no idea why but i was in the mood for some historically accurate settings. so ive decided to try and play through the assassins creed games

this one isnt awful but its definitely not good. the setting is the best part (as im sure it will be with every one of these games) and honestly i found the story pretty compelling, modern day stuff included.

the combat sucks. it feels random whether or not you can actually counter attack properly and the only hard parts are a series of battles against multiple enemies at the end of the game. the parkour can be fun but its really finicky in this game. altair will randomly decide to run up a wall or miss a jump entirely and kill me

overall though i enjoyed it more than i thought i would. i've only ever really played a lot of brotherhood and ac3 but it was so long ago i barely remember

this one has some insanely quality games from devs ive either already known or devs ill be following from now on. the ones that arent as good at least arent terrible and theres something interesting about each one. thoughts:

Hub (Outpost 3000): its pretty good and i liked the comic. nothing beats the hub from 3.

Hunsvotti: please please please can all games have an FOV slider. i felt like i was looking through binoculars the whole time. game itself is kinda fun and silly with a satisfying ending. murder death kill

Gallerie: holy shit. this game is nearly 3 hours long (crazy long for a dread x collection game) and every idea it throws at you sticks the landing hard. this is most likely my favorite in the collection. makes QTEs actually really tense and interesting, and the parts where you have to decipher a language are incredibly well done and i would play a whole game based just around that concept (which apparently the dev has made: Tôtem) plus this game has such good art direction, writing, and sound design. fuck man

The Book of Blood: the animations are very good and i like some of the ideas here. ive never been into the whole welcome to the game kinda games, so this didnt really grab me. plus i feel like the puzzle in the book couldve been explained better; i ended up having to brute force my way through it. also, the enemy kinda cant do anything when getting caught just means you have to do a dbd skill check.

Karao: very close to being my favorite. not sure what to say about it besides its super polished and well written. its made by the guy who did Sylvio so you know the sound design is gonna be good. this is another long one as well, a little over an hour.

Rotten Stigma: feels pretty good to play, and nails the classic survival horror aesthetic. though, i feel like it just kinda ends and the story just falls flat.

Spirit Guardian: probably the weakest game in the collection. its just hide from old lady ghost and solve puzzle. doesnt look very nice either.

We Never Left: another highlight. reminded me A LOT of The House Abandon, for obvious reasons. also very polished, though im getting kinda tired of devs putting pixel filters over their 3d games. it felt especially unnecessary here.

Vestige: fun

Resver: YES ive been on this dev's ASS since i played 0°N 0°W. this did not disappoint. colorfiction is stupid good at cool visuals in games, ive never seen anything like what they do. this game rocks

Ludomalica: idk what happened to me while i played this, but this game fucking scared me. maybe its because it reminded me of trying to do those scary creepypasta rituals when i was younger. maybe its because it goes for a home invasion type thing. the monster itself isnt even scary, just the sound design and atmosphere really got me.

Beyond the Curtain: this game also scared me. i saw a lot of people on the steam reviews saying this was "easily the worst in the collection" which i dont really get. this is one of the stronger games here. goes for a backrooms type thing and does it pretty well.

Interim: i have no idea what this game is trying to say. i think its trying to do a videodrome thing. it doesnt do it very well. it looks cool though.

so yeah, some good stuff here. apparently the dread x team most likely wont be continuing the collection series, which is a shame. but at the same time, i understand why. it kind of unintentionally makes people compare all the games in each collection to each other, which is sure to hurt feelings and be discouraging for relatively unknown developers. plus it can be very jarring going from something like hunsvotti, which is a kinda silly little 20-30 minute time waster, to a game like gallerie, which is a 3 hour assault on the senses that throws so many good ideas at you in its runtime that its hard not to want to throw money directly at its developer. i personally really enjoyed sitting down and playing through all the games in each collection while not knowing what to expect from each one. that alone made these collections worth buying for me. but it also kinda sets up these games for reviews like this where every game is compared against the others, making it hard for them to stand on their own. im rambling at this point. basically - i'll miss this series, but i understand why its going.

started playing this a little over a year ago, back when it first came out. played 5/7 of the games and then got sidetracked with life and finally ended up finishing it today. my memory of most of this will be a little foggy so bear with me, but:

- Hub: didnt like this one's hub as much as the others, but it was okay. a bit of a slog to get around, everything feels so far apart and you move so slowly. also i feel like the mouse controls were very strange and didnt work correctly
- Axis Mundi: fun little fatal frame action game
- Uktena 64: this ones from kira, so its kinda just inherently good. second favorite in the collection and i love the boss at the end
- Rose of Meat: not surprised this ended up being my favorite one. a fucked up and weird little game from the golden light dev. very much my shit
- Seraphixial: the timore dev has come a long way. really cool visually and i think i remember it being pretty fun. again, its been awhile since ive played a lot of these so i dont remember them very well
- Black Relic: very cool visually, very slow to play however. not bad
- The Fruit: obviously, the reloading mechanic rocks. the book of sigils being used for combat is really cool as well. i liked this one a lot, but the final fight can be kinda frustrating
- The House of Unrest: this is just evil house flipper. i had to collect the chaos emeralds. the end boss was very funny and unexpected (was actually thinking while halfway through: "where did those ak47s go?"). this game is way too easy though, shouldve had to find ammo at least.

nothing has beat dread x 2 for me yet, but im about to dive into 5 so we'll see!