Ricecreammm
This review contains spoilers
Completed a full run with every palette, and feel like I mellowed out on this DLC quite a bit. Maybe my rating is a bit unfair, because Side Order is really cool!
Its take on a roguelike is great in concept, and it has a lot of neat ideas of how to meld that sort of progression with the way past singleplayer modes worked as stage clear games. Being able to dangle each reward you’ll get before choosing a stage, while showing exactly what you’d be in for if you went for it, provides a lot of risk and reward. There’s been times where I’ve actively avoided stages that would give me a better palette upgrade because there was a “Danger” warning or because the difficulty was set too high for me to currently handle. The variety of builds you can create with each weapon also really helps reframe the way I would normally play the game, having to work around luck, or solely using my sub for damage, or using a kit I’ve normally never touched before.
I really hope this roguelike mode continues in future Splatoon games as a fun side thing, because my biggest issue with Side Order is how underbaked it feels. There's a good amount there on first blush, but the game ultimately asks you to complete at least 12 full runs when it feels like there’s only enough content for 5-6. After just a couple runs, I was already running into objectives and stages that I had seen more than once before. Runs ultimately felt like they wholly blended together because I kept getting the same objectives, over and over. The builds and weapons you use add a good amount of variety on their own, but after a while it felt like I was tackling the same things the same way each time. The bosses feel limp after the first fight, the objectives start getting annoying rather than interesting, and I came out of my final run feeling pretty bored by the whole affair. It’s a shame, because like I said, the core concept of a Splatoon roguelike is cool!! There’s just simply not enough content and intrigue to keep replaying any more than you need to. Maybe doing some zero hack runs would make it a bit more exciting…
The story is fine. It’s not much, but it gives a nice little wrap-up on the loose ends of Octo Expansion, while also providing a look into Marina’s past and her own feelings after the events of the Deepsea Metro. Acht is a great new character, and it’s cool seeing someone else who was only represented through their music get a larger role. But, of course, at the end of the day, it feels like this whole DLC was made just to have Pearl and Marina’s relationship be as unsubtle as possible, and what else could I really ask for?
Its take on a roguelike is great in concept, and it has a lot of neat ideas of how to meld that sort of progression with the way past singleplayer modes worked as stage clear games. Being able to dangle each reward you’ll get before choosing a stage, while showing exactly what you’d be in for if you went for it, provides a lot of risk and reward. There’s been times where I’ve actively avoided stages that would give me a better palette upgrade because there was a “Danger” warning or because the difficulty was set too high for me to currently handle. The variety of builds you can create with each weapon also really helps reframe the way I would normally play the game, having to work around luck, or solely using my sub for damage, or using a kit I’ve normally never touched before.
I really hope this roguelike mode continues in future Splatoon games as a fun side thing, because my biggest issue with Side Order is how underbaked it feels. There's a good amount there on first blush, but the game ultimately asks you to complete at least 12 full runs when it feels like there’s only enough content for 5-6. After just a couple runs, I was already running into objectives and stages that I had seen more than once before. Runs ultimately felt like they wholly blended together because I kept getting the same objectives, over and over. The builds and weapons you use add a good amount of variety on their own, but after a while it felt like I was tackling the same things the same way each time. The bosses feel limp after the first fight, the objectives start getting annoying rather than interesting, and I came out of my final run feeling pretty bored by the whole affair. It’s a shame, because like I said, the core concept of a Splatoon roguelike is cool!! There’s just simply not enough content and intrigue to keep replaying any more than you need to. Maybe doing some zero hack runs would make it a bit more exciting…
The story is fine. It’s not much, but it gives a nice little wrap-up on the loose ends of Octo Expansion, while also providing a look into Marina’s past and her own feelings after the events of the Deepsea Metro. Acht is a great new character, and it’s cool seeing someone else who was only represented through their music get a larger role. But, of course, at the end of the day, it feels like this whole DLC was made just to have Pearl and Marina’s relationship be as unsubtle as possible, and what else could I really ask for?
2019
I seriously can't believe this amateur hour idea of what a good soulslike game would be was published by Bandai Namco. This shit is so embarrassing!!
The character customization is fun and the charm of it's sheer unadulterated edginess is there for a while, but I quickly felt this game's wretched level design and utterly boring gameplay falling on me like an illness, or a knife in the back. Code Vein is like a case study on how to miss every single thing that makes a soulslike any good in the first place. A painful game to actually try and play.
The character customization is fun and the charm of it's sheer unadulterated edginess is there for a while, but I quickly felt this game's wretched level design and utterly boring gameplay falling on me like an illness, or a knife in the back. Code Vein is like a case study on how to miss every single thing that makes a soulslike any good in the first place. A painful game to actually try and play.
Fun little roguelike game. Roguelikes have never been something I could get into no matter how I tried, but this one has been holding my attention longer than most really could. It's a pretty simple game, but I think this is one of it's best strengths.
One of the great downfalls of roguelikes for me is the utter amount of information density you have to parse through, with runs eventually becoming bullet hells without the movement to account for it. Little Noah, in contrast, makes your attacks and the enemies actions very clear and easy to read, with controls that feels incredibly smooth and easy to get a hold of. Every failed run I've had has always felt like my fault.
Collecting enemies and being able to string a combo from their attacks is a fun way to make each run feel fresh, although the pretty small amount of them makes the novelty start to wear thin. What's the worst part of this game is this exact issue, as it feels like the goals to complete are stretched so wide, but the ways you can approach them ends up hitting a wall far sooner than they expect you to finish. It's a very fun game to pick up in short bursts, but I see it visibly losing it's lustre, throwing the same looking and same feeling challenges at me every run.
One of the great downfalls of roguelikes for me is the utter amount of information density you have to parse through, with runs eventually becoming bullet hells without the movement to account for it. Little Noah, in contrast, makes your attacks and the enemies actions very clear and easy to read, with controls that feels incredibly smooth and easy to get a hold of. Every failed run I've had has always felt like my fault.
Collecting enemies and being able to string a combo from their attacks is a fun way to make each run feel fresh, although the pretty small amount of them makes the novelty start to wear thin. What's the worst part of this game is this exact issue, as it feels like the goals to complete are stretched so wide, but the ways you can approach them ends up hitting a wall far sooner than they expect you to finish. It's a very fun game to pick up in short bursts, but I see it visibly losing it's lustre, throwing the same looking and same feeling challenges at me every run.
2019
The ending sequence of the game is it's saving grace in how it uses what it taught against the player in increasingly neat ways, but a clever concept ends up being completely gutted by some of the worst puzzle design I've ever had the displeasure of playing. It turns out a mechanic that mostly makes for cool Twitter clips couldn’t service that many unique puzzle designs outside "search around a room filled with little decorations until you find the single interactable thing". The amount of pissing around I had to do, staring at chairs and tables and potted plants and other objects that looked interactable just to not do anything seriously hampered the experience, and led to more than a few groans and mutterings along the lines of “fuck off”. For how much this game wants to be Portal, it seems to have no idea that it was so minimalistic for a reason!
2023
stinger flyyyyynnnn dude stinger flynn in the carrrrr
It’s like Dragon Quest Minecraft. Don’t beat around the bush about it. As much as I hate these surface-level comparisons, most of the thoughts I have about Dragon Quest Builders 2 can be sourced directly from what it does the same or differently from Minecraft. It’s unavoidable.
That being said, Dragon Quest Builders 2 does a lot of things I wish Minecraft would do! Its main focus is on town building, creating a cute connection to the mainline Dragon Quest games as the towns you build serve as being equivalent to the towns and castles you’d ordinarily find in those games. Building is essential throughout the game's runtime, cycling between fighting monsters and collecting materials in service of making more livable and workable spaces for your townspeople. It has a much more goal-oriented style of play, sprinkling new little objectives to occupy your time with so you always have something to do. It makes what you build not just there for the sake of looking nice, but to also serve various functional purposes! Town sizes start small and grow over time, so it’s almost like solving a puzzle trying to find how to neatly fit every building in your town together. It makes for an experience more linear than other Minecraft-likes but still asking a lot of creativity of the player if they so desire.
That is until you get to the blueprints, that is. Multiple points in the game ask you to create an exact version of a structure they planned out for you, turning the creative process of building and fitting your space into a chore where you find all the little blocks you need and arrange them just like the game wants you to. It’s an awful dampener on an otherwise great time, one that’s only made worse when certain blueprints have your townspeople just get all the materials and build the whole damn thing for you. What’s even the point by then? Back on my home island, I wanted to use the desert area to create a large western-style town, with minecart rails connecting the homes from the shops from the pubs. But when I got there, they grabbed my hand and told me I was gonna make a pyramid instead, and every single building I made in that area had to be inside it. What a load of bullshit.
Dragon Quest Builders 2 kept me engaged with its town building gameplay loop and mini-objectives always giving me something to do, but it always seemed a little too interested in what it wanted to see rather than what the player wanted. In a game with so much potential for creative ideas to flow freely, it feels like a massive waste to limit that creativity the way it does.
That being said, Dragon Quest Builders 2 does a lot of things I wish Minecraft would do! Its main focus is on town building, creating a cute connection to the mainline Dragon Quest games as the towns you build serve as being equivalent to the towns and castles you’d ordinarily find in those games. Building is essential throughout the game's runtime, cycling between fighting monsters and collecting materials in service of making more livable and workable spaces for your townspeople. It has a much more goal-oriented style of play, sprinkling new little objectives to occupy your time with so you always have something to do. It makes what you build not just there for the sake of looking nice, but to also serve various functional purposes! Town sizes start small and grow over time, so it’s almost like solving a puzzle trying to find how to neatly fit every building in your town together. It makes for an experience more linear than other Minecraft-likes but still asking a lot of creativity of the player if they so desire.
That is until you get to the blueprints, that is. Multiple points in the game ask you to create an exact version of a structure they planned out for you, turning the creative process of building and fitting your space into a chore where you find all the little blocks you need and arrange them just like the game wants you to. It’s an awful dampener on an otherwise great time, one that’s only made worse when certain blueprints have your townspeople just get all the materials and build the whole damn thing for you. What’s even the point by then? Back on my home island, I wanted to use the desert area to create a large western-style town, with minecart rails connecting the homes from the shops from the pubs. But when I got there, they grabbed my hand and told me I was gonna make a pyramid instead, and every single building I made in that area had to be inside it. What a load of bullshit.
Dragon Quest Builders 2 kept me engaged with its town building gameplay loop and mini-objectives always giving me something to do, but it always seemed a little too interested in what it wanted to see rather than what the player wanted. In a game with so much potential for creative ideas to flow freely, it feels like a massive waste to limit that creativity the way it does.
shoutout to all the poor motherfuckers who got this on ps4 and couldnt get the symphonic suite mod
2002
yeah the stages aren't fun to explore and the missions are uninteresting or actively frustrating and the extra levels are exhausting and fludd invalidates most of the platforming challenges and the progression of the game is totally incoherent and antithetical to 3D mario titles but the movement ohhh i just love the movement
This game was hard to get through. Not in a way where it made me sad, and it’s heavy topics got to my emotional core, but more in a sickly, viscerally upsetting way. The music and visuals are very impressively done, and work to draw you into this space, this character, but ultimately the way it looked, the way it sounded, the wording it used to describe things the character you were following felt gave me a disgusting feeling in my chest. That’s probably the point. It put me in the shoes of a struggling girl, making an audiovisual experience that made me feel horribly unpleasant and almost sick. The character herself is hard to communicate with, being very vague in one moment and laying everything on the table like I’m reading a stranger’s vent post the next. It’s exhausting. But, I mean, that’s probably the point. It’s a game that was very forward in what it said, cutting any sort of meaningful messaging in lieu of just telling me how hard it is to live with mental illness. I know what it’s like to live with mental illness. It’s fucking horrible. But in the end, that’s all it says. That’s what the point is.
A short experience that doesn't leave much for player choice, but that clearly wasn't the intent. This game was simply a glimpse into how the character in it feels, all the struggles and pains it takes to do something as simple as buy some milk. Sadly, it doesn't really explore this all too much, it's a game that only lasted me 15 minutes, and didn't end up saying as much as I wish it could. I know about and have the sequel though, and hope to get to it soon.
My largest gripe is how the horrible, mean comments you can make are handled. I didn't touch them on a first playthrough, because being so mean to even a fictional character already suffering enough made me feel horribly guilty. But as I kept playing, I thought it was saying something. I would never want to hurt this person, but through my life I always have these kinds of intrusive thoughts, and constantly end up hurting myself. Why do I do this? Why would a mind so free to express itself be so cruel? Is this what I'm meant to do? To treat this person like myself, with all the hatred and malice that comes crawling in the back of my mind? Not really. It just gives you a game over.
My largest gripe is how the horrible, mean comments you can make are handled. I didn't touch them on a first playthrough, because being so mean to even a fictional character already suffering enough made me feel horribly guilty. But as I kept playing, I thought it was saying something. I would never want to hurt this person, but through my life I always have these kinds of intrusive thoughts, and constantly end up hurting myself. Why do I do this? Why would a mind so free to express itself be so cruel? Is this what I'm meant to do? To treat this person like myself, with all the hatred and malice that comes crawling in the back of my mind? Not really. It just gives you a game over.
2022
This review contains spoilers
With the mess that was the controversy leading up to its release, and the general downtrend of Platinum Games’ output, I wasn’t especially keen on getting Bayonetta 3 at all. I ended up grabbing it in the end, mostly just to just see how it would come out.
To my surprise, I enjoyed it a lot! Maybe it’s a case of lowering my expectations, but I had a much better time playing this than I thought I would. The gameplay as Bayonetta is easily the best in the series to me, with an incredibly fun new set of weaponry, impressively executed demon gameplay, and everything packing that signature Bayonetta punch. In a vacuum, everything Bayonetta 3 does in its gameplay is the best of its kind, and most of the praise I have for this game lies there. It’s incredible how well it’s all done.
The structure of the game however, is by far the worst. It follows a pretty rigid structure for the entire game: Go to an alternate world and location, meet that world’s respective Bayonetta, watch her get killed, then do a big demon battle. It only slightly deviates from this in its fun setpieces, but I found myself very worn out by this format very quickly.
The Homunculi, the new central enemy, are so much more boring compared to the angels and demons of games past, and even if they’re something new I almost feel like nothing would be better than them. The tone is something I wasn’t into either; it deviates from the gothic stylings of the previous two games into spreading a wide berth, and being a lot more bland overall for it… Doesn’t help that everything is bathed in a muddy, blurry wash on the Switch.
If you know Bayonetta, you already know most of these characters. Bayonetta, Jeanne, Rodin, Enzo, none of them are remarkably different in any sense, and that’s fine! They’re all great characters who continue to be great. The new major character they want to sell you on now, Viola, is a bit more of a mixed bag. Being a young witch-in-training, her loud attitude and penchant for screwing up plays well against Bayonetta’s cool elegance (and her pop-punk musical flavor rocks). On her own, she would sadly be totally unremarkable, which kind of makes me worry about how they want to make her the new focus going forward!
The ending is the biggest mark against this game by far. What an embarrassment. In a game that tries to take itself much more seriously than the rest of the series, every bit of writing is some of the dumbest shit I’ve ever heard, for which it never even bothers to explain itself or make sense, or be interesting, or good. When these writers step out of the campiness that is Bayonetta to tackle something more, it really starts to unravel the fact that they simply aren’t good writers in any sense.
Bayonetta being paired with Luka is gross too, and it totally undermines everything she was and is. Bayonetta was always unbound, relying on nobody but her own strength. Her unwavering strength comes from the facets of her femininity, which she never fears to put on display. Her representation as a female lead was always on a bit of a tightrope, but I felt it always kept steady for her. Until now. Now she gets to be tied down to a man, get to lose her individuality by being pushed into this hetero romance she has zero place in, and it sours everything I saw in her as a commanding and powerful woman. Now she’s just.. Another sex object for men. She fell off that tightrope hard.
Bayonetta 3 is still Bayonetta, in the end. It’s a game that I’d say is good, and that I enjoyed, but sadly can’t even get close to the peaks of quality Bayonetta 1 and 2 set. The story dragged this game down like a ball and chain, its structure felt horribly boring, how it passes the torch feels underbaked and horribly forced, and it just feels like a shame that the most refined gameplay Bayonetta has ever had has to be packaged in this.
To my surprise, I enjoyed it a lot! Maybe it’s a case of lowering my expectations, but I had a much better time playing this than I thought I would. The gameplay as Bayonetta is easily the best in the series to me, with an incredibly fun new set of weaponry, impressively executed demon gameplay, and everything packing that signature Bayonetta punch. In a vacuum, everything Bayonetta 3 does in its gameplay is the best of its kind, and most of the praise I have for this game lies there. It’s incredible how well it’s all done.
The structure of the game however, is by far the worst. It follows a pretty rigid structure for the entire game: Go to an alternate world and location, meet that world’s respective Bayonetta, watch her get killed, then do a big demon battle. It only slightly deviates from this in its fun setpieces, but I found myself very worn out by this format very quickly.
The Homunculi, the new central enemy, are so much more boring compared to the angels and demons of games past, and even if they’re something new I almost feel like nothing would be better than them. The tone is something I wasn’t into either; it deviates from the gothic stylings of the previous two games into spreading a wide berth, and being a lot more bland overall for it… Doesn’t help that everything is bathed in a muddy, blurry wash on the Switch.
If you know Bayonetta, you already know most of these characters. Bayonetta, Jeanne, Rodin, Enzo, none of them are remarkably different in any sense, and that’s fine! They’re all great characters who continue to be great. The new major character they want to sell you on now, Viola, is a bit more of a mixed bag. Being a young witch-in-training, her loud attitude and penchant for screwing up plays well against Bayonetta’s cool elegance (and her pop-punk musical flavor rocks). On her own, she would sadly be totally unremarkable, which kind of makes me worry about how they want to make her the new focus going forward!
The ending is the biggest mark against this game by far. What an embarrassment. In a game that tries to take itself much more seriously than the rest of the series, every bit of writing is some of the dumbest shit I’ve ever heard, for which it never even bothers to explain itself or make sense, or be interesting, or good. When these writers step out of the campiness that is Bayonetta to tackle something more, it really starts to unravel the fact that they simply aren’t good writers in any sense.
Bayonetta being paired with Luka is gross too, and it totally undermines everything she was and is. Bayonetta was always unbound, relying on nobody but her own strength. Her unwavering strength comes from the facets of her femininity, which she never fears to put on display. Her representation as a female lead was always on a bit of a tightrope, but I felt it always kept steady for her. Until now. Now she gets to be tied down to a man, get to lose her individuality by being pushed into this hetero romance she has zero place in, and it sours everything I saw in her as a commanding and powerful woman. Now she’s just.. Another sex object for men. She fell off that tightrope hard.
Bayonetta 3 is still Bayonetta, in the end. It’s a game that I’d say is good, and that I enjoyed, but sadly can’t even get close to the peaks of quality Bayonetta 1 and 2 set. The story dragged this game down like a ball and chain, its structure felt horribly boring, how it passes the torch feels underbaked and horribly forced, and it just feels like a shame that the most refined gameplay Bayonetta has ever had has to be packaged in this.
1993
the blob can fly up and across
2022
I was really excited to finally play DNF Duel after months of seeing really good footage of it and, well, it's certainly flashy! It looks gorgeous!
It's also my fighting game nightmare scenario. Huge moves freely available on almost every character, massive strings and loops that don't amount to much more than wasting the time of the recipient, and utterly bare defence mechanics. It's the dream game for people who only use training mode to get longer and longer combos and if you like that, then DNF Duel is for you. But it surely isn't for me. What a damn shame.
It's also my fighting game nightmare scenario. Huge moves freely available on almost every character, massive strings and loops that don't amount to much more than wasting the time of the recipient, and utterly bare defence mechanics. It's the dream game for people who only use training mode to get longer and longer combos and if you like that, then DNF Duel is for you. But it surely isn't for me. What a damn shame.
1994
A visible improvement over the first game.. What would be a pretty generic fighter cashing in on the Street Fighter craze like the first game was is made its own by its creativity in characters and movesets. The characters in Power Instinct 2 are something that could only be done in this newborn fighting game heyday, when people haven't wholly commodified all the typical fighting game playstyles to fall on to. It's not at all balanced, the cpu opponents are brutally difficult for no reason (like they literally read your inputs and respond the exact frame, it's bullshit), and beyond the characters there's not much separating itself from it's numerous contemporaries, but it's a good time to play casually nonetheless.
I grew up in a real small town. A good chunk of my free time as a kid was spent not playing games, but just going out for long walks with my friends. We would always be taking strolls through the woods, along the lake surrounding our little town, climbing small trees and hopping fences. Even up to the end of my time in high school, my best memories were made going on hikes through the woods, aimlessly wandering around, finding odd things and accidentally crossing into no-trespass areas and getting badly told off. When I first played Breath of the Wild, it was when I was still in high school, and I loved it. I thought the shrines were cool, the approaches to combat were fun and varied, and the world was a fun playground to mess around with the physics in the game.
When I entered college, I suddenly moved from this small town I had spent my life living in, leaving behind most of the friends I had to hole up in a dormitory inside a pretty big city. Suddenly, I didn't have many places to just walk around in. Everywhere I went was with a destination in mind, as the campus and surrounding area was along a major highway and most of it was just paved road. It became more of a hassle to get out, and when I was out everything was gray and walled by large buildings and generally uninteresting to just walk through. So I started spending a lot more time inside, playing games. Through a turbulent process of troubled mental health and constantly moving my place of living, ultimately capped off by the start of the pandemic I would stay inside a lot more often and a lot longer. If I did go out, it was either to catch a bus to my class or get some coffee at Tims. My family lives in this city now, and we left any trace of that little town I grew up behind. I'll probably never go back there again.
When I play The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild now, it reminds me a lot of those days I spent in that little town. I appreciate the shrines and puzzles far less, find the combat almost dulling to experience, but just walking around, taking in the sights, climbing up trees and hills to reach little vantage points, that's what I love about this game now. In a place where it's far harder to get outside the paved roads and lines of stores, I appreciate being able to just wander aimlessly through a gorgeous and vast world, free of much distraction than the ones I find interest in myself. This game is able to well enough emulate the really calming experience of being able to just take a nice, long walk through the woods.
When I entered college, I suddenly moved from this small town I had spent my life living in, leaving behind most of the friends I had to hole up in a dormitory inside a pretty big city. Suddenly, I didn't have many places to just walk around in. Everywhere I went was with a destination in mind, as the campus and surrounding area was along a major highway and most of it was just paved road. It became more of a hassle to get out, and when I was out everything was gray and walled by large buildings and generally uninteresting to just walk through. So I started spending a lot more time inside, playing games. Through a turbulent process of troubled mental health and constantly moving my place of living, ultimately capped off by the start of the pandemic I would stay inside a lot more often and a lot longer. If I did go out, it was either to catch a bus to my class or get some coffee at Tims. My family lives in this city now, and we left any trace of that little town I grew up behind. I'll probably never go back there again.
When I play The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild now, it reminds me a lot of those days I spent in that little town. I appreciate the shrines and puzzles far less, find the combat almost dulling to experience, but just walking around, taking in the sights, climbing up trees and hills to reach little vantage points, that's what I love about this game now. In a place where it's far harder to get outside the paved roads and lines of stores, I appreciate being able to just wander aimlessly through a gorgeous and vast world, free of much distraction than the ones I find interest in myself. This game is able to well enough emulate the really calming experience of being able to just take a nice, long walk through the woods.