TheQuietGamer
3711 reviews liked by TheQuietGamer
When iterating on your previous work, you will get to the point where you must ask yourself, if you want to either add/improve what is already there, or you may not believe you are able to improve and do something completely different. While these are both valid ways to approach this problem, Soul Reaver 2 is often scrutinized for not going for the prior.
I do have a theory of why I think this criticism comes up so much more with this game than its predecessor Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, which already is the sequel to a completely different kind of game; as the moment you are done watching the opening cutscene, which shows you the final moments of LoK: SR and start controlling Raziel again, the game lulls you in the belief that this is but an expansion to the previous game.
Even to someone like me, who played the first game using a Dreamcast-controller and has barely ever even held a PlayStation 2-controller, when starting out with the game, controlling Raziel will feel eerily similar to how it was before. A few changes you will probably notice is how you won’t be able to shoot out the Energy Projectile, without aiming it anymore, with the button now reacting with a strong/heavy-attack, when you aren’t. This will be your first clue that Raziel never changed, it was the structure surrounding him that did.
Soul Reaver 2, unlike the 3D-metroidvania that was Soul Reaver (1), is a linear, action focused. This big change to the structure wasn’t done without reason though, as the story basically hits you over the head with how there is no such thing as free will and Raziel basically only doing everyone else’s bidding, even when he tries his best to avoid it.
Most changes can be traced back to that reasoning and I will start with the biggest one being the new and expanded combat system.
Soul Reaver 1 had a combat system, which in the best case, had you on the lookout for any weapons before confronting an enemy, as you wouldn’t have been able to defeat them otherwise. It was a combat system that incentivized the player to explore their environment and search for optional content, so it wouldn’t have fit here if it wasn’t changed and I believe the way they went about it to be really interesting, and it serves as a great example of Crystal Dynamics design-philosophy, when creating this sequel, of trying to not change the systems, but rather the structure around them to achieve something vastly different with them.
All the moves, you know and love from the first game, return, with only stealth and the energy projectiles receiving nerfs, they also expanded on it by allowing you to dodge into an enemy, without attacking, heavy-attacks and a complete overhaul of how the Soul Reaver works.
While I think the first two additions really helped making combat feel more expressive and get even better as you learn how to appropriately combine these two with the mechanics passed on from the first game; I believe the changes to the Soul Reaver to be at best misguided, as they nerfed it heavily, while at the same time trying to convey it being more powerful in the story.
Due to being able to call upon the Reaver at the press of a button at any time now, instead of it appearing at full health, it does not halt the constant draining of Raziels health anymore, which is also made more potent than ever in this game.
This was also not done without reason, as the only way to recover that lost health is to, you guessed it, reaving the souls of any enemies around. This in theory would work as great incentivization to dabble in the expanded combat system, but it was way to overtuned and became a great annoyance; made even worse by the fact that the game already has enough ways of incentivizing the player to defeat enemies, such as trapping you in a closed room with them, something that happens more frequently as the game goes on and towards the end went to such extremes that it tacked on at least another hour of playtime; and giving the weapons you need to quicker deal with enemies to the enemies themselves, which works as a fun little parallel to how the system worked in the prequel.
Just like in Soul Reaver (1), Raziels moveset is expanded upon in this game by visiting dungeons, which on paper is the logical thing to do. The problem is that these dungeon designs were the most hit or miss part for me, ranging from one of the best in the series thus far, to making me imagine Sisyphus as a blessed soul and easily the worst part of the game.
The dungeon design philosophy of Soul Reaver, which I talked about more in my review of that game, was mostly scrapped, probably because you barely have to revisit them, now being more akin to what you would see in a 3D-Zelda game, being built around a central room with branching paths. The puzzles you will find in the so called forges are mostly centered around doing the most obvious things enclosed in one room, located directly next to the central chamber. Most of these will have you just mindlessly interact with the first thing you see and have that be the whole “puzzle.”
When you finally reach the end of a forge the Reaver will absorb its energy and you will be able to use said energy for the puzzles of the next dungeon.
This mechanic, unfortunately, is entirely underbaked as elemental Reavers, to my best understanding, do not/have minimal impact on combat encounters, the thing the whole game is centered around, and their abilities are very similar in usage, being limited to interacting with other panels on the ground, most of whose only discernible trait being the symbol of the kind of Reaver you need to interact with them on it; and being able to shoot different stuff.
I might have made it sound more boring as I should have as the light and air Reaver came into great use in Janos Audron’s Retreat, the best dungeon in the game, and the puzzles centered around having to get somewhere with a different kind of Reaver and their own set of skills were really fun, albeit due to their nature could only ever be present in the later dungeons/forges. The dark Reaver centered puzzles were the worst offender and can be summarized to: ”get zapped by giant eyeball you didn’t see, search for a way to go back to the material realm, go get the dark reaver, shoot the eyeball” and I can’t really talk much about the fire-Reaver, as it was only used once in the whole game, due to the story and gameplay developing somehow asymmetrically.
The puzzles not centered around the Reaver were also a mixed bag and mostly straight up bad. One of these is the way you enter Janos Audron’s Retreat.
Soul Reaver 2 will see you exploring a few select places in Nosgoth during different times, a concept that sounds way better in theory. One of these places is the entrance of Janos Audron’s Retreat, which the first time around will serve as the entrance of the air-forge. If you ever get sent to the spectral realm there, which may happen as the difficulty suddenly spikes around this point in the game, and fall in the lake you will have to slowly be defeated by Sluagh, as there won’t be a way to go back to the material realm down there, which I, unlike in the first game, wouldn’t categorize as a softlock here, because the change of the saving system caused the creation of checkpoints, thus you won’t be sent to the start of the game.
While the checkpoint isn’t far from that point it still caused me to not ever want to change to the spirit realm around there again. So, when I had to revisit this location around 1-2 hours later and the game outright told me to do so to progress, I was understandably cautious and searched around the perimeter for any other solution. This should never have been an issue in the first place and, in my opinion, describes a lot of this games puzzle design.
One advantage you have when developing a sequel is hindsight and the publics reception of your previous work and this game does try to fix a lot of the issues, I had with its predecessor. For one this game does have an in-game-map, which I never used as the entirety of Soul Reaver 2 is taking place on a linear path, which is small enough to be memorized in its entirety.
The most baffling change was their reaction to both the handling of the glyphs and boss fights being that they completely removed them, as I would have loved their take on them, in a game that is able to focus on them more thoroughly due to being, say it with me, an action-adventure and in the case of the glyphs, not being optional anymore and having them actually be part of a combat system that can support them. They would’ve also helped fix the problem of the lack of an ability to break the blocks of enemies.
The camera and drawing distance were my biggest criticism of Soul Reaver and are not a problem anymore, as they have been completely reworked and benefit from the stronger hardware.
This might be the perfect time to mention the great presentation and story accompanying it. This game at points looked like an early Xbox 360 game, rather than early PS2. The Sarafan Stronghold might just be one of the most beautiful places I have visited in any game ever. While not as impressive as SR1, this game is still a technical marvel.
I won’t get into the story here as to avoid spoilers, just know it is the best one of the series yet, which is saying a lot. It does suffer from some pacing issues during the middle, but it does wrap up nicely and, in the process, manages to answer some questions from both previous games.
While I might have sounded overly negative during most of the review, that it stems from a place disappointment with how they went about the changes rather than contempt for the game. And then again, most of that does feed into the story and therefore makes it better; and while I have obviously not done so yet I believe they make this game more replayable, as the linearity makes it more easily digestible. Most of my criticisms were also most noticeable during the part between the dark- and shortly before the air- forge, after which the game gradually became better.
When looking back on it, I doubt Soul Reaver 2 will leave as much of an expression on me as its predecessor did, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is an easy recommendation to anyone eager to see Raziels story unfold, as I have the premonition that this might just be its beginning.
I do have a theory of why I think this criticism comes up so much more with this game than its predecessor Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, which already is the sequel to a completely different kind of game; as the moment you are done watching the opening cutscene, which shows you the final moments of LoK: SR and start controlling Raziel again, the game lulls you in the belief that this is but an expansion to the previous game.
Even to someone like me, who played the first game using a Dreamcast-controller and has barely ever even held a PlayStation 2-controller, when starting out with the game, controlling Raziel will feel eerily similar to how it was before. A few changes you will probably notice is how you won’t be able to shoot out the Energy Projectile, without aiming it anymore, with the button now reacting with a strong/heavy-attack, when you aren’t. This will be your first clue that Raziel never changed, it was the structure surrounding him that did.
Soul Reaver 2, unlike the 3D-metroidvania that was Soul Reaver (1), is a linear, action focused. This big change to the structure wasn’t done without reason though, as the story basically hits you over the head with how there is no such thing as free will and Raziel basically only doing everyone else’s bidding, even when he tries his best to avoid it.
Most changes can be traced back to that reasoning and I will start with the biggest one being the new and expanded combat system.
Soul Reaver 1 had a combat system, which in the best case, had you on the lookout for any weapons before confronting an enemy, as you wouldn’t have been able to defeat them otherwise. It was a combat system that incentivized the player to explore their environment and search for optional content, so it wouldn’t have fit here if it wasn’t changed and I believe the way they went about it to be really interesting, and it serves as a great example of Crystal Dynamics design-philosophy, when creating this sequel, of trying to not change the systems, but rather the structure around them to achieve something vastly different with them.
All the moves, you know and love from the first game, return, with only stealth and the energy projectiles receiving nerfs, they also expanded on it by allowing you to dodge into an enemy, without attacking, heavy-attacks and a complete overhaul of how the Soul Reaver works.
While I think the first two additions really helped making combat feel more expressive and get even better as you learn how to appropriately combine these two with the mechanics passed on from the first game; I believe the changes to the Soul Reaver to be at best misguided, as they nerfed it heavily, while at the same time trying to convey it being more powerful in the story.
Due to being able to call upon the Reaver at the press of a button at any time now, instead of it appearing at full health, it does not halt the constant draining of Raziels health anymore, which is also made more potent than ever in this game.
This was also not done without reason, as the only way to recover that lost health is to, you guessed it, reaving the souls of any enemies around. This in theory would work as great incentivization to dabble in the expanded combat system, but it was way to overtuned and became a great annoyance; made even worse by the fact that the game already has enough ways of incentivizing the player to defeat enemies, such as trapping you in a closed room with them, something that happens more frequently as the game goes on and towards the end went to such extremes that it tacked on at least another hour of playtime; and giving the weapons you need to quicker deal with enemies to the enemies themselves, which works as a fun little parallel to how the system worked in the prequel.
Just like in Soul Reaver (1), Raziels moveset is expanded upon in this game by visiting dungeons, which on paper is the logical thing to do. The problem is that these dungeon designs were the most hit or miss part for me, ranging from one of the best in the series thus far, to making me imagine Sisyphus as a blessed soul and easily the worst part of the game.
The dungeon design philosophy of Soul Reaver, which I talked about more in my review of that game, was mostly scrapped, probably because you barely have to revisit them, now being more akin to what you would see in a 3D-Zelda game, being built around a central room with branching paths. The puzzles you will find in the so called forges are mostly centered around doing the most obvious things enclosed in one room, located directly next to the central chamber. Most of these will have you just mindlessly interact with the first thing you see and have that be the whole “puzzle.”
When you finally reach the end of a forge the Reaver will absorb its energy and you will be able to use said energy for the puzzles of the next dungeon.
This mechanic, unfortunately, is entirely underbaked as elemental Reavers, to my best understanding, do not/have minimal impact on combat encounters, the thing the whole game is centered around, and their abilities are very similar in usage, being limited to interacting with other panels on the ground, most of whose only discernible trait being the symbol of the kind of Reaver you need to interact with them on it; and being able to shoot different stuff.
I might have made it sound more boring as I should have as the light and air Reaver came into great use in Janos Audron’s Retreat, the best dungeon in the game, and the puzzles centered around having to get somewhere with a different kind of Reaver and their own set of skills were really fun, albeit due to their nature could only ever be present in the later dungeons/forges. The dark Reaver centered puzzles were the worst offender and can be summarized to: ”get zapped by giant eyeball you didn’t see, search for a way to go back to the material realm, go get the dark reaver, shoot the eyeball” and I can’t really talk much about the fire-Reaver, as it was only used once in the whole game, due to the story and gameplay developing somehow asymmetrically.
The puzzles not centered around the Reaver were also a mixed bag and mostly straight up bad. One of these is the way you enter Janos Audron’s Retreat.
Soul Reaver 2 will see you exploring a few select places in Nosgoth during different times, a concept that sounds way better in theory. One of these places is the entrance of Janos Audron’s Retreat, which the first time around will serve as the entrance of the air-forge. If you ever get sent to the spectral realm there, which may happen as the difficulty suddenly spikes around this point in the game, and fall in the lake you will have to slowly be defeated by Sluagh, as there won’t be a way to go back to the material realm down there, which I, unlike in the first game, wouldn’t categorize as a softlock here, because the change of the saving system caused the creation of checkpoints, thus you won’t be sent to the start of the game.
While the checkpoint isn’t far from that point it still caused me to not ever want to change to the spirit realm around there again. So, when I had to revisit this location around 1-2 hours later and the game outright told me to do so to progress, I was understandably cautious and searched around the perimeter for any other solution. This should never have been an issue in the first place and, in my opinion, describes a lot of this games puzzle design.
One advantage you have when developing a sequel is hindsight and the publics reception of your previous work and this game does try to fix a lot of the issues, I had with its predecessor. For one this game does have an in-game-map, which I never used as the entirety of Soul Reaver 2 is taking place on a linear path, which is small enough to be memorized in its entirety.
The most baffling change was their reaction to both the handling of the glyphs and boss fights being that they completely removed them, as I would have loved their take on them, in a game that is able to focus on them more thoroughly due to being, say it with me, an action-adventure and in the case of the glyphs, not being optional anymore and having them actually be part of a combat system that can support them. They would’ve also helped fix the problem of the lack of an ability to break the blocks of enemies.
The camera and drawing distance were my biggest criticism of Soul Reaver and are not a problem anymore, as they have been completely reworked and benefit from the stronger hardware.
This might be the perfect time to mention the great presentation and story accompanying it. This game at points looked like an early Xbox 360 game, rather than early PS2. The Sarafan Stronghold might just be one of the most beautiful places I have visited in any game ever. While not as impressive as SR1, this game is still a technical marvel.
I won’t get into the story here as to avoid spoilers, just know it is the best one of the series yet, which is saying a lot. It does suffer from some pacing issues during the middle, but it does wrap up nicely and, in the process, manages to answer some questions from both previous games.
While I might have sounded overly negative during most of the review, that it stems from a place disappointment with how they went about the changes rather than contempt for the game. And then again, most of that does feed into the story and therefore makes it better; and while I have obviously not done so yet I believe they make this game more replayable, as the linearity makes it more easily digestible. Most of my criticisms were also most noticeable during the part between the dark- and shortly before the air- forge, after which the game gradually became better.
When looking back on it, I doubt Soul Reaver 2 will leave as much of an expression on me as its predecessor did, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is an easy recommendation to anyone eager to see Raziels story unfold, as I have the premonition that this might just be its beginning.
Touch Dic
2005
heh
Encarta
1993
Tremenda nostalgia
Todavia tengo los cds del encarta 2006
PC sin Internet y mi yo niño recorriendo cada rincón de las visitas virtuales. Supongo que interactué con esto como si fuera un videojuego
Todavia tengo los cds del encarta 2006
PC sin Internet y mi yo niño recorriendo cada rincón de las visitas virtuales. Supongo que interactué con esto como si fuera un videojuego
Street Fighter
1987
I can't believe I'm rating this as high as I'm doing but I had so much fun... "fighting games are great" I was thinking to myself while I played this.
It's objectively a bad game. It's also hilarious, so my enjoyment of this piece of history came from enjoying kusoge. It's so bad it's funny.
Crusty. The movement is crusty. The music is crusty. Sometimes you can get punished for hitting an enemy. Most of your moves suck ass.
Oh but your opponents? They can zip around the screen precisely, spamming moves that kill you in 2-3 hits. It's nuts.
The first time it happened I couldn't help but laugh: Lee fucking destroyed me in like 3 seconds, moving like a lag-switching, Genei Jin activated, divekick spamming Yun.
The way moves hit is so weird. Sometimes moves can hit multiple times, essentially turning the move into a OHKO (when this happens with yourShoryuken Dragon Punch it's a blessing). Other times the same move doesn't push back or just completely misses when it looks it should've hit.
Of course your normal punches and kicks are the most affected by this. They suck.
If your punches and kicks are awful, do no damage and sometimes just lead to you eating a big hit from your enemy, how are you supposed to win against screen zipping, move spamming enemies? You use your super secret special moves of course!
Everyone knows theHadoken Fireball, and it along with the Dragon Punch are your only good moves.
-it takes 3 fireballs to KO an opponent, and it's your only ranged option
-the dragon punch is crazy. It grants you full invincibility and sometimes it OHKOs. At the end of the game it's your only way of defending yourself against the spam of Adon and Sagat.
-there's also thetatsu Hurricane Kick... it does good damage but it takes ages for ryu to start spinning and doing damage.
Too bad actually getting the damn Dragon Punch to come out is painful. I guess the game would be too easy if you could easily do it.
I know you have to negative edge the special moves but even then I was struggling. Sometimes I destroyed and perfected the cpu (I scored 1 lucky perfect round against both Adon and Sagat), other times I NEEDED a dragon punch to save me but 1 missinput and I'm dead a second later.
Beating the game took me 45+minutes. And the whole time I had to endure the soundtrack and sound effects.
"You've got a lot to learn before you beat me. Try again, kiddo!" Is ingrained into my head.
The stage background music is strangely both great and terrible... except for Sagat's, that theme is ear piercing.
Sagat... holy shit Sagat. Adon was painful as he just spammed Jaguar Kick over and over and over and over and over. He was the first unga bunga character in fighting games.
Final boss Sagat is a different beast. He destroys you in 1-2 hits. He's crazy fast, moving around using Tiger Knee while being fully fireball immune. When at full screen (or sometimes right in your face) he can throw a blazing fast Tiger Shot, and I don't think you can block it? I think you can only duck it.
Rounds only last a few seconds vs Sagat. Every time you lose he laughs... every time... it took me so long to beat him, I think I made him sad and on my winning round he did nothing and just took 3 fireballs to the face. I felt like Dan but hey, a win is a win!
After becoming king of the hill I had no time to rest on my glory. A challenger appeared to dispute my title. (I invited my gf to try this funny game) I, of course, successfully defended it, proving I was the strongest street fighter in the world!
It's objectively a bad game. It's also hilarious, so my enjoyment of this piece of history came from enjoying kusoge. It's so bad it's funny.
Crusty. The movement is crusty. The music is crusty. Sometimes you can get punished for hitting an enemy. Most of your moves suck ass.
Oh but your opponents? They can zip around the screen precisely, spamming moves that kill you in 2-3 hits. It's nuts.
The first time it happened I couldn't help but laugh: Lee fucking destroyed me in like 3 seconds, moving like a lag-switching, Genei Jin activated, divekick spamming Yun.
The way moves hit is so weird. Sometimes moves can hit multiple times, essentially turning the move into a OHKO (when this happens with your
Of course your normal punches and kicks are the most affected by this. They suck.
If your punches and kicks are awful, do no damage and sometimes just lead to you eating a big hit from your enemy, how are you supposed to win against screen zipping, move spamming enemies? You use your super secret special moves of course!
Everyone knows the
-it takes 3 fireballs to KO an opponent, and it's your only ranged option
-the dragon punch is crazy. It grants you full invincibility and sometimes it OHKOs. At the end of the game it's your only way of defending yourself against the spam of Adon and Sagat.
-there's also the
Too bad actually getting the damn Dragon Punch to come out is painful. I guess the game would be too easy if you could easily do it.
I know you have to negative edge the special moves but even then I was struggling. Sometimes I destroyed and perfected the cpu (I scored 1 lucky perfect round against both Adon and Sagat), other times I NEEDED a dragon punch to save me but 1 missinput and I'm dead a second later.
Beating the game took me 45+minutes. And the whole time I had to endure the soundtrack and sound effects.
"You've got a lot to learn before you beat me. Try again, kiddo!" Is ingrained into my head.
The stage background music is strangely both great and terrible... except for Sagat's, that theme is ear piercing.
Sagat... holy shit Sagat. Adon was painful as he just spammed Jaguar Kick over and over and over and over and over. He was the first unga bunga character in fighting games.
Final boss Sagat is a different beast. He destroys you in 1-2 hits. He's crazy fast, moving around using Tiger Knee while being fully fireball immune. When at full screen (or sometimes right in your face) he can throw a blazing fast Tiger Shot, and I don't think you can block it? I think you can only duck it.
Rounds only last a few seconds vs Sagat. Every time you lose he laughs... every time... it took me so long to beat him, I think I made him sad and on my winning round he did nothing and just took 3 fireballs to the face. I felt like Dan but hey, a win is a win!
After becoming king of the hill I had no time to rest on my glory. A challenger appeared to dispute my title. (I invited my gf to try this funny game) I, of course, successfully defended it, proving I was the strongest street fighter in the world!
Ryse: Son of Rome
2013
I had fun playing this game in 2013, it looked amazing back then and it still looks amazing now. In terms of graphics, Ryse Son of Rome looks better than most games released in recent years which is weird, it makes me think that the peak of graphics was reached at the beginning of the 2010s.
The gameplay is alright, the executions were badass but there's too many QTEs in the game. The combat could've been a lil bit better, it has a repetitive nature.
The story was alright too, its based on the Roman Empire and the Barbarians so bonus points for that.
I wish there were more games based on the Roman Empire, it's strange that most of them are RTS's. It was one of the most influential empires and still... not that many games about it...
The gameplay is alright, the executions were badass but there's too many QTEs in the game. The combat could've been a lil bit better, it has a repetitive nature.
The story was alright too, its based on the Roman Empire and the Barbarians so bonus points for that.
I wish there were more games based on the Roman Empire, it's strange that most of them are RTS's. It was one of the most influential empires and still... not that many games about it...
Terranigma
1995
The back third is a complete slog. As soon as you revive humans you better get ready for vague objectives and fetch quests galore. Kinda reminds me of Breath of Fire's end-run, but even worse. It's super ambitious for an SNES title I'll give it that, maybe with only Chrono Trigger or FFVI in competition for what it was trying to achieve.
I get that they were trying to make this almost world-building simulation take place within the confines of a JRPG, but figuring out what to do is always a problem at this point. The western portmanteau for the title, Terranigma (Earth/Riddle), is definitely more apt than the Japanese, Tenchi Souzou (the creation of heaven and earth). But it's less Zelda puzzles and more what do I need to do to progress? Lots and lots of that.
First third is amazing and now I realize why I always lost interest somewhere after that.
If we're being real this is the culmination of ActRaiser, Soul Blazer, and Ilusion of Gaia as it has traces of all of those games directly in its story and design.
I might want to do a more in-depth review later but I'm just glad I finally beat it now. I liked the ending quite a bit, but getting there was pretty rough. This went from a 4.5 to a 3.5 game for me sadly. Mainly due to the vagueness of the story and the translation.
One more bucket list title completed.
I get that they were trying to make this almost world-building simulation take place within the confines of a JRPG, but figuring out what to do is always a problem at this point. The western portmanteau for the title, Terranigma (Earth/Riddle), is definitely more apt than the Japanese, Tenchi Souzou (the creation of heaven and earth). But it's less Zelda puzzles and more what do I need to do to progress? Lots and lots of that.
First third is amazing and now I realize why I always lost interest somewhere after that.
If we're being real this is the culmination of ActRaiser, Soul Blazer, and Ilusion of Gaia as it has traces of all of those games directly in its story and design.
I might want to do a more in-depth review later but I'm just glad I finally beat it now. I liked the ending quite a bit, but getting there was pretty rough. This went from a 4.5 to a 3.5 game for me sadly. Mainly due to the vagueness of the story and the translation.
One more bucket list title completed.
The Order: 1886
2015
Damn this game could have been so much more. Just like Ryse: Son of Rome, from a graphical standpoint, the game looks amazing, better than most games today.
The Order: 1886 is set in an alternative Victorian 1886 with retro-futuristic steampunk atmosphere and fantasy/horror elements like Werewolves, Lycans and Vampires.
The story was good, i liked the Knights of the round table stuff and i liked Sir Galahad. The gameplay was also good, i liked the shooting and the futuristic weapons. The game overall is great and the story does its job, I dont have many bad things to talk about The Order but... why the hell is it so short? It takes like 6 hours to finish it and that's not enough for this kind of game with such a good potential, also they charged a lot for this one, the price was unjustified and wasn't worth it.
Maybe if there was a sequel, I would overlook the length of the game and it wouldn't be a problem anymore, but i wanted to see more of The Order. Its a shame really.
This is one of the games that had potential but it was never fulfilled. I would sacrifice franchises like idk Horizon or a new Uncharted for a new The Order but that's just me:))) i find The Order more interesting, more of 'my cup of tea'.
The Order: 1886 is set in an alternative Victorian 1886 with retro-futuristic steampunk atmosphere and fantasy/horror elements like Werewolves, Lycans and Vampires.
The story was good, i liked the Knights of the round table stuff and i liked Sir Galahad. The gameplay was also good, i liked the shooting and the futuristic weapons. The game overall is great and the story does its job, I dont have many bad things to talk about The Order but... why the hell is it so short? It takes like 6 hours to finish it and that's not enough for this kind of game with such a good potential, also they charged a lot for this one, the price was unjustified and wasn't worth it.
Maybe if there was a sequel, I would overlook the length of the game and it wouldn't be a problem anymore, but i wanted to see more of The Order. Its a shame really.
This is one of the games that had potential but it was never fulfilled. I would sacrifice franchises like idk Horizon or a new Uncharted for a new The Order but that's just me:))) i find The Order more interesting, more of 'my cup of tea'.
I will be upfront here and admit that my initial impression of Magic Pengel was underwhelming. The first couple of hours felt extremely plodding, thanks to the opening glut of story cutscenes with awkward voice acting, the lack of part variety to attach to your Doodles (your drawable monsters for battle), and the initial grind for more colors necessary to both draw and further develop your Doodles. This initial grind can be a nightmare because a lot of the fightable villagers will easily outclass you in terms of sheer stats and stall you out by using Charge every other turn to heal off more damage than you can inflict, so you’ll end up wasting your arena time if you happen to challenge a super tough villager since there’s also no way to forfeit a match. It also doesn’t help that there’s a half minute loading screen every time you need to move to a new area in the overworld, so you’ll end up sitting through over a minute of loading screens moving between the two main arenas alone since there’s no fast travel and you’ll have to pass through the market every time. Not a great start for a seemingly great premise!
Get past this initial roadblock by winning a few arena matches and gaining enough resources to thoroughly flesh out your Doodles with better stats, however, and the game starts to find its footing. Combat is almost entirely turn-based rock-paper-scissors (magic trumps attack, attack trumps block, block trumps magic) with some degree of mind games. This fortunately does get a bit more complex later on; landing magic spells can inflict status effects such as paralysis and sleep upon foes, as well as temporarily lock or punish types of attacks depending on the spell used. This essentially adds another layer to the mind games, aside from the aforementioned Charge for healing/powering-up the next attack/resetting neutral; thus, combat isn't just mindlessly following the advantage triangle specified above. In addition, the colors and parts used (i.e. adding limbs, wings, a held weapon, etc) drastically change both your stat and skill distribution (explained in more detail here and here ), and since your drawing capabilities and max capacity are increased with each arena win, you’ll likely be redrawing your Doodles all the time anyways to keep up with the tougher fights while tinkering with new and expanded loadouts. Simultaneously, it becomes a lot easier to farm resources since your Doodles will finally have enough attack power to deal more damage than opponents can heal off with Charge, and you’ll earn significantly more of each color (a few thousand as opposed to a few hundred in the early game) upon victories. While Magic Pengel’s combat never reaches the depth of similar monster battling systems such as Pokemon, I nevertheless found it easy enough to get into the rhythm of the progression loop once I got past the opening grind, and it served as a solid podcast game that vaguely reminded me of my days laddering on Pokemon Showdown.
A word of warning though: as much fun as it is sketching crude creatures with your Pengel and watching your crayon abominations destroy developer-drawn Doodles with much more effort put into sketching, that is unfortunately just about all that this game has to offer. Magic Pengel’s narrative touches upon some interesting lore and story beats concerning both the world of color and the supporting cast (such as your friend Zoe’s connection with her missing foster father, a renowned Doodler that once worked for the king), but the game never goes into too much detail with its sparse storytelling, and it ends on a bit of a cliffhanger as your friends decide to set off on another adventure. While you can sell spare colors for gold gems, there’s not much to purchase from shopkeepers; you can buy a few brushes to further adjust your line thickness, but the only other items on offer are Doodles, and there’s no point in buying those when you’ll get far more utility out of drawing your own (especially because you can’t delete any part of a Doodle drawn by an NPC). Finally, the game is a bit lacking in post-game content. The only unlocked features are a new arena where you can engage in 1 v 3 or 2 v 3 fights for higher rewards, as well as a hidden boss that can be fought if you somehow grind one million gold gems. As such, I have to concede that a lot of the Magic Pengel’s surrounding elements could have used some more time in the oven.
Ultimately, I prefer the game’s spiritual successor Graffiti Kingdom for its more succinct runtime and expanded drawing utensils. Even so, I mostly enjoyed my time with Magic Pengel (the quaint charm and artstyle admittingly a big reason why), and I’d say it’s checking out if you want a taste of one of more creative monster collecting/creating games out there. I think Taito had something really special on their hands with this formula, and it’s a shame we’ll never see a game in this vein from them again.
Get past this initial roadblock by winning a few arena matches and gaining enough resources to thoroughly flesh out your Doodles with better stats, however, and the game starts to find its footing. Combat is almost entirely turn-based rock-paper-scissors (magic trumps attack, attack trumps block, block trumps magic) with some degree of mind games. This fortunately does get a bit more complex later on; landing magic spells can inflict status effects such as paralysis and sleep upon foes, as well as temporarily lock or punish types of attacks depending on the spell used. This essentially adds another layer to the mind games, aside from the aforementioned Charge for healing/powering-up the next attack/resetting neutral; thus, combat isn't just mindlessly following the advantage triangle specified above. In addition, the colors and parts used (i.e. adding limbs, wings, a held weapon, etc) drastically change both your stat and skill distribution (explained in more detail here and here ), and since your drawing capabilities and max capacity are increased with each arena win, you’ll likely be redrawing your Doodles all the time anyways to keep up with the tougher fights while tinkering with new and expanded loadouts. Simultaneously, it becomes a lot easier to farm resources since your Doodles will finally have enough attack power to deal more damage than opponents can heal off with Charge, and you’ll earn significantly more of each color (a few thousand as opposed to a few hundred in the early game) upon victories. While Magic Pengel’s combat never reaches the depth of similar monster battling systems such as Pokemon, I nevertheless found it easy enough to get into the rhythm of the progression loop once I got past the opening grind, and it served as a solid podcast game that vaguely reminded me of my days laddering on Pokemon Showdown.
A word of warning though: as much fun as it is sketching crude creatures with your Pengel and watching your crayon abominations destroy developer-drawn Doodles with much more effort put into sketching, that is unfortunately just about all that this game has to offer. Magic Pengel’s narrative touches upon some interesting lore and story beats concerning both the world of color and the supporting cast (such as your friend Zoe’s connection with her missing foster father, a renowned Doodler that once worked for the king), but the game never goes into too much detail with its sparse storytelling, and it ends on a bit of a cliffhanger as your friends decide to set off on another adventure. While you can sell spare colors for gold gems, there’s not much to purchase from shopkeepers; you can buy a few brushes to further adjust your line thickness, but the only other items on offer are Doodles, and there’s no point in buying those when you’ll get far more utility out of drawing your own (especially because you can’t delete any part of a Doodle drawn by an NPC). Finally, the game is a bit lacking in post-game content. The only unlocked features are a new arena where you can engage in 1 v 3 or 2 v 3 fights for higher rewards, as well as a hidden boss that can be fought if you somehow grind one million gold gems. As such, I have to concede that a lot of the Magic Pengel’s surrounding elements could have used some more time in the oven.
Ultimately, I prefer the game’s spiritual successor Graffiti Kingdom for its more succinct runtime and expanded drawing utensils. Even so, I mostly enjoyed my time with Magic Pengel (the quaint charm and artstyle admittingly a big reason why), and I’d say it’s checking out if you want a taste of one of more creative monster collecting/creating games out there. I think Taito had something really special on their hands with this formula, and it’s a shame we’ll never see a game in this vein from them again.
The game that launched a dozen millionaire YouTuber careers, helped usher the golden/cursed age of the let's play and marked a watershed moment in horror game design. Yet when The Dark Descent was busy being extolled as the scariest game evar I was that faint, squeaky "nuh-uh!" at the back of the congregation.
Despite being an avid fan of both horror and adventure games and, as a result, being an early fan of Frictional Games via the Penumbra series, I'd always been lukewarm on Amnesia and somewhat baffled by its monumental mainstream success. Besides not being scary (as I'd claim back then) it was just annoying to play through, with its sanity bar, incessant distortion effects, constant voiceover monologues that make you walk through molasses while listening, endless flashes to bright white in a game expected to be played in the dark, oil that burns out in 30 seconds and a character deathly allergic to any room with lighting below 2,000 lumens. I felt the horror gameplay was not only overly basic but bogged down with all this useless annoyance, as if they saw Far Cry 2’s infamous perpetually jamming guns and thought that’s what our whole game should be.
Well 14 years later, removed from the hype and coming off a newfound (or perhaps rediscovered) respect for this team off the back of SOMA and The Bunker I can see I was for the most part missing the forest for the trees on this. Those white screen flashes and molasses-walk voiceovers can still buzz off and the scripted distortions do drag on a bit now and then but mostly I was just too familiar with Penumbra and had grown bored with Frictional's tricks at precisely the same moment the internet got obsessed with them. With Penumbra now fading from my old man memory I can see now there’s a lot of good here that I'd been taking for granted.
A sanity bar still irks me a bit in principle because it feels like the game trying to tell me my own reaction, but not being able to look directly at enemies and mechanically making the player actually afraid of the dark itself are both genius, and having to balance two competing stats in trying not to go crazy and trying not to die adds a perceived weight to one's moment-to-moment decision making throughout. The lantern oil is particularly stingy at first but if you're even a little conservative you'll soon have more oil than you'll need, so that it's not annoying, yet very rarely have enough at once to feel comfortable. Not to mention trying in vain to keep a dwindling flame alive in the depths of darkness is a powerful visual motif in line with the sanity theme and the writing's Lovecraftian ambitions.
An organically induced fear of the dark and the management of light were near-perfected in last year's brilliant and relentlessly oppressive Amnesia: The Bunker, but we have to walk before we can run and The Dark Descent lays a solid groundwork before they were brave enough to really get sadistic on a gamer. Perhaps more notably it's Amnesia's first sequel, A Machine For Pigs, that made me rethink the light management most, in that one you can use your light indefinitely with no consequence and ironically that abundance makes it feel like something is sorely missing. In that game you never feel like you're in real danger, where here (and even far moreso in The Bunker) it never feels like you're really safe. For immersive horror that's nothing short of a triumph.
Most of all though I realize now that I was wrong about one thing above all else, and now I'm no longer too cool to admit the truth: The Dark Descent is scary. Hugging a wall, moving slowly through the dark, thinking you're really going to make it, hearing that music cue, making a break for it and frantically trying to open a door, close it again and block it on the other side is still some of the most exhilarating moments any game can offer. Frictional's beautifully wonky physics engine ensures that opening drawers never gets old and that doors will always max out your heart rate during a chase. When you're a bit fatigued with no-combat 'pursuer' enemy designs it's good to return to the masters and be reminded why it got so popular in the first place.
Puzzles mostly strike a good balance in turning your brain on enough to get the dopamine flowing without being likely to get you stuck (though I did once resort to the patented adventure game tradition of just trying every item on every other item - a jar on a string, of course, why didn't I think of that? Also that pipe wall puzzle was fucking stupid), the writing is pretty good throughout - enough to make me actually eager to be picking up another note - and the villain has possibly the most epic voice evar.
There's an abundance of muddy dungeon maze environments but somehow there's still enough variance and novelty in the puzzles and monster encounters to keep this descent compelling even 14 years, many sequels and countless imitators later. My return to Castle Brennenburg was a fruitful one beyond my expectations. It turns out sometimes it's not everyone else who was wrong, sometimes it just takes another 500 games in the log to begin to understand the genius you'd previously dismissed.
Despite being an avid fan of both horror and adventure games and, as a result, being an early fan of Frictional Games via the Penumbra series, I'd always been lukewarm on Amnesia and somewhat baffled by its monumental mainstream success. Besides not being scary (as I'd claim back then) it was just annoying to play through, with its sanity bar, incessant distortion effects, constant voiceover monologues that make you walk through molasses while listening, endless flashes to bright white in a game expected to be played in the dark, oil that burns out in 30 seconds and a character deathly allergic to any room with lighting below 2,000 lumens. I felt the horror gameplay was not only overly basic but bogged down with all this useless annoyance, as if they saw Far Cry 2’s infamous perpetually jamming guns and thought that’s what our whole game should be.
Well 14 years later, removed from the hype and coming off a newfound (or perhaps rediscovered) respect for this team off the back of SOMA and The Bunker I can see I was for the most part missing the forest for the trees on this. Those white screen flashes and molasses-walk voiceovers can still buzz off and the scripted distortions do drag on a bit now and then but mostly I was just too familiar with Penumbra and had grown bored with Frictional's tricks at precisely the same moment the internet got obsessed with them. With Penumbra now fading from my old man memory I can see now there’s a lot of good here that I'd been taking for granted.
A sanity bar still irks me a bit in principle because it feels like the game trying to tell me my own reaction, but not being able to look directly at enemies and mechanically making the player actually afraid of the dark itself are both genius, and having to balance two competing stats in trying not to go crazy and trying not to die adds a perceived weight to one's moment-to-moment decision making throughout. The lantern oil is particularly stingy at first but if you're even a little conservative you'll soon have more oil than you'll need, so that it's not annoying, yet very rarely have enough at once to feel comfortable. Not to mention trying in vain to keep a dwindling flame alive in the depths of darkness is a powerful visual motif in line with the sanity theme and the writing's Lovecraftian ambitions.
An organically induced fear of the dark and the management of light were near-perfected in last year's brilliant and relentlessly oppressive Amnesia: The Bunker, but we have to walk before we can run and The Dark Descent lays a solid groundwork before they were brave enough to really get sadistic on a gamer. Perhaps more notably it's Amnesia's first sequel, A Machine For Pigs, that made me rethink the light management most, in that one you can use your light indefinitely with no consequence and ironically that abundance makes it feel like something is sorely missing. In that game you never feel like you're in real danger, where here (and even far moreso in The Bunker) it never feels like you're really safe. For immersive horror that's nothing short of a triumph.
Most of all though I realize now that I was wrong about one thing above all else, and now I'm no longer too cool to admit the truth: The Dark Descent is scary. Hugging a wall, moving slowly through the dark, thinking you're really going to make it, hearing that music cue, making a break for it and frantically trying to open a door, close it again and block it on the other side is still some of the most exhilarating moments any game can offer. Frictional's beautifully wonky physics engine ensures that opening drawers never gets old and that doors will always max out your heart rate during a chase. When you're a bit fatigued with no-combat 'pursuer' enemy designs it's good to return to the masters and be reminded why it got so popular in the first place.
Puzzles mostly strike a good balance in turning your brain on enough to get the dopamine flowing without being likely to get you stuck (though I did once resort to the patented adventure game tradition of just trying every item on every other item - a jar on a string, of course, why didn't I think of that? Also that pipe wall puzzle was fucking stupid), the writing is pretty good throughout - enough to make me actually eager to be picking up another note - and the villain has possibly the most epic voice evar.
There's an abundance of muddy dungeon maze environments but somehow there's still enough variance and novelty in the puzzles and monster encounters to keep this descent compelling even 14 years, many sequels and countless imitators later. My return to Castle Brennenburg was a fruitful one beyond my expectations. It turns out sometimes it's not everyone else who was wrong, sometimes it just takes another 500 games in the log to begin to understand the genius you'd previously dismissed.
Sensaround, at least v3, crashes the game hard. The OST definitely sounds different in this version, because DOSbox has Adlib emulation out of the box. Leading to a less harsh OST overall. There might also be some weird timing issues too. There's ways to reconfigure the the MIDI playback to use a different soundfont, but DOSbox "just werks".
I almost miss the weird DOS controls tbh. I'll probably just play through Classic again next time and use the rebinding menu for a slightly more convenient layout. Mouselook isn't actually necessary to enjoy System Shock imo. The faster turning radius enabled by mouslook also actually tangibly changes the tension and pacing of the game.
This is an adequate way to experience System Shock 1, but in its current state it can't truly be considered the definitive version to play.
I almost miss the weird DOS controls tbh. I'll probably just play through Classic again next time and use the rebinding menu for a slightly more convenient layout. Mouselook isn't actually necessary to enjoy System Shock imo. The faster turning radius enabled by mouslook also actually tangibly changes the tension and pacing of the game.
This is an adequate way to experience System Shock 1, but in its current state it can't truly be considered the definitive version to play.
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