A very competent tactical shooter that offers a more streamlined experience compared to its peers. The gunplay feels decent enough, and the squad based mechanics works well enough most of the time. On the harder difficulties you'll definitely appreciate your squadmates more, but be sure not to put too much trust on them, they're far from perfect. The AI pathing can be a bit iffy, and it can get too chaotic for them to properly help you. Other than the combat, there's a gritty and grounded story to look forward to, which adds a lot to the serious tactical feel of the game. I can't say the music or the levels themselves are too memorable. If you like slower paced shooters then this should be a good time.

I saw a random youtube gameplay clip of this game which initially caught my eye. It was gameplay of a boss battle that I thought looked pretty interesting. After finishing Xuan Yuan 7 I've come to realize that either the boss was omited from the game or I got the name of the game mixed up with something else.

Regardless XY7 is a pretty mediocre 3rd person action game that takes place in ancient China, where you play an adventureer on a quest to save his sister from death. A quick glance at the game and you might think "Oh man this looks like a low budget adventure game, that while graphicly looks better than the average low budget game and seems to have decent combat, at the right price point this could be harmless fun inbetween a bigger release" and while that is true to an extent, even with this mindset I ended feeling disapointed by this game. First it took two years to come to an acceptable price point IMO. Then after starting mid way through the real problems of the game start to sink in for me.

The biggest issue for me is pacing. There are lots of moments in XY7 where you are constantly being interupted for a cutscene that seems to go on forever where it's just straight character dialog about them talking really about nothing only to take a few steps and start another scene. It honestly felt more annoying than even MGS4. At least there I liked the actual scenes and felt like I actually gained something from them. About half way through the game I honestly just started skipping cutscenes, which is something I NEVER do on a first playthrough even in games I dislike because I hate the feeling of missing out on something but here I never really did. Added on top of the constant interuption there are long periods of running around empty maps for what seems like an eternity to go pick up something only to have to travel all the way back in empty corridors to return a quest item.

As for the gameplay it's as basic as it gets. One strong attack and one quick 4 hit combo. Mix and match ect. I'm okay with simplistic combat if the tools feel good and actually test you defensive and offensive abilities but every thing here is so stiff and easy. Enemies are either card board cut outs or damage sponges with no strategy. The block with the sword seems useless as you still take damage and it locks you in place. The dodge looks and sounds fast when you see it but in practice it's really clumsy and enemies seem to track it too well. So if it's not a perfect roll it doesn't help. Too many times it puts you in a more dangerous path or hits some background item and stops. There are some weapon upgrades for you and your auto attacking party members but weapons, armor and accessories cost a pretty penny and materials for just a minor stat upgrade. Never felt like it made a difference either way. Plus an annoying thing was the healing items cure so little health and they are on a cooldown timer. So if I need to stop and heal in a battle I have to stop attacking and just concentrate on healing a fraction of health and waiting for the cool down timer to use it again cause it gave me so little. Plus there are attack damage and defense buff that go on the same cooldown meter. So if I wanna buff myself up for a tough looking battle it takes forever before I can actually play use the damn things. Plus a lot of enemies on the story path deal poisen damage in the scripted battles. So now I have just healed waiting to heal again as my health ticks down pretty much negating my first potion useage. Great. You know what just fuck it and go all out, health be damned and ride or die and you will win most battles.

XY7 felt overly long and didn't have a whole lot to say. It's story was boring and uninteresting. Weird lore and background materials really don't help it at all either. Do they want a realistic backdrop or magic monster nonsense. Other games have done but much better. XY7 just seems like it does what it wants when it wants. Even with low expectations I still found my self disappointed in it. As for any positive comments for this game. Yea sure, for one it was an easy platinum and two the zhou lou chess mini game that you can play throughout was pretty damn good and was I think my favorite part of it unexpectedly. XY7 isn't the worst game I've played but it sure doesn't do anything to really meet the average baseline in similar games. Plus it really does feel it's budget at times with so many reused animations. Man just the amount of times you see that jump up a wall and hang with one arm on a ledge animation. The one time in the game where the character didn't do it I actually was legit shocked and jumped up for joy.

Platinum # 169

It feels weird to try and review one of my favorite games of all time - if Baldur’s Gate is the game of my childhood, the Souls games are certainly the games of my “modern” era - as there are so many feelings and thoughts and ideas just wrapped up and tangled on top of one another, like a giant ball of yarn that’s been growing for years. It becomes hard to unpack everything without turning either into rote descriptions of “I like X thing about game,” or spilling out saccharine word vomit and dumb shit like yarn ball metaphors and “modern gaming eras” escaping, when they should be locked up permanently. Regardless, I wanted to try and tackle the challenge of reviewing my favorites, or at least unpacking my experiences with them for myself, so here I am. I’m not going to go into some ontological or Derridean critique of Dark Souls. I think enough people have deconstructed this game for a lifetime. This is just my perspective on my experience with the game, all cliche and platitudes included.

For a long time, I didn’t really think I liked hard games. I grew up playing NES and all that, but I don’t really think that crossed my mind back then; I would gladly smash my head against something over and over without the thought of it being too hard. It was just the game. So when Dark Souls came out and all I ever heard about it was how hard it is and punishing and impossible, it was a definite no - I didn’t want a hard game, because, after all, I played games for fun. The games I enjoyed were all adventure and discovery, full of blasting enemies with magic, exploring fantastical worlds, and slicing my way through a story whether heroic or grim. None of these things were ever how Dark Souls was described to me, even by friends who loved the game, so I just ignored it and passed it off as something I would never play.

In late 2019, I saw a commercial for a game called Sekiro. I impulse bought it. I knew Sekiro was supposed to be a hard game, but it reminded me of the Tenchu games that I used to rent from Blockbuster as a kid and nostalgia won me over. It destroyed me, but I loved every second of it. I found out it was from the same people that made Dark Souls, and I finally decided that, what the hell, if I can beat Sekiro I can beat Dark Souls. So after a few months, I bought that too. Then I lost my job.

Compared to hours of LinkedIn and Indeed every day, I found that Dark Souls did not measure up in difficulty. It was my reprieve, and I devoured it. I huddled on my couch playing handheld on the Switch, well into the night almost every night. I could not put it down, and while, sure, I did find the game to be difficult, I approached it in the same way that I approached my NES games when I was a kid. I just took the game for what it was and ran with it. Shockingly, Dark Souls wasn’t just a combat simulator with reflex checks and hair-pulling moments - it was an adventure and a new world to explore, and I wanted to see and experience everything.

Obviously, looking back with hindsight, it’s easy for me to roll my eyes at myself being surprised or shocked by the game, seeing as exploration is one of the pillars of Dark Souls’ design, but I just didn’t know. I think that’s one of the things that made the game and experience so special to me, as I was just able to enjoy this gaming cultural behemoth without any of the white noise contamination that I have now. Everything was unexpected, and I was just able to connect with a new world on my own terms and at my own pace, making the entire experience an exercise in solitude and intimacy - further driven home by the same themes being woven throughout the landscape of Lordran and my time spent there. Immediate and total resonance with a piece of art or media is rare and one of the most powerful things a person can experience, and I guess, in a very crude way, that’s why I love the Souls games - they just make sense to my brain in almost every way. That isn’t to say I don’t have criticisms or flaws towards these games, on the contrary, the games I love most are the ones that I can be the hardest on. However, all those things fade away the moment I hear that haunting menu theme.

Had an absolutely wonderful time with this game. Although at it's core it's "just" a 3D adventure game, it has so many features unique (as far as I know) only to Tunic. Providing a digital game guide highly reminiscent of those found inside Game Boy games is cool. Having it written in a constructed language system so it's (at first) impossible to read, but possible to interpret is clever. Having the pages of this guide scattered throughout the world is genius. And it doesn't stop there, but in a game built of secrets it's more fun to let them stay secret.

I generally liked the combat, although I found that I had to rely on the most powerful weapons and lots and lots of dodging to get past the bosses, as parrying is not worth it most of the time (and can be a bit fidgety with the button combo requires). I also abandoned most of the unique weapons early on as they didn't quite hold up to the sword, and magic was extremely hard to come by, or requires saving up precious blue berries to try to consume mid-fight.

The ending (B ending) was refreshingly painless (unless you consider puzzles a pain but come on). I later watched someone complete the A ending and yeah wow, no thanks (for multiple reasons). I think the lore of the world is actually pretty remarkably compatible with the gameplay itself and was awesome to unravel. For example, the lore behind the Lost Echoes is quite interesting, and makes them an especially cool enemy concept.

And yeah, Tunic is absolutely beautiful. It plays on the isometric view so extremely well, the game simply wouldn't work any other way. I love the locations and the constant uneasy atmosphere that something taking place here is wrong.

So so so clever and wonderful. Probably my favorite game of 2022 as of yet.

Putting my thoughts down just after finishing so I won't forget.

Heartfelt, intricate, and full of life. Pentiment is built on meaningful discussions of purpose and truth and lets you find your way through it with as much control as I've ever seen in a game with as sturdy a plot as this. There is absolutely no way I saw even 50% of the content in this game, yet what I saw had as much effort you could expect from any other version of a well-polished game.

A game that values your time and rewards it, too. A story worth telling, a treasure.

WHY HAVE I PLAYED THIS GAME FOR 75+ HOURS!?
AND GOTTEN 100% ACHIEVEMENTS????

I didn't buy this for a long time because I thought it looked low-budget/lazy, visually, and repetitive, not to mention that the gameplay loop looked like that of one of probably 100s of free mobile games. Then I found the free demo version of it on itch.io. Played that for a bit, and enjoyed it, but it confirmed my suspicions. I got bored of it but kept having the hankering to go back and play it more, so I decided to buy it on Steam just to see what the full version had to offer. What the hell, it's $5 and I can get a refund on it if I don't like it.

The sheer amount of unlockable content immediately won me over. So many characters with different passives, so many secrets to explore, weapon combinations to discover, and characters to unlock. The progression in this game is perfect. You can unlock something new with nearly every run. It makes it so easy to just think "I'll unlock the next thing real fast", but then real fast turns into 4 half-hour runs.

Long story short, I decided to limit myself to 1 or 2 half-hour runs each day because otherwise I would just get way too sucked into it. I don't know if you can do the complicated math, but 75.5 hours does not divide evenly into .5 or 1 hour segments based on the number of days I've played VS. So what I'm trying to say is that I failed miserably, but had a great time.

Vampire Survivors brings back the exciting feeling of unlocking content by playing that is missing in games these days. I say confidently that it has nothing to do with nostalgia. There is just something incredibly exciting about having real, tangible, and rewarded goals while playing a game. VS and older games' unlock philosophy is "Have fun playing this game and your reward is to have more fun playing the game". Modern games' philosophy is "pay more to have more fun, or you can play a LOT if you don't want to pay. But we'd really prefer that you pay". The play-to-unlock always seems like they relented to include it because they didn't want to be accused of being money-hungry. But it's a thin veil. Don't know when this turned into a rant, but the point is, Vampire Survivors does it right and is a lot of fun. You should try it. What do you have to lose? $5? You can always get a refund if you don't like it!

(it's also free on mobile now)

Widely regarded as a masterpiece this is sadly one game I just didn't find very interesting. The world is beautiful but largely lifeless with not much to keep me hooked even with the staggering attention to even the smallest details. bodies decay, arteries bleed realistically, vultures flock to decaying animals, hell even your horses testicles shrink in cold weather. The quests are the typical Rockstar fare that consist mostly of: ride on horseback with a sidekick to location while exchanging uninspired dialogue, get to location, shoot bad guys, mission complete, repeat.

With all the attention to seemingly unimportant details I just can't help but feel like they should have spent more time on ensuring that the gameplay loop was fun/interesting and the world felt more lived in--and not just by NPCs on their pre-programmed daily loop or robotic "random events" that never seem to actually lead to anything of import. The game is in a weird grey area genre-wise, it's an RPG but has essentially no progression, yet there is a big open world to explore, but not many reasons to actually explore it. When you complete quests you get money as a reward instead of new improved gear, but you quickly run out of things worth the time to even spend the money on unless you want every color of button down shirt or something. But hey, at least the horses nuts shrivel up in the cold right?

Maybe I'm missing something, I will try to pick it up again at some point.