ardorblossomstar
2017
Really loved this game. Might write a full review at a later date but this one really is special.
This review contains spoilers
Contains spoilers for the full story.
Narrative excellence. Red Dead Redemption 2 tells the deeply emotional story of a band of thieves and killers in the end days of the old west. The game's story isn't just about the end of the Van der Linde Gang, it's about kindness to the world and people around you. It's about making things right at the end of a poorly led life. It's about choosing to believe in something bigger than yourself, and laying your life down for those you love. It’s about rejecting toxic notions of masculinity displayed by characters like Dutch and Micah. It’s about becoming a better person, and how we’re all capable of being better.
Arthur Morgan's redemption tale is one of the most sincere arcs I've experienced in a video game. Following a diagnosis of Tuberculosis (a death sentence at the time) he has his worldview shaken, now aware of his own fleeting mortality. One scene that really affected me is a scene towards the end of the game where Arthur talks with Sister Calderón, who he had helped earlier in the game. He confesses that he’s dying and discusses his life and the choices he’s made with her. After a moment of silence, Arthur says two words. “I’m afraid.” This moment deeply resonated with me. It’s all too common to see strong masculine characters who act stoic in the face of death and it’s never explored deeper than that. And to see a character, a man as stoic as Arthur Morgan break down and admit he’s scared is haunting. Another moment was the final ride back to camp, where That’s The Way It Is plays. I have to admit I broke down into tears during this sequence.
The gameplay serves the story as well, the lonesome feeling of riding through the country to your next destination, maybe hunting an animal along the way for food helps to build an atmosphere of a world that’s not ready to move on. The remnants of pre-industrial America feel wild and untamed, and then you go to Saint Dennis and you notice how modern the whole city is. It’s really interesting to exist inside of the game’s world as a fictionalized slice of American history.
The mission design is a bit samey, and at times underwhelming. But it kept my attention fine enough that I didn’t care much. I was always here for the story first and foremost and the story delivered. The characters other than Arthur are fantastic too. Witnessing Dutch’s descent into insanity was heartbreaking. The way he keeps lying to and manipulating those around him further and further leading to the pointless, sad deaths of those around him.
I don’t think I would say Red Dead Redemption 2 is the greatest game of all time like some have, but it’s definitely up there. It’s crafted on a level of care and dedication comparable to the giants of the medium and tells a story on par with the best in film and television. One of the best games of the 2010s and probably the best game of 2018.
Narrative excellence. Red Dead Redemption 2 tells the deeply emotional story of a band of thieves and killers in the end days of the old west. The game's story isn't just about the end of the Van der Linde Gang, it's about kindness to the world and people around you. It's about making things right at the end of a poorly led life. It's about choosing to believe in something bigger than yourself, and laying your life down for those you love. It’s about rejecting toxic notions of masculinity displayed by characters like Dutch and Micah. It’s about becoming a better person, and how we’re all capable of being better.
Arthur Morgan's redemption tale is one of the most sincere arcs I've experienced in a video game. Following a diagnosis of Tuberculosis (a death sentence at the time) he has his worldview shaken, now aware of his own fleeting mortality. One scene that really affected me is a scene towards the end of the game where Arthur talks with Sister Calderón, who he had helped earlier in the game. He confesses that he’s dying and discusses his life and the choices he’s made with her. After a moment of silence, Arthur says two words. “I’m afraid.” This moment deeply resonated with me. It’s all too common to see strong masculine characters who act stoic in the face of death and it’s never explored deeper than that. And to see a character, a man as stoic as Arthur Morgan break down and admit he’s scared is haunting. Another moment was the final ride back to camp, where That’s The Way It Is plays. I have to admit I broke down into tears during this sequence.
The gameplay serves the story as well, the lonesome feeling of riding through the country to your next destination, maybe hunting an animal along the way for food helps to build an atmosphere of a world that’s not ready to move on. The remnants of pre-industrial America feel wild and untamed, and then you go to Saint Dennis and you notice how modern the whole city is. It’s really interesting to exist inside of the game’s world as a fictionalized slice of American history.
The mission design is a bit samey, and at times underwhelming. But it kept my attention fine enough that I didn’t care much. I was always here for the story first and foremost and the story delivered. The characters other than Arthur are fantastic too. Witnessing Dutch’s descent into insanity was heartbreaking. The way he keeps lying to and manipulating those around him further and further leading to the pointless, sad deaths of those around him.
I don’t think I would say Red Dead Redemption 2 is the greatest game of all time like some have, but it’s definitely up there. It’s crafted on a level of care and dedication comparable to the giants of the medium and tells a story on par with the best in film and television. One of the best games of the 2010s and probably the best game of 2018.
this game sucks but damn its fun with the boys
You will not forget this devil's power...
2023
Maybe the first game to truly master the concept of rhythm meeting action. Hi-Fi Rush constantly feels amazing to play with an endearing cast of characters and surprisingly emotional story. Played on Game Pass but I'm definitely gonna double dip and pick this one up on Steam at some point. It's like the best parts of Metal Gear Rising with none of the baggage and some of its own flair. Just a purely fun game from start to end. I'm honestly shocked Bethesda didn't think this was worth advertising at all. It's absolutely worth your time and even if you're not a fan of rhythm games I'd still give it a go.
EDIT: Apparently the lack of announcement and marketing was Tango Gameworks' choice. They wanted to shock people with such a radically different title coming from them and they definitely delivered. Fantastic game all around. Probably gonna be one of if not the best of the year.
EDIT: Apparently the lack of announcement and marketing was Tango Gameworks' choice. They wanted to shock people with such a radically different title coming from them and they definitely delivered. Fantastic game all around. Probably gonna be one of if not the best of the year.
2013
This game is honestly terrible. The gameplay is passable but so dumbed down from the Capcom DMC entries that it ends up being more confusing to play. The lack of manual lock on (which was fixed in the PS4/Xbox One verison of the game, but that was never ported to PC) is attrocious. Apparently someone at Ninja Theory decided a dodge roll was more important? Hey genius, these games already have a dodging mechanic. It's called jumping. The choice to map this action to the bumpers gets even further in the way when it replaces the intuitive and easy to press Devil Trigger button with the annoying action of clicking both sticks, which in my experience didn't work a lot of the time. And removing directional inputs in favor of a two button combat system was absolutely not worth losing styles for. It turns simple actions like Stinger and High Time into things you actively have to think about. The new weapons are decent enough, the angelic ones anyway. The scythe is pretty cool and the shurikens are super nice at crowd control. The demonic ones just feel bad, the axe is slow and useless and the fists just feel like a worse version of Ifrit/Beowulf/Take your pick of a DMC fist weapon theyre all pretty similar. The enemies are annoying and uninspired, and oftentimes very frustrating to fight especially with the stupid color coding mechanic. The environments are extremely generic 2013 AAA video game ArtStation urban hellscape tripe and I don't get why they're put forward as one of the things this game "got right."
And the story is so weirdly pretentious. It tries to go for They Live but comes off as a 14 year old Twitter user's "wake up sheeple, we live in a society" posts. And the bosses are all super boring. They're literally all a matter of beating up the guy until you can do an action, or doing an action so you can beat up the guy. There isn't any variety. The ONLY decent boss here is Vergil, who pales in comparison to his DMC3 counterpart. He's far too easy. He should have more health and be far more aggressive. But I guess that would've been alienating to the casual dudebro gamer audience that they were trying to attract with this game huh. Speaking of which, fuck Dante and Vergil in this game. Dante is a tryhard edgelord who's occasionally funny, only due to the absurdity of what Ninja Theory thought was "cool." And Vergil goes from cool, cold, and principled to a weird creepy fascist manipulator who sits on the sidelines and pretends to be the good guy until the game suddenly remembers he's a villain. Not to mention all the weird misogyny in this game. I wouldn't call Devil May Cry a paragon of feminism, not at all. But at least the Capcom titles don't mistreat their female characters THIS badly. This game quite literally has you trading women as objects and beating up a pregnant woman as a boss. Not to mention the fucking sniper rifle abortion Vergil does shortly thereafter (but I think everyone knows about that).
DMC2 might be the worst game of all time, but I honestly respect it more than I respect this. At least that game was an attempt at fucking something. Anything. And for a game made in 4 months under severe constraints, It could have been unbelievably worse. This game had everything going for it and is still awful. You may notice I gave it a higher score than DMC2 and that's only because it works better on a technical level. That's the only reason. Just skip this one, unless you want to see for yourself what good parts of it were used in DMC5 (credit where credit is due, there is a fair bit.)
And the story is so weirdly pretentious. It tries to go for They Live but comes off as a 14 year old Twitter user's "wake up sheeple, we live in a society" posts. And the bosses are all super boring. They're literally all a matter of beating up the guy until you can do an action, or doing an action so you can beat up the guy. There isn't any variety. The ONLY decent boss here is Vergil, who pales in comparison to his DMC3 counterpart. He's far too easy. He should have more health and be far more aggressive. But I guess that would've been alienating to the casual dudebro gamer audience that they were trying to attract with this game huh. Speaking of which, fuck Dante and Vergil in this game. Dante is a tryhard edgelord who's occasionally funny, only due to the absurdity of what Ninja Theory thought was "cool." And Vergil goes from cool, cold, and principled to a weird creepy fascist manipulator who sits on the sidelines and pretends to be the good guy until the game suddenly remembers he's a villain. Not to mention all the weird misogyny in this game. I wouldn't call Devil May Cry a paragon of feminism, not at all. But at least the Capcom titles don't mistreat their female characters THIS badly. This game quite literally has you trading women as objects and beating up a pregnant woman as a boss. Not to mention the fucking sniper rifle abortion Vergil does shortly thereafter (but I think everyone knows about that).
DMC2 might be the worst game of all time, but I honestly respect it more than I respect this. At least that game was an attempt at fucking something. Anything. And for a game made in 4 months under severe constraints, It could have been unbelievably worse. This game had everything going for it and is still awful. You may notice I gave it a higher score than DMC2 and that's only because it works better on a technical level. That's the only reason. Just skip this one, unless you want to see for yourself what good parts of it were used in DMC5 (credit where credit is due, there is a fair bit.)
2001
This game actually grew on me a bit on a replay. It's still a bit clunky but I understand it more now. Mundus is still a very strange and not very good final boss but I respect how bold the shmup section is. Also Nightmare is way easier when you know how to cheese him with Ifrit's charged attacks. Definitely an all time classic but I couldn't say I would blame anyone for skipping to DMC3. If you do though, come back to this one some time. It still has some fun challenge and some of the best atmosphere DMC has to offer.
2022
#JBMODSWEEP #YEAROFTHEJBMOD
The difference between this game and RE7 is Scary vs Spooky. I think this one is a bit more fun as a Video Game so I'll give it an extra point for that
2022
this game has some of the worst matchmaking ever I swear
2016
this game is better than doom eternal
2003
As someone who is very close to platinuming this game, you do not get to tell me DMC2 "isn't that bad" or "is better than most bad games." Fuck you. DMC2 isn't just a terrible game, it's probably the worst video game of all time (that isn't low hanging fruit like Big Rigs, Superman, etc.) Nothing in this stupid-ass video game works or responds in any way you'd think it would. And when you combine that with some of the worst boss design the series, nay the genre or perhaps the medium you get a garbage pile of an unplayable mess of a game. Play DMC2 on Dante Must Die and tell me you think this game "isn't that bad."
I don't blame anyone who worked on this game for how bad it is. I understand the circumstances they were under. But DMC2 would just be forgettable trash if it wasn't preceded by the game that pioneered the entire action game genre as we know it today and succeeded by the greatest action game of all time. And if you're wondering "well Backloggd user lunaterra, if you hate DMC2 this much then why are you spending so much time platinuming it?" Well, the answer is my masochistic tendencies in regards to video games mostly. And also because I wanted to 100% the whole DMC series and I know that if I didn't do DMC2 first I would never do it. Am I insane? Perhaps. But what's more insane is that Capcom saw this game and thought "Yep, this is acceptable." and not "Holy shit, this is literally worse than smallpox we need a delay." But DMC2 sold like two million copies so I guess they were vindicated ¯\(ツ)/¯
I don't blame anyone who worked on this game for how bad it is. I understand the circumstances they were under. But DMC2 would just be forgettable trash if it wasn't preceded by the game that pioneered the entire action game genre as we know it today and succeeded by the greatest action game of all time. And if you're wondering "well Backloggd user lunaterra, if you hate DMC2 this much then why are you spending so much time platinuming it?" Well, the answer is my masochistic tendencies in regards to video games mostly. And also because I wanted to 100% the whole DMC series and I know that if I didn't do DMC2 first I would never do it. Am I insane? Perhaps. But what's more insane is that Capcom saw this game and thought "Yep, this is acceptable." and not "Holy shit, this is literally worse than smallpox we need a delay." But DMC2 sold like two million copies so I guess they were vindicated ¯\(ツ)/¯
2020
This review is outdated. I'm choosing to leave it up for the sake of preserving my previous opinion on it. My current review can be found at the following link:
https://www.backloggd.com/u/ardorblossomstar/review/1094005/
fun to goof around in but ultimately pretty shallow, especially as an rpg. I wish this game actually had dialogue options rather than railroading you into a specific character. of course, there are multiple endings but you can't really make v a fundamentally different person on your way towards them which sucks super hard. it's kind of sad that new vegas did the whole thing better 10 years ago. yes, that game is far less detailed than cyberpunk but y'know what? less is more sometimes and new vegas actually ends up feeling like more a lot of the time. I see it the same way I see telltale games. role playing games aren't about getting radically different outcomes, but rather the kind of person you choose to be on your way there. this game has too much going on in all the wrong places and not enough time was spent on any of it. no amount of post launch updates can redeem an underwhelming main quest and cyberpunk definitely does not whelm.
https://www.backloggd.com/u/ardorblossomstar/review/1094005/
fun to goof around in but ultimately pretty shallow, especially as an rpg. I wish this game actually had dialogue options rather than railroading you into a specific character. of course, there are multiple endings but you can't really make v a fundamentally different person on your way towards them which sucks super hard. it's kind of sad that new vegas did the whole thing better 10 years ago. yes, that game is far less detailed than cyberpunk but y'know what? less is more sometimes and new vegas actually ends up feeling like more a lot of the time. I see it the same way I see telltale games. role playing games aren't about getting radically different outcomes, but rather the kind of person you choose to be on your way there. this game has too much going on in all the wrong places and not enough time was spent on any of it. no amount of post launch updates can redeem an underwhelming main quest and cyberpunk definitely does not whelm.
2011
zoinks
It's kind of funny what sincere care for the mythos of a character can do for an adaptation. Beyond being a blast to play this game also tells one of the best Spider-Man stories. Everyone hates the stealth sections so I won't get into that but most everything else is seriously such a nice experience to play that really shows what cinematic games can be if they focus on being games first.