precedes itself. If you haven’t played Chrono Trigger yourself already, you’ve surely heard tales of its legend. A 30 year old game made in the golden era of RPGs. Back when Square Enix were separated into SquareSoft and Enix. Legendary creators in of themselves. It is no wonder why this game is heralded as one of the best RPGs ever made, if not the best for many. As an RPG lover this was a game that I have been wanting to play but never got around to. I didn’t play many SNES or NES games growing up. My childhood gaming was spent on the N64 and original playstation. It’s been a blindspot for me forever. And now to play the game for the first time, to experience this legendary game for the first time with 29 years of game design between when it originally released to now, it’s astonishing to me that this game not only stood the test of time, but feels incredibly fresh and more modern than some modern RPGs.
TLDR at the end
Modern Sensibilities
Part of this is that it’s filled with modern interpretations that games just recently started incorporating. Things like your entire party getting experience from fights, all fights being on screen or scripted, and I think what really sets the game apart from the rest being the dual techs and how enemies move around and that affecting certain attacks. It’s crazy to see these ideas so early in games when there’s easily 15-20 years until that becomes a modern practice in RPGs. It’s also crazy to see choices impacting the game as well. That’s still not even common in JRPGs as a whole. It’s largely specific styles of RPGs like Baldur’s Gate 3 or Mass Effect that heavily employ that. While I don’t think Chrono Trigger has it as in depth as those games, the court scene still blew me away. That mixed with just how each encounter feels so thoughtful. The encounters are quick but a majority of the enemies have mechanics to them and not just higher health values of resistances. And how it organically tells you. Early on in the prehistoric area of the game there’s an enemy type that is resistant to physical attacks, and you only have Crono, Lucca, and Marle. So naturally after the first physical attack doesn’t do much you’d use your newly acquired magic and Crono only has lightning. Then lightning decreases its defense. It’s not even a status effect. It’s just a mechanic of the enemy. Which I found incredibly engaging. The creators were so ahead of their time with so much of the game.
Old Mixed with the New
Not to say there aren't some old school designs or ideas in Chrono Trigger. It is still a product of its time. But I feel these older school design philosophies are feeling fresher again. It’s an old school style JRPG with the overworld map and different areas to visit within said map. There’s old school side mission design with no quest log really, there’s no way points, there’s just NPCs with directions and hints. And I honestly think this is a welcomed change of pace. I think the popularity of Elden Ring and the souls games have brought to the limelight the joys of figuring things out. When the game opened up and provided a variety of side quests I had a lot of fun tracking them down, figuring out when, where and what to do for it. There were just 2 quests I looked up hints for. After looking them up I realized I had already been given the hints in the game but just didn’t register that they were connected to the quests. Which for an SNES title to only have to look up 2 things for just side quests and nothing more was really impressive. Since a lot of the older games tend to have some parts where things just feel obscure. This old school hands off approach feels incredibly refreshing now and I feel is returning to the gaming zeitgeist.
Pacing Perfection
This game on top of feeling so ahead of its time is just masterfully crafted. Chrono Trigger’s pacing is so incredible. Starting at the millennial fair, then quickly getting thrusted into medieval times and stumbling into an apocalyptic future sets up a tone and cadence that just doesn’t slow down or get boring. I think what helps in the pacing is that the game is also shorter compared to a lot of RPGs. This game can easily be finished in 20ish hours in a first playthrough. It took me 30 hours to finish the main game and side quests. Really the only critiques to the pacing could be that the millennial fair takes a little bit to figure out what to do, but it’s largely about exploring the fair. And the end sequence can have just a lot of bosses. But these are more like nitpicks rather than actual critiques. This is one the best paced games I’ve ever played.
Setting, Style, and Vibes
I love sci-fi and time travel settings. I was raised on watching Back to the Future so time travel has always been a favorite science fiction idea of mine. Getting to explore the same few continents and how they chance as eras change is so fun to see and experience. And the vibes and art of each era is so beautiful. And if it wasn’t clear already, the art for this game was done by the legendary Akira Toriyama. (May he rest in peace) It’s honestly incredible how defined his art style in this. It’s not just in the animated scenes and cover art (I played this on steam so I got those, they weren’t in base Chrono Trigger) but it so clearly bleeds into every aspect of the game. The backgrounds, the pixel art. You can really tell upon seeing the fiends, dinosaurs and the final boss. Such beautiful art provides so much life to this game. And possibly even more renowned than the game itself is the game's soundtrack. I heard the chrono trigger soundtrack before seeing the game or playing the game. The iconic soundtrack and vibes of it are unparalleled. From the music in the woods to the music of antiquity. It’s so beautiful and so tranquil. If you haven’t listened to the music of Chrono Trigger I highly recommend checking it out.
TLDR
Chrono Trigger feels so fresh playing it even today which is an incredible feat. This game stands the test of time and it is no wonder why it has inspired so many. This game is simply a treasure and is a must play for anyone but especially any RPG fan. Built by the dream team of Hironobu Sakaguchi, Yuji Horii, and Akira Toriyama. This game’s legacy is well earned and deserved. A masterpiece ahead of it's time.
TLDR at the end
Modern Sensibilities
Part of this is that it’s filled with modern interpretations that games just recently started incorporating. Things like your entire party getting experience from fights, all fights being on screen or scripted, and I think what really sets the game apart from the rest being the dual techs and how enemies move around and that affecting certain attacks. It’s crazy to see these ideas so early in games when there’s easily 15-20 years until that becomes a modern practice in RPGs. It’s also crazy to see choices impacting the game as well. That’s still not even common in JRPGs as a whole. It’s largely specific styles of RPGs like Baldur’s Gate 3 or Mass Effect that heavily employ that. While I don’t think Chrono Trigger has it as in depth as those games, the court scene still blew me away. That mixed with just how each encounter feels so thoughtful. The encounters are quick but a majority of the enemies have mechanics to them and not just higher health values of resistances. And how it organically tells you. Early on in the prehistoric area of the game there’s an enemy type that is resistant to physical attacks, and you only have Crono, Lucca, and Marle. So naturally after the first physical attack doesn’t do much you’d use your newly acquired magic and Crono only has lightning. Then lightning decreases its defense. It’s not even a status effect. It’s just a mechanic of the enemy. Which I found incredibly engaging. The creators were so ahead of their time with so much of the game.
Old Mixed with the New
Not to say there aren't some old school designs or ideas in Chrono Trigger. It is still a product of its time. But I feel these older school design philosophies are feeling fresher again. It’s an old school style JRPG with the overworld map and different areas to visit within said map. There’s old school side mission design with no quest log really, there’s no way points, there’s just NPCs with directions and hints. And I honestly think this is a welcomed change of pace. I think the popularity of Elden Ring and the souls games have brought to the limelight the joys of figuring things out. When the game opened up and provided a variety of side quests I had a lot of fun tracking them down, figuring out when, where and what to do for it. There were just 2 quests I looked up hints for. After looking them up I realized I had already been given the hints in the game but just didn’t register that they were connected to the quests. Which for an SNES title to only have to look up 2 things for just side quests and nothing more was really impressive. Since a lot of the older games tend to have some parts where things just feel obscure. This old school hands off approach feels incredibly refreshing now and I feel is returning to the gaming zeitgeist.
Pacing Perfection
This game on top of feeling so ahead of its time is just masterfully crafted. Chrono Trigger’s pacing is so incredible. Starting at the millennial fair, then quickly getting thrusted into medieval times and stumbling into an apocalyptic future sets up a tone and cadence that just doesn’t slow down or get boring. I think what helps in the pacing is that the game is also shorter compared to a lot of RPGs. This game can easily be finished in 20ish hours in a first playthrough. It took me 30 hours to finish the main game and side quests. Really the only critiques to the pacing could be that the millennial fair takes a little bit to figure out what to do, but it’s largely about exploring the fair. And the end sequence can have just a lot of bosses. But these are more like nitpicks rather than actual critiques. This is one the best paced games I’ve ever played.
Setting, Style, and Vibes
I love sci-fi and time travel settings. I was raised on watching Back to the Future so time travel has always been a favorite science fiction idea of mine. Getting to explore the same few continents and how they chance as eras change is so fun to see and experience. And the vibes and art of each era is so beautiful. And if it wasn’t clear already, the art for this game was done by the legendary Akira Toriyama. (May he rest in peace) It’s honestly incredible how defined his art style in this. It’s not just in the animated scenes and cover art (I played this on steam so I got those, they weren’t in base Chrono Trigger) but it so clearly bleeds into every aspect of the game. The backgrounds, the pixel art. You can really tell upon seeing the fiends, dinosaurs and the final boss. Such beautiful art provides so much life to this game. And possibly even more renowned than the game itself is the game's soundtrack. I heard the chrono trigger soundtrack before seeing the game or playing the game. The iconic soundtrack and vibes of it are unparalleled. From the music in the woods to the music of antiquity. It’s so beautiful and so tranquil. If you haven’t listened to the music of Chrono Trigger I highly recommend checking it out.
TLDR
Chrono Trigger feels so fresh playing it even today which is an incredible feat. This game stands the test of time and it is no wonder why it has inspired so many. This game is simply a treasure and is a must play for anyone but especially any RPG fan. Built by the dream team of Hironobu Sakaguchi, Yuji Horii, and Akira Toriyama. This game’s legacy is well earned and deserved. A masterpiece ahead of it's time.
There's nothing too impressive in Episode One, and there's also a slight lack of polish that made this game more annoying to deal with on occasion. It's a solid continuation of the previous game's events, but it's left me hoping that Episode 2 will deliver the awesome moments this game was lacking.
Ooh-wee-hoo, Half Life 2 is an alright game
Oh-oh, and Episode 1 is bad
Nothing happens and the gunplay is shit
This game ain't my bag
Edit: ok so I actually finished it, adding half a star because the funny linkin park meme, but overall it's extremely weak
Oh-oh, and Episode 1 is bad
Nothing happens and the gunplay is shit
This game ain't my bag
Edit: ok so I actually finished it, adding half a star because the funny linkin park meme, but overall it's extremely weak