It's not the first time I'm checking backloggd reviews just to see some takes here and there only for getting into some of the worst ways I could waste my time into. Like, I get it, backloggd reviews are bad, but I'm getting tired of the pattern of people throwing a lot of crap to one game, checking out their profile and their score graph looks like the stairs they've fallen from when they were children with their favourite game being Full Metal Daemon Muramasa. It's funny but gets boring after a while.

One other thing, I don't really like "reviewing" stuff, it's more about conveying how I felt playing the games I played, I can easily review a game but have you ever done that? It gets so stale so quick and nobody is paying you to talk about a product no one gives a shit about just for some likes, especially if you're gonna be controversial about it.

That being said, we can finally talk about how this game treated me like a bitch because I didn't know "OP-Intensify" was a thing to carry from AC3 so here I am. Game has literally the best mission quality so far, with some of them having the best scenarios I've ever seen in an AC; it is a relentless gauntlet that doesn't let you go until the game is done. Remember how Master of Arena wanted to end every mission with an AC fight? Well, here you're gonna get used to play 1v2. Oh, with your remaining AP and ammo, of course. And don't think even for a second that what comes before it might be barely as easy as you hope it to be, I'm already having "Defend Lawdas Factory" PTSD over here.

Lucky for me, though, I'm a sucker for this kind of challenges: the game has some of the most build variety I have ever seen and made me learn (again) that most of the gameplan is made in the garage. Back weapons and Left Arm weapons have wayyy more options than we used to have, and the new part designs for this game are insanely good, I really wanted to rebuild my 3 ACs from scratch just because how good looking those were and how many options this game makes you toy with is just insane.

And, on top of that, one of the most compelling soundtracks in the franchise so far: Kota Hoshino's last "banger tracks" I remembered were from Master of Arena and, while 2 and 3 were fine with some very good tracks here and there, Silent Line just obliterates them in overall quality.

Only real gripes I have is that the arena didn't have as much care as the other titles (even though it gets hard pretty quick, the top 3 wasn't that hard to begin with MEANWHILE CORPSE MAKER MADE ME LOSE MY MIND) and the final boss, while having literally the best design I've ever seen in AC along with Nine-ball Seraph, doesn't put quite a show and that's a shame since the difficulty of this game has been very high through most of my playthrough. Also, even though I really enjoy challenging games, this one raised the bar a bit too high in some frustrating ways: this game almost never refills your AP and ammo, so you're getting some of the missions with whole difficult chunks to do in one go and if you fuck up ONE section you know you're not gonna last for the end of them. Challenging me through movement, puzzles, fighting skills is very fun but not when you stretch the whole bunch of them in one go, it just gets tedious and frustrating.

But that being said, Silent Line has it all: customization, memorable missions, memorable soundtrack, very compelling atmosphere and some of the best designs I've seen for the mechs. Do I like it more than MOA? To be fair, I don't know at all because these two games nail a lot of stuff in different ways so it's really hard to me to compare them. But that aside, I'm getting a break from this franchise since I've been playing these games nonstop and they're mad good, mind you, but I don't want to risk a "burnout" from playing to much of the same thing, especially when the difficulty bar gets exhausting like this game does. Incredible game, but for the love of god play AC3 before this.

When I hear people saying how Sunbreak isn't Monster Hunter I always check for two things, and usually at least one of them checks out:
1) They're World fans
2) They "used to play Freedom Unite back in the day with their good ol' PSP"

Don't fall for the common accusations, Sunbreak is the absolute pinnacle of Monster Hunter combat, paired with one of the best monster rosters in the series: you've got Astalos, Primalzeno, Gore Magala, Lucent Narga and many other stupid good fights to learn and get your new hat out of.

A thing I usually criticize about Iceborne is the sets balancing: you want to do GS? Fatalis. CB? Fatalis. DB which are literally elemental killing machines? Fatalis, elemental sucks ASS in that game. Pair those weapons with a full Fatalis armor (or one AT Velk piece if you fancy) and slot in the decos you just grinded 100+ tempered Teostra for and you're good to go!

Now here, things are different: any weapon has so many possibilities, in terms of both elemental and raw damage and skills you want to implement to your playstyle. Berserker, Strife, Blood Rite, Buildup Boost; you name them, they got them.

My very reasons for it not being 5 stars are bond to the fact the expansion starts VERY slowly, like 3 stars worth of missions are mostly boring fights you already did with a fire/blast variation of a newcomer you fought in base Rise BUT the second you slay that damn Astalos the game just starts to ramp up and it NEVER STOPS.
My other reason is the fact once you get to the endgame it gets a bit disorienting for all the stuff it introduces you, so it takes a while to understand that + it slows down quite a bit because the real juicy stuff starts after you reach MR100, with Scorned Magnamalo and the Risen fights which are just that good and challenging!

Man I love this game, what a wonderful life-ruining experience.

Memories broken
The truth goes unspoken
I’ve even forgotten my name

I don’t know the season
Or what is the reason
I’m standing here holding my blade

A desolate place
Without any trace
It’s only the cold wind I feel

It’s me that I spite
As I stand up and fight
The only thing I know for real

There will be blood-shed
The man in the mirror nods his head

The only one left
Will ride upon the dragon’s back

Because the mountains don’t give back what they take
Oh no
There will be blood-shed
It’s the only thing I’ve ever known

Losing my identity
Wondering have I gone insane
To find the truth in front of me
I must climb this mountain range
Looking downward from this deadly height
And never realizing why I fight

It's incredibly hard for me to talk about this game because on one hand it tries to balance what Nexus did in terms of gameplay...but still it carries over what Nexus did, and what Nexus did is that essentially your AC sucks complete dick now and the power fantasy you may have now is history compared to previous generations. It's light work to think how Last Raven is the hardest game if your missions are Silent Line difficult and you play with Nexus ACs.
This might be an extremely personal take here, but I think your AC being way weaker in Last Raven actually conveys the feeling of dread and despair way better, every single mission it's you fighting for your life because now you don't just "defeat" your enemies, but straight up kill them with "DEAD" written aside. And that puts me on the other hand of why I loved Last Raven so much.

The way the game portrays the feeling of everything coming to an end in a very dark and eerie way is incredibly impactful, the "main characters" are way more fleshed out than any other in the franchise (until now) and every choice you make actively impacts how the story goes, who dies and who doesn't and every single time you take part on a mission the clock is ticking; Last Raven's story takes place in 24 hours, and every single one of them counts. And it's not because the game said so, YOU make them count and the main characters in the game are making them count with their own actions that also change on what choices you made.

Last Raven is a game where there's no compromise, there's no "next time I'm gonna get you!", because there's no tomorrow. Everyone, you included, is on a last stand. And the game conveys that in such a good way that I don't think I'll see another videogame telling this so well very soon. Corporations made tons of mistakes for the sake of power and money, they fucked up so bad but the ones being put on the line for this are soldiers, Ravens and innocents all over the world.

Kino

A lot of people seem to give this game relatively low scores for motivations I don't quite understand: yeah bosses are spongy, it's very heavy into backtracking (why are you playing Metroid and Metroidvanias then?), but what I really don't get it's how making "Super Metroid but 3D" should be a "no no" for this game.
Let's start by stating that this game isn't "3D Super Metroid" since it lacks the sequence breaking component that elevates that game, I think you're really underestimating what reaching those levels of level design and world building actually mean: interconnections, maps getting bigger the stronger you get, getting rewarded by making more connections from various parts of the world and sections that could only be navigated by platform puzzles have small magnetic railroads that make that spider ball upgrade way more meaningful than it should.
The scanner and the visors are so well implemented into gameplay mechanics and all of this without even mentioning the INSANE amount of details, this is something you see talking about in games like Metal Gear Solid 2: the rain drops into your cannon, if you look up the drops get onto your helmet, the X-ray shows your fingers changing positions based on what beam you're using (hence the "hands icon" on the lower right side) but the game never really dwells on it.

And most importantly, this game is actually very unique: it's not just a "transition", you have to think about how puzzles work, how gimmicks work, and they make it up with studying the power ups Samus gets and making everything revolving around the newer stuff and how it combines with older upgrades in order to make them not only harder, but more stimulating and rewarding as well.

I pretty much enjoyed and loved all of the Metroid games I've played, but this one I think is very special to me.

"Gen 5 is the absolute worst AC generation"->They played it on PS3
"Gen 5 is actually good you're just bad"->They played it on Xbox 360

Unfortunately, I've got to play the PS3 version in OG hardware and made Dark Souls' OG Blighttown look like Metal Gear Solid 2 in comparison. I have no feelings towards this game but FromSoft should be ashamed to have pulled one of the absolute worst running games I have ever played. Why is this generation such a pain just to be played normally??? On OG PS3 this runs like dogshit, let alone RPCS3; on Xbox 360 I saw it runs smoothly but you need good-ass hardware if you want to play it on Xenia, otherwise you've got to play it WITHOUT AC TEXTURES????

I've always closed an eye on From Software's absolute lack of capacity in terms of optimization, but this is too much I'm sorry.

Being an absolutely brave and innovative idea implies that you, as a developer, before it is even possible to explore the foundation of a genre, you have to get a foundation in the first place; and by that standards, this game works perfectly, since everything is so raw and so many mechanics are presented both exploration and action are at the same level. The problem is this is no Super Metroid, no Doom, no Super Mario, this is not thank kind of foundation that works as a standard as well for the genre, making it something they would get as a reference point to make something better out of, which is why this is considered the worst in the series as well as the worst entry point. Yet I still have a lot of respect and appreciation for what they made.