Holy shit that was so fucking good!

I bought Sekiro on release almost 5 years ago, and tried to play it; keyword here being 'tried', because I fucking sucked. I genuinely did not understand how the game works or what exactly it expected me to do. I tried playing it countless times and each time I got stuck at either Lady Butterfly or Gyoubu. I thought the game was just too hard for me, and that my skill level simply was not adequate for this game. Then, I decided to give it another try a couple of weeks ago, and for some reason the combat finally 'clicked' for me, probably because this time I went in not caring much whether or not I manage to finish it this time, which made me play without panicking or worrying much. That was the key. Once I understood the combat and stopped panicking -and got rid of the muscle memory I had carried over from other FromSoftware games- every encounter became a breeze. Some bosses were very difficult initially but again once you understand how a certain boss works you can pretty much just finish it hitless.

That's really the beauty of Sekiro. At the core of its combat is an intricate dance, and once you learn the choreography of that dance, it becomes one of the most cathartic gameplay experiences you could possibly have. No game has done combat like this, and no game has done sword fighting like this.

If it wasn't for the Dragon Rot being an extremely underwhelming mechanic, and the game trying to push crowd control with a combat system that is simply not designed for it, I would not have hesitated to rate it at a perfect 10.

There is no game like Sekiro, and if you are stuck with frustration like I was, do yourself a favor and just keep trying. It is really worth it once you get the hang of things.

Hesitation is defeat.

I honestly don't know how to review this game because there is just so much I wanted to say and talk about, and it is hard to gather my thoughts coherently enough for that, so instead, I'll just say this: Alan Wake II is what a sequel should always be. Seriously. This should be the blueprint for what a sequel is. It expands on everything from the first game; expands the universe, enhances the gameplay, and greatly raises the stakes. Alan Wake II is a game that kept blowing my mind every step of the way, and I loved every minute I spent with it.

The Last of Us 2 is a game that tries to deliver a message about violence and the vicious cycle of revenge, and a game that tries to be a slow but tense and grounded experience. It is also a game that fails spectacularly at both aspects. To get to the bottom of how and why that happened, I need to talk about Part 1.

I love The Last of Us Part 1, and always have. It was one of the very first games I played that managed to make me genuinely care about it's character and their fates. It is also one of the very few works of fiction that I can describe with confidence as having a perfect ending. It's gameplay was never that great. It is basic and slow and sometimes even boring, but through Naughty Dog's usual and frankly impressive ability to craft well-paced and entertaining adventures, some of the best characters in video game history, and an exceptionally well-written story, The Last of Us Part 1 becomes much more than the sum of its parts.

With that being said, The Last of Us Part 2 loses all of that magic, because it lacks the great characters of its predecessor, it lacks the well-written story, and it is painfully unaware of its own shortcomings. The characters are bland. The writing is clichéd when it's not cheap, and cheap when it's not contrived. The frankly basic gameplay loop that Part 1 managed to keep fresh through keeping it short and to the point loses all of its appeal by the halfway point. While the game does improve on almost every core mechanic, that improvement is still minimal, and coupled with the game's length, which is too long for the basic loop, and its atrocious pacing, it makes for an unsatisfying gameplay experience.

To make matters worse, the small interactions and witty entertaining dialogue that made the long and slow exploration segments of the first games tolerable and even fun are either gone or massively worse than their Part 1 counterparts, and that should not come as a surprise, considering how underdeveloped and/or unlikeable most of the new characters are. This goes beyond bad writing and becomes frankly an insult when the game tries to force an emotional reaction out of the player by killing off one of these characters, that you, likely, never even gave a fuck about.

Credit where credit is due, the game's presentation is almost flawless. This is, hands down, one of the most graphically impressive game I've ever played, but otherwise, the game feels empty. Style over substance.

The Last of Us Part 2 is a game that has something to say, but it says it in the most blunt and forced way possible, and its gameplay is too bland to soften the blow of that atrocious story. It is a misguided attempt at artistic expression through the medium of video games, and it is kind of sad to watch it fail that miserably.

2021

This review contains spoilers

Toem's charm lies in its simplicity. Simple puzzles, simple story, simple art, but it all comes together to make something greater than the sum of its parts. Even the game's big finale, experiencing Toem, manages to be a significant moment because of a very simple idea: It's the only time you see color in the game, after only seeing shades of white, grey, and black for the entire runtime.
I didn't expect to enjoy this as much as I did.

It is not often that I'll play a game that captivates me this much, to the point where it makes me consciously give up on sleep just so that I can get more of it, and it is not often that I'll play a game that I'm genuinely sad to have finished, because I'll never get to experience it blindly ever again.

Everything in this game from the soundtrack to the art style to the RPG elements to the narrative design and themes work together to an impressively cohesive degree, delivering a story that is entertaining, enthralling, funny, and tragic, all at the same time.

Pentiment is visually striking, beautiful, captivating, and extremely well-written and well-designed. If it wasn't for the third act dragging a little bit, it would've been a perfect 10.

This review contains spoilers

طرش

I didn't even buy this and I still want a refund.

Had to play the original Resident Evil 4 before the remake.