Bio
HERE COMES THE JUDGE
Personal Ratings
1★
5★

Badges


Famous

Gained 100+ followers

Treasured

Gained 750+ total review likes

GOTY '23

Participated in the 2023 Game of the Year Event

Trend Setter

Gained 50+ followers

Adored

Gained 300+ total review likes

Gone Gold

Received 5+ likes on a review while featured on the front page

Loved

Gained 100+ total review likes

Donor

Liked 50+ reviews / lists

Popular

Gained 15+ followers

Well Written

Gained 10+ likes on a single review

Pinged

Mentioned by another user

Liked

Gained 10+ total review likes

Best Friends

Become mutual friends with at least 3 others

Noticed

Gained 3+ followers

Favorite Games

Summer Carnival '92: Recca
Summer Carnival '92: Recca

073

Total Games Played

005

Played in 2024

046

Games Backloggd


Recently Played See More

Dragon's Dogma II
Dragon's Dogma II

Mar 26

R-Type
R-Type

Mar 21

Judgement Silversword: Rebirth Edition
Judgement Silversword: Rebirth Edition

Mar 20

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky

Mar 19

Sol Divide
Sol Divide

Mar 19

Recently Reviewed See More

I love the way exploration works here; the refusal to budge on fast travel save for diegetic ox carts, snatching back dark arisen's infinite ferrystone, and stretching the landmass both horizontally and (especially) vertically is wonderful. in many, many ways it's a bigger, slower, denser game, and they did it all while focusing on the most mundane environments devoid of giant theme park attractions bulging from every flat surface

likewise I love the idea of elaborating on the sense of traversal and moving toward a holistic spirit of adventure. deteriorating health ceilings aid attrition and help answer the inherent slime of menu heals, and having campfire rests operate as something of a risk/reward mechanism goes a long way toward giving each journey a greater heft and substance

even something as transparently gamey as designing the map as a network of funnels and chokepoints stippled with smaller threats and crosshatched with bigger ones was very clever; it's all just nouns crashing against nouns as they fire down chutes, but when coupled with the meaty physicality of the game's interactivity it goes a long way toward building up those Big Moments

but the consequence of trash mobs operating as speedbumps means moment-to-moment encounters operate more as filler than anything you could consider independently engaging scenarios. it also means that despite the map being several times larger than gransys it ends up feeling a lot more suffocating due to all the overlapping nouns slamming and interrupting each other without end

I just about luxuriated in the rare opportunities to enjoy brief spells of negative space; I savoured it like one of those FMV steaks. I'd kill for more moments like the arbor or the battleground where I was able to inhabit the world as a pilgrim or wanderer rather than serial wolf slaughterer or battahl sanitation expert, but they're very few and far between

there's no escaping the impenetrable walls of goblins, wolves, harpies, and saurians polluting every inch of the world. the already slender DD bestiary's been ported over nearly 1:1 with about as many additions as subtractions, and between the absurd density and massive landmass the variety ends up looking and feeling significantly worse than it did when it was first pilloried twelve years ago in a notoriously incomplete game

when the Big Moments do happen they're often spectacular, and it's easy to see why the chaotic intersection of AI, systems, and mechanics was prioritized so heavily and centered as the focal point of the entire experience. early on every bridge that breaks behind you, every ogre leaping from city walls, and every gryphon that crushes your ox cart feels huge and spellbinding; the game's at its best when all the moving parts align just right to achieve dynamic simulacrum, leveraging unpredictability to carry encounters well above their station

where that stuff loses me most is in the complete lack of friction. for a game with so many well considered means of drawing tension out of discovery it manages to render most of them meaningless when you're never being properly threatened enough to let them kick in. camping, eating, crafting, consumables, ambushes, and setpieces all take a significant blow from the chronic lack of bite, and it's frustrating to see so much potential go to waste when everything's already set up unbelievably well for success

even if you choose to go it alone, or do as I did and run with a party of two (ida + ozma: wily beastren + weakest creature), it only does so much when every corner of the map has CAPCOM Co., Ltd superpawns and npcs popping out of the ground to aid you unbidden and monsters are all mâché sculptures begging to be stunlocked. where's hard mode? why does it feel like everything DDDA did right got ignored? we just don't know

I'd have been happy if the game yanked a bit of control back with some kinda endgame/post-game dungeon, but there isn't one; there aren't really dungeons in general. in opting for quantity (50+!!) over quality we end up with none of them feeling particularly curated, and none of them having the scope or menace of the everfall, let alone bitterblack. no ur-dragon either, which is just baffling. the entire run from endgame to post-game is a gaping hole where something oughta be but certainly isn't

when I hit credits I felt almost confused, like I'd just been tricked into playing a remake or reboot of the original dragon's dogma that somehow had less material stretched even thinner. I enjoyed what I played for the most part, but the more thought I put into it the more it feels compromised and unfinished in all the exact ways itsuno promised over and over it wouldn't be this time around

there's a lot to love here: stuff like fucked up modular teeth, the sphinx, seeker coin platforming, pawn bullshitting, the dragonsplague, cyclops ragdolls, opaque sidequests, intentional tedium, and bizarre interactions. much of what was good in the past remains good here, and even bits that stumble backward generally land someplace close to decent regardless. some of the vocation/gear downgrades aren't to my liking, and there's an odd shallowness that hangs over the experience, but I think I liked it?

I just don't really get it

at first blush clear sky's beautiful: rich sunlit autumn with its blues, greens, oranges, and browns warm and radiant; chornobyl's surface murk all but lifted entirely and soaked up into the soils and waters and still breathing bodies that inhabit the zone

but it soon becomes plain that the cosmetic changes are something of a diversion; sleight of hand that draws the eyes away from the coming suckerpunch: twenty odd hours of being flanked by grenades, bled to death, mulched by MGs, and robbed blind. a cursory search shows that the lion's share of its legacy revolves around torturing and bamboozling those who expected a straightforward sequel to SoP instead of an Iterative Pain Milker, but as the saying goes: "you opened it, we came"

the heart of the experience is nothing short of broken; theoretical emergent turf wars reduced to ceaseless big boss killing field masturbation due to poor macro level AI and myriad bugs and glitches. every claim and conquest soon snuffed out or stolen; all elaborate actors, a-life improvements, hard fought battles, pleas for help, and catastrophes rendered as droning background noise. this world is doomed, and your input is worthless

it's exhausting, and even more so to know a great deal of it's the result of a series of inefficiencies so great they actively sabotage the very firmament. at times it almost feels like a comedy of errors when the stoned anarchists or authoritarian paramilitary freaks manage to bungle every single lead or advantage you give them. five idiots loping so slowly across the zone that by the time they arrive (if they even bother) they're inevitably pressed into hamburger by the dozen guys who somehow respawned in the interim

when sutured up nicely with the likes of Sky Reclamation Project it lurches upward, alive. all the blood for blood's sake recontextualized: the junkyards and warehouses turned sacrificial pits summon successfully, allies arrive, and land changes hands; guns still jam, MG nests still butcher, and grenades still flow freely, but there's purpose and direction granted. movement in the zone is given breath and motive outside of the infinite looping thresher, conflict finds a utile path, and there's reprieve and closure and tangible winners and losers. unfortunately, it lasts about an hour

once you join a faction you'll walk point-by-point through enemy checkpoints, get into a few scraps, take their base, and that's about it. somehow adhering to intentionality and giving all the dopey wind-up toys a chance to fulfill their goals and retire does nothing but harm. without the futility it oddly ends up even more meaningless; all perpetual motion and conflict rendered still and dull in the blink of an eye. omnipresent inferno degraded into sidequest

the more I dabbled with alterations the more I came to feel that shaking it from its stasis and evening out the unintended caustics made for a lesser experience. SRP's default settings are undoubtedly the best option for keeping clear sky roughly in line with its original intentions, but the tradeoff between the accidental and the deliberate isn't always worth it

if you tinker a bit further there're countless other options that make "improvements" to the likes of ballistics, enemy behaviour, and damage values, but almost all of them do so at the cost of its core identity, sanding it down to another shadow of chernobyl at best and another call of pripyat at worst. most of SRP's optional addons in particular feel designed from the ground up to wrench its teeth out one by one, and while I'm not gonna be a shitty cop about how people wanna enjoy things, I can't help but feel like docile's the wrong look

for me clear sky's best as an experience in overwhelming reduction — of the player, of power, and of dominion. a living space occupied by the dead and a set of systems in perpetual, unavoidable collapse. gears turning and great machines moving in an endless cycle of yearning greed and control. one big dumb bright cozy purgatory

win today, lose tomorrow. spin the world's wheel again

now I know how all the other guys named john wayne gacy must've felt