Weepboop
BACKER
2020
Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this... mansion?
My "calm" moments in my apartment are spent after a day at work, then at the gym, and then sitting down at my computer and booting up whatever game I'm giving my all. While I do that, I like to have a little quiet source of company in the form of a Twitch Stream so I get a little feel that I'm not alone. One of my go-to streamers is Vargskelethor, aka Joel, and if you're a fan of the Vinesauce umbrella you're well aware of who he is. I remember Joel messing around on Teardown and having an issue in one of the latter missions getting a bomb to the detonation site so he could begin a heist. Something about the crazyness of spending all this time on prep and having it go so miserably wrong had me in tears while the chat lambasted his physics skills.
Months and maybe a year even later I found myself with a good computer, one that could finally take on the voxel based goliath that is Teardown. At its core, Teardown is a game about pulling off heists. Most missions start the player at a certain spot with a list of goals they have to accomplish within a minute of time. Not all missions have the timeclock, but most do. The caveat is that this minute doesn't begin to kick until you've begun on your heist, meaning that you have an entire map of prep work to do. Something about this tickled my brain in all the right ways, it allows the player to tailor their experience of the game to how they problem solve. Often in puzzle and mind games, I've felt like the way these problems are to be completed are in the game wants you as the player to do them, rather than applying your own approach. I LOVED the way Teardown allows you to work painstakingly at pulling off a perfect theft. I found myself feverishly and minutely carving out my route between goals in each mission, often doing five or more dry runs to make sure I could get away scot free.
Though the freedom oriented level design is what I would call the "real hero" of Teardown, the physics engine is a walking miracle. In a game with as many assets as this, it's quite hard to make it all work in a way that is conducive to player movement. Just about everything is destructible in some way with the right tools, vehicles like cranes and dump trucks work in the scenarios they should, and gravity feels as good as it can. While the weight of certain vehicles and items were the cause of many a level reset, I felt almost betrayed by how much the physics made sense. Sometimes I wanted to abuse what most games would allow and get a hollow victory, but had to respect the confines of Teardown's engine and whittle myself to a getaway.
Whether its the basic sledgehammer, the iron-man shotgun, or the impactful bombs, the arsenal the player is gifted in Teardown is another excellent touch to what makes it feel like a well oiled machine. You can play as soup to nuts as you want, using items only to make holes in walls and extensions between buildings via planks, or you can get as nifty as you want and use rocket thrusters to literally and metaphorically yeet yourself to victory. Once i unlocked the "Cable" I wondered the entire game what it was for, as I got it fairly early on. It wasn't until the last mission when I realized I could use it to tow a vehicle behind me, a galaxy brain moment that could have made previous missions easier.
Teardown is a lot more than a fun sandbox or a good excuse to blow things up, it's a genuinely enjoyable heist game that makes player agency the key focus. I heavily recommend Teardown as a must play.
My "calm" moments in my apartment are spent after a day at work, then at the gym, and then sitting down at my computer and booting up whatever game I'm giving my all. While I do that, I like to have a little quiet source of company in the form of a Twitch Stream so I get a little feel that I'm not alone. One of my go-to streamers is Vargskelethor, aka Joel, and if you're a fan of the Vinesauce umbrella you're well aware of who he is. I remember Joel messing around on Teardown and having an issue in one of the latter missions getting a bomb to the detonation site so he could begin a heist. Something about the crazyness of spending all this time on prep and having it go so miserably wrong had me in tears while the chat lambasted his physics skills.
Months and maybe a year even later I found myself with a good computer, one that could finally take on the voxel based goliath that is Teardown. At its core, Teardown is a game about pulling off heists. Most missions start the player at a certain spot with a list of goals they have to accomplish within a minute of time. Not all missions have the timeclock, but most do. The caveat is that this minute doesn't begin to kick until you've begun on your heist, meaning that you have an entire map of prep work to do. Something about this tickled my brain in all the right ways, it allows the player to tailor their experience of the game to how they problem solve. Often in puzzle and mind games, I've felt like the way these problems are to be completed are in the game wants you as the player to do them, rather than applying your own approach. I LOVED the way Teardown allows you to work painstakingly at pulling off a perfect theft. I found myself feverishly and minutely carving out my route between goals in each mission, often doing five or more dry runs to make sure I could get away scot free.
Though the freedom oriented level design is what I would call the "real hero" of Teardown, the physics engine is a walking miracle. In a game with as many assets as this, it's quite hard to make it all work in a way that is conducive to player movement. Just about everything is destructible in some way with the right tools, vehicles like cranes and dump trucks work in the scenarios they should, and gravity feels as good as it can. While the weight of certain vehicles and items were the cause of many a level reset, I felt almost betrayed by how much the physics made sense. Sometimes I wanted to abuse what most games would allow and get a hollow victory, but had to respect the confines of Teardown's engine and whittle myself to a getaway.
Whether its the basic sledgehammer, the iron-man shotgun, or the impactful bombs, the arsenal the player is gifted in Teardown is another excellent touch to what makes it feel like a well oiled machine. You can play as soup to nuts as you want, using items only to make holes in walls and extensions between buildings via planks, or you can get as nifty as you want and use rocket thrusters to literally and metaphorically yeet yourself to victory. Once i unlocked the "Cable" I wondered the entire game what it was for, as I got it fairly early on. It wasn't until the last mission when I realized I could use it to tow a vehicle behind me, a galaxy brain moment that could have made previous missions easier.
Teardown is a lot more than a fun sandbox or a good excuse to blow things up, it's a genuinely enjoyable heist game that makes player agency the key focus. I heavily recommend Teardown as a must play.
Humans are weird... and complex. We take away from eachother and destroy, but we also care for one another and love. We strive to protect our families from harm but also care for the common good. We endlessly search for the "correct answer" to the ills of life, knowing we may never know what it is do the right thing. The Last of Us 2 is a game about a lot of things, but to me was a game about introspection and redemption.
Guilt, fear, and anger drive our two protagonists into a blood soaked fued across the Pacific Northwest. People you have grown to love in the first game and into the second will be harmed, characters you just met will affect you more than you could ever imagine. It's a different approach from the first game, which had you trekking from the Northeast in Boston all the way west through Denver and the Rockies. This time spend a majority of the game in Seattle, with some time in Jackson, Wyoming. Journey's in media have been my favorite way of telling stories, as it gives the audience an easy avenue to gauge character growth. Two examples I usually give are FullMetal Alchemist and Final Fantasy X. In Edward and Yuna's respective journeys you have moments from beginning to end that you can easily point to in an effort to explain how characters have grown and changed from their moments in the genesis of their quest. Yuna begins FFX as a spry young summoner on a mission to help her people, but the gravity of her situation and mortality turn her into a convicted heroine. Edward jumps into his quest to find the Philosopher's stone in good faith, but matures at an advanced pace one he learns of the consquences in attempting to do so. The Last of Us 1 was this kind of game, Joel and Ellie's relationship begins as a stranger-stranger transaction, but through the course of their physical trek across the plague-torn United States, they grow together and their dynamic changes. Personally, I believe The Last of Us 1 is one of the best written games ever made solely because of this. I feared that in the sequel changing this dynamic up and minimizing the locations visited would alter that for the negative, but it did just the opposite. Time spent with your friends and foes within the city of Seattle allow you to become more tightly knit than I could have imagined. Dina, Jesse, Tommy, Lev, Yara, Owen, Ellie, Abby are flexed in character intricacy and depth. Everybody is complex, and the emphasis on being around these people for as long as you are in the game makes their fates that much more important to you. Neil Druckmann and the Naughty Dog team did the impossible in making a cast as perfectly written as they did in the first title of the series. The city of Seattle is dense yet rich with action and life. It's those moments in traversal, in resting at a campsite, in the dark with your party that drive The Last of Us Part 2. Every major side character in this game has a story to tell, and man if they didn't knock it out of the park in making these stories engaging.
There's a substantial camp of people that have qualms with two moments in this game, spoilers not included, and to them I truely believed they missed the entire point of The Last of Us 1 and 2. It's the fact that a good story doesn't always have the ending you want, and I'm not talking Game of Thrones style. There's no way for humans to perfectly predict how they'll react to trauma, I know I sure haven't. It would be nice to say "Yeah I'll make that person pay for what they did to [INSERT PERSON HERE,]" but how would you know until you're in that moment? Ellie and Abby are two complex and trauma-ridden humans that have a world of hurt stored inside. They've seen and done unspeakable things because they were searching for their "right answer" to their issues. It's almost more of a case study on anger and revenge than it is a game about hunting someone down in a fungal apocalypse. Our two characters carve their own paths and plan their futures by consulting only their hearts, not by subscribing to a Hollywood-esque "plot has to resolve for resolution's sake" plotline.
I am trying to be weary about describing the locations and moments of this game because it's such a feel it for yourself title. Sometimes I like to talk about how beautiful a city or zone is in greater detail, and speak about some of the smaller moments that don't impact the story, but I strongly encourage the reader/player to discover that all on their own. I played on the PS5 patch (thank you Naughty Dog for making this free with the PS4 version) and my mouth was constantly agape at how incredible Seattle and the other locations were in the game. Buildings are complete and believable as places where humans once spent their lives and the cities, oh man the cities. Seriously, play this game and you'll know right away about how well-crafted and built the environments truly are.
The more I return to The Last of Us, the more I know two things. The first is that Troy Baker's job as Joel is probably the best (to this date) performance a voice actor has ever done at converying their character. I know it's a bad idea to make a generalization on something as subjective as that, but he does a perfect job with making Joel feel, real. It doesn't sound like you're listening to an actor read off a script, but like you're talking to a human that's seen more shame and violence than someone should in a hundred lifetimes. He's a concerned father, a veteran of the darkest days in human history, a survivor, and most importantly Ellie's guardian. Speaking of Ellie, my second takeaway is that she's one of my favorite fictional characters. A testament to the job the writing team has done with her, her personality is complex and her story a grave tragedy.
I'm going to have an "All-Time Great Video Game" sized hole in my heart for the forseeable future, I strongly recommend anybody who finished The Last of Us 1 and/or have seen the show to jump on this title and live through the continuation of the story. Open your mind and try to let the story breathe before judging its direction, The Last of Us Part 2 is a landmark of the medium.
Guilt, fear, and anger drive our two protagonists into a blood soaked fued across the Pacific Northwest. People you have grown to love in the first game and into the second will be harmed, characters you just met will affect you more than you could ever imagine. It's a different approach from the first game, which had you trekking from the Northeast in Boston all the way west through Denver and the Rockies. This time spend a majority of the game in Seattle, with some time in Jackson, Wyoming. Journey's in media have been my favorite way of telling stories, as it gives the audience an easy avenue to gauge character growth. Two examples I usually give are FullMetal Alchemist and Final Fantasy X. In Edward and Yuna's respective journeys you have moments from beginning to end that you can easily point to in an effort to explain how characters have grown and changed from their moments in the genesis of their quest. Yuna begins FFX as a spry young summoner on a mission to help her people, but the gravity of her situation and mortality turn her into a convicted heroine. Edward jumps into his quest to find the Philosopher's stone in good faith, but matures at an advanced pace one he learns of the consquences in attempting to do so. The Last of Us 1 was this kind of game, Joel and Ellie's relationship begins as a stranger-stranger transaction, but through the course of their physical trek across the plague-torn United States, they grow together and their dynamic changes. Personally, I believe The Last of Us 1 is one of the best written games ever made solely because of this. I feared that in the sequel changing this dynamic up and minimizing the locations visited would alter that for the negative, but it did just the opposite. Time spent with your friends and foes within the city of Seattle allow you to become more tightly knit than I could have imagined. Dina, Jesse, Tommy, Lev, Yara, Owen, Ellie, Abby are flexed in character intricacy and depth. Everybody is complex, and the emphasis on being around these people for as long as you are in the game makes their fates that much more important to you. Neil Druckmann and the Naughty Dog team did the impossible in making a cast as perfectly written as they did in the first title of the series. The city of Seattle is dense yet rich with action and life. It's those moments in traversal, in resting at a campsite, in the dark with your party that drive The Last of Us Part 2. Every major side character in this game has a story to tell, and man if they didn't knock it out of the park in making these stories engaging.
There's a substantial camp of people that have qualms with two moments in this game, spoilers not included, and to them I truely believed they missed the entire point of The Last of Us 1 and 2. It's the fact that a good story doesn't always have the ending you want, and I'm not talking Game of Thrones style. There's no way for humans to perfectly predict how they'll react to trauma, I know I sure haven't. It would be nice to say "Yeah I'll make that person pay for what they did to [INSERT PERSON HERE,]" but how would you know until you're in that moment? Ellie and Abby are two complex and trauma-ridden humans that have a world of hurt stored inside. They've seen and done unspeakable things because they were searching for their "right answer" to their issues. It's almost more of a case study on anger and revenge than it is a game about hunting someone down in a fungal apocalypse. Our two characters carve their own paths and plan their futures by consulting only their hearts, not by subscribing to a Hollywood-esque "plot has to resolve for resolution's sake" plotline.
I am trying to be weary about describing the locations and moments of this game because it's such a feel it for yourself title. Sometimes I like to talk about how beautiful a city or zone is in greater detail, and speak about some of the smaller moments that don't impact the story, but I strongly encourage the reader/player to discover that all on their own. I played on the PS5 patch (thank you Naughty Dog for making this free with the PS4 version) and my mouth was constantly agape at how incredible Seattle and the other locations were in the game. Buildings are complete and believable as places where humans once spent their lives and the cities, oh man the cities. Seriously, play this game and you'll know right away about how well-crafted and built the environments truly are.
The more I return to The Last of Us, the more I know two things. The first is that Troy Baker's job as Joel is probably the best (to this date) performance a voice actor has ever done at converying their character. I know it's a bad idea to make a generalization on something as subjective as that, but he does a perfect job with making Joel feel, real. It doesn't sound like you're listening to an actor read off a script, but like you're talking to a human that's seen more shame and violence than someone should in a hundred lifetimes. He's a concerned father, a veteran of the darkest days in human history, a survivor, and most importantly Ellie's guardian. Speaking of Ellie, my second takeaway is that she's one of my favorite fictional characters. A testament to the job the writing team has done with her, her personality is complex and her story a grave tragedy.
I'm going to have an "All-Time Great Video Game" sized hole in my heart for the forseeable future, I strongly recommend anybody who finished The Last of Us 1 and/or have seen the show to jump on this title and live through the continuation of the story. Open your mind and try to let the story breathe before judging its direction, The Last of Us Part 2 is a landmark of the medium.
2023
In the wise words of Thom Yorke, my experience with Hi-Fi Rush was "Let Down and Hanging Around. Crushed like a Bug in the Ground."
When I first saw this game during MIcrosoft's studio showcase a few weeks back I made a remark to my friends about how it looked a little... not great. They agreed and we went about our life. The next day I began to read reviews, reception was extremely high across the board between critics and normal folk like myself. My brother downloaded it via Gamepass and beat it in a whim, speaking very highly of the entire experience. I convinced myself to play it based upon the near universal acclaim that Hi-Fi Rush had gotten after initially panning it.
I wish I hadn't made that choice, you can probably stop reading here if you're a fan of the game as my qualms do get a bit nitpicky.
The first issue I had was with the setting of the world. I appreciate the fidelity and how well-created the assests were that lined up the comic-book aesthetic all throughout Hi-Fi Rush's near twelve hours, but the environments to me felt drab and boring. Nothing going throughout the game excited me, as it felt like low effort recreations of cartoons I'd seen in years past. It's rough to play through a game when you're confronted with something you don't like that is present throughout the entire runtime. I just couldn't get into the robot-city vibes that the game runs with, it's not new and not necessarily enjoyable to exist within. I felt like I had been teleported into the PS2-Xbox-Gamecube era once more of 3D platformers with cyber-futuristic settings that sort of melded together in forgetfulness. There's no area or zone within Hi-Fi Rush that I'm going to look back on and remember as a fond gaming experience.
Now that I've noted my issues with the world and environments of HFR, my bigger negations with the game stem from the actual playing part of it. You basically do two things: Platform and fighting, and man, both of them are rough. Depth perception is apparently an unheard of concept, as many of the jumps between platforms in HFR are poorly shown with your character's capabilities. Often in my playthrough did I find myself falling into the abyss because Chai didn't double jump high enough, even if I clearly hit the inputs. There were moments where I'd jump between two platforms and miss because they were just a little too far away for a casual jump. That sounds like a nitpick but this issue persisted from chapter one to chapter twelve. Beginning to end. Platformers excel in their level creation, in making a flow to movement between combat zones or boss fights and HFR missed the mark on that one by a wide margin. It also became very monotonous, sentenced to mostly basic jumping and timing said jumps to the beat of the game. When you unlock new buddies like Cinnamon and Macaron, you have to use their abilities to progress through each level. Conceptually this is intriguing, because pretty much every 2D & 3D platformer alike do this, however the addition of these in HFR adds next to zero. It becomes just another button to press in a slosh of un-exciting movement.
Oh man and that combat. I played Metal: Hellsinger last year and gave it a 4.5/5 stars, largely in part to how the combat clicked with the timing of the music. Agency was left up to the player in how they wanted to tackle blowing through the hordes of the undead, weapon kits freely optimisable to suit your playstyle and the timing was legitimately perfect. In Hi-Fi Rush, this was unfortunately very much not the case. It's not hard to time your beats to the rhythm per se, but it does run in contrast to legitimately every character action game I'd played until this point. Speed is the name of the game and maximizing damage in between boss/enemy attack windows is key. HFR asks the player to weave combos in between your character's musical heartbeats. They do a decent job at making this work, but I'm not entierly sure why it mattered? I was able to make a solid perfect hit ratio but I honestly don't think it added anything to the game other than sticking with a theme. In Hellsinger I felt like I was glued to the action because the rhythm attacking worked in tandem to the enemy encounter rate and intensity. In HFR it only makes the battles feel longer as you're not fighting to win ASAP but fighting to win at a pre-existing pace. These battles grew tired almost as soon as the game gets into its own groove around chapter three. Once your arsenal opens up with your friends and grappling hook, it becomes the same encounter with enemies cycled out over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. My biggest problem with Scarlet Nexus was that the enemy encounters once you walked into an encounter room were solved like flowcharts. If you saw an enemy of one type that means you had to employ a certain character's special power to defeat it. HFR is no different, other than that you have less tools at your disposal. When you walk into a room that clearly is meant for fighting, which there are many, you usually get a mix of jobber-bots and then gimmick bigger bots. These gimmick bots require utilizing a certain strategy to defeat. If it's a shield enemy, you use Macaron. If they have an energy shield, you use cinnamon. If they are a duelist, you make sure you parry. Rinse repeat. Not having a freedom of choice in deciding how I wanted to tackle taking down enemies felt needlessly restrictive. I recently played Bayonetta 3, that series (along with Kamiya's DMC) perfected giving agency to players in relation to conquering foes. In HFR you are kept in a lane and more or less have to defeat each enemy archetype in the same way. I really never felt a flow of combat, no moment in which I was excited to fight because I had prepared myself to use a system of fighting that I already used.
Most other users seem to have an attachment to the characters, yet I too found them to be drab and one-note. I had no care or passion for any of my fellow party members and honestly not even the main character Chai. He felt like the main character of a poorly aged cartoon from my childhood, and after reading HazeRedux's review calling this a "Johnny Test ass game," I think he was onto something. He's a dumb dude bro with few redeeming qualities and doesn't ever get better throughout HFR's narrative. The jokes are quickly played out and the punchlines are predictable. I don't know, I know this game doesn't need a perfect protagonist to make it great but I like my character action games to have an enjoyable character that executed enjoyable action (like DMC/Bayonetta) but this just, misses on all that. I didn't really take part in conversing or listening to my party members outside of combat in the hideout because they felt like tropes of games past, and without enough new or captivating qualities to craft them into believable friends and allies. They're just kinda there, as voices instead of fun teammates to bant and joke with. Also I'm still not actually sure what 808 does. Everytime they made a joke or did a bit with 808 or they showed up in combat I had to stop, pause, and ponder what they actually did. As I'm writing this review, I still don't actually know.
The music of HFR is supposed to be a selling point, after all it is a game about music but man, it became extremely grating. Have you ever been bitten by a mosquito and once you itch it, you can't stop? That's what the soundtrack to this game is like. Once I realized that it was the same grating funky guitar loops, I couldn't take it anymore. Each loop became more and more intolerable until I eventually turned the music off for half the game, and that made playing it that much easier. I understand they were going with a sound to match the comic-book aesthetic of the game's design and the cartoony atmosphere of the environments but it sounded like royalty free music you'd use in a Youtube video. Some of the original tracks were alright but the Black Keys and Nine Inch Nails songs that jumpstart HFR were pretty poor tracks.
Play this on Gamepass if you're that curious, but my real recommendation would be to not play this at all. It felt like a use of time, not like a fun game or an experience I'll really recall five to ten years down the line. I'm looking forward to jumping into narrative titles again with TLOU Part II and Persona 3 Portable on my docket soon. I hoped Hi-Fi Rush would be a refreshing title between some longer story-driven titles that I'd played, but I found myself engaging in a mediocre experience.
When I first saw this game during MIcrosoft's studio showcase a few weeks back I made a remark to my friends about how it looked a little... not great. They agreed and we went about our life. The next day I began to read reviews, reception was extremely high across the board between critics and normal folk like myself. My brother downloaded it via Gamepass and beat it in a whim, speaking very highly of the entire experience. I convinced myself to play it based upon the near universal acclaim that Hi-Fi Rush had gotten after initially panning it.
I wish I hadn't made that choice, you can probably stop reading here if you're a fan of the game as my qualms do get a bit nitpicky.
The first issue I had was with the setting of the world. I appreciate the fidelity and how well-created the assests were that lined up the comic-book aesthetic all throughout Hi-Fi Rush's near twelve hours, but the environments to me felt drab and boring. Nothing going throughout the game excited me, as it felt like low effort recreations of cartoons I'd seen in years past. It's rough to play through a game when you're confronted with something you don't like that is present throughout the entire runtime. I just couldn't get into the robot-city vibes that the game runs with, it's not new and not necessarily enjoyable to exist within. I felt like I had been teleported into the PS2-Xbox-Gamecube era once more of 3D platformers with cyber-futuristic settings that sort of melded together in forgetfulness. There's no area or zone within Hi-Fi Rush that I'm going to look back on and remember as a fond gaming experience.
Now that I've noted my issues with the world and environments of HFR, my bigger negations with the game stem from the actual playing part of it. You basically do two things: Platform and fighting, and man, both of them are rough. Depth perception is apparently an unheard of concept, as many of the jumps between platforms in HFR are poorly shown with your character's capabilities. Often in my playthrough did I find myself falling into the abyss because Chai didn't double jump high enough, even if I clearly hit the inputs. There were moments where I'd jump between two platforms and miss because they were just a little too far away for a casual jump. That sounds like a nitpick but this issue persisted from chapter one to chapter twelve. Beginning to end. Platformers excel in their level creation, in making a flow to movement between combat zones or boss fights and HFR missed the mark on that one by a wide margin. It also became very monotonous, sentenced to mostly basic jumping and timing said jumps to the beat of the game. When you unlock new buddies like Cinnamon and Macaron, you have to use their abilities to progress through each level. Conceptually this is intriguing, because pretty much every 2D & 3D platformer alike do this, however the addition of these in HFR adds next to zero. It becomes just another button to press in a slosh of un-exciting movement.
Oh man and that combat. I played Metal: Hellsinger last year and gave it a 4.5/5 stars, largely in part to how the combat clicked with the timing of the music. Agency was left up to the player in how they wanted to tackle blowing through the hordes of the undead, weapon kits freely optimisable to suit your playstyle and the timing was legitimately perfect. In Hi-Fi Rush, this was unfortunately very much not the case. It's not hard to time your beats to the rhythm per se, but it does run in contrast to legitimately every character action game I'd played until this point. Speed is the name of the game and maximizing damage in between boss/enemy attack windows is key. HFR asks the player to weave combos in between your character's musical heartbeats. They do a decent job at making this work, but I'm not entierly sure why it mattered? I was able to make a solid perfect hit ratio but I honestly don't think it added anything to the game other than sticking with a theme. In Hellsinger I felt like I was glued to the action because the rhythm attacking worked in tandem to the enemy encounter rate and intensity. In HFR it only makes the battles feel longer as you're not fighting to win ASAP but fighting to win at a pre-existing pace. These battles grew tired almost as soon as the game gets into its own groove around chapter three. Once your arsenal opens up with your friends and grappling hook, it becomes the same encounter with enemies cycled out over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. My biggest problem with Scarlet Nexus was that the enemy encounters once you walked into an encounter room were solved like flowcharts. If you saw an enemy of one type that means you had to employ a certain character's special power to defeat it. HFR is no different, other than that you have less tools at your disposal. When you walk into a room that clearly is meant for fighting, which there are many, you usually get a mix of jobber-bots and then gimmick bigger bots. These gimmick bots require utilizing a certain strategy to defeat. If it's a shield enemy, you use Macaron. If they have an energy shield, you use cinnamon. If they are a duelist, you make sure you parry. Rinse repeat. Not having a freedom of choice in deciding how I wanted to tackle taking down enemies felt needlessly restrictive. I recently played Bayonetta 3, that series (along with Kamiya's DMC) perfected giving agency to players in relation to conquering foes. In HFR you are kept in a lane and more or less have to defeat each enemy archetype in the same way. I really never felt a flow of combat, no moment in which I was excited to fight because I had prepared myself to use a system of fighting that I already used.
Most other users seem to have an attachment to the characters, yet I too found them to be drab and one-note. I had no care or passion for any of my fellow party members and honestly not even the main character Chai. He felt like the main character of a poorly aged cartoon from my childhood, and after reading HazeRedux's review calling this a "Johnny Test ass game," I think he was onto something. He's a dumb dude bro with few redeeming qualities and doesn't ever get better throughout HFR's narrative. The jokes are quickly played out and the punchlines are predictable. I don't know, I know this game doesn't need a perfect protagonist to make it great but I like my character action games to have an enjoyable character that executed enjoyable action (like DMC/Bayonetta) but this just, misses on all that. I didn't really take part in conversing or listening to my party members outside of combat in the hideout because they felt like tropes of games past, and without enough new or captivating qualities to craft them into believable friends and allies. They're just kinda there, as voices instead of fun teammates to bant and joke with. Also I'm still not actually sure what 808 does. Everytime they made a joke or did a bit with 808 or they showed up in combat I had to stop, pause, and ponder what they actually did. As I'm writing this review, I still don't actually know.
The music of HFR is supposed to be a selling point, after all it is a game about music but man, it became extremely grating. Have you ever been bitten by a mosquito and once you itch it, you can't stop? That's what the soundtrack to this game is like. Once I realized that it was the same grating funky guitar loops, I couldn't take it anymore. Each loop became more and more intolerable until I eventually turned the music off for half the game, and that made playing it that much easier. I understand they were going with a sound to match the comic-book aesthetic of the game's design and the cartoony atmosphere of the environments but it sounded like royalty free music you'd use in a Youtube video. Some of the original tracks were alright but the Black Keys and Nine Inch Nails songs that jumpstart HFR were pretty poor tracks.
Play this on Gamepass if you're that curious, but my real recommendation would be to not play this at all. It felt like a use of time, not like a fun game or an experience I'll really recall five to ten years down the line. I'm looking forward to jumping into narrative titles again with TLOU Part II and Persona 3 Portable on my docket soon. I hoped Hi-Fi Rush would be a refreshing title between some longer story-driven titles that I'd played, but I found myself engaging in a mediocre experience.
2018
Can RGG do the impossible and make the same type of game that they'd been making for thirteen years with a different cast, but still be good? The answer is unsurpsingly yes.
You return to the familiar site of modern day Kamurocho with an entierly new cast of characters. Gone is the familiar cast of Kazuma Kiryu, Date, Daigo Dojima, Goro Majima, Akiyama and the like and in is a completely new crew of friends and foes that you'll fall in love with all the same. Takayuki Yagami is an instantly loveable private detective with an extensive history in litigation. His trials and tribulations as a lawyer are a direct lead in to this game's story and set a picture perfect narrative that will seep its way into the story of Judgment, dripping piece by piece into the player's memory bank while they pick up along the mystery of the Mole. Kaito is a phenomenal sidekick, something RGG has nailed since the first Yakuza title, not a dumb himbo to be comedic relief, but a good friend and reliable muscle when Yagami is in a pinch. The young Sugiura was a fresh addition as well, making an unlikely friend group in a grim situation which complimented the story at hand extremely well. These three coupled with the friends at the Genda Law Office and Matsugane Family of Yakuza are more of what the Like a Dragon series has done best; create a recognizable and enjoyable cast of characters to surround the protagonist. RGG titles play out like a movie, introducing allies and enemies at optimal pacing, and Judgment is another rock in that pond.
As not much of a shock, the plot of Judgment starts out with something as simple as investigating a serial murder case as part of Yagami's detective agency, yet morphs into something much more sinister. This was the case with all Yakuza games before it, a spiraling story that sucks you in and keeps you invested even if the games run long. I don't want to go into detail as to avoid spoilers but if you found the initial few chapters to be a little slow pacing wise, just trust that this one will play out... it really does.
Detractions from a five star rating into a four star boil down into the same issues I've had since Y0, and that's the combat and mandatory side missions. Combat again is pretty poor, I had to turn it way down to avoid face-to-desk slamming monotony as the Blockuza came out and I didn't find combat to be diverse enough (I miss you Goro "Bat Wielder" Majima) to warrant playing the hard way. Per the latter issue, there were plenty of times until about chapter ten where you'd start embarking on your quest to find the serial killing culprit only to be phoned and interrupted with a side quest that had absolutely nothing to do with the story. I appreciate how fun these can be in LAD/Yakuza games but eventually it feels like a slog, especially when forced upon the player. Consider this a plea to RGG to keep these as SIDE quests down the line. Additionally, I found the constant inclusion of tailing/chase missions to be quite annoying as it just drew out the time of play and didn't add much to my immersion.
I'm excited to play Lost Judgment eventually, but I think I'm going to take an extended break from RGG after Isshin comes out as to keep myself not burnt out. I would recommend Judgment to anybody who was a fan of Kiryu's Yakuza saga.
You return to the familiar site of modern day Kamurocho with an entierly new cast of characters. Gone is the familiar cast of Kazuma Kiryu, Date, Daigo Dojima, Goro Majima, Akiyama and the like and in is a completely new crew of friends and foes that you'll fall in love with all the same. Takayuki Yagami is an instantly loveable private detective with an extensive history in litigation. His trials and tribulations as a lawyer are a direct lead in to this game's story and set a picture perfect narrative that will seep its way into the story of Judgment, dripping piece by piece into the player's memory bank while they pick up along the mystery of the Mole. Kaito is a phenomenal sidekick, something RGG has nailed since the first Yakuza title, not a dumb himbo to be comedic relief, but a good friend and reliable muscle when Yagami is in a pinch. The young Sugiura was a fresh addition as well, making an unlikely friend group in a grim situation which complimented the story at hand extremely well. These three coupled with the friends at the Genda Law Office and Matsugane Family of Yakuza are more of what the Like a Dragon series has done best; create a recognizable and enjoyable cast of characters to surround the protagonist. RGG titles play out like a movie, introducing allies and enemies at optimal pacing, and Judgment is another rock in that pond.
As not much of a shock, the plot of Judgment starts out with something as simple as investigating a serial murder case as part of Yagami's detective agency, yet morphs into something much more sinister. This was the case with all Yakuza games before it, a spiraling story that sucks you in and keeps you invested even if the games run long. I don't want to go into detail as to avoid spoilers but if you found the initial few chapters to be a little slow pacing wise, just trust that this one will play out... it really does.
Detractions from a five star rating into a four star boil down into the same issues I've had since Y0, and that's the combat and mandatory side missions. Combat again is pretty poor, I had to turn it way down to avoid face-to-desk slamming monotony as the Blockuza came out and I didn't find combat to be diverse enough (I miss you Goro "Bat Wielder" Majima) to warrant playing the hard way. Per the latter issue, there were plenty of times until about chapter ten where you'd start embarking on your quest to find the serial killing culprit only to be phoned and interrupted with a side quest that had absolutely nothing to do with the story. I appreciate how fun these can be in LAD/Yakuza games but eventually it feels like a slog, especially when forced upon the player. Consider this a plea to RGG to keep these as SIDE quests down the line. Additionally, I found the constant inclusion of tailing/chase missions to be quite annoying as it just drew out the time of play and didn't add much to my immersion.
I'm excited to play Lost Judgment eventually, but I think I'm going to take an extended break from RGG after Isshin comes out as to keep myself not burnt out. I would recommend Judgment to anybody who was a fan of Kiryu's Yakuza saga.
2023
Everybody is here!
Jojo's Bizarre Fire Emblem Adventure is a resoundingly fun and engaging (pun intended) tactics experience that celebrates the most storied tactics series in the history of the medium of gaming. Probably not alone in this endeavour, I came into the series with my first entry being what is now one of my five favorite games of all time, Fire Emblem: Three Houses. I'd read in publications and news blips that Engage would be a return to form for the series in that it would step away from what made Three Houses so unique, however part of me still held out hope that the experience would still be similar, and to a point it sort of is. Gone is the deep social elements and lively world of Garreg Mach, gone is the close relationships with your party members that supported your House Alleigance, gone is the political intrigue of three nations and a religious institution at war. Engage is a step away from what made Three Houses fun, not necessarily in a negative way.
To start out with what makes Engage good, what most people will likely cite is the return to the weapon triangle. I enjoy the diversity that this title requires a party to have. In the previous game I felt like I could stack up on physical swordsman and mages and make a bee-line towards the boss. In Engage, I found myself crafting a tightly knit and balanced party that had units of every subclass included. I had my frontline of Lords in Diamant and Alear (who I renamed Thorfinn,) my fliers in Ivy and Chloe, my mages in Celine and Pardeo, axe users in Panette and Merrin, and lastly bows represented by Alchryst and Fogado. Having my bases covered in combat gave each character their own use case for battle, lending these fights a greater strategic element that Three Houses really ever did, where I found spamming damage towards the end-goal was an easy victory. You spend a lot of time and effort in the skirmishes, paralogues, and main story battles grinding up resources to spend on your emblems and soldiers to make this machine work, and it can get a little busy, but overall I enjoyed the constant work to upkeep my party to have them at tip-top shape for the next story missions.
Combat was overall great, and just the right level of difficulty I look for in tactics games. I don't enjoy the titles that enforce stalling and terrain camping, but rather the ones that reward players for intelligently prepping and executing tactical maneuvers on the route to the map goal. This was decidedly the case with Engage, rarely did I feel like the levels were unfair as my plans were executed carefully and successfully with the tools I had been given. I enjoyed the maps for the most part in this regard too, however they don't strike me as memorable as those from Three Houses. There's no Gronder Field, no Fort Merceus, no Great Bridge of Myrddin, none of that. A lot of the maps feel a little flat which lends itself to more fair gameplay, yet perhaps less memorable moments and epic struggles. Maybe time will tell there but it wasn't long into Engage that I found myself longing for the times of yore in regards to map design.
Though it's no Garreg Mach, I did like the design of the Somniel. There's a lot to keep track of in terms of battle prep; stopping at the shops to update your weapons and inventory, polishing your rings and levelling up bonds to inherit skills between emblems and party members, exercising and cooking to inherit skills, and picking up materials that dropped on the ground that would help with all of the above. Outside of preparing for combat through these elements, that social liveliness was just... missing. I know that was the goal of this game, and the developers were very clear about moving away from that element in the previous title, but it's hard to not think of it. When I ran through the hub world I found little reason to check up on or converse with my fellow party members or emblems because their motives and/or personalities had so little to do with Alear. With Byleth, they were your friends and fellow countrymen, fighting a war that had consumed their families and friends. With Alear, often they were just kinda... people you barely knew.
The worst part of this game, and it breaks my heart after coming from Three Houses, was without a shadow of a doubt the characters. As many other reviewers have probably written about, the vast majority of non-emblem characters in this game (and even some of them too) look like they were designed for VTubers. Previous characters in the series look like they belong in a fantasy world such as Fire Emblem, or make some sense as real people within the universe. Trying to fight the Fell Dragon with Yunaka's black-star face tat, and running into Hortensia who looked like a walking candy cane had my suspension of disbelief at DEFCON 5. It felt impossible to get into the first 2/3rd's of this game because of how poorly done the character design was. Three Houses had a certain continuity and reason to how characters were drawn. Lady Rhea was an elegant leader designed in a gown of regality, whilst Lumera has some laughable proportions and absence of personality. Lady Edelgard had a regal villain-ness to her, Timerra is a walking Bocce Ball art project. I created a character tierlist for funsies before encountering the final boss of the characters in the game, and even after fifty hours I had to open the wiki to check who the characters like Citrinne and Lapis were because they all looked so samey.
Not only were they designed poorly, but they were written poorly. Now Three Houses is not the poster child for good character writing in party based games, that's probably Mass Effect 1-3, but the tropey characters worked to create an ensemble of friends and foes I found myself passionate for. There were arcs in that game spanning from beginning to end that had me genuinely interested in the life and times of my Garreg Mach peers & constituents. There is none of that in Engage, not just because there are characters that bark every time you select them in combat or say "Hiya-Papaya" but because they weren't given the time of day to be interesting. I chose to romance Chloe simply because she annoyed me the least out of any romanceable option, not because she had any enderaing qualities like I felt Dorothea (my first romantic pairing in Three Houses) did. Tired.
The story in Engage is passable, and honestly I'll give the devs credit. It's hard to write an "everybody is here" story and have it come off as plausible or good, and they do a decent effort at that. If the elements in between rounding up the emblems and fighting the big bad were cleaned up this title could have been much better, but so much of the early-mid story was just so... meh. The villains are not very engaging (gah there it is again,) and your reasons at the beginning for embarking in war aren't too motivating.
It's a shame Fire Emblem Engage has to follow such an incredible title in Three Houses, and maybe I should stop trying to chase that dragon, but it's hard to not compare the two. Why should I not hold Engage to higher standards when I know that Intelligent Systems is capable of something so much better from a complete standpoint? They nailed the gameplay, if only they could have followed through with the characters and story.
I've given it a hard time, but I would recommend Fire Emblem Engage to fans of the series and tactics games overall. It's a feelsgood nostalgia trip through one of the most storied franchises in gaming and tickels enough of my fun braincells to pump as much time and effort into playing it as I did. I liked my time with it, however when it comes to vacations and time to fill, I'll probably option to replay Three Houses instead.
"If people are willing to work for it, any bond can be brought back to life. And that's what I'll do, every single time, for however long it takes!"
- Alear
P.S.: This review was written at 2:00 AM on a work night, apologies if the typo bug got to me.
Jojo's Bizarre Fire Emblem Adventure is a resoundingly fun and engaging (pun intended) tactics experience that celebrates the most storied tactics series in the history of the medium of gaming. Probably not alone in this endeavour, I came into the series with my first entry being what is now one of my five favorite games of all time, Fire Emblem: Three Houses. I'd read in publications and news blips that Engage would be a return to form for the series in that it would step away from what made Three Houses so unique, however part of me still held out hope that the experience would still be similar, and to a point it sort of is. Gone is the deep social elements and lively world of Garreg Mach, gone is the close relationships with your party members that supported your House Alleigance, gone is the political intrigue of three nations and a religious institution at war. Engage is a step away from what made Three Houses fun, not necessarily in a negative way.
To start out with what makes Engage good, what most people will likely cite is the return to the weapon triangle. I enjoy the diversity that this title requires a party to have. In the previous game I felt like I could stack up on physical swordsman and mages and make a bee-line towards the boss. In Engage, I found myself crafting a tightly knit and balanced party that had units of every subclass included. I had my frontline of Lords in Diamant and Alear (who I renamed Thorfinn,) my fliers in Ivy and Chloe, my mages in Celine and Pardeo, axe users in Panette and Merrin, and lastly bows represented by Alchryst and Fogado. Having my bases covered in combat gave each character their own use case for battle, lending these fights a greater strategic element that Three Houses really ever did, where I found spamming damage towards the end-goal was an easy victory. You spend a lot of time and effort in the skirmishes, paralogues, and main story battles grinding up resources to spend on your emblems and soldiers to make this machine work, and it can get a little busy, but overall I enjoyed the constant work to upkeep my party to have them at tip-top shape for the next story missions.
Combat was overall great, and just the right level of difficulty I look for in tactics games. I don't enjoy the titles that enforce stalling and terrain camping, but rather the ones that reward players for intelligently prepping and executing tactical maneuvers on the route to the map goal. This was decidedly the case with Engage, rarely did I feel like the levels were unfair as my plans were executed carefully and successfully with the tools I had been given. I enjoyed the maps for the most part in this regard too, however they don't strike me as memorable as those from Three Houses. There's no Gronder Field, no Fort Merceus, no Great Bridge of Myrddin, none of that. A lot of the maps feel a little flat which lends itself to more fair gameplay, yet perhaps less memorable moments and epic struggles. Maybe time will tell there but it wasn't long into Engage that I found myself longing for the times of yore in regards to map design.
Though it's no Garreg Mach, I did like the design of the Somniel. There's a lot to keep track of in terms of battle prep; stopping at the shops to update your weapons and inventory, polishing your rings and levelling up bonds to inherit skills between emblems and party members, exercising and cooking to inherit skills, and picking up materials that dropped on the ground that would help with all of the above. Outside of preparing for combat through these elements, that social liveliness was just... missing. I know that was the goal of this game, and the developers were very clear about moving away from that element in the previous title, but it's hard to not think of it. When I ran through the hub world I found little reason to check up on or converse with my fellow party members or emblems because their motives and/or personalities had so little to do with Alear. With Byleth, they were your friends and fellow countrymen, fighting a war that had consumed their families and friends. With Alear, often they were just kinda... people you barely knew.
The worst part of this game, and it breaks my heart after coming from Three Houses, was without a shadow of a doubt the characters. As many other reviewers have probably written about, the vast majority of non-emblem characters in this game (and even some of them too) look like they were designed for VTubers. Previous characters in the series look like they belong in a fantasy world such as Fire Emblem, or make some sense as real people within the universe. Trying to fight the Fell Dragon with Yunaka's black-star face tat, and running into Hortensia who looked like a walking candy cane had my suspension of disbelief at DEFCON 5. It felt impossible to get into the first 2/3rd's of this game because of how poorly done the character design was. Three Houses had a certain continuity and reason to how characters were drawn. Lady Rhea was an elegant leader designed in a gown of regality, whilst Lumera has some laughable proportions and absence of personality. Lady Edelgard had a regal villain-ness to her, Timerra is a walking Bocce Ball art project. I created a character tierlist for funsies before encountering the final boss of the characters in the game, and even after fifty hours I had to open the wiki to check who the characters like Citrinne and Lapis were because they all looked so samey.
Not only were they designed poorly, but they were written poorly. Now Three Houses is not the poster child for good character writing in party based games, that's probably Mass Effect 1-3, but the tropey characters worked to create an ensemble of friends and foes I found myself passionate for. There were arcs in that game spanning from beginning to end that had me genuinely interested in the life and times of my Garreg Mach peers & constituents. There is none of that in Engage, not just because there are characters that bark every time you select them in combat or say "Hiya-Papaya" but because they weren't given the time of day to be interesting. I chose to romance Chloe simply because she annoyed me the least out of any romanceable option, not because she had any enderaing qualities like I felt Dorothea (my first romantic pairing in Three Houses) did. Tired.
The story in Engage is passable, and honestly I'll give the devs credit. It's hard to write an "everybody is here" story and have it come off as plausible or good, and they do a decent effort at that. If the elements in between rounding up the emblems and fighting the big bad were cleaned up this title could have been much better, but so much of the early-mid story was just so... meh. The villains are not very engaging (gah there it is again,) and your reasons at the beginning for embarking in war aren't too motivating.
It's a shame Fire Emblem Engage has to follow such an incredible title in Three Houses, and maybe I should stop trying to chase that dragon, but it's hard to not compare the two. Why should I not hold Engage to higher standards when I know that Intelligent Systems is capable of something so much better from a complete standpoint? They nailed the gameplay, if only they could have followed through with the characters and story.
I've given it a hard time, but I would recommend Fire Emblem Engage to fans of the series and tactics games overall. It's a feelsgood nostalgia trip through one of the most storied franchises in gaming and tickels enough of my fun braincells to pump as much time and effort into playing it as I did. I liked my time with it, however when it comes to vacations and time to fill, I'll probably option to replay Three Houses instead.
"If people are willing to work for it, any bond can be brought back to life. And that's what I'll do, every single time, for however long it takes!"
- Alear
P.S.: This review was written at 2:00 AM on a work night, apologies if the typo bug got to me.
Have you ever jumped into a swimming pool full of molasses, and then attempted to run a full 26.2 mile marathon. My answer is no, but now I know what it's like, that's playing Klonoa. In a world of Celestes and Super Mario Worlds, 2D platformers have effectively been ruined. The crisp speed, responsiveness, and tightness of those titles has spoiled the genre. Now it may be unfair to site Celeste in a critique of a game that came out in 1997, however it's hard to ignore what Klonoa isn't after playing something that simply felt better. Super Mario World though, a game that came out in 1990, feels and controls leagues better. Klonoa 1/2 just felt sluggish to control. Movement was strangely weighted and input buffering was the cause of a plethora of level resets and falls. It was this that got me, at the end of the first game, to wind it back to easy mode so I could complete the Reverie Series with a little bit of tempo and get on with my days.
Mechanics got tired fairly quickly into the first title. Klonoa's beam felt like a diet version of the Kirby swallow mechanic, in which you're borrowing the attributes of various monsters to achieve light puzzling and platforming to get to the end of the course. Unlike Kirby though, a lot of using the beam relies on jumping in which you don't have a float mechanic to rely upon. Recycling mechanics isn't the end all of platformers, like the previously mentioned Super Mario World, but when the rest of the game feels rough, it begins to rub you the wrong way a lot faster.
There's a story here, in both of these games, but I unfortunately didn't find myself invested. I appreciate this attempt at making the story interesting, which is rare in 2D platformers, however the fake language and peculiar character design didn't draw me in.
I had fun... until I didn't, which unfortunately was pretty quickly into Door to Phantomile. Given the existence of much better games in this genre, I can't recommend that anyone plays this package. The silver lining though I guess though is that it wasn't a timesink, running probably less than eleven hours between the two titles.
Mechanics got tired fairly quickly into the first title. Klonoa's beam felt like a diet version of the Kirby swallow mechanic, in which you're borrowing the attributes of various monsters to achieve light puzzling and platforming to get to the end of the course. Unlike Kirby though, a lot of using the beam relies on jumping in which you don't have a float mechanic to rely upon. Recycling mechanics isn't the end all of platformers, like the previously mentioned Super Mario World, but when the rest of the game feels rough, it begins to rub you the wrong way a lot faster.
There's a story here, in both of these games, but I unfortunately didn't find myself invested. I appreciate this attempt at making the story interesting, which is rare in 2D platformers, however the fake language and peculiar character design didn't draw me in.
I had fun... until I didn't, which unfortunately was pretty quickly into Door to Phantomile. Given the existence of much better games in this genre, I can't recommend that anyone plays this package. The silver lining though I guess though is that it wasn't a timesink, running probably less than eleven hours between the two titles.
The House in Fata Morgana: A Requiem for Innocence is a great followup (but chronological prequel) to the acclaimed VN that captivated me earlier last year. This "game" does a great job setting the stage for the tragedy that befalls the characters in the original title, giving context to the depressing existence that Morgana once lived. Callbacks, familiar characters, and re-used quotes make their mark in Requiem, tying together the two in ways that make me really wish I'd played them back to back.
This VN is a bummer, but one that I'm ultimately glad I got to, as the main VN had captivated me in its manner of storytelling and despair in a way that few VN's succesfully do. This is a must-read for anybody who read the original and wants more out of this world. Even though it is a prequel, I would strongly recommend enjoying after the main title.
This VN is a bummer, but one that I'm ultimately glad I got to, as the main VN had captivated me in its manner of storytelling and despair in a way that few VN's succesfully do. This is a must-read for anybody who read the original and wants more out of this world. Even though it is a prequel, I would strongly recommend enjoying after the main title.
Really incredible end to the initial run of the Kiryu Kazama saga before the series transitioned into Like a Dragon, Yakuza 6: The Song of Life was almost everything I wanted after seven games with the Dragon of Dojima.
It's hard after so many of these reviews to really harp on my detractions with a Yakuza game or sing its praises because they tend to follow the same outcome. Story again was extremely well done, a pretty solid narrative that stretches Kiryu and company from his familiar Kamurocho to the new streets of Hiroshima. Where Song of Life departs from its predecessors is seeing Kiryu at his most emotionally unhinged, we see a man who truly loses all interest in his well being as long as he can save those he loves. I enjoyed seeing this side of him, not that I was bored with the impervious white knight who fought for the sake of good, but I did like seeing him depart from honor and ethics in the name of his daughter and friends.
Again the cast was great, as has been the case in quite literally every one of these titles. Familiar faces grace the game with their return (my favorite of which will always be Date... and Akiyama,) and new friends enter the mix (like Yuta and Nagumo.) Even though I really didn't like Hiroshima cast they, like in every Yakuza game, truly grew on me. RGG intentionally paints them as annoying and coniving run of the mill street gangsters but methodically opens them up to Kiryu as trusted friends and allies. A lot of this change relies on very important story spoilers so I will not divulge.
The voice acting/modelling had me in actual disbelief, firstly when I encountered the group JUSTIS which borrowed top talent from New Japan Pro Wrestling like Kazuchika okada, Tetsuya Naito, and Hiroshi Tanahashi. Now with how big of an IP like Yakuza has become, this shouldn't really be very surprising but I sat there with my mouth agape as Okada went through his motions as the "Rainmaker." Also starring in Yakuza 6 is legendary director/actor Beat Takeshi as well as actor Tetsuya Fujiwara (who is the main character in Battle Royale, one of my favorite films.) Fujiwara and Takeshi play characters quite integral to the plot, so it felt like a treat to see them perform so well.
Combat was again so/so, I honestly after seven of these games just resigned myself to playing on easy for the first time because I couldn't stomach any more annoying boss fights/encounters. In the end this was undoubtedly the correct decision as I felt like my time was much more respected than last titles... hah.
My points of detraction come from the initial slow crawl to a starting point this game had (in my opinion) which set up the story. I think other Yakuza games had been a little more effective in hooking me right away. I also wasn't a tremendous fan of the cast of antagonists. I love the reaction and conflict that Kiryu and his cohort embrace in combatting them, but I didn't care too much for their characters/motives. I also kinda thought the big twist in chapter twelve was a little... silly, which is a big part of it for me too.
Yakuza 6 has one of the series' best endings though, and for that I strongly recommend the reader to experience it for themself, as I am really glad I saw this initial series run through. I will be taking a break from RGG games until I play Judgment (playing some other titles in between,) and eventually Y7/Like a Dragon which I'm greatly looking forward to. I've been all aboard the Yakuza train and I dont' want to get off yet!
It's hard after so many of these reviews to really harp on my detractions with a Yakuza game or sing its praises because they tend to follow the same outcome. Story again was extremely well done, a pretty solid narrative that stretches Kiryu and company from his familiar Kamurocho to the new streets of Hiroshima. Where Song of Life departs from its predecessors is seeing Kiryu at his most emotionally unhinged, we see a man who truly loses all interest in his well being as long as he can save those he loves. I enjoyed seeing this side of him, not that I was bored with the impervious white knight who fought for the sake of good, but I did like seeing him depart from honor and ethics in the name of his daughter and friends.
Again the cast was great, as has been the case in quite literally every one of these titles. Familiar faces grace the game with their return (my favorite of which will always be Date... and Akiyama,) and new friends enter the mix (like Yuta and Nagumo.) Even though I really didn't like Hiroshima cast they, like in every Yakuza game, truly grew on me. RGG intentionally paints them as annoying and coniving run of the mill street gangsters but methodically opens them up to Kiryu as trusted friends and allies. A lot of this change relies on very important story spoilers so I will not divulge.
The voice acting/modelling had me in actual disbelief, firstly when I encountered the group JUSTIS which borrowed top talent from New Japan Pro Wrestling like Kazuchika okada, Tetsuya Naito, and Hiroshi Tanahashi. Now with how big of an IP like Yakuza has become, this shouldn't really be very surprising but I sat there with my mouth agape as Okada went through his motions as the "Rainmaker." Also starring in Yakuza 6 is legendary director/actor Beat Takeshi as well as actor Tetsuya Fujiwara (who is the main character in Battle Royale, one of my favorite films.) Fujiwara and Takeshi play characters quite integral to the plot, so it felt like a treat to see them perform so well.
Combat was again so/so, I honestly after seven of these games just resigned myself to playing on easy for the first time because I couldn't stomach any more annoying boss fights/encounters. In the end this was undoubtedly the correct decision as I felt like my time was much more respected than last titles... hah.
My points of detraction come from the initial slow crawl to a starting point this game had (in my opinion) which set up the story. I think other Yakuza games had been a little more effective in hooking me right away. I also wasn't a tremendous fan of the cast of antagonists. I love the reaction and conflict that Kiryu and his cohort embrace in combatting them, but I didn't care too much for their characters/motives. I also kinda thought the big twist in chapter twelve was a little... silly, which is a big part of it for me too.
Yakuza 6 has one of the series' best endings though, and for that I strongly recommend the reader to experience it for themself, as I am really glad I saw this initial series run through. I will be taking a break from RGG games until I play Judgment (playing some other titles in between,) and eventually Y7/Like a Dragon which I'm greatly looking forward to. I've been all aboard the Yakuza train and I dont' want to get off yet!
2022
Short and sweet cute rhythm game that accomplishes exactly what it sets out to be. I caught it at the wholesome direct as part of last year's Summer Games Fest and made sure to add it to my wishlist right away because I fell instantly in love with the charming/cozy visuals and simple game mechanics. That's certainly what we got when the game released. Framerate is buttery smooth, it's gorgeous eye candy, and the soundtrack is very cozy. There were some levels in this short endeavour that I really didn't like because timings on perfects were a little confusing/had lack of flow but overall it was a good experience.
Embrace your dreams and protect your honor... as SOLDIER.
This is a really hard title to review because it really felt like two different games to me. A prequel to FF7 and 7R, while also telling its own self contained Crisis Core story. As always with my reviews, I keep conversation on the story pretty light because I don't like including spoiler content, so I'll continue to avoid that here.
Crisis Core as it's own game is a little... weak. Genesis is not a very believable villain, Angeal isn't quite the captivating mentor figure that he's portrayed to be, and Hollander just kinda sucks. I don't know too much about the writing/directing history of the game but it felt really, really Kingdom Heartsy to me in all of the worst ways. Dialogue was weak across the board, even Zack who was the shining star had some really awful lines (see: Monsters and Angels,) and overall was a detriment to the story. The gravity of what was at stake for Shinra and the world at large felt deflated because that epic speech was never there, that interpersonal dialogue had me cringing most of the time. In theory I really wanted to like actually playing as a SOLDIER under the Shinra banner, doing missions on behalf of the orginization to uncover the mystery behind Genesis' dissapearance, but as mentioned above the lack of dialogue or intrigue behind Genesis made for a very underwhelming experience. Everytime he shows up in the story he's monologuing some faux-Shakespeare which comes off more like a morose teenager than what he's actually supposed to be. The story of Crisis Core felt like Advent Children to me, where I was legitimately only happy to have experienced it to get more of the rest of the cast... and that we did.
Before I get into the FF7/R part of Reunion, I should go over other elements of the game that I found to be lackluster. The first, and this was my issue with Peace Walker when I played that, is that Crisis Core all in all, no matter where I play it, feels like a PSP game in its design. Rooms no matter how small or large feel oddly... empty. Zones in the side missions are barren and tonally monotonous. The world is really nothing special, and almost an unfair critique after playing 7 Remake doesn't even begin to compare in terms of population/material density.
And oh man, speaking of those side missions... There are approximately 459304953049350 of them in the game, and they feature the exact same loop of maps in which you run from point A to point B and kill monster/group of monsters. The unfortunate thing here is that they are extremely beneficial to do, meaning that the player, even though they are displayed as optional, almost should do as many as they can before progressing. The reason these are so helpful is because of the plethora of beneficial DMW (I'll get to this in a second) summons and materia/materia slots that they provide for completion. I found myself in the first two days of playing Crisis Core almost exclusively doing these because I figured I could rush through them all and then progress like i did with 7R. Lo & Behold I found that after these first few days of doing almost exclusively side content that I had notched an 18% completion rate on side missions that I was going to give up. Why are there so many??? It would be one thing if they had even a smidge of variety... but outside of enemies that you fight they are literally all monster killing missions. This wasn't even remotely fun and destroyed a lot of interest I had in the game.
The caveat of doing as many of those side missions as I did was that when I resumed the story, I was reeeeeeeeally strong. For as long as possible, only needing to change for the final boss, I ran a full oonga-boonga strength/vit build into the end game abusing my fused Twister Attack combo to kill groups of enemies and bosses alike in one fell swoop. I almost appreciate how easily it is to break the game like this on normal, but it did remove a lot of the challenge. Unlike 7 Remake, which I know comes much later after the original Crisis Core, you don't need to put too much thought into Materia in this game once you've found what works for you. I assume magic builds work fairly well but you can legitimately speedrun the game on melee alone (took me maybe eleven hours with the side content included.) Combat is pretty bare bones overall, attacking with melee is mostly reduced to a one button normal but you can augment your arsenal with materia that enhance this. Abilities with materia were actually really convenient, and I'm glad they utilize this DNA in 7 Remake, allowing the player to hit Left Bumper then a/b/x/y/rt/rb (using xbox scheme) to select whichever spell they have attached to each slot. This made casting my twister attack and curaga seamless in combat and un-frustrating like some of Square Enix & Final Fantasy's action titles do.
Now as a lore fiend I really am glad to have played Reunion, which is probably exactly why this title got re-released. Not only was it extremely popular at launch, but I'm glad Square Enix was able to capitalize on the people who wanted to explore the multiple routes they see the FF7 franchise taking with 7 Remake. I've seen the Final Fantasy 7 Remake Orchestra live, own Advent Children, have played the OG FF7, 7 Remake, and Intermission DLC, I am a complete sucker for this series and the world its built. I love the characters, themes, environments, score, you name it. I spent the entierty of Crisis Core connecting the dots between it and 7 and 7 Remake, and I'm glad it was rewarding in that regard. I enjoyed seeing characters like Cloud, Aerith, Sephiroth, and the Turks in a completely different light, with everybody's favorite villain being shown in a period in time we never see in the OG/Remake title, a SOLDIER. You get to see the war hero from a direct spectator, and that was really neat. I wept internally at the ending, despite having qualms with the Angeal/Genesis storylines, it really did move me and appreciate the story of Cloud Strife even more than I already did. For a lore junky, Crisis Core is a must play due to how it sets the stage for one of the greatest stories in the medium's history.
In all, I was not a fan of the "Crisis Core" part of Crisis Core, but did love how it expanded on a story I was already very interested in, that of Final Fantasy 7. Nothing in gaming has captivated me quite like FF7 has, and I'm not sure anything will again. Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 - Reunion succeeds at what it clearly was meant to do, hold the hype for Rebirth, and it aces that for me. I would recommend this title for people just like I who are looking for more to hold them over until the next part of the Remake saga releases, or want to experience the origin story of Cloud Strife and Zack Fair. While the game itself wasn't great, I had fun and it most definitely was worth it.
This is a really hard title to review because it really felt like two different games to me. A prequel to FF7 and 7R, while also telling its own self contained Crisis Core story. As always with my reviews, I keep conversation on the story pretty light because I don't like including spoiler content, so I'll continue to avoid that here.
Crisis Core as it's own game is a little... weak. Genesis is not a very believable villain, Angeal isn't quite the captivating mentor figure that he's portrayed to be, and Hollander just kinda sucks. I don't know too much about the writing/directing history of the game but it felt really, really Kingdom Heartsy to me in all of the worst ways. Dialogue was weak across the board, even Zack who was the shining star had some really awful lines (see: Monsters and Angels,) and overall was a detriment to the story. The gravity of what was at stake for Shinra and the world at large felt deflated because that epic speech was never there, that interpersonal dialogue had me cringing most of the time. In theory I really wanted to like actually playing as a SOLDIER under the Shinra banner, doing missions on behalf of the orginization to uncover the mystery behind Genesis' dissapearance, but as mentioned above the lack of dialogue or intrigue behind Genesis made for a very underwhelming experience. Everytime he shows up in the story he's monologuing some faux-Shakespeare which comes off more like a morose teenager than what he's actually supposed to be. The story of Crisis Core felt like Advent Children to me, where I was legitimately only happy to have experienced it to get more of the rest of the cast... and that we did.
Before I get into the FF7/R part of Reunion, I should go over other elements of the game that I found to be lackluster. The first, and this was my issue with Peace Walker when I played that, is that Crisis Core all in all, no matter where I play it, feels like a PSP game in its design. Rooms no matter how small or large feel oddly... empty. Zones in the side missions are barren and tonally monotonous. The world is really nothing special, and almost an unfair critique after playing 7 Remake doesn't even begin to compare in terms of population/material density.
And oh man, speaking of those side missions... There are approximately 459304953049350 of them in the game, and they feature the exact same loop of maps in which you run from point A to point B and kill monster/group of monsters. The unfortunate thing here is that they are extremely beneficial to do, meaning that the player, even though they are displayed as optional, almost should do as many as they can before progressing. The reason these are so helpful is because of the plethora of beneficial DMW (I'll get to this in a second) summons and materia/materia slots that they provide for completion. I found myself in the first two days of playing Crisis Core almost exclusively doing these because I figured I could rush through them all and then progress like i did with 7R. Lo & Behold I found that after these first few days of doing almost exclusively side content that I had notched an 18% completion rate on side missions that I was going to give up. Why are there so many??? It would be one thing if they had even a smidge of variety... but outside of enemies that you fight they are literally all monster killing missions. This wasn't even remotely fun and destroyed a lot of interest I had in the game.
The caveat of doing as many of those side missions as I did was that when I resumed the story, I was reeeeeeeeally strong. For as long as possible, only needing to change for the final boss, I ran a full oonga-boonga strength/vit build into the end game abusing my fused Twister Attack combo to kill groups of enemies and bosses alike in one fell swoop. I almost appreciate how easily it is to break the game like this on normal, but it did remove a lot of the challenge. Unlike 7 Remake, which I know comes much later after the original Crisis Core, you don't need to put too much thought into Materia in this game once you've found what works for you. I assume magic builds work fairly well but you can legitimately speedrun the game on melee alone (took me maybe eleven hours with the side content included.) Combat is pretty bare bones overall, attacking with melee is mostly reduced to a one button normal but you can augment your arsenal with materia that enhance this. Abilities with materia were actually really convenient, and I'm glad they utilize this DNA in 7 Remake, allowing the player to hit Left Bumper then a/b/x/y/rt/rb (using xbox scheme) to select whichever spell they have attached to each slot. This made casting my twister attack and curaga seamless in combat and un-frustrating like some of Square Enix & Final Fantasy's action titles do.
Now as a lore fiend I really am glad to have played Reunion, which is probably exactly why this title got re-released. Not only was it extremely popular at launch, but I'm glad Square Enix was able to capitalize on the people who wanted to explore the multiple routes they see the FF7 franchise taking with 7 Remake. I've seen the Final Fantasy 7 Remake Orchestra live, own Advent Children, have played the OG FF7, 7 Remake, and Intermission DLC, I am a complete sucker for this series and the world its built. I love the characters, themes, environments, score, you name it. I spent the entierty of Crisis Core connecting the dots between it and 7 and 7 Remake, and I'm glad it was rewarding in that regard. I enjoyed seeing characters like Cloud, Aerith, Sephiroth, and the Turks in a completely different light, with everybody's favorite villain being shown in a period in time we never see in the OG/Remake title, a SOLDIER. You get to see the war hero from a direct spectator, and that was really neat. I wept internally at the ending, despite having qualms with the Angeal/Genesis storylines, it really did move me and appreciate the story of Cloud Strife even more than I already did. For a lore junky, Crisis Core is a must play due to how it sets the stage for one of the greatest stories in the medium's history.
In all, I was not a fan of the "Crisis Core" part of Crisis Core, but did love how it expanded on a story I was already very interested in, that of Final Fantasy 7. Nothing in gaming has captivated me quite like FF7 has, and I'm not sure anything will again. Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 - Reunion succeeds at what it clearly was meant to do, hold the hype for Rebirth, and it aces that for me. I would recommend this title for people just like I who are looking for more to hold them over until the next part of the Remake saga releases, or want to experience the origin story of Cloud Strife and Zack Fair. While the game itself wasn't great, I had fun and it most definitely was worth it.
2022
No, I'M Pickle Rick
First off, this game has 100% been unreasonably review bombed because it's a Justin Roiland release. I've never seen Rick and Morty, so I'm missing out on all the finer bits of cringe and humor alike, but I think its unfair to judge this game because of its tangental relation to its television counterpart. I wish there was a better way to filter out negative reviews upon a game's release because when I went to log High on Life on release day (12/13,) it was already bombarded with low-ratings, of which I severely doubt were genuine.
The game itself, after beating it in eight short hours is... okay? The humor does get a bit old and drawn out, but sometime's I couldn't hold in my laughter? I don't know what that says about me, but the whole saga with the Mackincheese-brothers Brothers and the whole gun "LETZDUIT" got some cheap chuckles out of a usually stoic me. Other than that, there were quite a few drawn out punchlines that the writers had clearly intended to be funny that did not hit. The risk of a game (and probably show) that are written like this, is that the deeper you dive into the bits, the higher chance you have of making them cringe. And as we all know, cringe is one of the most damaging diagnoses' to have. While a game in theory written by a comic could be funny, I think this goes a mile too far into the "try to be funny" route than the actual "be funny" route that something like the AI: The Somnium Files franchise accomplished. There were many moments in this game where you have accomplished your objective or are about to embark on your next mission, and have to sit and wait for Gene or your Sister to monologue on a poorly attempted spree of jokes that are quite unfunny. I found myself frequently taking my hands off the mouse and keyboard, palming them on my forehead, and waiting until the scene had ended. This was waaaaay too common and kinda killed any flow of the game and actual good humour included.
Gameplay itself is alright, it's mostly basic first person shooting against a recycled cast of few alien enemies. To the credit of the devs, none of these are really annoying or tough to play against, just a little samey. Platforming is simple and there weren't really any moments where I was lost in translation trying to map through a puzzle or cross a map. I ran into a few bugs, nothing major and I found that the checkpoint system was good enough to bypass these.
I can't really recommend this game to anyone, because its short and doesn't do enough well to be worth going out of your way, but I will say please play a game before you review/rate it. Don't ride the bandwagon, if it's a bad game and you've experienced that, then it's a bad game. If it's a bad game, and you haven't actually experienced what makes it so poor, then I think it's best to leave the criticism/praise to those who have.
First off, this game has 100% been unreasonably review bombed because it's a Justin Roiland release. I've never seen Rick and Morty, so I'm missing out on all the finer bits of cringe and humor alike, but I think its unfair to judge this game because of its tangental relation to its television counterpart. I wish there was a better way to filter out negative reviews upon a game's release because when I went to log High on Life on release day (12/13,) it was already bombarded with low-ratings, of which I severely doubt were genuine.
The game itself, after beating it in eight short hours is... okay? The humor does get a bit old and drawn out, but sometime's I couldn't hold in my laughter? I don't know what that says about me, but the whole saga with the Mackincheese-brothers Brothers and the whole gun "LETZDUIT" got some cheap chuckles out of a usually stoic me. Other than that, there were quite a few drawn out punchlines that the writers had clearly intended to be funny that did not hit. The risk of a game (and probably show) that are written like this, is that the deeper you dive into the bits, the higher chance you have of making them cringe. And as we all know, cringe is one of the most damaging diagnoses' to have. While a game in theory written by a comic could be funny, I think this goes a mile too far into the "try to be funny" route than the actual "be funny" route that something like the AI: The Somnium Files franchise accomplished. There were many moments in this game where you have accomplished your objective or are about to embark on your next mission, and have to sit and wait for Gene or your Sister to monologue on a poorly attempted spree of jokes that are quite unfunny. I found myself frequently taking my hands off the mouse and keyboard, palming them on my forehead, and waiting until the scene had ended. This was waaaaay too common and kinda killed any flow of the game and actual good humour included.
Gameplay itself is alright, it's mostly basic first person shooting against a recycled cast of few alien enemies. To the credit of the devs, none of these are really annoying or tough to play against, just a little samey. Platforming is simple and there weren't really any moments where I was lost in translation trying to map through a puzzle or cross a map. I ran into a few bugs, nothing major and I found that the checkpoint system was good enough to bypass these.
I can't really recommend this game to anyone, because its short and doesn't do enough well to be worth going out of your way, but I will say please play a game before you review/rate it. Don't ride the bandwagon, if it's a bad game and you've experienced that, then it's a bad game. If it's a bad game, and you haven't actually experienced what makes it so poor, then I think it's best to leave the criticism/praise to those who have.
2022
Tactics Ogre more like Tactics Thankfully It's Over.
I'm clearly missing something big about this game because my takeaways seem to be a tremendous contrast from almost everybody I know and the majority of reviews I've read, but Tactics: Ogre Reborn felt more like a slog of mishandled opportunities than an engaging tactical experience. Maybe it's because I've been spoiled on the advancements tactics games have made in the recent years, with my first formal Tactics game being Valkyria Chronicles 4.
I have a big problem with games that tutorialize and demonstrate information to the player poorly, and this is the biggest gripe I had with TO:R. I felt like almost none of the games deeper systems were explained to the player, with what they do explain being the basics of tactics/grid based gameplay and that was about it. I struggle, generally speaking with how information is presented to me, and games that hide this through self search or menus not directly shown to the player are legitimately tough for me to grasp. I felt like there were some cool mechanics I could attempt with Ogre, but I had no clue about optimal party makeup and the differences between classes, absolutely no idea on the benefits of slotting skills/magic, and was left ignorant of what the elemental signs do that are attached to every character. Now, I don't need a game to sit there and explain how to do everything the best way to me, but some basic explanation of these things could be nice. I could (almost) excuse that if this were still the older version of the title but it's not. This is a symptom of a lot of older Japanese RPG titles (and still some today,) that make said genre(s) generally unapproachable for me. I hope this doesn't come off as whining about the game not over-explaining, but rather a complaint to the lack of helpful text to make TO:R an engaging and fun experience. Things like elevation and weather affecting accuracy/movement are easier to parse through and understand but, are they really fun?
Outside of the unexplained deeper systems of the game, I had a major issue with pacing. Tactics games last notoriously long, with my runthrough of the recent Triangle Strategy lasting ~fifty hours, but it felt like a quick and chipper fifty hours. Tactics Ogre's battles feel reallllllly slow, and there's a LOT of them for what seemed like the sake of just having more battles. The upfront mechanics of this game weren't interesting enough to me to make this feel warranted either. Most inexcusable was there being no way to quick restart a fight, even where the Chariot Tarot wouldn't help. I don't care what year it is, if it's a tactics game, it should have a way to restart the battle if you want. Games that don't have this or save-anywhere mechanics (Souls games nonwithstanding) are not acceptable in the current gamesphere. There was a moment I got maybe thirty minutes into a fight, realized I was losing due to poor tactical decision making (or lack thereof heh) and discovered I couldn't go back to the start of the fight. I put my controller down, stood up from my seat, let out an audible "bro" and then sat down and let the AI take over until my party was wiped. This pacing issue struggled all the way to the end battle gauntlet of the game, it felt like it was never going to end.
I also took issue with the map design in this game, and after reading another reviewer on this site, I'm glad I am not alone. The large issue is that the maps are either too big or the units don't move far enough. It often takes 2-4 turns of movement around the map before the parties can engage, and that's all just wasted space. These maps are pretty poorly designed too, often lacking any concept of "realistic" combat. Now, that's not to imply you're coming to a game called "Tactics Ogre" for its realism, but rather to imply that there should be some sense for a world you are fighting in rather than squares mounted on other squares. The fortresses and castles in some of the fights in TO:R were just awkward, having your party start way at the bottom of a water-falled castle and having to climb up. It doesn't make sense in terms of combat, there's no logic or flow to the design of the map, rather just the need for "elevation." If you want a better look at Tactics games employing elevation on a grid based system in a medieval setting, look at Triangle Strategy this year. You often fight in courtyards and castles in that game, and the cities/towns feel a little more approachable to both game design and basic architectural logic.
Outside of the above issues with the game, I found the Sprites to be as dated as they can be, and the music to be largely repetitive. Again, maybe I'm spoiled by Fire Emblem Three Houses and Valkyria Chronicles 4 in regards to musically backing my longer tactical engagements, but I had to mute the TO:R OST after a while and play my own music over it because it was becoming rather cumbersome to my ears.
I can see why others enjoy this game but I cannot recommend Tactics Ogre: Reborn based off my experiences with it, and having played titles I find much more enjoyable in the same genre.
I'm clearly missing something big about this game because my takeaways seem to be a tremendous contrast from almost everybody I know and the majority of reviews I've read, but Tactics: Ogre Reborn felt more like a slog of mishandled opportunities than an engaging tactical experience. Maybe it's because I've been spoiled on the advancements tactics games have made in the recent years, with my first formal Tactics game being Valkyria Chronicles 4.
I have a big problem with games that tutorialize and demonstrate information to the player poorly, and this is the biggest gripe I had with TO:R. I felt like almost none of the games deeper systems were explained to the player, with what they do explain being the basics of tactics/grid based gameplay and that was about it. I struggle, generally speaking with how information is presented to me, and games that hide this through self search or menus not directly shown to the player are legitimately tough for me to grasp. I felt like there were some cool mechanics I could attempt with Ogre, but I had no clue about optimal party makeup and the differences between classes, absolutely no idea on the benefits of slotting skills/magic, and was left ignorant of what the elemental signs do that are attached to every character. Now, I don't need a game to sit there and explain how to do everything the best way to me, but some basic explanation of these things could be nice. I could (almost) excuse that if this were still the older version of the title but it's not. This is a symptom of a lot of older Japanese RPG titles (and still some today,) that make said genre(s) generally unapproachable for me. I hope this doesn't come off as whining about the game not over-explaining, but rather a complaint to the lack of helpful text to make TO:R an engaging and fun experience. Things like elevation and weather affecting accuracy/movement are easier to parse through and understand but, are they really fun?
Outside of the unexplained deeper systems of the game, I had a major issue with pacing. Tactics games last notoriously long, with my runthrough of the recent Triangle Strategy lasting ~fifty hours, but it felt like a quick and chipper fifty hours. Tactics Ogre's battles feel reallllllly slow, and there's a LOT of them for what seemed like the sake of just having more battles. The upfront mechanics of this game weren't interesting enough to me to make this feel warranted either. Most inexcusable was there being no way to quick restart a fight, even where the Chariot Tarot wouldn't help. I don't care what year it is, if it's a tactics game, it should have a way to restart the battle if you want. Games that don't have this or save-anywhere mechanics (Souls games nonwithstanding) are not acceptable in the current gamesphere. There was a moment I got maybe thirty minutes into a fight, realized I was losing due to poor tactical decision making (or lack thereof heh) and discovered I couldn't go back to the start of the fight. I put my controller down, stood up from my seat, let out an audible "bro" and then sat down and let the AI take over until my party was wiped. This pacing issue struggled all the way to the end battle gauntlet of the game, it felt like it was never going to end.
I also took issue with the map design in this game, and after reading another reviewer on this site, I'm glad I am not alone. The large issue is that the maps are either too big or the units don't move far enough. It often takes 2-4 turns of movement around the map before the parties can engage, and that's all just wasted space. These maps are pretty poorly designed too, often lacking any concept of "realistic" combat. Now, that's not to imply you're coming to a game called "Tactics Ogre" for its realism, but rather to imply that there should be some sense for a world you are fighting in rather than squares mounted on other squares. The fortresses and castles in some of the fights in TO:R were just awkward, having your party start way at the bottom of a water-falled castle and having to climb up. It doesn't make sense in terms of combat, there's no logic or flow to the design of the map, rather just the need for "elevation." If you want a better look at Tactics games employing elevation on a grid based system in a medieval setting, look at Triangle Strategy this year. You often fight in courtyards and castles in that game, and the cities/towns feel a little more approachable to both game design and basic architectural logic.
Outside of the above issues with the game, I found the Sprites to be as dated as they can be, and the music to be largely repetitive. Again, maybe I'm spoiled by Fire Emblem Three Houses and Valkyria Chronicles 4 in regards to musically backing my longer tactical engagements, but I had to mute the TO:R OST after a while and play my own music over it because it was becoming rather cumbersome to my ears.
I can see why others enjoy this game but I cannot recommend Tactics Ogre: Reborn based off my experiences with it, and having played titles I find much more enjoyable in the same genre.
I love you
But when you're gone
There'll be Nothing else
I'll be all alone
All alone
It's more Plague Tale!.. for better or for worse. I might as well start off with what makes it good, and there's defintiely some weight there. Plague Tale: Requiem is a whole lot more "serious" than its predecessor in that its a darker and more depraved game, which in theory doesn't make any media "better" but with a topic as traumatically heavy as the Black Plague, I think is necessary. Requiem doesn't shy away from death in its most cruel and encroaching forms. Characters close to Amicia and Hugo will perish, entire populations will vanish, and the two constantly weigh the consequences of their actions and quest to right the proverbial ship. The game doesn't only do this through the story, but with the backgrounds and environments that the two travel through. After spending much of the first game in Guyenne, the growing party spend much of Requiem in transit. While many of these locations are luscious at first, thanks to some amazing environmental work by Asobo, they quickly descend into dilapidated warzones dripping with plague-borne ooze and despair. I think this allowed me to get more emotionally invested in the game than its predecessor, I found myself groaning less at the dialogue/conversations because I was consistently grossed out by what I was looking at, which is a good thing. Overall I think characters were written much better; Hugo was way less annoying than in the first game, Lucas was actually fun to be around, Arnaud plays a good guardian, and Amicia leans in to the derangement necessary to defeat the evil at hand. While I'm not a fan of Amicia's voice actress, the writing of her character made her a very compelling sibling protagonist.
The story was also quite good in Requiem, though I don't think it (nor Ragnarok) should have been nominated for this at the game awards. Ultimately the themes don't get too deep, other than trying to find a cure for Hugo and defeating the Plague Rat issue, but The Last of Us didn't get too deep either outside of being a story more about humans against humans. I'm not trying to compare the two, because The Last of Us 1 is nearly a flawless game, but I think the commonality in a worldwide destructive illness and how humans react to it tie the two's stories, rather than being more philosophical. Plague Tale 2's narrative jumps around a bit and has some fairly obvious twists, but I found it compelling enough to see it all the way through the end, because it was satiating enough and the writing of characters made me kind of want to see their resolutions.
Now it may read that I was more favorable on the game than I was with Innocence, which is true to a point but there were a number of things not improved from first title to sequel. The first being the combat, it's still really bad... it's samey and motonous and any fighting involving the sling and crossbow take waaaaaaaay too long. If you're being attacked by multiple characters, it's effectively just a kite simulator in which you have to find an impediment to enemy movement, run five steps away, throw a sling, run five steps away, repeat. Even though you can upgrade the sling motion (which was hard because the game doesn't regularily give you enough resources to do this,) it's not enough to give you any flow to fighting. Amicia still has to rev it up and watch as the enemies run a little too fast at her, often times requiring other ammo types to defeat. This was also annoying, and ultimately was my problem with Scarlet Nexus (I bet you didn't think I'd include that here.) In Requiem, much like Scarlet Nexus, the player is given a ton of tools for defeating the enemies. But this is a guise to hide enemy variety, because just like with SN each of these concoctions made by Lucas are used for a certain enemy type. This means that the player doesn't really have agency to how they want to fight (which is key in gaming) but just has to match the type of alchemical item to whatever enemy is running at them, that got annoying and always will in games.
Another issue I had with Requiem, that I also had recently with GoW: Ragnarok, is the just constant puzzling for absolutely no reason. I'm staunchly anti-puzzle, but I can excuse it in games like Resident Evil or Zelda where they make it flow well enough with the game or encourage the player to succeed through self-discovery. Requiem's puzzles are just there... they're not hard, they're not fun, they're just there, and are EVERYWHERE. You're rarely given a hint, and the obnoxiousness of the puzzles being there just to pack in gametime only frustrated me throughout the narratively intense moments in the story.
Requiem was also rather buggy with enemy movement, often times if you were about to exit an area after sneaking through a plethora of guards and had alerted just one, they would teleport through a wall and stop you. I get that the devs wanted you to "sneak the right way" by either taking out all the guards or getting through undetected, but it got annoying how often I was penalized from reaching the objective while an alarm was raised. Maybe there's a "git gud" here but I found it far more annoying than not.
While A Plague Tale: Requiem is exactly what I was looking for Innocence's sequel narratively speaking, the constant puzzling for the sake of puzzling and lack of improvement to combat is not enough to warrant a higher rating. I wouldn't recommend Plague Tale as a series, but if you want a story taking place in a unique period in gaming (The Hundred Years War/Black Plague,) maybe you should start the under twenty hour A Plague Tale: Requiem
But when you're gone
There'll be Nothing else
I'll be all alone
All alone
It's more Plague Tale!.. for better or for worse. I might as well start off with what makes it good, and there's defintiely some weight there. Plague Tale: Requiem is a whole lot more "serious" than its predecessor in that its a darker and more depraved game, which in theory doesn't make any media "better" but with a topic as traumatically heavy as the Black Plague, I think is necessary. Requiem doesn't shy away from death in its most cruel and encroaching forms. Characters close to Amicia and Hugo will perish, entire populations will vanish, and the two constantly weigh the consequences of their actions and quest to right the proverbial ship. The game doesn't only do this through the story, but with the backgrounds and environments that the two travel through. After spending much of the first game in Guyenne, the growing party spend much of Requiem in transit. While many of these locations are luscious at first, thanks to some amazing environmental work by Asobo, they quickly descend into dilapidated warzones dripping with plague-borne ooze and despair. I think this allowed me to get more emotionally invested in the game than its predecessor, I found myself groaning less at the dialogue/conversations because I was consistently grossed out by what I was looking at, which is a good thing. Overall I think characters were written much better; Hugo was way less annoying than in the first game, Lucas was actually fun to be around, Arnaud plays a good guardian, and Amicia leans in to the derangement necessary to defeat the evil at hand. While I'm not a fan of Amicia's voice actress, the writing of her character made her a very compelling sibling protagonist.
The story was also quite good in Requiem, though I don't think it (nor Ragnarok) should have been nominated for this at the game awards. Ultimately the themes don't get too deep, other than trying to find a cure for Hugo and defeating the Plague Rat issue, but The Last of Us didn't get too deep either outside of being a story more about humans against humans. I'm not trying to compare the two, because The Last of Us 1 is nearly a flawless game, but I think the commonality in a worldwide destructive illness and how humans react to it tie the two's stories, rather than being more philosophical. Plague Tale 2's narrative jumps around a bit and has some fairly obvious twists, but I found it compelling enough to see it all the way through the end, because it was satiating enough and the writing of characters made me kind of want to see their resolutions.
Now it may read that I was more favorable on the game than I was with Innocence, which is true to a point but there were a number of things not improved from first title to sequel. The first being the combat, it's still really bad... it's samey and motonous and any fighting involving the sling and crossbow take waaaaaaaay too long. If you're being attacked by multiple characters, it's effectively just a kite simulator in which you have to find an impediment to enemy movement, run five steps away, throw a sling, run five steps away, repeat. Even though you can upgrade the sling motion (which was hard because the game doesn't regularily give you enough resources to do this,) it's not enough to give you any flow to fighting. Amicia still has to rev it up and watch as the enemies run a little too fast at her, often times requiring other ammo types to defeat. This was also annoying, and ultimately was my problem with Scarlet Nexus (I bet you didn't think I'd include that here.) In Requiem, much like Scarlet Nexus, the player is given a ton of tools for defeating the enemies. But this is a guise to hide enemy variety, because just like with SN each of these concoctions made by Lucas are used for a certain enemy type. This means that the player doesn't really have agency to how they want to fight (which is key in gaming) but just has to match the type of alchemical item to whatever enemy is running at them, that got annoying and always will in games.
Another issue I had with Requiem, that I also had recently with GoW: Ragnarok, is the just constant puzzling for absolutely no reason. I'm staunchly anti-puzzle, but I can excuse it in games like Resident Evil or Zelda where they make it flow well enough with the game or encourage the player to succeed through self-discovery. Requiem's puzzles are just there... they're not hard, they're not fun, they're just there, and are EVERYWHERE. You're rarely given a hint, and the obnoxiousness of the puzzles being there just to pack in gametime only frustrated me throughout the narratively intense moments in the story.
Requiem was also rather buggy with enemy movement, often times if you were about to exit an area after sneaking through a plethora of guards and had alerted just one, they would teleport through a wall and stop you. I get that the devs wanted you to "sneak the right way" by either taking out all the guards or getting through undetected, but it got annoying how often I was penalized from reaching the objective while an alarm was raised. Maybe there's a "git gud" here but I found it far more annoying than not.
While A Plague Tale: Requiem is exactly what I was looking for Innocence's sequel narratively speaking, the constant puzzling for the sake of puzzling and lack of improvement to combat is not enough to warrant a higher rating. I wouldn't recommend Plague Tale as a series, but if you want a story taking place in a unique period in gaming (The Hundred Years War/Black Plague,) maybe you should start the under twenty hour A Plague Tale: Requiem
New York City Simulator.
A Plague Tale: Innocence is an alright game, though it feels a litte more dated than the release date shows and the reason being that the combat is so... not good. Most of this game is a sneaking/light puzzle solving type beat through some extremely grotesque and downright horrifying locales, which on paper is alright but the manner of solving said roadblocks feels very samey. There isn't a whole lot of storytelling, thus I have a hard time supporiting or falling in love with the narrative, but Asobo does a phenomenal job in creating a devestatingly dark world in which fear rules over all humanity. The worldbuilding of Plague Tale is its strongest element, demonstrating how painfully crushing life during the Medival Times of the Black Plague really were. No character, whether main party or not, felt happy or positive in the face of the world around them really at any point in the story. This may sound silly but its evident of a job well done in making the reaction to how terrifying the game's events truly are.
In all, Plague Tale Innocence's combat/puzzling were just a little too monotonous and dated for this game to deliver on its ambitious vision. There really are a lot of rats... previews I saw of this game certainly did that part justice, and sometimes it gets a little grating to see roadblocks and deus ex machina occur because "lol rats." While those elements take the game down a few notches, the dank and disturbed world paired with an equally frightening soundtrack craft a unique and powerful (not quite authentic) experience through the darkest trenches in human history.
I'd recommend this to people who are looking for a great bite sized (ten hour) experience that doesn't require mechanical skill with a solid enough story. I hope A Plague Tale: Requiem is able to rectify on the issues I had with Innocence.
A Plague Tale: Innocence is an alright game, though it feels a litte more dated than the release date shows and the reason being that the combat is so... not good. Most of this game is a sneaking/light puzzle solving type beat through some extremely grotesque and downright horrifying locales, which on paper is alright but the manner of solving said roadblocks feels very samey. There isn't a whole lot of storytelling, thus I have a hard time supporiting or falling in love with the narrative, but Asobo does a phenomenal job in creating a devestatingly dark world in which fear rules over all humanity. The worldbuilding of Plague Tale is its strongest element, demonstrating how painfully crushing life during the Medival Times of the Black Plague really were. No character, whether main party or not, felt happy or positive in the face of the world around them really at any point in the story. This may sound silly but its evident of a job well done in making the reaction to how terrifying the game's events truly are.
In all, Plague Tale Innocence's combat/puzzling were just a little too monotonous and dated for this game to deliver on its ambitious vision. There really are a lot of rats... previews I saw of this game certainly did that part justice, and sometimes it gets a little grating to see roadblocks and deus ex machina occur because "lol rats." While those elements take the game down a few notches, the dank and disturbed world paired with an equally frightening soundtrack craft a unique and powerful (not quite authentic) experience through the darkest trenches in human history.
I'd recommend this to people who are looking for a great bite sized (ten hour) experience that doesn't require mechanical skill with a solid enough story. I hope A Plague Tale: Requiem is able to rectify on the issues I had with Innocence.
2022
Awooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
The Quarry is honestly, to me, a less interesting and less funny version of Until Dawn, but that kind of gave it some charm? I feel like this dev will pretty much always be chasing the shadow of their first game, whose breakthrough Choose Your Own Adventure in a video game form was something fairly new and refreshing for gaming with the amount of effort put into it. The Quarry's premise is functionally something that I'm not really interested in, which was probably and unfairly my first gripe with the game's story and atmosphere. I've never been into the summer camp-horror genre aesthetic that something like Friday the 13th is all about, but I think it could be saved for me with some good character writing and a good narrative, but the Quarry was certainly not that.
Characters drive these kinds of games and Until Dawn nailed it with having the bizarre and distrubed Rami Malek lead and a supremely cringe supporting cast. The Quarry is decidedly cringe in its casting, but I didn't feel like there were a lot of people that were too compelling. I just kinda felt indifferent to a lot of characters that were written to feel "relatable" to zoomers and gamers of that age group. Ryan and his "podcasts" got old real quick, Jacob's "Chad-bro" attitude got grating pretty fast, and the cop's inability to explain literally anything that was going on was surely something. Of all the characters I came away with good takeaways on it was pretty much just Dylan, who was effortlessly sarcastic the entire journey, and Abigail who I just felt bad for. Like I mentioned, these kinds of games live and die by their characters and they were sort of perfect for a game like this, for the most part. The adolescent cringe was alright, but some of the blatant failure to adhere to basic logic (like Kaitlyn being the only person qualified to use a gun yet giving it up to others in the party at a pivotal moment) left me throwing up my hands in a confused pose.
In all, I wasn't into the games aesthetic too much and the cringe characters mostly succeeded in their cringe but fell flat in other parts of it. The story was alright at best, but the twists weren't too twisty and the surprise of this franchise has already been done best in Until Dawn. Casting was mostly pretty good, shoutout to my fellow Michiganders in Ted Raimi and Lin Shaye, but Justice Smith's Ryan just sounded... bored at pretty much every opportunity he had to speak. I also felt like the ending just more or less happened, and that was it. I think I got a "good" ending in the way I resolved the last few chapters but it didn't feel gratifying in the way that my multiple Until Dawn playthroughs did.
If I were to recommend this game, it should definitely be purchased on sale and should be played with a crowd (like I played it.) It's fun to make these decisions as a group and make fun of characters to give some added humour to the game.
The Quarry is honestly, to me, a less interesting and less funny version of Until Dawn, but that kind of gave it some charm? I feel like this dev will pretty much always be chasing the shadow of their first game, whose breakthrough Choose Your Own Adventure in a video game form was something fairly new and refreshing for gaming with the amount of effort put into it. The Quarry's premise is functionally something that I'm not really interested in, which was probably and unfairly my first gripe with the game's story and atmosphere. I've never been into the summer camp-horror genre aesthetic that something like Friday the 13th is all about, but I think it could be saved for me with some good character writing and a good narrative, but the Quarry was certainly not that.
Characters drive these kinds of games and Until Dawn nailed it with having the bizarre and distrubed Rami Malek lead and a supremely cringe supporting cast. The Quarry is decidedly cringe in its casting, but I didn't feel like there were a lot of people that were too compelling. I just kinda felt indifferent to a lot of characters that were written to feel "relatable" to zoomers and gamers of that age group. Ryan and his "podcasts" got old real quick, Jacob's "Chad-bro" attitude got grating pretty fast, and the cop's inability to explain literally anything that was going on was surely something. Of all the characters I came away with good takeaways on it was pretty much just Dylan, who was effortlessly sarcastic the entire journey, and Abigail who I just felt bad for. Like I mentioned, these kinds of games live and die by their characters and they were sort of perfect for a game like this, for the most part. The adolescent cringe was alright, but some of the blatant failure to adhere to basic logic (like Kaitlyn being the only person qualified to use a gun yet giving it up to others in the party at a pivotal moment) left me throwing up my hands in a confused pose.
In all, I wasn't into the games aesthetic too much and the cringe characters mostly succeeded in their cringe but fell flat in other parts of it. The story was alright at best, but the twists weren't too twisty and the surprise of this franchise has already been done best in Until Dawn. Casting was mostly pretty good, shoutout to my fellow Michiganders in Ted Raimi and Lin Shaye, but Justice Smith's Ryan just sounded... bored at pretty much every opportunity he had to speak. I also felt like the ending just more or less happened, and that was it. I think I got a "good" ending in the way I resolved the last few chapters but it didn't feel gratifying in the way that my multiple Until Dawn playthroughs did.
If I were to recommend this game, it should definitely be purchased on sale and should be played with a crowd (like I played it.) It's fun to make these decisions as a group and make fun of characters to give some added humour to the game.