for the first several hours, i was very frustrated with this game mainly due to my stubbornness in playing overly defensive. enter the lady butterfly and genichiro boss fights, which breathed a new life into my experience with this game. i learned to read enemies' attack patterns, parry everything, and pick and choose my opportunities carefully. having just taken down the monstrous final boss last night, i feel like ive climbed a mountain i once thought insurmountable. i genuinely feel that my skill level in games overall has gotten a bit better because of this game. this probably has the most satisfying combat ive ever experienced in a game, amazing visuals, great music and sound design, a good story, and epic enemy and boss designs. however, a couple of points in the game were very annoying/had obtuse solutions like the second snake encounter in the cave, or were underwhelming, like the folding screen monkeys fight. also while it didnt affect me much i think dragonrot is one of the dumbest design choices in a game ever as it only serves as a slap in the face to new players trying to get upgrades - i say this because you unlock the ability to get rid of it about 1/4 of the way into the game. that said, i found myself occasionally redoing some of the boss fights just for fun even after i finished the main story, and any game that can get me to do something like that earns a spot in my top tier. will be going for all achievements in the meantime.

the story is kind of a mess with villains that are not established well and some predictable writing. also the enemies' ability to detect you while you're trying to sneak up on them and do an instant 180 could be pretty frustrating sometimes. however the gameplay is pretty fun just like the first game and i enjoyed the environments and resource management (i played on nightmare so i did get really low on ammo sometimes). same appeal as the first game with the mindfucky flow of events and general design, which i greatly enjoyed, but i feel that some of the set pieces and boss fights could have been more striking as they didn't invoke the same sense of terror as the first game

i dont know if i can say anything about this game that hasnt already been said. its movement took me some time to get down, but its the best out of any platformer ive ever played because theres so many cool things you can do and it feels so snappy. it is ridiculously fun to blast through the levels, and mastering each one for the p ranks is a good challenge and is the most fun ive had with a platformer in many years. the definition of go crazy go stupid. its a work of creative genius, its funny as hell, and has great music. honestly potential game of the decade

probably the scariest horror game ive ever played. even though fighting back against the enemies is a huge part of the game i was still scared of one lurking around every corner, and i was especially afraid of the baker family and the insane shit they would do. the story and characters are perfectly serviceable and dont take up too much screentime which is appreciated. the environment design and puzzle solving are great and not too cumbersome. i think the marguerite fight was kind of annoying and it was not obvious what you were supposed to do there, and the last few hours of the game were relatively weak in terms of the tension and scares, but man everything up until that point is 10/10 horror.

this game is very different from the first two, being more narrative-driven and having much more open areas to explore, and what a breath of fresh air it is. has some of my absolute favorite environment designs in any video game. there are so many places to check out and things to loot which i could do for hours and hours. i played on hardcore, and while the human enemy AI wasn't any less dumb than it was in the first two games, you die in this game MUCH more quickly from gunshots which helped add a real sense of danger to most encounters. i died at least a few dozen times but never got hard stuck/frustrated, which i can really appreciate. my only real complaint has to do with the narrative structure: i like the central conflict just fine, and there's some emotional buildup surrounding it thanks to the presence of a main cast who you are with for the entire game (unlike the previous games), but the stories of the individual "arcs" are just okay and wasted their potential, especially the arcs with the slaves and the pioneers/pirates.

the feeling of being a scavenger in a broken, irradiated world is something i love about the metro series. the amount of detail and care put into creating the environments is second to none, and exploring them and seeing all kinds of dilapidated buildings and crazy shit makes for an immersive and oftentimes nightmarish experience. this being the first game in the series, it does have the weakest story and environment design, not to mention you have other NPCs attached to you for a good portion of the game, but it still nails the immersion, which is what i value most. human enemy AI was kinda dumb, but fighting the monsters was a good challenge at points.