Massive surprise. Very lovely game, simple but very good puzzles (although getting your head straight on chapters with multiple flowers is decently difficult). There tends to be a bit more backtracking around in the back half of the game but that's not really a problem. With a game like this, I think some would be afraid to put music overtop the walking around - I think devs should be less afraid of this, especially since the music that is present was very good. The silence overtop most of the puzzle solving gets a bit lonely, although it admittedly adds to the somber notes of the story. Overall excellent little game. Very happy with its length and puzzles

I think this game gets a bad rap because it's a David Cage game, and I think a lot of people who haven't played the game have maybe seen the first couple of chapters and decided that its lack of subtlety is a detriment to the narrative as a whole. The overbearing nature of its politics does not serve the story in any unique way past a surface level allegory for racism and slavery, but I don't necessarily think that that is a bad thing.

Regardless, the status as the "antiracism for gamers 101" video game has likely soiled the image of what is a decent narrative in the culture atmosphere. It's inconsistent - Connor's story has incredible highs, with tense QTE sequences. However, I think that Markus' story has some really low lows, including but not limited to uninteresting parkour sequencing and investigation. Kara's story has a decent mix of both, and the original crossroads between Connor and Kara is one of the best chapters in the game upfront.

The QTEs have been labeled as a negative to some, but I think they really work in this game. The QTE fight sequences are exhilarating, and some QTEs using the controller are engaging and fun. Some are certainly goofy, and some get repetitive, but all things have improper applications in excess.

I won't go into spoiler territory, but I do think the game fumbles trying to tie up the game at the end without a good ending. I would almost recommend using a guide for near the end of the game in order to get a satisfying end to the game. Otherwise, the cut to credits at the end of the game will be extremely jolting. But this isn't necessarily a bad thing - it's worth mentioning that the reason I might suggest a guide in the first place is because the amount of choices and branching options in the game is immense. It's impressive, and the game's strongest selling point.

Unfortunately, I would also say that one of the reasons for this guide is because a lot of the choices in this game are obscured by insufficient dialogue options. For example, there's a choice about halfway through the game between a "peaceful" approach to the humans, or a "determined" approach. Maybe it should have been clear to me since it was in opposition to "peaceful," but I think a better word could have been used to convey that my character was going to state that they were ready to wage war. There are some other options like this.

The game has performance issues, which is disappointing being that I'm playing on a PS5. (I know there's no PS5 update, but it feels weird playing a 6 yr old game like this). I considered not mentioning it, but I was disappointed that it made me miss a few QTEs during tense moments. The frame drops were unforgiving, not to mention a couple of crashes/game-restarting bugs.

The game is good, but it has its share of issues. I think the game gets a bad rap, but if you meet it at its level, it attempts to tell a very genuine story. At the very least, since it is a visual novel at its core, maybe try playing it with friends or watching a playthrough of a content creator you like - maybe one that tries to genuinely engage with the game and its contexts.

as spoiler free as possible

When I started Dragon's Dogma II, I fucking hated it. I was sitting at like an internal score of like a 3 or 4. I thought that it was too obtuse, or difficult to understand. If it came out on Friday, I probably felt that way until Monday. Monday was when I went back to work and I could sit and think and read about the game in order to better parse what my experience was missing. I read countless articles and tweets about various facets of the game, voraciously reading bits and pieces about how certain mechanics were supposed to function or what the intended feeling is. I managed to keep myself pretty unspoiled as well.

It was only after then that I really started to understand how the game ticks. And every day I played this past week, I enjoyed it a little more. and more. and more. Until I finally started to hit a point this weekend where I began to overlook its flaws in the pursuit of the bigger picture.

Dragon's Dogma II is a sequel to a game very similar in nature. I didn't play the original or Dark Arisen, but I'm aware that there are certain feelings that all these games elicit.

Despite the fact that DD1 came out years ago, Dragon's Dogma II feels like a direct response to the nature of open world games today. It falls into a lot of the same trappings, but has better responses when it comes to player agency and the desire to explore. Above all, it has an amazing yet very spoilery response to the nature of it being a sequel at all, with an endgame/end sequence I'm never going to forget. I don't even have it in me to discuss certain mechanics or flaws the game has (I'll sneak in one - this game needs optimized!), but that's just because everything really comes together by the end of the game. Everything collides and meshes to create an open world game that has just actually blown my mind when it comes to how these games should be constructed.

I want to continue/finish speaking in general terms, mostly because I don't want anyone to come into the game with certain expectations about different mechanics. At a certain point, I think a lot of how the game interacts with the player is a part of the experience that should not be divulged. They should not have even advertised the certain interaction that Cyclops monsters have with gaps (I'll let this one slide since it was shown before the game came out). I think if anyone is reading this and you feel frustrated, or really put out by the game - by all means, just stop playing. But, if you really try to meet it at its level, and meet it at its expectations of realism, then I think you will also come to the realization that open world games should probably not be the same after this game. Masterpiece.

I started off pretty happy with the game, just chillin. But once I hit about 6 or 7 hours in, it got pretty exhausting just doing my chores on the ranch. On top of that, they took so long that I barely had any time to explore or make money otherwise. By the end of the game I was cursing the fact that tech was so expensive and unnecessary for the end of the game (I never had to make a single piece) because it would have just made my life easier. I can understand that the point is that I'm supposed to do a lot after the credits roll, but tech like the drone or the teleporters don't mean much when exploration is nonexistent once credits roll. The "story" is decent, actually, although I would have loved more interactivity from the protagonist or notes that you could read from them about their feelings about Casey or H. But I really did appreciate the gameplay loop for a while, I love the art style, and how many secrets/hidden gameplay things there are to find out. I'm pretty disappointed with how it seems the developer treats the modding community unfortunately, so I don't know when I'll give slime 2 a shot but maybe one day.

I let this cook for a few hours, slept on it, thought about it, and decided that this is probably one of the best RPGs ever created.

I had to sleep on it, because I'll get this out of the way first - the open world/side quest portion before the end of the game is bad. It's not good. They do not give you enough information to go on in order to complete their quests. It's really not that bad, but it feels like a nuke was dropped on my experience. This is because every other single thing about Chrono Trigger is perfect. It's, safe, but perfect.

I think partially I would call it safe just because this game could have been released yesterday. This game is timeless. To think that this game has this level of quality of life, narrative coherence, and balance in the battle systems is astounding. The battle system doesn't do anything absolutely incredible, and yet only one or two games have copied its tech system word for word.

I think what gets my point across best (and in the most goofy way) is this: literature and music have been around for thousands of years. Film has been around for almost 150 years. Video games have been around, generously, for 65ish years, popularly for maybe 45. In literature, we might think of like, Pride and Prejudice, maybe Frankenstein, as literary classics. In the film world, Casablanca comes to mind. Chrono Trigger is that game for the medium. It's not just a video game - it's THE video game. It is a triumph that this game was released.