Very fortunate that I managed to stumble upon the Risk of Rain franchise solely because Spotify recommended me Chanson D'Automne. That led me to playing the first game. Pretty good, even though it's slow.

This game, however, might actually be the best roguelike I've ever played.

Every character is so unique, the ability to stack multiple of the same item is unique among roguelikes, and holy FUCK the soundtrack. I never understood the term "eargasm" until I heard this series's music.

This is the greatest stress test I've ever played.

Surprisingly more fun than Smash, in my eyes. The physics feel a bit off, though, and I'm not that big of a fan of the perk system.

The biggest crime this game commits is being an always-online fighting game.

UPDATE (Feb. 25, 2023): What happened?

[1/20/24]

Okay, I've beaten the campaign now. Only took me 2 years. It's good! And it's 343's best campaign, but that isn't really a high bar.

The open world, unfortunately, is on the lame side. There's a few outposts and it's all the same biome. Ironically enough it feels less expansive and wonderous than the Halo rings in Halo 1 and 2 and the Ark in Halo 3, but I think that's because it's been 20 years. The new weapons are pretty good! The Ravager is the only one that's actually shit. The Disruptor, Heatwave, and the Cindershot rule.

This is honestly my favorite characterization of Chief. It has the human aspects that were purposely subdued in Halo 3 and overly apparent in Halo 4, balanced so he speaks less often like the classics, where each line holds value. It helps that he has a new companion dubbed The Weapon, who 's very naive and does the talking for him. Pretty good banter between the two. Also with him is this civilian who's the only human companion. Naturally he freaks the fuck out at the preospect of being stranded on a ring with Chief forcing him to stay to take him places, but he eventually warms up to it. Also he's Mexican so he's awesome.

Escharum is a pretty lame one-off villain. The Banished as a whole don't have the same impact as the Covenant. That's probably a side effect of being a splinter faction. The Harbinger doesn't get much time to develop, as do the Endless she leads. Yeah, much like the rest of the 343 games, it builds up villains and storylines and leaves them open for the extended universe. Still not a fan of that.

All in all, a fun time! Don't see myself replaying it solo any time soon, though. The multiplayer also has my favorite core gameplay in the series.

---------------------------------

(This is my original review from September 2022, before I beat the campaign. Season 2 was still in progress at the time this review was written. I'm not removing it because I don't want to delude myself into thinking the multiplayer was good the whole time.)

I like the core gameplay and aesthetic... and that's about it. I really want to like more, but 343 Industries was not prepared for a live-service game, let alone one intended to last 10 years, and it shows.

At least the battle pass is well-handled. They last forever, which is very generous when it comes to this monetization method of gaming.

A severe lack of content from the game's launch that only became apparent once the honeymoon phase ended was, and (as of the time of this review) is still the game's biggest issue. I don't know if they're using Twitch drops and events to introduce more cosmetics is an attempt at compensation. These events were also intended to introduce modes that have already been in previous Halo games, SWAT/Tactical Slayer being the most notable. Remember how they prematurely introduced them because of the backlash regarding the lack of modes?

Challenges: the easiest way to maintain player retention. Except for the part where they used to be so tedious or dependent on a mode that was pooled with others under a playlist that it was just better not to complete them. Not like the rewards at the beginning of the game's lifespan were worth it, though. They did fix it, and made the challenges easier to complete, but the aftertaste continues to linger.

Customization is a staple in Halo. The options are there in Infinite, just very severely limited. The core system is an arbitrary restriction that only serves to force armor pieces onto certain cores and to make you buy the same-looking things for different cores in the store (which I'll get to later.) Armor coatings not only remove the ability to freely change the color of your armor, but force them into arrangements that range from recoloring your shoulder pads and smaller items to asymmetrical designs. Some of them look cool, but like I said, they force the colors to the arrangement, restricting the freedom of customizing your Spartan. I typically use very simple palettes with simple colors (I currently run an ODST with the Mark V [B] core), so I personally do not care. But my neutrality with the system does not excuse it from being a poor one.

The store was overpriced. It's still overpriced, in my opinion. The entire shop rotating on a weekly basis is also quite annoying. They used to have a daily rotation in there, what happened?

As much as I like the gameplay, and genuinely believe that it is a better evolution of Halo's gameplay past 3 than Reach, everything else surrounding it, from the customization, to the store, to the events with their abysmal FOMO that live service games are built upon (I'm saying this as a Fortnite player since 2017, so I definitely know), it gets really, really difficult to remain optimistic about the future of this game and the series as a whole. To me, this game is a 8/10. Realistically, it's probably a 6.

Temper your expectations; you'll just be disappointed less.

This isn't a review; I think "eulogy" is the more appropriate word here.

It's the 1st of October, 2022, and Overwatch is 2 days away from being shut down for good as it gets replaced by Overwatch 2. Overwatch 2 definitely won't be as huge, especially with the various controversies Blizzard's gotten in in the past year or two.

God, I remember the era of when Overwatch was a core pillar of the cultural zeitgeist back in 2016 and 2017. I think it really started to fade away as soon as Brigette was either revealed or released. After that, it all went downhill.

I've been with this game since the end of the first anniversary event, I think just after the patch that nerfed the hell out of Roadhog, so I'm not a day one player. I am, however, aware of all of the ups and downs the game has had. There is a lot of downs post-Brigette. But I kept playing, because it was the one game that my friends and I play. It was fun! But, that was 2017. It's gotten to a point that I haven't genuinely enjoyed playing Overwatch in the past 3 years. None of the magic is there anymore, and it doesn't look like it's coming back any time soon.

Overwatch 2 has a very slim chance of being fun to me. But I hope, for my friends' sakes, that it is. I can't do this anymore, man.

TLDR; I miss old Overwatch. I miss the early days of a game in general.

[9/26/2022]

Five years. Five years of this game. Also five years of me playing this game, by sheer chance, I just found out that I first opened it up on its launch. Guess I should review it a bit. Of course, it'll only cover Battle Royale, because Save The World has been on life support for years.

Where do I begin? I suppose how it was the game that shot up into the spotlight as the game absolutely everybody knows. 2016's was Overwatch, early 2017 was Breath of the Wild, and late 2017, '18, and '19's was Fortnite. With attention like that, you've absolutely got to make the best of it. Fortnite definitely did. Every handful of months. So much so, that it was the game to push the idea of a Battle Pass into the mainstream. Look where we are now. Thanks, Fortnite. At least it understands the art of the live-service model, though, unlike a LOT of other companies. More on that later.

The gameplay is your typical 100-man battle royale. You scavenge, you shoot, you kill, you win. But the building sets this game apart from others. Most BR games emphasize good positioning to stay alive, but Fortnite's building allowed you to play defense at any given moment. Positioning still plays a big part, but building adds an additional layer that helps those without good positioning and further boosts the power of those who do. Today, that mechanic still exists, but when players have been optimizing it for five years, it creates a skill floor that continues to rise as players get better and better. Not a lot of people want to warm up for half an hour to even begin getting a chance to win. Thank god for Zero Build. The removal of one mechanic just makes you hone the rest.

Describing the rest of the gameplay and how Fortnite as a whole is meant to be played is very heavily dependent on the current state of this game. Fortnite's live service popularized the model, but Fortnite still does one of the best jobs at maintaining its momentum. Alongside the typical drastic shift in loot and map locations at the beginning of every in-game season, Fortnite tends to add more during its course typically on a weekly or biweekly basis. Whether its just a few returning items, or bombshells of content, the season's evolution makes each one wholly unique from the other, with their own experiences and memories associated with them.

So, back to Fortnite becoming the game shot into the center of the cultural zeitgeist at the time. Remember how in May of 2018, they got so big that they collaborated with Marvel Studios to bring the Infinity Gauntlet and Thanos to the game? We thought of it as a once-in-a-lifetime crossover at the time, but that was just the beginning of the massive Pandora's Box known as Fortnite collaborations. We've reached a point where there are more collaboration cosmetics being released than original cosmetics. This, to me, poses one of Fortnite's largest issues. Fortnite's original identity was built upon (pun intended) its less serious style and its defining gameplay feature. Now, it's ended up losing part of that identity in favor of tons upon tons of collaborations. Some make sense, like collaborations with other games. But then you have shit like El Chapulin Colorado and it is just... flabbergasting at how much Fortnite has in it. I think the greatest way to prove that Fortnite's old identity is gone is with the existence of Zero Build. I love Zero Build. But the fact that so many people cheered at the addition of a mode that removes Fortnite's core mechanic that made it stand out and get huge at the very beginning is indicative of two things: 1) The building has gone out of control (undeniably), or 2) The building just isn't that important to Forntite's identity anymore as that identity has shifted to some other component of the game. That component being, of course, the large amount of crossovers.

Fortnite's impact on the gaming landscape is utterly gargantuan. Those three paragraphs before this one all focused on the Fortnite's biggest influences: the popularization of the Battle Royale genre, the popularization of the live-service model, and the popularization of absolutely zany crossovers. Fortnite and the shockwaves that it spread throughout the world are undeniable. If you somehow haven't already played this game, do so. I'm sure Zero Build is very appealing.

PEAK FICTION.

GOAT.

RAW.

FIRE.

There is something about this game that is absolutely magnetic. Maybe it's the feeling of relief after successfully pulling off a Silent Assassin rank without using Mission Stories.

Or the feeling of satisfaction when completely understanding the myriad of densely-packed maps and the game mechanics.

Or the feeling of joy slapping people with a fish and just experiementing.

This game scratches all the right parts of my brain no other game has.

When I usually play games that are labeled as industry-defining, I often play them primarily for that purpose. They're industry-defining because they laid the foundation, but some of them come short of being enjoyable on their own.

I really should leave that idea behind.

RE4 was a blast to go through, start to finish. It's the best balance Resident Evil had between horror and action before it started tipping too far towards the opposite direction to the point that the series needed a soft reboot to recover from its severe case of Michael Bay-ification. Details in combat like throwing a flashbang at mutated enemies and enemies reacting to where I hit them make the combat feel so, so satisfying. The cultists' monotonous chanting and the creepy-ass breathing of the Regeneradors (which I also now completely understand why they are so feared) proves that the game can still be pretty spooky.

The reason why it's a 9, and not a 10, is because I think that QTEs that instantly kill you upon failure is kinda really stupid. Not every QTE instakills if you fail, but they're still pretty spread out that it's annoying. If the remake retains what I love about this game alongside the removal of QTEs, it might just be a 10.

Me losing my cartridge with a town from 2013 at a bank in 2017 was my first encounter with the feeling known as grief. Anyway, I'm currently replaying this game 10 years after the game's North American launch. It feels so good to come back to an entry that has stuff to do and characters with more than three lines of dialogue.

It's your typical Animal Crossing gameplay loop. You get on for like 15 minutes at least once a day to do stuff exclusive to that time of day, and you keep doing that over and over throughout the year to experience everything the game has to offer. It's the kind of game you play to relax and take a break from other, faster games. Catching fish and bugs, customizing your house and character, the usual.

The game's main gimmick is that you are the mayor. As that person, you're responsible for turning the place into a "perfect town" by enacting ordinances and starting public works projects that range from bridges to new buildings and other functional stuff. Effectively, you have limited customization over the outdoors, even if it is a bit limited.

Welcome Amiibo, the expansion released in 2016 that adds amiibo functionality, a new currency, and some very cool crossover stuff with The Legend of Zelda and Splatoon. Not too big of an impact, but still very cool that they actually updated the game three years after launch.

I love this game, if it wasn't apparent already. I love checking in on these lines of code as if they're longtime friends. I love chilling on the island, both alone and online, even if the latter appears to be rampant with hackers (I've only encountered one on my only online visit so it's pretty much 100%), to get the rare bugs and fish. I love watching this town of mine grow over days and weeks and months and years of continuously checking in.

Ten-year-old me was enamored with this game. Twenty-year-old me is enamored even more. Having a sequel that strips the personality and exposed the franchise to the mainstream does that to a guy.