This is one of those games where you have to spend a good amount of time learning it. I only gave it a few hours but it was rough:
- no control diagram (at least on ps4). Would have been helpful to know which button activates item 1 or item 2 or the bomb.
- items don’t have any explanations when you collect them or even after a run. If you exit your run, you can only see a picture of the item in the menu (no name either). Makes it hard to know what each item does for a game with 500 of them. You can figure out some by their name but some are obscure.
- For example, I was fighting a boss and I was teleporting out of the boss room sometimes when I got hit (and resetting the boss health every time). I thought it was the boss effect but after a google search it turns out I picked up some “cursed” item that has random teleport effect on me IF I’m charging my attack. Never would have figured that out on my own.

I can safely say this game is not for me. I would have to give up a lot of hours to even scratch the surface of the game by myself without an online guide. I understand the original game is quite old but this is the “Rebirth”-ed version. I get the game design of not explaining an item during a run but I should be able to see what an item does in the menu AFTER I have died with it or completed the run. Thanks for reading my rant lol.

No story spoilers here. I don’t like how some of the really important decisions (1) happen at the end of the game (2) are given VERY little reaction time to decide and (3) cannot undo the most recent choice when accidentally made. Actually, AFTER you beat the whole game you unlock the ability to undo choices (I wish it was available during my first and only play through).

I wanted to go back and make different choices, especially toward some crucial moments near the end of the game but you have to replay the entire chapter and I can’t just pick based on my encounters. For example, Uncharted 4 allows you to replay specific encounters; I wish this game would allow that because some chapters are really long and I don’t want to slog through all the dialogue again.

Pros: this can be a fun game to play with a friend or 2. More fun together to laugh at/diss the dialogue or the characters. The accessibility options are great for people who never play games since you can max out most of the time stuff (make sure you do because the game sometimes expect you to make a decision within 2 seconds). I had to google the good ending because it’s nearly impossible to get that on your first try.

Features very challenging puzzles. Some of the puzzles will be impossible if you play with volume off or are color blind. (If I was color blind, I would skip the game; good amount of puzzles involve ability to work with color). Try not to just look up a solution if the puzzle is too hard. Try to explore different part of the island and come back to it later. I used the screenshot feature a lot to remember some puzzles I couldn’t solve yet.

The reason why I don’t give it 5 stars is because some of the puzzles just seem like trial and error until you get what it’s trying to do. For example, puzzle 1 is simple to understand. But puzzle 2 or 3 could add a new element to the puzzle that makes it harder (but it’s not easy to guess). This game has lots of Easter eggs and I had a good time.

The game seems better than the first. It’s lighter in terms of story and mood, and the drone / RC car make the game more fun to experiment different play style.

Story: average plot but the characters were fun and quirky. There were some moments where a character says something like “Hackers love a challenge”. But he wasn’t trying to be funny, and comes of cringe.

Gameplay: between the drone, RC car and the main character, it was confusing to know what to use to hack. For example, the drone can hack somethings but not all. For physical hacks, the drone can’t do it (RC car or Marcus can). Sometimes, even the RC car can’t hack (for cutscene reasons) and Marcus has to go there himself. The problem is that the game doesn’t tell you always when Marcus is required to be there or not, so sometimes all that sneaking around in the RC car means nothing.

This game has one of the most challenging (but fair) platforming of all time. Too bad some of the hard stuff is hidden behind collectibles.

I had a lot of fun with this game. The story levels were great and not that hard (which is expected). Some of the challenge levels were BRUTAL. To the point where your fingers might get sore if you played an hour or 2. Often, I would get stuck in these level and frustrated but then take a break. I would try again tomorrow and somehow easily get the part of the level I was stuck on from the day before.

The sound track has variation (from energetic to sad, depending on the story). Story is fine and writing is good. Gameplay is what defines this game tho. Great controls.

Played on the hardest difficulty but also scales your damage too (Brutal). Enjoyed the nemesis system a lot, died a bunch in the beginning. Seriously, some of the more memorable quotes were when grunts killed me and made a short speech, like the “Tark Slayer” guy. The combat is fun but feels unfair rarely; even with maxed out armor near the end game I can still die in 1-2 hits, just like I did when I started the game.

I didn’t finish the epilogue because there’s a lot of doing the same stuff over and over again but with higher level enemies and randomized loot. It started feeling monotonous, but everything else before the epilogue was fun.