FromSoft's first open world game and they absolutely nailed it. I was initially worried that the move meant they would have to compromise on level design, but that wasn’t really the case here. Despite its vast and seamless world, the majority of it still has the same level of varied intricacy as the rest of their games. Like sprawling castles with detailed interiors and immense verticality, random caves you may stumble across that lead to massive underground systems, and of course plenty of unique bosses to fight.

That’s its biggest strength for me, the exploration. What sets it apart from many others is the complete lack of endless map markers or quests to focus on, rather just letting you get lost in a world with so much to see on the horizon that you can’t help but want to explore. And it rewards this curiosity by always having something worthwhile to find, whether it be useful items, boss encounters, or even paths to entire new areas. This also makes approaching difficult bosses a bit more manageable, as you can always just go somewhere else if you’re stuck and try again when you’re stronger.

And as a setting I loved The Lands Between. I’m not sure how much influence GRRM had over the world-building, but its mysterious lore is ever present all over and it’s wonderfully realized. It’s still as somber as From games have always been, but it also felt more grand given how open it is in comparison.

The only real gripe I had was the smaller catacombs you can find felt a bit too repetitive. Most of them look the same and some bosses are reused for them, basically serving as ER’s version of chalice dungeons which is eh. But I still enjoyed going through them so didn’t mind too much. Performance also seems… not great on most platforms, but I played the BC version on PS5 so was pretty much locked 60 for me. Hopefully they can iron its issues out for everything else.

But overall it’s yet another masterful game by From and now among my favorites. I’m excited to see where they go from here, cause it really did feel like a culmination of all their work up to now.

In every aspect besides gameplay, FF7R is a masterpiece. Stunning visuals, killer story and characters, and probably the single best game soundtrack I've ever heard.

However, the gameplay didn't do much for me. In general I'm not a fan of JRPGs, but I almost would have preferred the combat from the original as opposed to the weird action hybrid in this game. It feels like it's trying to be both styles, and in my opinion it falls flat on each. I can see why it could be appealing to some, this is just my opinion.

Also it might sound a bit nitpicky, but I was pretty frustrated with how slow some parts are. Holding a button or direction while your character does something painfully slowly is not a fun experience, yet this game is riddled with segments where you do exactly that.

RE 0! A game I was not planning on playing this year until I saw some screenshots and gifs of the train and I was like eehhhhh it's on sale for 6 bucks lets do this!!

RE 0 takes place more or less concurrently with Resi 1, with Rebecca Chambers from Chris's campaign taking the starring role in this game. She is joined by a an ex-marine Billy Coen (I even remembered his name!!) who was convicted of the murder of two dozen civilians and his former squadmates. They both take shelter on a train in the woods around Raccoon City when they are attacked by monsters, and the two of them team up to survive. Now you might be thinking "Wait, are these horror protagonists actually doing the SMART thing of sticking together?!" Yes!! Now of course there are reasons in Resi 1 - 3 for why our main heroes are split up, but its still nice to see in this instance people making some sort of sense. Unlike in Resi 5 and 6 however there is no true co-op here - the player controls one main character at a time and can use a stick to move the other, or give them basic commands. They also can easily share their inventory items, and the games primary 'gimmick' over Resi 1 is how these are used in puzzle solving. Unfortunately, it does not work out as well as I imagined the developers had hoped...

While the split puzzle sections are vaguely interesting in theory, what they often work out to be is an exercise in tedium as you try to balance your very limited inventories with equipping two characters and holding onto all the quest items. This game has no shared 'box' space like RE1 - 2 - 3, but instead allows you to place items and ground and come back for them any time. I didn't find this too annoying as the map has built-in functions for keeping track of all items and where exactly you put them. There was only one particularly egregious example of a quest item being nearly forgotten and then forcing me to track it down near the end to continue (sup hookshot), otherwise I had a fine enough time doing the 'Inventory Shuffle' Resident Evil so enjoys.

Having two protagonists is a large detriment to 5 and 6 I feel, and this also carries over to 0, however to a smaller degree. Having another person with you certainly reduces the tension somewhat, and the player is pretty easily able to let the AI handle a lot of the wetwork if you want which automatically makes things a bit less scary. Thankfully the masterful fixed cameras and spooky atmosphere are very much done with finesse here so even though it shares a bad feature of 5 and 6 (partner character) it at least executes on the idea well enough so that it doesn't ruin the proceedings.

Speaking of partners - the characters themselves! I generally did like the two main characters, but ultimately felt like they were undercooked. They are initially distrustful but after saving each other a few times, they start to respect each other and Rebecca even lets Billy go free at the end as she promised (leading to her entrance in RE1, and sidestepping why Billy wasn't with her or even mentioned!), however, we get not a lot between the two as the game progresses. There's one particular moment with Billy going into his backstory (sort of) but it never actually returns to this conversation to show their growth after he rebuffs her. For several moments in the game I was waiting for a bit of banter between the two that would have fit right in, but ultimately never came. The main story itself is also kind of stupid - one of Umbrellas founders went crazy and injected himself with T-Virus leeches and turned into an anime villain..? RE0 is the first game chronologically to descend into dumb anime bullshit and I'm not happy about it alright?

Ultimately, Resident Evil 0 suffers from the same basic issue that RE5 did - It is aping an excellent classic of a game, with a handful of things to set it apart (albeit large things!), but just not being as clever and bold as what they're emulating. The game is cut right from the cloth of RE1, and it shows in the best and worst ways possible. The obtuse and silly puzzles, the oppressive atmosphere and environments, the anxiety-inducing camera angles, balancing health/ammo/progress... all well done and compared favorably to 1. However, it lacks a cohesive narrative, charismatic and endearing characters, a memorable setting (the Train is AWESOME, everything after that is pretty meh) and the sheer cleverness of its predecessor. That along with a faulty co-op system that I'm sure sounded great on paper but just didn't work out in practice... RE 0 is not one of my favorites, but I still thinks its good!

P.S. I picked this up after I beat the first campaign of RE6 and finished it well before I finished the third or even fourth campaign. Holy crap it is so much better lol

The prose and production value are such huge steps up from the first game, but the boost in quality sacrifices none of the outsider art sensibility and charm that its predecessor has. While much like the first game it seems a bit scattershot, this works to the game's strength in a way, giving it the feel of a journal of disconnected thoughts from an author who is hesitant to dig into any one thing too long lest it excavate feelings and memories they'd rather keep buried. At only around an hour, please check this out.

now this is how you iterate on one of the greatest games of all time. you introduce a whole new biome to explore; add on gameplay elements that improve upon the existing mechanics; bring in new characters; and follow-up a story about the end-of-the-world, an otherworldly army, and an all-powerful elf girl the only way they could - by featuring vampires. and the ending/epilogue is the cherry on top that we all wanted for one of the greatest epics in the history of gaming. even if you don't want to play the base game, this is a 30-35hr self-contained experience worth playing!