I love and respect everything this game is, but my admiration is just that--admiration. I respect its evershifting gameplay and smart level design, I respect its themes, I loved the writing and the fascinating piece of gaming history that it is, particularly in how it paved the way for indie titles to be unflinching auteur experiences compared to the stagnant nature most big companies were occupying at the time. But I honestly lack the patience to actually have fun solving the puzzles and found it a lot more frustrating than engaging. When I'm older and wiser I think I'll come around on loving everything about it, but I'm putting it on the shelf for now

A Lovecraftian fishing game is too good of an idea to squander, which makes me happy to report that a team as talented as Black Salt was behind it. Featuring an extremely solid art direction, straightforward but enjoyable progression, and a rich atmosphere packed into a 9~ hour package, it's probably in my top 10 or so for 2023. There's a good bit of busy work here and there but it genuinely enhances the narrative by immersing you into the tedium of being a fisherman. Spending 15 minutes fishing up normal critters and hearing that dissonant piano chord when getting an abomination always creeped me out, and without that tedium, it wouldn't strike as hard. The sailing was great, the areas were diverse and fun to explore, and filling out the encyclopedia tickles the same part of my brain as reading all the Piklopedia entries in Pikmin. My only complain is that I wish there was even more creepy shit, I think it just barely doesn't go far enough in making you afraid of what lurks beneath the water

Decided to play through it again and get the little purple hat achievement, great time all around. It wasn't much of a challenge I guess, more just a minor annoyance to keep track of. Source is just godlike to me man, shooting a headcrab with a shotgun or blowing up a barnacle with a satchel never gets boring. To list a couple nitpicks though, the game crashed a couple of times (especially in Interloper) which wasn't a big deal since I was quicksaving a ton for the challenge, but having to let it load all the way back up was annoying. Sometimes the plugs in Xen would just not plug into the sockets too, effectively softlocking me. Most annoying of all, I'm not sure why they added the pizza achievement (which is just a rehash of the Hat achievement) that makes you carry a prop through all the most annoying sections of the game again. It's a fun little secret ending, but I think the pizza should've been hidden somewhere a lot closer to the Nihilanth. Those all aren't really big deals though! The level design improves upon Half Life's strong foundation really well and Xen is much, much improved over the original. What was an unfortunate ending to a great game is now just... the great ending to a great game. I still love both, hell, I'm playing through Sven Co-op with some friends right now, but I'd probably pop in Black Mesa on any given day