I played Resident Evil 4 Remake at release last year and directly fell in love with it. In the first month, I've done at least 6 or 7 runs and just couldn't stop. Then over the year, every once in a while I come back to play the first chapter or mercenaries.

So now one year later I played the original, and I'm having almost the exact same felling of wanting to do another walkthrough and learn more about the game, how I can become faster and what all the different tactics are.

My walkthrough was also interesting since I played the game backwards. What I mean by that is that I first played the Remake and then the original. So I still had my "oh this is how they changed it" moments. And I had these moments the whole time.

I finished the first one in March this year, and I was stunned how good Half Life 1 was. It was very immersive, had a perfect length and the gameplay felt well. You could already tell how many ides the team had and how many of them were physics-based.

Half Life 2 is what should be considered a sequel, it improves in every single way compared to the first game. Lots of AAA sequels that I played recently (Spider-Man 2, GoW Ragnarök) were just "more of the same but longer". This is not the case for Half Life 2. Considering how impressed I'm by all the gameplay mechanics and immersion even though I'm playing 20 years later, people must have been blown away when they played it in 2004.

Gun play is great and the first mechanic that surprised was or let's say were the vehicles. They perfectly fit in the more openly levels of this game, and you are never too long in a single vehicle. Then comes the gravity gun, throwing objects and killing enemies with it is such a logical continuation of Half Life 1.
Going through this game, you start to notice how every singe level is filled with great ideas. The riddles are really easy, but I would rather say they are logical. There is no quest marker, no big yellow paint or no annoying character telling you what to do. You have to figure it out by yourself, and the answer is always very logical. The game also doesn't have any menus skill treas etc... everything is implemented in the game, which serves the immersion perfectly and makes Half Life 2 one of the most immersive games I have ever played.
This simplicity creates a flow I have rarely experienced in games. It's probably a combination of great level design and the straight forward shooting sequences mixed with some logical riddles that never last for too long.

The story is also fascinating. Gordan as well as the Gman will probably stay in my head for a long time. Yesterday I started to watch lore and story videos on YouTube, I guess this shows that I'm quite interested.

Half Life 2 might be the perfect single-player campaign for an ego shooter, which was long ahead of its time and influenced a lot of games coming later. This really makes Half Life 2 one of the best and most important games of all time.

One of the few games that archived to give me the feeling of adventures/exploring a new world. The last games that could archive that would be Totk and Elden Ring. Yet still it's missing something, the something little thing that would make this game to a 10/10.

First of all the exploration is great, it's the main part and best part of the game besides the combat. Unfortunately, the magic of exploration kind of lost its magic when you realize that the bosses are always at the same spot. So all the enemies are always at the same spot and oh boy this game really has no enemy variety.
All these points weren't a problem for the most part of the game because of the fantastic combat, all the vocations play almost completely differently, and it's great how you can just switch them at any time.
Unfortunately, I was a little bit annoyed at the end of the game because I just wanted to explore, but couldn't go 5 meters in this game without being attacked by the same two enemies and can't go 50 meters without encountering the same golem or griffin. This only was a problem for the last few hours at the desert region, but then suddenly I saw myself fighting the end boss, since the ending of this game is at least for me very sudden.
At this point, Dragons Dogma completely changed and surprised me. I have heard that the ending of the first one is crazy but as I played the first one in preparation for DD2 a few weeks ago I didn't make it to the end......


Spoiler for ending/endgame:

The ending is wild, a whole new world is locked behind a secret ending and the game literally switches to hardcore mode.
I can imagine many people dislike this, but I love it, aside from that lots of people won't even get there.

The best game FromSoftware has made.

The level design combined with the unmatched Lovecraft atmosphere and art style creates one of the most immersive video game worlds I have ever been in.
Gameplay wise this games also stands out from the others and is the starting point from which Sekiro could be developed. The far more offensive and fast paced combat compared to DS makes it incredible fun and the mechanic that you can heal yourself after taken damage by damaging the opponent is a simple but geniuses risk and reward system.

Bloodborne is throughout the whole game almost perfect and yet still at the end, there is a new high with the DLC.
The Old Hunters DLC is easily in the top 3 best DLCˋs of all time, with maybe Witchers 3 Blood and Wine being „better“.

The structure of the story and the way it's told is genius and could only work in a video game.
13 Sentinels means there are 13 characters and 13 stories.
Most of one characters story is somehow connected to the story of another character while also telling one big sci-fi story. So to understand one character, you have to play all the other stories.
There was not a single hour in my first 20 hours playtime (in total about 35)where there wasn't a major plot wist or event that changed my whole understanding of the story or a character. The story itself is one of the best sci-fi stories I have experienced yet. Almost every sci-fi concept you can think of is in this game : time travel, aliens, big titans (sentinels) ……
The backgrounds are beautiful paintings and the OST is fitting.

There is also a whole RTS game mode. This one is nothing special and really easy. I enjoyed how easy and satisfying the fights were.
They are good enough and a welcoming opposite to the standard game where you mostly listen to the story and do some little riddles

If you want to experience a unique sci-fi story, play this game.

Gacha= 0/10
To be fair, I have to admit, the character designs and general Art style is really cool. The combat system is ok.
The whole game itself is just a Zelda rip off with gambling. With the open world being a checklist and the whole game just a grinding hell with as many addicting making bullshit mechanics as possible like daily quests.... or limited shops for the extra bit of FOMO.

I really can imagine having fun with a miHoYo game, but as long as they are "Free" Gacha games, I won't play them.
Just play Zelda and have real fun!