SanTheSly
I got the stupid expensive edition of this while it was on sale in November.
Higher difficulties are still impossible to me, I wish there were more characters, I think the pricing model is as ridiculous as gating iconic songs like Zanarkand behind expensive premium editions.
And yet, Final Bar Line is still just addictive as hell and I still love this series as much as ever.
Higher difficulties are still impossible to me, I wish there were more characters, I think the pricing model is as ridiculous as gating iconic songs like Zanarkand behind expensive premium editions.
And yet, Final Bar Line is still just addictive as hell and I still love this series as much as ever.
After half playing through this about three times, I've finally seen it through.
Much like other Igavanias, there are sudden wild difficulty spikes that can be fairly offputting. However, I feel like there's a subtle flow to the design of Aria that even SOTN lacks - you always feel effortlessly pushed in the correct direction to progress.
There are some tedious elements regarding getting the correct enemy souls for story reasons, and some puzzles feel very esoteric and unclear. I'd honestly love to see Aria remade with Saturn/PS1 visuals and a better sound chip behind it.
The visuals and crunchy GBA audio are the only major things that let this even slightly down in 2024. Remake this with the luxury of SOTNs visuals, sound, and throw in some hammy voice acting and this would rank even higher among the best.
Much like other Igavanias, there are sudden wild difficulty spikes that can be fairly offputting. However, I feel like there's a subtle flow to the design of Aria that even SOTN lacks - you always feel effortlessly pushed in the correct direction to progress.
There are some tedious elements regarding getting the correct enemy souls for story reasons, and some puzzles feel very esoteric and unclear. I'd honestly love to see Aria remade with Saturn/PS1 visuals and a better sound chip behind it.
The visuals and crunchy GBA audio are the only major things that let this even slightly down in 2024. Remake this with the luxury of SOTNs visuals, sound, and throw in some hammy voice acting and this would rank even higher among the best.
2023
Went in expecting a probably underwhelming Soulslike experience, but Neowiz understood the homework. The most competent non FromSoft Soulslike I've played.
Visually evokes Bloodborne, mechanically evokes Sekiro. A compelling story and world with well-considered quality of life improvements over even FromSoft's efforts that work to encourage gameplay experimentation without punishing the player.
The final boss has now supplanted Orphan of Kos as the hardest Souls boss I've fought. Took me 4-5 hours of slow mastery to overcome.
I weirdly never clicked with Sekiro but I'm interested to return to it after playing Lies of P - maybe now it'll finally click.
Visually evokes Bloodborne, mechanically evokes Sekiro. A compelling story and world with well-considered quality of life improvements over even FromSoft's efforts that work to encourage gameplay experimentation without punishing the player.
The final boss has now supplanted Orphan of Kos as the hardest Souls boss I've fought. Took me 4-5 hours of slow mastery to overcome.
I weirdly never clicked with Sekiro but I'm interested to return to it after playing Lies of P - maybe now it'll finally click.
I wanted to feel things but I felt nothing so now I have to accept I am dead inside
2023
More Tooie than Kazooie, and with inconsistently accurate attacking mechanics that'll have you occasionally wanting to pull your hair out as much as the mostly godawful music.
Still a lot to like here for an indie, but ultimately disappointing given how highly everyone else had spoken about this.
Still a lot to like here for an indie, but ultimately disappointing given how highly everyone else had spoken about this.
I finally beat an SMT game and all it took was like 55 hours (including the 7 hour playthrough I abandoned after realising the PC version did not automatically include the Chronicles DLC pack which adds a significant amount of content, to the point where I'd say the game feels incomplete without it).
Overall, pretty good in terms of tone, aesthetics and gameplay, I just wish the stories of these games were a bit meatier and didn't run entirely on vibes.
Also, this is a walkthrough game for me, easy. Played as far as I could without it, but a walkthrough saved me from being completely unsure where to go next to progress the story, as well as how to aim for the True Demon Ending.
That said, despite TDE being often suggested online as being the "best" ending, I found it underwhelming. I'm glad I went for it and beat the route, but I don't know that it was ultimately worth the 7 hours of grinding, fusing demons and struggling that it added on to the end of my play experience.
I'm rating this 4/5 on the basis that this is my first experience with SMT3. I didn't mind how cronchy the music was, because the compositions shone through the awful sound quality. I didn't even mind that this was running at 30FPS because when combined with the heavy motion blur it really gave me authentic PS2 vibes. For anyone looking for a true remaster experience out of the box (1080/60 out of the box without modding) I can understand why some were disappointed with this.
Overall, pretty good in terms of tone, aesthetics and gameplay, I just wish the stories of these games were a bit meatier and didn't run entirely on vibes.
Also, this is a walkthrough game for me, easy. Played as far as I could without it, but a walkthrough saved me from being completely unsure where to go next to progress the story, as well as how to aim for the True Demon Ending.
That said, despite TDE being often suggested online as being the "best" ending, I found it underwhelming. I'm glad I went for it and beat the route, but I don't know that it was ultimately worth the 7 hours of grinding, fusing demons and struggling that it added on to the end of my play experience.
I'm rating this 4/5 on the basis that this is my first experience with SMT3. I didn't mind how cronchy the music was, because the compositions shone through the awful sound quality. I didn't even mind that this was running at 30FPS because when combined with the heavy motion blur it really gave me authentic PS2 vibes. For anyone looking for a true remaster experience out of the box (1080/60 out of the box without modding) I can understand why some were disappointed with this.
Fantastic presentation marred by glacially slow pacing, no text speed options and some of the least interesting cases in the franchise.
This seems more interested in setting up a bunch of larger mysteries to be solved in the sequel, which will hopefully pay off well when I finally get around to beating GAA2, but it unfortunately makes for a very underwhelming game by its own merits.
Also, despite the mind-numbingly slow nature of the gameplay and the amount of time since release, the updated Switch version of GAA1 is littered with spelling errors and grammatical mistakes. It paradoxically feels horribly drawn out and oddly rushed at the same time.
It took me 1.5 years to actually beat this after pausing it at the end of Chapter 4 back in April 2021. The fatigue of this game put me off continuing into the final chapter for months, and having finally played it - that was a wise choice. The final chapter alone contains 3-4 hours of investigation and 5-6 hours of trial. It's a party guest that overstays its welcome, not knowing well enough when to leave, far beyond when the fun was over.
This seems more interested in setting up a bunch of larger mysteries to be solved in the sequel, which will hopefully pay off well when I finally get around to beating GAA2, but it unfortunately makes for a very underwhelming game by its own merits.
Also, despite the mind-numbingly slow nature of the gameplay and the amount of time since release, the updated Switch version of GAA1 is littered with spelling errors and grammatical mistakes. It paradoxically feels horribly drawn out and oddly rushed at the same time.
It took me 1.5 years to actually beat this after pausing it at the end of Chapter 4 back in April 2021. The fatigue of this game put me off continuing into the final chapter for months, and having finally played it - that was a wise choice. The final chapter alone contains 3-4 hours of investigation and 5-6 hours of trial. It's a party guest that overstays its welcome, not knowing well enough when to leave, far beyond when the fun was over.
1999
I can understand why this was revolutionary for the ImSim genre, and it originally had the benefit of being more playable than the first game and its infamously awkward controls.
Maybe I burned out on System Shock by playing this immediately after the Remake of 1, but this didn't amaze me in the way I thought it would after decades of praise. Could be you just had to be there at the time.
Infinitely respawning enemies, cruel levels of resource scarcity in the first half of the game (even on lower difficulties) and a story hamstrung by the game's own marketing. There's a great game in here somewhere, and it most likely exists between hour 4 and hour 8.
Providing you can get past the brutal opening, you'll find enjoyment. Final two hours kinda suck though, and then the game just ends. An unintentionally hilarious FMV plays in 144p and then you're hardbooted to the menu without any credits playing.
It feels like a microcosm of the entire game in some ways. You have a little bit of fun and then it suddenly ends.
Maybe I should have just waited for Nightdive's Enhanced Edition ¯\(ツ)/¯
Maybe I burned out on System Shock by playing this immediately after the Remake of 1, but this didn't amaze me in the way I thought it would after decades of praise. Could be you just had to be there at the time.
Infinitely respawning enemies, cruel levels of resource scarcity in the first half of the game (even on lower difficulties) and a story hamstrung by the game's own marketing. There's a great game in here somewhere, and it most likely exists between hour 4 and hour 8.
Providing you can get past the brutal opening, you'll find enjoyment. Final two hours kinda suck though, and then the game just ends. An unintentionally hilarious FMV plays in 144p and then you're hardbooted to the menu without any credits playing.
It feels like a microcosm of the entire game in some ways. You have a little bit of fun and then it suddenly ends.
Maybe I should have just waited for Nightdive's Enhanced Edition ¯\(ツ)/¯
2023
Even playing this in 2023 with Nightdive's stunning lick of paint applied to it, you can tell just how ground-breaking System Shock was.
In a lot of ways, it's archaic. System Shock will not hold your hand. The game design fittingly oozes with the same contempt for the player that SHODAN has for the hacker. Providing you're willing to go along with the ride, get lost, die a bunch, struggle with low resources, etc. you'll find a fantastic experience, revitalised and modernised.
In a lot of ways, it's archaic. System Shock will not hold your hand. The game design fittingly oozes with the same contempt for the player that SHODAN has for the hacker. Providing you're willing to go along with the ride, get lost, die a bunch, struggle with low resources, etc. you'll find a fantastic experience, revitalised and modernised.
2023
An excellent JSR successor with room for improvement in a few areas mechanically. I imagine any issue I have will be ironed out over time, as a new patch that has dropped post-completion already addresses a number of the areas I wanted to see tightened up. Failing that, this game already has a bonkers mod scene on PC. Still probably my personal GOTY even at 4/5 stars. Been waiting like 20 years for a game like this again.
2020
It's a musou I actually completed and didn't get bored to tears by. That alone is a landmark to how enjoyable this is.
YMMV if you have not played Persona 5 or do not care for it.
YMMV if you have not played Persona 5 or do not care for it.
2023
This review contains spoilers
I was actually in the very small camp that was okay with the idea of an RE4 Remake even back from the leaks in 2020. The original is not perfect and I don't even mean in a control sense, control and mechanics are fine there. I just saw potential for RE4 to be re-envisioned as a scarier game from start to finish.
Did this remake accomplish that aspect? I'm undecided. I think playing the demo before the release spoiled the horror of the intro for me, and shortly after that it drops the horror for action about as quickly as the original.
I also think I soured my experience of this by starting on Hardcore, which at times felt punishing to the point of annoyance in the early-mid game. I ended with around 50-60 deaths and an IGT of 16 hours. It's a chunky game, and I think it drags less than the original at its weakest moments.
Maybe I just took a long time to try and enjoy this on my first playthrough. My opinion on this point is definitely going to change over time.
The pacing in this version feels off in parts. Reprieves from combat feel weirdly placed, and enemies tend to infinitely spawn at some parts until an objective is met. If we're still sticking to the action gameplay power fantasy design of the original then infinite enemies with limited resources was just a weird choice. I also see no reason for them to have removed the ammo refill upon capacity upgrade from the original. I respect Capcom's decision to almost entirely remove the ability to hide Ashley as well, forcing you to keep her close and ratcheting up the tension in big fights. Though I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss the opportunely placed dumpsters around a lot of the earlier chapters' maps.
The weirdest part of this remake is how Saddler basically doesn't exist as a character anymore. He never taunts you over a call, and in the brief moments he does show up he just rambles about boring cult ideology. If it weren't for the original existing, I'm not sure I would understand what this Saddler's goals even were.
[Also, this is a major nitpick the positioning of the merchant just feels really weird in at a lot of points in this game]
That's not to say it's all bad. New additions like the knife parry are fun. Enemies are more aggressive and combat encounters often feel dynamic and engaging. The game looks gorgeous, as most RE Engine titles do. I appreciate some of the reshuffling of the game's order and spending longer with other characters to flesh them out more.
Bonus points for having characters accompany you into the admittedly brutally difficult shooting galleries to cheer you on.
I've been hesitant to even really say anything about this game, positive or negative, until beating it. Partially because I don't want to air a bunch of personal petty complaints, and partially because I don't want to be that guy that rains on everyone's parade while they're having a blast with this.
I'll be curious to see where general opinion lands on this after the honeymoon period.
It's a loving remake, and I think there was space for it to exist, I just don't know that the final game we got completely justifies the time and effort that clearly went into this over a new game.
And I don't wanna hear about how they should've remade Code Veronica or another, worse Resi game instead. That game just sucks and too much would have to be changed to make it good that it might as well be a new game anyway. I'll be looking forward to RE9 whenever we get it.
Did this remake accomplish that aspect? I'm undecided. I think playing the demo before the release spoiled the horror of the intro for me, and shortly after that it drops the horror for action about as quickly as the original.
I also think I soured my experience of this by starting on Hardcore, which at times felt punishing to the point of annoyance in the early-mid game. I ended with around 50-60 deaths and an IGT of 16 hours. It's a chunky game, and I think it drags less than the original at its weakest moments.
Maybe I just took a long time to try and enjoy this on my first playthrough. My opinion on this point is definitely going to change over time.
The pacing in this version feels off in parts. Reprieves from combat feel weirdly placed, and enemies tend to infinitely spawn at some parts until an objective is met. If we're still sticking to the action gameplay power fantasy design of the original then infinite enemies with limited resources was just a weird choice. I also see no reason for them to have removed the ammo refill upon capacity upgrade from the original. I respect Capcom's decision to almost entirely remove the ability to hide Ashley as well, forcing you to keep her close and ratcheting up the tension in big fights. Though I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss the opportunely placed dumpsters around a lot of the earlier chapters' maps.
The weirdest part of this remake is how Saddler basically doesn't exist as a character anymore. He never taunts you over a call, and in the brief moments he does show up he just rambles about boring cult ideology. If it weren't for the original existing, I'm not sure I would understand what this Saddler's goals even were.
[Also, this is a major nitpick the positioning of the merchant just feels really weird in at a lot of points in this game]
That's not to say it's all bad. New additions like the knife parry are fun. Enemies are more aggressive and combat encounters often feel dynamic and engaging. The game looks gorgeous, as most RE Engine titles do. I appreciate some of the reshuffling of the game's order and spending longer with other characters to flesh them out more.
Bonus points for having characters accompany you into the admittedly brutally difficult shooting galleries to cheer you on.
I've been hesitant to even really say anything about this game, positive or negative, until beating it. Partially because I don't want to air a bunch of personal petty complaints, and partially because I don't want to be that guy that rains on everyone's parade while they're having a blast with this.
I'll be curious to see where general opinion lands on this after the honeymoon period.
It's a loving remake, and I think there was space for it to exist, I just don't know that the final game we got completely justifies the time and effort that clearly went into this over a new game.
And I don't wanna hear about how they should've remade Code Veronica or another, worse Resi game instead. That game just sucks and too much would have to be changed to make it good that it might as well be a new game anyway. I'll be looking forward to RE9 whenever we get it.
It's Metroid Prime but even better.
Genuinely a marvel of visual remastering, quality of life improvements and a fantastic price point for what you get. To have a game this good, and this visually appealing running at a solid 60FPS on Switch is a sight to behold.
Genuinely a marvel of visual remastering, quality of life improvements and a fantastic price point for what you get. To have a game this good, and this visually appealing running at a solid 60FPS on Switch is a sight to behold.
A fantastic horror VN. Not without it's criticisms, but I'm just gonna keep this brief.
It's cheap, it's new and interesting. Go play it.
It's cheap, it's new and interesting. Go play it.
2000
Preamble Context Section Thing: Played on Switch Online but not an option for platforms here. To date, the only other Paper Mario game I'd played was The Thousand Year Door (just gonna refer to this as TTYD or PM2 from here on out).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I finally played Paper Mario after years of meaning to, and it only took me starting 2023 with the worst flu of my life to get there.
Paper Mario may hold up the best visually out of every N64 game, which makes sense given how late it released into the console lifespan. Other games push the envelope more in terms of the N64's capabilities, but in terms of a consistent visual style that's just pleasing from start to finish I would struggle to argue for any other game looking nicer on the platform.
Most of the rest of the game just sorta... works fine. The story never really deviates from expectations too much as a standard save-the-princess adventure. Each individual chapter feels self-contained and not like it's adding to a greater whole; a new minor threat appears in a new area and once it's been cleared, you have few reasons to return other than somewhat tedious side quests that never really feel worth the rewards. The only thing linking each chapter is grabbing the Star Spirit for that chapter, but this through line never feels particularly important to the story except for during the opening and closing moments.
PM's attempts to be humorous succeed more than they fail. Characters are loveable, quirky and memorable (mostly). One major outlier for me was the recurring gag rival character, who I can only describe as a pissbaby. It was a joke that had grown stale by chapter 2 and continued to rear its head until the final moments of the game, with the rival having no motivation outside of getting dunked on in the first 20 minutes of the game and apparently never letting that go. If the writing had supported this comedic bit, I'd be more inclined to give it a pass. Much like other elements of the game it simply dragged on far too long for its own good.
My major presiding thought playing through PM1 was "Okay, I get it" for a lot of the dungeons, traversal challenges, puzzles and character dialogue. Navigating the Forever Forest felt chore-like. It's not that the challenge posed was difficult, it just remained consistently unappealing for 20 minutes whilst you visited 10 or so identical looking rooms with fairly easy observational puzzles.
Character build experimentation was also incredibly limited with a maximum of only 30 badge points here compared to TTYD's cap of 99. Badges and their effects define the characters, but whereas TTYD will let you explore the depths of its systems fairly freely, PM1 is more content to keep you in the paddling pool and strap arm bands on you, just to be safe.
I think the major takeaway from this I had was that PM1 is a tough game to return to after years of only knowing TTYD and replaying it multiple times. PM1 is a fantastic baseline but it feels almost entirely redundant to return to after TTYD's release.
So much of this feels like a TTYD prototype, with elements in specific chapters having direct parallels that are far more grandiose, entertaining and well-realised in the sequel. This is true on a narrative level, where a somewhat shoehorned in progression-blocking murder mystery in PM1 is transformed into a chapter long Murder on the Orient Express style detective fiction romp in PM2 among other examples. But, this is also true mechanically and structurally. The Paper part of Paper Mario feels almost incidental in PM1, it's a visual choice with no real depth. TTYD folds the Paper theming into the world and mechanics of the game seamlessly in a way that always feels exciting and new. The paper transformations add more key progression milestones which feel few and far between in the original.
Characterisation of partners also improves ten-fold in TTYD, with your companions getting far more fleshed out stories and interesting motives, desires and dreams compared to the gang from PM1 who mostly feel like they're merely tagging along for the ride and never experience growth in any major way. I will make an exception and say that Lady Bow owns and as much as I didn't care for the electricity baby who's name I already forgot I have to admit he was at least kinda useful in battles. Parakarry is not a character, he's an overworld ravine traversal mechanic.
Aurally, PM1 was at worst a nightmare (with some of the starting areas having grating 10 second loops with horrendous instrumentation) to forgettable at best. The team really hit a stride with TTYD on the audio front, it seems, and that's a huge disappointment to me because I've walked away from the original with no new all time greatest gaming bangers like I hoped I would.
I'm not sure that I'll ever return to PM1. It was enjoyable enough and I'm glad I cleared it from the backlog, I just see no reason to ever play this over the team's second attempt where they'd learned from their test run and refined it to hell and back.
The toybox chapter with all the shy guys sucked.
The end.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I finally played Paper Mario after years of meaning to, and it only took me starting 2023 with the worst flu of my life to get there.
Paper Mario may hold up the best visually out of every N64 game, which makes sense given how late it released into the console lifespan. Other games push the envelope more in terms of the N64's capabilities, but in terms of a consistent visual style that's just pleasing from start to finish I would struggle to argue for any other game looking nicer on the platform.
Most of the rest of the game just sorta... works fine. The story never really deviates from expectations too much as a standard save-the-princess adventure. Each individual chapter feels self-contained and not like it's adding to a greater whole; a new minor threat appears in a new area and once it's been cleared, you have few reasons to return other than somewhat tedious side quests that never really feel worth the rewards. The only thing linking each chapter is grabbing the Star Spirit for that chapter, but this through line never feels particularly important to the story except for during the opening and closing moments.
PM's attempts to be humorous succeed more than they fail. Characters are loveable, quirky and memorable (mostly). One major outlier for me was the recurring gag rival character, who I can only describe as a pissbaby. It was a joke that had grown stale by chapter 2 and continued to rear its head until the final moments of the game, with the rival having no motivation outside of getting dunked on in the first 20 minutes of the game and apparently never letting that go. If the writing had supported this comedic bit, I'd be more inclined to give it a pass. Much like other elements of the game it simply dragged on far too long for its own good.
My major presiding thought playing through PM1 was "Okay, I get it" for a lot of the dungeons, traversal challenges, puzzles and character dialogue. Navigating the Forever Forest felt chore-like. It's not that the challenge posed was difficult, it just remained consistently unappealing for 20 minutes whilst you visited 10 or so identical looking rooms with fairly easy observational puzzles.
Character build experimentation was also incredibly limited with a maximum of only 30 badge points here compared to TTYD's cap of 99. Badges and their effects define the characters, but whereas TTYD will let you explore the depths of its systems fairly freely, PM1 is more content to keep you in the paddling pool and strap arm bands on you, just to be safe.
I think the major takeaway from this I had was that PM1 is a tough game to return to after years of only knowing TTYD and replaying it multiple times. PM1 is a fantastic baseline but it feels almost entirely redundant to return to after TTYD's release.
So much of this feels like a TTYD prototype, with elements in specific chapters having direct parallels that are far more grandiose, entertaining and well-realised in the sequel. This is true on a narrative level, where a somewhat shoehorned in progression-blocking murder mystery in PM1 is transformed into a chapter long Murder on the Orient Express style detective fiction romp in PM2 among other examples. But, this is also true mechanically and structurally. The Paper part of Paper Mario feels almost incidental in PM1, it's a visual choice with no real depth. TTYD folds the Paper theming into the world and mechanics of the game seamlessly in a way that always feels exciting and new. The paper transformations add more key progression milestones which feel few and far between in the original.
Characterisation of partners also improves ten-fold in TTYD, with your companions getting far more fleshed out stories and interesting motives, desires and dreams compared to the gang from PM1 who mostly feel like they're merely tagging along for the ride and never experience growth in any major way. I will make an exception and say that Lady Bow owns and as much as I didn't care for the electricity baby who's name I already forgot I have to admit he was at least kinda useful in battles. Parakarry is not a character, he's an overworld ravine traversal mechanic.
Aurally, PM1 was at worst a nightmare (with some of the starting areas having grating 10 second loops with horrendous instrumentation) to forgettable at best. The team really hit a stride with TTYD on the audio front, it seems, and that's a huge disappointment to me because I've walked away from the original with no new all time greatest gaming bangers like I hoped I would.
I'm not sure that I'll ever return to PM1. It was enjoyable enough and I'm glad I cleared it from the backlog, I just see no reason to ever play this over the team's second attempt where they'd learned from their test run and refined it to hell and back.
The toybox chapter with all the shy guys sucked.
The end.