DISCLAIMER 1: favor ler essa review curtinha (e pouco relacionada ao jogo) sobre Ninja Gaiden II: https://www.backloggd.com/u/Lenz/review/576401/

Sim, um pouco mais de 5 meses pra zerar um jogo. É parcialmente minha culpa, já que enrolei até outubro pra continuar essa merda, mas a partir de certo ponto no capítulo 11 meu jogo simplesmente congelou, me impedindo de prosseguir. Acabei dropando o game indefinitivamente e pulando logo pra sua sequência (Ninja Gaiden II)

Nessa primeira semana de janeiro eu consegui, finalmente, consertar o crash do capítulo 11 de Ninja Gaiden Black (graças ao meu amigo luquinhas tmj wolvez) e acabei terminando o game hoje, dia 6. Como eu joguei o segundo game antes, vou usá-lo como comparação diversas vezes na review porque infelizmente é inevitável a essa altura.

DISCLAIMER 2: Joguei no modo normal e o que eu falo aqui reflete apenas minha primeira experiência/run com o jogo, pouco me aprofundo no que ele oferece como action game.

DISCLAIMER 3: Vou falar bem pouco da parte narrativa do jogo porque não é algo que eu me importe muito.

Enfim, partindo pro jogo, caralho, que relíquia. A franquia, originalmente 2D e de nintendinho, acaba ressuscitando como um action-adventure pela Team Ninja em 2004 (ou 2005 já que eu joguei o Black)

E porra, pelo tanto de enfoque na exploração, no loot, na progressão metroidvania-esque e seu mapa interconectado, os caras criaram um combate surreal até mesmo pra época, visto que apesar de eu ter jogado o Black, o 04 lançou um ano antes de Devil May Cry 3, o "divisor de águas" de seu gênero (Character Action, num geral). Eu ainda tô devendo Dead or Alive mas o fato deles terem começado como uma desenvolvedora de jogos de luta deve ter influenciado bastante em como NGB foi feito.

Reverenciando um pouco mais DMC (why not?), vou usar como parâmetro aqui: Ninja Gaiden Black é como se DMC1 tivesse o combate do mesmo nível de qualidade do 3 mas com os pontos baixos do 2 (...desculpa)

Sobre DMC1: O mapa

Assim, eu ainda gosto mais de como DMC1 lida com sua própria estrutura e vícios por ser um "Resident Evil younger brother", o que apesar de ter (alguns) elementos que servem de rascunho para o que formula o gênero futuramente, se autossustenta sendo um ótimo jogo em seu próprio território. Ninja Gaiden Black segue uma narrativa parecida: focado na exploração e progressão por puzzles que por acaso acabou se firmando com um ótimo combate e seu design envolta disso. Diferente de seu/seus sucessores, o foco da progressão não se destaca apenas em encontros com chefes e inimigos, mas também com sua ambição em criar levels dignos de uma boa exploração.

O que denota minha preferência por DMC1 vai além da qualidade de ambos, mas uma solidez maior ao se apresentar como aventura. Não só denota meus problemas com NGB, como também sua pretensão em me provar, mais uma vez, suas qualidades honestas como um jogo de ação.

Num meio totalmente subjetivo eu diria que curto mais a forma em que Ninja Gaiden 2 se estrutura: linear com certos trechos de exploração e focado em manusear seu loop com o combate ao invés de tentar algo mais emergente como puzzles, seções de plataforma e exploração como combustível. É preferência minha, mas há quem sinta falta do mapa interconectado do primeiro jogo.

Deixando isso de lado - é inegável que NGB exerce muito bem o que diz respeito ao design de seus níveis. Tenho nitpicks, alguns bem sérios, tipo o fato dessa porra de jogo forçar platforming o tempo todo quando a movimentação do Ryu não se adequa 100% a isso, trechos e CAPÍTULOS em level aquático e alguns puzzles pouco intuitivos. Mas a o backtracking, enemy encounters, recompensa em loot e a progressão geral do jogo são geralmente cativantes o suficiente pra me animar por horas. Geralmente.

Essa abordagem à la Doom com diversos trechos e segredos mapeados de uma forma orgânica e integral dentro do jogo (I mean, tem área dos capítulos finais do game que abrem atalho pra área do começo do jogo) é de fato algo bem inteligente e coerente com seu loop de gameplay -- e de forma super enraizada, Ninja Gaiden Black é um dos jogos mais consistentes que joguei.

O ponto que me levou a compara-lo com DMC2 é a queda de qualidade em certos capítulos. Sigo me perguntando e imaginando como o Itagaki e a Team Ninja desenvolveram esse jogo, porque tanto ele quanto o 2 me dão um sentimento de que fizeram os capítulos em épocas completamente diferente com tempo, orçamento, disposição e ambiente distintos também (já que em algumas entrevistas o Itagaki menciona que NG2 passou por um devhell)

E apesar dos problemas ficarem mais aparente no segundo jogo (linearidade, trechos incompletos, bossfights imbecis e até alguns inimigos super mal polidos), eu acho que os pontos baixos do Black me incomodam muito mais... o capítulo 9 é o maior exemplo: tem uma bossfight contra dois (ou três? nem lembro) tanques e logo em seguida, contra a porra de um HELICÓPTERO. O único game que vi fazer isso antes, por incrível que pareça, foi Devil May Cry 2, vai tomar no * Itagaki

Capítulo 11 também é uma bosta, já que 90% dele é exploração e puzzles num level aquático e os controles underwater do game são horríveis, e se eu ficar de nitpick com o jogo a review inteira aqui vou acabar não fazendo jus à nota que dei pro jogo (apesar de números serem meramente representativos). NGB tá longe de ser um game perfeito do início ao fim, assim como seu sucessor, mas acho que, nesse caso, eles lidam de forma diferente com suas próprias falhas: enquanto NG2 assume e as integra em seu core de gameplay, o Black acaba se desdobrando e achando um jeito de me surpreender novamente, como exemplo, o capítulo 10: logo após duas das piores bossfights que já vi na minha vida (a do helicóptero, principalmente), o game prossegue pra um dos levels mais interessantes e divertidos de explorar (que é o aqueduto) e acaba respirando, mais uma vez, se redimindo em frente aos meus olhos.*

Avançando pra última parte mas não menos importante do jogo: o combate.

Definitivamente o que eu mais curti jogando. Me surpreendeu num nível em que eu não achei que iria conseguir me divertir tanto, mesmo tendo voltado a jogar após NG2, mas que continuou se firmando como um dos melhores combates já vistos num action game.

Respeito muito como o título se expressa por uma abordagem diferente, em desafios mais inerentes à sobrevivência e eficiência do player, contrapondo os desafios implícitos, o enfoque estético e a filosofia de “escolha como derrotar seus inimigos!” de Devil May Cry.

Você é introduzido como um Ninja (duh) e o estilo de animações do Ryu acabam se assemelhando mais à artes marciais, casando bem com a temática e trama do jogo. A movimentação do Ryu com o Wall Running, o arsenal, as skills e projéteis (como a Shuriken) e os inimigos se situam no mesmo departamento, e provável que muito disso venha de tropes da cultura japonesa, mas não sou versado nisso o suficiente pra me aprofundar.

Ao longo do jogo o player se depara com diversos elementos fantasiosos e até contemporâneos (como a merda da base militar), convergindo diferentes gêneros dentro do jogo (e isso fica muito mais aparente no 2), e apesar de não dar a foda pra história e universo de Ninja Gaiden, acho muito divertido como o jogo se despiroca com esses elementos.

Voltando ao combate, gosto da forma como ele progride: é metódico, e até slow-paced se comparar com suas sequências, é super bem cadenciado tanto pelo design de inimigos do jogo quanto pela diversidade de mecânicas que vão moldando certa liberdade pro jogador descobrir seu playstyle, acho legal que por boa parte do game os inimigos se comportam como peças de xadrez, cada um tendo sua forma diferente de lidar numa linha de progressão bem gradual e bem gerenciada, o que eu pouco sentia no segundo jogo (provavelmente pelo quão desorganizado ele é). Apesar disso, eu ainda prefiro o design de inimigos e chefes do 2, pois no Black eu sinto muito do que eu gosto desse jogo indo embora em diversos trechos e capítulos, e acaba ficando amargo que na reta final do jogo tu basicamente só enfrenta ghost fish e pink fiends, em certas partes tu mal enfrenta inimigo (cap 11 é basicamente um Jolly Roger Bay, tem nem combate essa bosta) e outros incômodos que tive nessa run.

E mesmo assim, quando o jogo tá brilhando: ele diverte MUITO. Desculpa pros fromfags de plantão mas quem colocou o dodge no mesmo input do block com o analógico merecia um aumento da Tecmo. Quem enaltece e até cultua o combate de Sekiro por ser “mecanicamente deep” ou “skill-based” deveria jogar um pouquinho de Ninja Gaiden, não é querendo pagar de elitista nem nada (até porque provavelmente eu gosto mais de Sekiro lmao) mas o sistema de parry de NGB é mil vezes melhor. NG2, apesar de ser um contraponto, mantém a mesma filosofia que é, na minha opinião (considerando os dois que eu joguei), a base de Ninja Gaiden: “morrer mais devagar que seus inimigos” (obviamente não fui eu que criei essa frase icônica, favor darem uma olhada nesse vídeo incrível: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBnIYXZ12BI)

Mas enfim, o que acaba me pegando mais no Black do que no 2, de certo modo, é proposital: o jogo é muito mais recompensador e satisfatório de jogar de forma reativa aqui. O 2 te encoraja a abusar da própria sanidade, dedos, mecânicas que podem parecer quebradas mas que estranhamente entram em harmonia com o resto do jogo, etc. Enquanto no Black, procurar brechas pra punir o inimigo logo após meia hora de gatilho segurado (ok não é pra tanto) é muito mais satisfatório pelo quão grounded e restrito o combate é. É provável que seja um sentimento comum ao jogar isso, mas os “limites” que NGB te impõe na real só contribuem pras nuances da gameplay do jogo, enquanto o 2 te dá uma liberdade maior em troca de ritmo. Apesar de ser em diferente escala, é uma reação parecida que tive ao jogar DMC4 logo depois do 3: o ritmo da campanha era open-ended até demais pro meu gosto.

Em algumas situações eu me estranhava jogando o Black pós-NG2 porque muitos dos sistemas do jogo foram aprimorados em sequência, como por exemplo o arsenal, que apesar de ser bem eficiente no Black, o 2 faz com que tu seja muito mais livre em descobrir seu estilo de gameplay e seus pontos fracos e fortes em cada situação com cada arma do jogo.

O sistema de cura também é algo a ser debatido, mas eu não mexeria no que o Black fez com os consumíveis, porque apesar de tudo, ainda é um jogo de aventura e muito da exploração acaba te recompensando com cura e ninpo pela simples e honesta curiosidade do player. A mecânica de Ninpo e os projéteis também foram aprimorados no 2 então é algo que eu levei mais como um “rascunho” do que como problema do jogo, assim como a falta de lock on: mesmo com a câmera zoada, o sistema de prioridades funciona muito bem no Black (que é basicamente o input de seus ataques serem programados de forma circunstancial, como por exemplo, proximidade: entre dois inimigos pertos do Ryu, ele vai sempre direcionar o ataque ao inimigo mais próximo, como um IS Ninja te encarando logo antes de tentar te explodir), mas acho que talvez um soft lock-on, pelo menos em bossfights, seria saudável pro jogo. No 2 seria impossível adaptar qualquer lock-on porque a implementação do sistema de prioridades é muito mais sofisticada pela adição de diversas mecânicas e padrão de inimigos que o Black não tinha, além do jogo ser infinitamente mais fast-paced.

O sistema de ranking é total rejeitável, pois serve exclusivamente pra leaderboards e não recompensa o player em absolutamente nada in-game.

Sobre os chefes: diria que é o maior defeito do jogo

Alguns demandam o uso do arco, outros tem padrões de bloqueio/desvio insanamente mal telegrafados (como a primeira bossfight contra a Alma), e há chefes que são terríveis por natureza mesmo (tipo o helicóptero do capítulo 9). Assim, lutar contra o Doku foi muito memorável e divertido, mas acho que não tem nenhuma outra luta que chegue perto dele no jogo então fica por isso aí mesmo. Não que o 2 tenha melhorado muita coisa, mas falar de bossfights em Ninja Gaiden é tipo falar de política no jantar com a família, sei lá


O que eu falei aqui não representa nem 10% da qualidade do jogo mas posso afirmar que, definitivamente, esse game é um must-play. Xemu é um emulador terrível, é melhor jogar pela retrocompatibilidade do Xbox One/Series, talvez vale até mais a pena comprar um Xbox original, jogar o 2 pelo Xenia ou até mesmo as versões Sigma (que não joguei pra recomendar com clareza), mas faça um favor a si mesmo se tu gosta de videogame e vá jogar Ninja Gaiden porque mesmo que eu tenha jogado só dois jogos, é definitivamente uma franquia especial a ser levada em consideração pra falar sobre action games. Não espere um Devil May Cry de ninjas ou God of War com mais sangue, mas sim um jogo essencialmente distinto com uma metodologia completamente diferente no core de sua gameplay.

No fim das contas, mesmo que NG2 seja "uma sequência com esteróides", eu acabo entendendo bem quem prefere o Black, justamente pelo quão opostos eles são e funcionam em suas metodologias.

Cosmology of Kyoto is a remarkably chilly game. While its roots in Japanese horror folklore and rich atmosphere definitely make up the foundations for its incredibly uncanny and often outright frightening visualscape, I think what I got most out of it was just how cold a world it presents. Cosmology of Kyoto, is a very old and now very forgotten game, with really its biggest lasting impact in the current modern climate is that it was the one video game that famous movie critic, Roger Ebert, had reviewed and praised as a work of art. And for a game that came out in 1993, it is hard to ignore what an insanely in-depth piece of work that this game is. First, and foremost, Cosmology of Kyoto, while definitely a point and click, is most importantly, an edutainment game. While you scour the fictional world of demon run Heian-era Heiankyo, your best tools will not be your money or sword, but instead an in-depth and often very exhaustive feeling encyclopedia of various folklore and history of the region you are exploring.

Of course, reading about what you’re seeing in front of you, is a very important part of what the game wants to give to the player. What you will mainly see in your adventure are barren streets, grotesque and often faded painted caricatures of beggars, nobles, and commoners, and of course, the bizarre and often quite terrifying demons themselves, that can easily kill you for a quick game over if you’re not careful. Heiankyo, in this game, is not a kind place, oftentimes it's visual landscape is empty, loomed over with a devastating bleak blue night time sky, and shrouded shadows over everything, making sure you never quite get a feel for the world the game sets up. This in turn makes your map, practically a necessity if you plan on getting any familiarity of this place at all, but even that won’t help you truly grasp the seemingly empty hallways where horrors can pop up at any moment.

Something you will notice right away about this game is how powerless you are. While you are given a sword and a sultra fairly early on that will help you avoid near death against the game’s countless horrors, you are not safe from any of the game’s myriad of events that can and will happen, and show you the true frightening reality of this dog-eat-dog world. Death is everywhere in this game, Onis will eat the weak and the powerful all the same, the seemingly endless hallways are littered with corpses, sometimes well before you had gotten there, and some of the freshly killed robbers you’ll defend yourself against along the way. There was a moment early on in my experience of some children playing what was essentially just a sport, before accidentally coming into contact with a noble carriage and getting decapitated. The almost bleak blue pitch of the sky is oftentimes turned into a hellish red, almost always meaning some horrifying death in an abandoned temple that your encyclopedia essentially warns you about beforehand, not that it can truly prepare you regardless.

I think I could talk forever about what a feeling this game has over you. It is a game you will essentially bumble around in, seeing new events in which you’re more or less just an observer to. And my experience just happened to coincide with the weather dropping to be quite chilly, really enhancing that cold and barren experience of walking along the huge walls of the city, wondering what new terror may lurk in the darkness ready to scare me. Cosmology is a game that can be hard to set up proper (as is many older PC titles) and harder still to properly adjust to, especially with how little information there is online about this game. But if you can take the time to let this game soak into you, it is a truly haunting, unforgettable, and indeed, very informative experience, and if nothing else, it is an important and fascinating project in the world of pre-Resident Evil horror games in the medium. It is a chilling experience, an unsettling look into the cruelties of early living, and the petrifying legends that come out of it, and is also just an insanely cool experience.

J. Jonah Jameson was right.

(Heavy spoilers follow)

What would be nothing more and nothing less than a derivative bare minimum ubigame is brought low by its gross mishandling of its story and many of its characters.

To begin with, this is a reality in which Peter Parker has been Spiderman for well over ten years (putting him around the 27 years of age mark) but somehow he still has the trappings of a teenager and his only enemies have been Kingpin, Shocker, Electro, Rhino, Scorpion, Lizard and Vulture. No Doc Ock (though he is introduced in this game), no Venom and, most egregiously, no Goblin: his defining nemesis, key in his formation as a superhero, and he's not in the story for a whole decade of spider business. Yes, this game does provide the soil for the green villain's genesis but it's simply absurd to not make him instrumental in Peter's growth.

No Goblin then, and no Gwen Stacy either, whose existence (and more importantly: her death) is conspicuously absent from the backstory, which begs the question of exactly what drama has Peter lived through to mold his character as a self-sacrificing hero. At least Uncle ben is still dead, though off-screen, long ago and never really explored or even mentioned beyond a few weightless musings here and there. The game reads like yet another origin story, but it premises itself as anything but, with lots and lots of baggage and history between characters already, resulting in a very jarring narration.

Aunt May's character has been nothing short of vandalized: she has now been rewritten as some kind of no-nonsense charity CEO, which sorely detracts from the kind, fragile motherly figure Peter feels responsible towards; this May doesn't need anyone's help, and this once again knocks items off Spiderman's superproblems list. Furthermore, not only does Peter almost never refer to her as "aunt", bafflingly preferring to call her "May" (which surely must have confused newcomers as to who exactly she is to him) but the fact the ending reveals that she was all along aware of the fact that Peter was Spiderman, and that she admired him for it, is simply absurd: the original Aunt May's distaste for his secret identity was an essential point in deepening Peter's cognitive dissonance regarding his double life, the removal of which damages his characters almost irreparably. There is no conflict in Peter's life, no hardship coming from his secret identity beyond maybe trying to reconcile with his ex girlfriend Mary Jane. There is some compelling drama with Doc Ock near the end of the game, but it doesn't account for the missing decade of, well... nothing.

Much like with Aunt May, the writers' fretful insecurity about not knowing what to do with the character of Mary Jane shines through, how they had no idea on how to present her as a pivotal, meaningful, emancipated character. Their solution was to rewrite her from a successul fashion model (which evidently just won't fly as a Disney age aspirational profession) into a crack investigative journalist always on the edge of a felony arrest ("Hey girls, fuck the rules, live dangerously!" -Walt Disney 2018). This of course wasn't enough to exorcise any possible spectre of controversy about female empowerment, so they have her directly partake in the violence, making her sneak around criminal lairs and high security compounds like Sam Fisher, silently zapping trained paramilitary commandos in the back with a taser gun in one of her many, many interludes serving to break up the monotony of Spiderman's gameplay. In short, they turned Mary jane into Lois Lane from the movie Man of Steel: she even looks exactly like a young Amy Adams, down to the vestiary and hairdo she wore in the film.

While web slinging around the city you will hear a number of broadcasts by J. Jonah Jameson (here a radio pundit) in which he comments on recent events and expresses his contempt for Spiderman. Whereas in any other piece of Spiderman fiction it always was impossible to relate to JJJ, patently wrong as he has always been written, blaming Spidey for things that were not his fault, here it's difficult to listen to his monologues (which the game lets you toggle off, assuming you'd find them irritating) and not find yourself nodding here and there when he points out the damage that Spiderman does to the city on a regular basis either via clumsiness or cavalier overconfidence.

The ludonarrative dissonance this commentary spotlights is pretty glaring: in one particular mission, Spiderman is trying to catch the leader of a terrorist cell as they rob one of Kingpin's weapon stashes inside of a Manhattan highrise. Once he is spotted, the baddies attempt to flee by helicopter, at which point Spiderman webs the chopper (in itself a dangerous action since there is a busy street underneath) and this quickly escalates to a rocket knocking down a giant construction crane, which demolishes several nearby buildings before being webbed into inertness. A piece of it gets stuck on the web attached to the helicopter, which causes a wrecking ball effect, causing further destruction (and likely victims) around the city. Result: more damage than 9/11, when sticking a spider tracker on the fuselage of the helicopter would have sufficed, but since the game needs an Uncharted-style set piece, here we are, and JJJ is proven correct, since this happens every other mission.

Thing is, such setpieces are necessary, since the core of the gameplay is as bland and monotonous as they come: no effort was made to come up with anything original to freshen up a formula that had been tired and overdone for a decade by the time of the game's release. Move around Manhattan in a manner lifted straight from 2009's Prototype (incidentally also set in Manhattan) repeating ad nauseam a loop of activating towers with a minigame pilfered from Batman Arkham City to reveal the map, running into crime incidents to resolve (a couple different types at most) and bagging a myriad of different collectables clearly marked on the map and none of which is any fun to get. Do they at least reward you with anything good? Not really. You use them to upgrade gear you don't really need and unlock suits that serve little purpose aside from sheer cosmetic appeal. A few sidequests appear here and there but they are hardly worth the time.

Particularly hilarious are the backpacks that Spiderman has apparently left around the city years before. Not only are these still stuck to the wall without the web having dissolved, but they contain mementos from Peter's private life, sometimes going as far as his ID card or student pass bearing his name and photo. Imagine being a construction worker refurbishing a rooftop and finding a backpack clearly belonging to Spiderman (the web, the web!) with his secret identity revealed by the items within. They couldn't come up with less nonsensical ideas for collectibles? Silly!

Story missions are the highlight of the package, with a genuinely good character arc for Doc Ock and a suitable amount of visual spectacle. However, it's hard to shake the feeling that the game sits there spinning its wheels for the better part of the first and second acts, wasting the player's time with pointless minigames (hey look, it's Pipemania again!) and tedious missions in between the decent ones. The rogue gallery of villains is uninteresting to say the least. Kingpin and Shocker show up for one boss fight each and are never seen again, and the aforementioned Rhino, Scorpion, Electro and Vulture are hardly the most compelling villains, as is Mr Negative, whose arc is passable, but not given any interesting conclusion before or after the credits roll. These Sinister Six are more like the Spiritless Six.

Combat is, once again, stolen straight out of the Arkham series. Now, I was never a fan of Batman's X,X,Y,X,X style of automatic combat, but at least there it was done properly. Here, trying to vault over or slide under one of the many enemies that are impervious from the front is a proper chore that will fail far too often for its own good. Encounters boil down to interminable waves of identical enemies to dispatch the same way, with easy and repetitive boss fights peppered throughout, all boiling down to the same soup of "dodge dodge until the boss gets tired, then press triangle and button mash. Rinse and repeat". the final encounter of the game has you sit through the exact same five second dodge, punch and slam loop for a good three minutes.

You will want to avoid the tedious combat as often as possible, which brings us to yet another thing lifted from (you guessed it) the Arkham franchise: the stealth. Spiderman can zip up to rafters and flagpoles and use them as perches to stealth takedown enemies the same way that Batman can, though in a much more simplified manner: there are no floor grates or vents and there is no crouching, so any ground level action is discouraged, only leaving perch takedowns and web tripmines (whatever they are). It's simplistic and doesn't even work properly: sometimes you will have an enemy right below you, having made sure nobody can see him being taken down, and the prompt to do so just will not appear, forcing you to move to another position hoping the game will like it more. Fiddly and frustrating.

Even the web slinging itself has problems. while it's generally fit for purpose in simulating Spiderman's trademark mobility, it sometimes just won't respond to commands. Whereas previous Spiderman games tended to fudge the web slinging by letting Spidey attach himself to things off screen that may or may not have been there, this game chooses to be a stickler for realism: if an object isn't there, you won't be able to hook on to it, meaning you will plummet face first to the ground. this is not a massive problem in practice, since there is no fall damage whatsoever, but when the game arbitrarily decides that the floor is lava (like in a particularly dreadful dream sequence) you will find yourself missing a swing and dying, ever so more noticeable when the absence of consequences is removed.

One last mention for the music: the composer sure was proud of the five notes of the main theme, as you hear them on a constant loop in one form or another the entire game. The worst offender is the traversal music that flares up whenever you are not with your feet planted firmly on the ground, which is 90% of the time. You will become nauseated by the constant repetition of the (awfully generic) jingle, which is paradoxically so forgettable that you will not manage to recall what it sounds like even after being drilled with it non-stop for 20 hours. Thankfully the third act of the game features a far more somber tone, including a much more lowkey score, meaning you will actually be able to hear yourself think for a change.

Marvel's Spiderman is a derivative, unimaginative affair, ridden with inconsistencies, a plot that makes no sense due to the careless changes made to established lore and gameplay that fails to impress in any way, having been done often and better before.

baby's first apocalypse narrative matched with the worst gameplay elements of the Uncharted series. the last of us released at the peak of gaming media's obsession with finding validity as not just a medium for adults to enjoy, but one on par with cinema and literature. it's a third person shooter with zombies, one of the many pieces of media that spawned from a boring dude who saw Children of Men and decided he could also do that. everyone's angry and tense all of the time and there's lots of violence, which is how you know it's for adults (serious). its ideology is as if intense hatred and violence is a universal aspect of the human experience but i simply do not believe society would be so cruel. it's dour and miserable but there's a father-daughter plot, so it's sorta heartwarming af tho. nothing about the game part of the game is very fun to play in a conventional sense - large parts consist of just walkin' around while you listen to dialogue. maybe you move a ladder. maybe you collect materials and craft a knife. maybe you crouch walk around enemies and press triangle to view the killing cutscene. i love games that aren't conventionally "fun", but the last of us makes no statement with its mechanics and design. more than anything, it feels like a game that is embarrassed to be a game and decides to entirely ignore any of the medium''s advantages and possibilities in favour of being completely conventional. and like, obviously there's a place for conventional stories but i just don't find this particular one interesting - especially as a game. naughty dog's uncharted series at least face the player with spectacle and dozens of enemies but tlou doesn't evolve much over its runtime, aside from having more guys. it's a culmination of the 7th gen's most boring elements distilled in one package that might as well just be the TV show it became.

this is also a game that was so successful it set the standards for what most big narrative driven triple a releases would be for the next couple generations. very much not a fan of that and the impact it had on the industry as a whole - it's the final turning point for PlayStation going from a system with a diverse library of colourful games to mostly just games like this. wide appeal titles very-normal narratives that are just like some other thing tonally and narratively but slopped up into a game that plays like a million other games. boring!!!! it's just boring.

Yakuza 4 is a game which I have very complex feelings about.

Gameplay wise, its solid. Fixes every issue from 3 and has a well designed campaign overall minus an awful final boss.

Story wise.....its straight up awful. Its well acted and well presented, as tradition. But its its own worse enemy. Setting up interesting plot points it either drops or ruins. The worse offender being rubber bullets. I get that it dosent change much for Saejima's character as he still intended to do it. But it just goes to show the warped morality of these games, as Saejima is now somehow redeemable because of a technicality. Worse even is that the rubber bullets point is REUSED, TWICE.

All for a messy criminal/police corruption conspiracy that dosent really know what its trying to say.

I'm going easy on this game because its one of numerous entries in a very silly series, and the gameplay loop is that good compared to 3. So a story blunder dosent matter that much in the end. But this is one of the worse stories i've ever seen in any game ever. Its saved by a very few excellent moments, all in Saejima's story (the Haruka part, even through unconfortable, took balls to do, and his speech at the end of the pit fight)

Ultimately, it cant save it from being I think the worse chapter in the Yakuza franchise. This is a series that is built on its narrative and when its narrative fails. I feel cheated. Its not Last of Us 2 level bad. In the sense that it does not burn any bridges, it dosent diminish any previous or future games's quality. But its still awful