“Surrounded by walls, all I knew was the sky above me and the mud beneath my feet.”

Chained echoes is an ambitious indie jrpg inspired by some of the stable classics of the snes and psx era. Stated by Matthias Lind(the only sole developer for the game for the most part) the main influences being Xenogears, Suikoden II, Terranigma, Chrono Trigger, and Final Fantasy VI. A setting that mixes fantasy with steampunk and sci-fi; envision; Mechs meet magic. All of this sounded fantastic to me leading up to release that I was almost worried it was too good to be true, despite everything I seen about the game disputing otherwise. Well after spending 60 hours to reach full completion of the game I can ecstatically confirm it is indeed as magical as it sounds.

The gameplay chained echoes has to offer is unique in a lot of ways; the game is simply brimming with all types of mechanics that tie into exploration, tactical depth, party formation, and even the way you purchase and sell. Focusing first on the character customization chained echoes ditches the traditional level system and replaces it with skill upgrading and class oriented investments. Each character is given a unique role in which they fill in an unnamed set class that determine the action skills and passive skills they can obtain throughout the game. Rather than gaining EXP from a battle you instead gain SP and for boss fights you additionally gain a grimore shard. Skills slowly gain SP from using them in battle but you eventually rack up stored points so you can speed up the process for some of the skills you don’t use as much. Grimoire shards are used to unlock more skills as well as leveling up your stats. Additionally to the skills only each character can learn, you can find class emblems which not only give a nice stat boost, but also allow anyone who has it equipped to eventually learn that skill when the moves are maxed. Due to this thought out well polished system there is really no grinding at all as you can explore semi freely at the start and as act 2 opens you can go wherever you want granted you have the ability and skill to do so. Battles are split between two types: on foot and sky armors. On foot you’re presented with a meter called the overdrive system. It is color coded between orange(regular reciprocated damage on both ends), green(taken less damage and deal more), and red (receives more damage and deal less). Every action by the player, and by the enemies, influences the bar. A skill type pop up when reaching green will show up that will allow you to lower the bar as well as expending your special move that charges after actions also lowers it. On foot you’re able to command a set of 4 characters while also having the ability to swap those in the back. This allows many different combinations since you can easily access 8 characters within a battle. Sky armor combat is a little different but I won’t be speaking on that and I’ll leave it as a surprise. HP and SP are automatically refreshed after every seamless overworld encounter which encourages the constant use of expending skills. The default difficulty for the game is honestly pretty perfect for the most part in my opinion. Throughout the entire game I found myself trying to strategize and use any tactical means necessary especially in boss fights. If you find the game too challenging or easy there is a custom difficulty option available from the start that can raise or lower certain things like the overdrive bar. The exploration between each area throughout the world map is fantastic since there’s a decent amount to do. Each area consistent of loose orbs that are categorized as loot. Pickups which are used only for selling which will net you some things such as materials for upgrading gear and gear itself. Additionally there’s buried treasure, and hidden areas as well. There’s a lot more to exploring and other mechanics than this such as unique monsters that appear under conditions but I’ll leave the rest as something the player themselves can experience.

The backtracking tunes attached to this adventure are really something special. You can clearly hear the direction they were envisioning from the description prior to the games release and they really nailed it. Marianukroh was able to capture that magical nostalgia those legendary osts that the golden era of jrpgs had we all hold dear. While the game itself doesn’t have a huge variation of battle tracks there’s tons of area themes and event tracks. Quality over quantity was definitely the goal and man is it quality. It’s hard to pick my favorite since I genuinely enjoyed every single track this game presented. To list some; the Flower Fields of Perpetua is definitely one up there, as well as one of the more serious toned boss themes “Death Approaches”, and I cannot leave out the extremely suspensive “Down the Corridor of Rustling Swords” that is played between some transitions. I highly recommend if you’re unsure about the game you at least check out some of the music, it’s glorious.

Chained echoes is at glance a product made by a lad who just loves jrpgs with no shame wearing their influence on their sleeve. There’s countless Easter eggs, references, and callbacks throughout this 30-40 hour jrpg. Some might say the more classics listed above you’ve played, the greater your experience it’ll be, and I’d have to agree. Your journey takes place on the continent of Valandis, a land that has suffered from war spanning over around a century. Peace finally seems like a realistic outcome when something happens to completely shatter even the hope of the idea. Magic is pretty much a product of the past, with only a select few being able to use such sorcery. The main focus is on three kingdoms engaging in a gruesome conflict that holds no punches and sparing no respect for your emotions. The story is split between 4 arcs, the first being the longest narrative wise but things open up at the second where there’s loads of content that’ll have you busy. The writing for the game itself has a really nice contrast of being humorous and unexpectedly dark. Between enemy designs, witty dialogue & puns, as well as just some random event within a sidequest or title there will be some chuckles and feel good laughs. On the other side of the coin you have some pretty gruesome scenes that took a turn further than I thought they would. The game is rated M for a reason and I really wasn’t expecting it to push it to the point where the rating itself was definitely warranted.

There is really so much to offer, especially if the snes and psx era is something you hold special to you. Despite being a major throwback to those times, the game still feels widely ahead of it with its modern integration while still sticking to close that classic formula that blends together into what I’d consider a new classic. Even with obvious blood of its predecessors being out in the open exposed for the player to see, chained echoes manages to set its self apart from the rest and thrive as its own product. Expectations are always high when you see a piece of media that feels like it was really made for you. But the true magic is when the experience you were hoping for not only smashes those expectations, but you find yourself desperately trying to savor every moment you have because you know eventually you’ll have to say goodbye. I was dreading the moment the credits rolled and I’d have to look at the title screen in awe, but when I did I can’t say I wasn’t satisfied. Thank you Matthias Lind and Eddie Marianukroh you’ve truly created something special. One life is more than enough, as long as you live it to the fullest…

I have repeatedly wanted to talk about Bloodborne and stalled out, and I think I kind of know the reason, which is this: I keep trying to list the reasons why I think it sucks, and those reasons are very boring to write or read about. It's a video game who cares. I think a lot of games suck and this is just one of them.

The reason it keeps sticking in my craw is really just the circumstances surrounding that. The fact that Dark Souls 2, one of my favorite games, tricked me into thinking that this was a series for me, but going back I realize that vanilla Dark Souls 2 is the only one of these that I think is actually any good. It took the stuff I liked the DS1 and amplified it, while Bloodborne takes all the stuff I liked in DS1 and just throws it in the garbage.

But that's still not very interesting, really. If I'm reviewing this sucker on graphics, sound, fun factor, mouthfeel, etc then it has to get good grades, and it is also basically mostly successful at what it's trying to do. I think "make the games harder and harder by any means possible" is a boring ethos, but it's the one they went with and it obviously proved commercially successful so that discussion becomes very dull very quickly. I even have bulleted lists of places where it does mess up its ethos, like how it completely fails to encourage aggressive play by relying entirely on boredom and grinding for healing items as a punishment for not playing aggressively. And yet still, I am not interested in getting into that because it's a bunch of tiny things and ultimately the game still works. I know this because I played it and clearly that the general consensus as well.

In fact, the only reason I spend any time on the subject of "random AAA game I don't really like" is just that, while all Fandoms are terrible, From has one of the worst ones who I was unfortunately too embedded in, and they made worshipping a specific game director into a whole point of like, morality or something. I made myself miserable for like a year playing this game I think is bad for no reason. The lesson is don't do that. Find the dipshit nerds you actually like talking to instead. Life's too short. Life's too short!

I try not to let contrary opinions about media affect me. It's an awful trait, one that stems from tying part of your identity to a product. There's plenty of games I care deeply about, but if someone else doesn't like them, that's not a personal slight against me. Likewise, if someone enjoys something I passionately dislike, it doesn't make their opinion any less valid than my own. Of course I'm not perfect, I slip up sometimes. We all do. The important thing is having enough self-awareness to catch yourself doing it, pull back, and evaluate whether it's worth it. 99.99% of the time, it's not.

Bloodborne is the .01% exception.

I've beaten this game about four times now, and each completed run has only reaffirmed my belief that this is the worst entry in the Souls series. I'm sorry, I mean "Soulsborne", because apparently it's so good that it's now suffixed at the hip with the overarching franchise's namesake. Despicable. Feels about as good rolling off the tongue as "Metroidvania," and is about as unearned. I genuinely cannot enter into the same headspace as everyone else. Have we played the same game? This is one of - if not the best game From has ever put out?

Bloodborne feels like the byproduct of a rushed development. Locations and mechanics are so woefully underdeveloped that it simply feels incomplete. Take combat, which is designed to be more fast-paced compared to previous Souls titles. Trick weapons provide more utility and varied movesets, making each new weapon more impactful than the myriad swords you loot in Dark Souls, and gone are shields (ThEy EnGeNdEr PaSsIvItY har har har) in favor of sidearms, which can be used to initiate parries with a very generous window. A quick step was added in place of a roll, at least while locked on, making dodging and weaving between enemies more snappy. All of this contributes to a combat system that feels more aggressive than previous Souls titles, one that asks the player to unlearn the tired strategies they've relied upon for three games now.

The problem is that very little about the game is actually balanced around these drastic changes, and it's apparent that From is not nearly as willing to evolve their approach as they expect their players to be. The camera and targeting system become even bigger liabilities here than they have been. Lock on to any large aggressive boss and you'll see what I mean, it just spins around like a whirling dervish, all chest fur and particle effects. Apparently Dark Souls 2 is bad because of the way enemies track you, something Bloodborne doesn't do? Blood Starved Beast would like a word with you, and he'll pivot 180 degrees on a dime to tell you. To be fair, this is only really an issue with a few late game bosses, whereas most encounters seem to be reused or rejected concepts from previous Souls games. I was surprised to see people had trouble with Rom or The One Reborn when they're quite literally Phalanx and The Tower Knight from Demon's Souls, only now you can run around them like Sonic the Hedgehog.

The lock on system is more consistently problematic with mobs. Boy I sure do love targeting the guy to my right instead of the one immediately in front of me. Hey this guy is charging right at me, I should lock on and side-step him and oh no, I'm now locked on to something on the other side of the floor. A lot of Bloodborne's difficulty feels imbalanced, if not artificial, like the solution to the game not being hard enough was to just overwhelm the player with a bunch of bullshit ambushes in areas where the geometry and camera do not get along. The advice I often hear is "well then don't lock on," except the game clearly wants me to by including the quick-step as a targeting-only feature. Also, completely disengaging with a system that is bad isn't really the solution people seem to think it is for the system being bad.

I'm going to invoke Dark Souls 2 again, that rascal, that perennial black sheep. It's remarkable to me how the B-team had the wisdom to let the player warp to any location from a bonfire, and while removing the ability to level up at them as well was a step in the wrong direction, at least jumping between areas didn't feel sluggish. Bloodborne, on the other hand, makes you warp back to the Hunter's Dream for everything. You can't even rest at a lamp post to restore blood vials and quicksilver bullets. Want to replenish your inventory before a boss? Fuck you, back to the Hunter's Dream. The original Dark Souls may not have let you warp until halfway through the game, but that at least made sense with how its world was laid out, how it was meant to be explored. Bloodborne is just inconvenient for no reason.

One of the more interesting deviations from the norm, however, is its setting. Yharnam's makes a solid first impression. The opening "dungeon" is vast, and similar to the Painted World in Dark Souls in that it feels as if it was designed in tandem with Bloodborne's core mechanics. The city streets are laid out in a way that presents satisfying arenas to test out Bloodborne's snappy new combat, and its non-linear design allows you to just get lost, find some sub-quests, and take on one of two different bosses in any order you please. Unfortunately, the game immediately loses this sense of design, reverting back to very rote by-the-numbers dungeons that feel more at home in past entries. There's a distinct lack of location variety too, with some of the more interesting dungeons either being painfully brief or entirely optional. Most of your time will be spent in the streets of Yharnam, and god damn does it start to drag. If you need a break, you can always check out the Chalice Dungeons, which are randomly generated excursions featuring high value loot and challenging new encounters. Except that's a lie, most of them are not randomly generated and are designed to appear procedural, which is to say they're made to be shitty on purpose.

Well shiiit, what about multiplayer? Everyone loves multiplayer in Souls games. Well guess what, there isn't any. And no that's not because I'm replaying this in 2022, long after Bloodborne could reasonably be expected to be active. It was always like this. There's like, maybe two covenants and they they lack any interesting conceits. You can still invade or summon, but even at release it didn't seem like anybody was bothering. I'm not sure I've ever been invaded in this game, and I could probably count the amount of real living breathing co-op partners I've found on one hand. Of course it also suffers from some incredibly bad netcode, but hey, that's par for the course.

Look, I'm a Dark Souls 3 apologist. I was singing Dark Souls 2's praises before it became vogue to reevaluate it. I just don't "get" the appeal of Bloodborne, maybe, but I just wrapped up getting the platinum trophy and played this game to completion at least three times before that and I still find myself walking away thinking it's just a bad game. It feels like it needed another year in the oven or at least two dozen community mods before it approaches playability. And yet, everyone eats this game up. They can't get enough of it. So good it's not just Souls, it's Soulsborne. I feel like my head is a gigantic tumorous mass of eyeballs that permit me to see this game for what it is, though the truth has only driven me to madness, leaving me a derange piteous creature waiting to be euthanized.

I really enjoyed my time with this game. The tense atmosphere, the possibilites in character building, the exploring, the audio logs, Shodan ... It all results in a really fantastic time. There are some tedious bits to it and I'd say it's a fairly "quicksave heavy" game but I can easily see myself go back to it and try out how differently I can play this one. I wouldn't be surprised if I'd end up raising the rating on a replay now that I figured out all of the systems and can play around with it more freely.

This game felt like a mix of Castlevania II: Simon's Quest and Zelda 2. Both pretty great but deeply flawed games because of various reasons. Especially Simon's Quest has some very questionable design decisions and cryptic BS that drag it all down.

Infernax manages to take the basic formula of that game and "fixes" it. Quests are pretty straight forward, grinding for items feels optional and the checkpoints are fair. Meanwhile, the dungeons, limited lives and magic system really felt straight out of Zelda 2.

It results in a very fun time with some challenging platforming and fun bosses, but something about the experience also feels a little bland. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed my time with this game a lot, but it's funny how a game, that fixes so many things about it's inspirations still doesn't really feel like a better game.

I think it comes down to "been there, done that". None of the areas, bosses, enemies and skills feel fresh.

I would still recommend this one, especially if you're into the traditional Castlevania formula that's been abandoned for a while and don't mind some openness.

One of the biggest disappointments of the year, Tales of Arise feels like a balloon deflating unceremoniously after almost five years of build-up.

My relationship with Tales has been complicated, but this game has fixed that. It's actually rather simple now: I am done with this series.

Arise is not a dumpster fire, not even the series' lowest point. But it is a very mediocre game in almost every aspect except perhaps combat, if you're really into the button-smashy-type of gameplay the series has mastered in the last decade and become extremely committed to.

The worst part about this game are the bland characters. The story is not that good, and worse, is told with terrible pacing. But that's something Tales has consistently overcome thanks to its commitment to character interactions and banter. That doesn't happen this time.

This game broke my heart, but it also liberated me. I think there is still a crowd for what Tales offers in this era, but for me the series' appeal will remain in older titles like Symphonia and Graces.

Fun game, I played with a friend who help explained the plot and knew where to go (mostly) which probably saved this game for me I can definitely imagine playing it on my own and being extremely annoyed and lost. The plot is better than I thought it would be I expected not a lot from a game so old. The weapons were pretty odd to me some were way too strong like the sniper rifle was absurdly powerful to the point where other guns were almost rendered absolute if you had it, but the ammo for it was always low so it balances out mostly. It's so easy to get lost in this game even more-so than other games I've played. The environments could've been more varied but I still liked it, fun stuff.

I played this game cause I wasn't sure if I was a sonic fan and it helped me make a decision...

The gameplay is so WERID, and I got lost constantly there was no direction at all I could hardly stomach Sonic's story and you expect me to play the others??

the stages were generally ok, I hated the last two they were so long and annoying and for what? Also that eggman boss fight with the two bridges made drop the game all together yeah yeah skill issue whatever man that was bullshit.

Fuck that camera btw

that one star is purely cause the music slaps

I love you Crows Crows Crows but as the kids say, 'this ain't it, chief'. In a post-[One Shot/Undertale/Pony Island/The Magic Circle/The Beginner's Guide/Anodyne/Frog Fractions 2] gaming landscape there needs to be more that pushes the metanarrative envelope. There are some moments I think are rather great, particularly the Memory Zone and its acknowledgement of reviews and their effects on the creative process. At the same time, the Memory Zone's nostalgia for the original Stanley Parable exemplifies the difficulty if not impossibility for Ultra Deluxe to live up to its predecessor and the expectations placed upon itself. Rather than make some attempt, however foolish or brazen, to be an ambitious step forward, Ultra Deluxe is content with doing little and hoping it is enough.

There is the distinct possibility that Ultra Deluxe is not made for someone like me. That my exposure to so many metafictitious works has built in me some tolerance which necessitates a greater boundary break to achieve a similar high. Unfortunately it's impossible to say for certain.

As Woodaba has already highlighted, the bucket detracts more than it adds, amounting to little more than the equivalent of a mirror mode in Mario Kart. But whereas a mirror mode brings about a new perspective which is refreshing, the bucket's shines a spotlight on Ultra Deluxe's abject failure to say anything that hasn't been said. The idea of the bucket is vaguely funny in theory, but the actual effect on the player is that I am playing the exact same content as I was in 2013 but there is now a bucket and altered dialogue to reflect my ownership of the bucket. It simply isn't fun or enjoyable because it renders so crystalline the fact that nothing has changed. The meta has been replaced by the memetic.

The removal of Minecraft and Portal in favour of Rocket League and Firewatch are utterly bizarre to me. That rights have lapsed and neither bear the same cachet is plain, but their inclusion in spite of growing irrelevance would fare better than what we have ended up with. Firewatch is sensible insofar as it's another walking simulator, but it is even more irrelevant than Minecraft. One was the best selling game of all time which has had a profound and unwavering effect on our culture, the other is a good walking simulator which was renowned when it released and isn't really thought of any longer. I cannot say what would have worked better in its stead (Gone Home? Fortnite? Roblox???) and I understand these too would bear their own challenges. Swapping out Rocket League in Portal's place is the much stranger replacement in my eyes. The Portal transition worked as well as it did because Portal is another first person perspective game, in the same engine (at least as the Source mod), with a gimmick that allows that sudden change in view to another place. We haven't had another game in that vein since, I suppose, but the choice of Rocket League is obtuse as well. Rocket League was cool at the same time as Firewatch, neither are particularly interesting now. Maybe this is a consequence of a long development cycle, again it is impossible to know what could have been, what was, and what could have been better. What I do know is my mom knows what Portal and Minecraft are. My grandmother knows what Portal and Minecraft are. Many 'gamers' I know have no idea what Firewatch is and/or have never played Rocket League.

This is all to say that Ultra Deluxe suffers from the Stanley Parable's success. Little could have lived up to all of it's hype as a follow-up to the original, but that doesn't mean the lack of trying should be excused. Crows Crows Crows can clearly do phenomenal work - Dr. Langeskov was superb and Accounting is very funny - but just because their writers are so witty doesn't mean the game should just be jokes. Something could have been said here, and instead I feel like I got the equivalent of an Applause sign.