Hey y'all, one last review to close off the year. And a new pfp too! Goat Simulator 3 isn't exactly what I had in mind for the last game I'd end up beating this year but after so many up and downs it feels fitting to end things with a funny 6/10 meme game.

In some ways Goat Simulator 3 is a definite step up from its predecessor. It looks better, the events and missions are much easier to find. There is a homebase where new stuff is added as you level up and complete the events. Where the first game feels a bit aimless, this one having an actual structure alone makes it much better and actually leads way to a surprisingly fun finale. There are still loads of hidden secrets and easter eggs to find so the huge crowd of hard boiled Goatcore folks won't have a reason to cry about it being too streamlined and casual (who are we kidding they're one of the most well known toxic fanbases anyways). All the new additions are good. It's fun to run around as some different animals - or otherwise - and the ragdoll physics are as fun as ever. The game is intentionally unpolished, but I rarely had bugs that didnt feel fully intended besides falling out of the map once or twice. My biggest complaint is that all the minigames are locked into co-op. I played this solo so I never got to try any. The fact there's no versions with AI or anything is a pretty big letdown.

The other downside to this game isn't really its fault. The variety of the DLCS in the first game is pretty inseparable to the package as a whole, and since this game just came out It doesn't feel entirely fair to have a final word on this yet. Assuming this game continues to get updated and expanded, I am looking forward to seeing if it can one day truly surpass the original. Or not? Really I'm just happy i got this for christmas I think owning a physical copy of this for PS5 is fuckin hilarious.

Happy New Year guys. I've promised a lot of reviews and I hope to continue to provide more as I continue my gaming adventures. I appreciate any and all of you that decide to stick with me. Re4... Spider Man 2..... man next year is gonna be great for gaming. Can't wait.

Thanks for reading <3

Nancymeter - 65/100
Time Played - 8 hours 9 minutes
Trophy Completion - 81% (33/39)
Game Completion #17 of December
Game Completion #162 of 2022

Blackgate was not even close to what I had in mind for my first new completion of 2023, but I needed space for Ridge Racer Type 4 and Secret Agent Clank so sacrifices had to be made.

In all honestly, this wasn't nearly as bad as expected. It was even almost pretty good. I am not really a fan of this genre from all the games I've tried but I think the fact that its Batman and the atmosphere were more than enough to get me moving forward. I think the Arkham formula honestly transfers quite well to this format, but there are a few pretty big hiccups that stop it from reaching its full potential.

Namely the controls are pretty finicky. Especially on vita, the bumpers are just really not reliable and they don't do this game any favors. It just feels a little bit too clunky. As im sure is common with this genre the amount of backtracking is just way too much. I really don't see why there is no way to fast travel between sections. Im sure most of my playtime was spent running around like a headless chicken trying to figure out how to just leave an area to go where I needed to be, and the map doesnt help with that at all. It's a 2D map but there's multiple sections where you can interact with the background or go up floors and this just does not translate which makes navigating more frustrating than it needs to be. Not to mention it doesn't orient itself either so you have to constantly open and close it to make sure you're going the right direction. Another complaint with this is the boss fights. While i think the Arkham combat works well on handheld still, most of the boss fights are more puzzle oriented. But they're just really annoying lmao. I don't think I had fun with a single one of them. Thankfully you can find the Darkest Night suit which negates any damage done to you which made the final boss fight much less of a headache. The last complaint is the story is just kinda sucky lol. You can fight the bosses in any order but that doesnt really change much. The biggest pro is Catwoman is featured heavily in it and she's my favorite DC character. But the ending is just really abrupt and unsatisfying. Its not terrible, it is a handheld spinoff after all. But its just another thing on the pile that kept me from loving it.

All those negatives aside, I still enjoyed my time with Blackgate overall and I liked it a lot more than I liked the actual Arkham Origins. It's a weird, often confusing and sometimes annoying mess but it was worth a play. In the end, at the very least I can cross beating a metroidvania off the bucket list.

Thank's for reading y'all, this has been a Nancyfly mini review <3

Nancymeter - 69/100
Time Played - 16 hours 46 minutes
Trophy Completion - 53% (21/31)
Game Completion #2 of January
Game Completion #2 of 2023

There's so many things I want to say about this game. So many things I don't quite understand or am still thinking on. So much I loved - all the new cast and music is fantastic - so much that left me so...unsure (everything). I don't really know if my feelings will ever settle on it. So much of the story is fantastic and yet the big plot points leave me perplexed and excited and.. disappointed and hell I'd forgive all of it if it just made me cry. There's some emotional moments and some of the Somniums are wonderful symbolism but the ending and everything just leaves me feeling so unsatisfied. This game is far more meta than its predecessor and because of that its simultaneously far more brilliant and so much less emotionally compelling. I cried at the ending of the first game and at the end of this one I was just wishing I could. The climax feels stunted and lacks impact because a key character is already dead before it and its attempts at replicating the best parts of the original ending just fall flat. Ryuki is a great new protagonist but his usage in the second half of the game is just completely fumbled. But how much of this is my fault? I took a month long break inbetween this game when I wasn't even that far from the ending. How much did I miss? How much did I forget? I spent over fifty hours on this game how could anyone remember every finely put detail? Would i love it or understand it anymore if I could?

I need to replay this game sometime. In the you know what order. I don't know if it'll get me any closer to a definitive understanding of my overall feelings on this game but surely it'll give me something. I feel empty after beating this. Similarly felt the same about Danganronpa V3 which also has a bit of an infamous twist. You can rag on both of these games for being too silly and having a stupid sense of humor and fuck, yeah I love that about both of them but.. even though my turmoil for either is with different circumstances I knew the second the credits rolled that they were gonna be games I'm pondering about for as long as I'll be able to remember enough to ponder.

I guess all i have to say for sure is I love Mizuki and I need a third game. You and everyone else who wrote this are sick fucks, Mr. Uchikoshi and I hope you never change.

I'm distraught. I might delete this review. Its not a good one but hell even nearly a year later I still havent been able to compile my thoughts on the original to review that properly either. I'm sorry you had to read this but if you did I hope you did it like the way Jacob Geller ends an uncertain analysis. I got the collectors edition of this thing, my first figure of Aiba. I own this game both on switch and playstation! I don't regret that at all. Just looking back on how excited I was for this makes me wish maybe I never played it in the first place. Until next time folks

Please share your thoughts i feel like im going insane

Update #1 After talking with my BF a bit more about the story i definitely feel less upset about the plot and want to try playing this again someday, but i cant shake how empty most of the ending felt for me and for that i've decided to give this game a 94/100, aka the closest i can give something to being a 5/5 without a 5/5. I havent even touched on some of my other thoughts about different parts of the game but Im just so overwhelmed and exhausted by this experience as a whole that I dont think ill cover the rest. I need to take a big step back from this before i attempt it again.
Update #2
Im going back for some trophies cuz i planned on this being my 225th milestone. Replaying a lot of parts and remembering all the stuff I really like. There's still so much I dislike but ugh I simply just can't wrap my head around it. I've been thinking about how my scale says i define a 5/5 as near perfect and I really think thats what this is. So close to perfect but its not. I had similar problem with some other movies this year and decided a 95 and a 5/5 was fair so im gonna keep this score and try not to think about this game anymore before i disintegrate
Update #3 lmao
Man. As i'm typing this i got the platinum after working on it all night. While I was playing it i got frustrated at trophies and remembered some more complaints I have about this game... man I just dont know. I've unlocked the ending cutscene in bonus and have just been letting it play. I still think the finale could of been a little better, I still think they really fucked up Ryuki, i still am not sure about the twist, but.. this game and series means way too much to me! I love this cast and I'm so happy with the new additions and what they did with Mizuki in this. I have the collectors edition box and figure on my headboard and shit! Looking through all my other favorite games even though i hate this one its still so much better and i love it so much more than most games that ever existed. Ive seen this ending multiple times now and it makes me happy. Even if its not what I wanted, i'm happy. And i think it got me a little teary eyed thinking about it all, so in the ending maybe it did succeed after all.

I've updated this review multiple times over the course of the day and a half since I've beat this. I just hope this isnt the last we see of this series. I'm gonna stop talking now as this is just becoming the diary of a mentally ill woman's attachment to fictional people and how easy she is to sway with large dance numbers.

Also! I keep forgetting but I'm proud ProZD is in this hes a good boy

Nancymeter - 97/100
Time Played - 69 hours 32 (and counting)
Trophy Completion - 100% (49/49) Platinum #225
Game Completion #7 of December
Game Completion #153 of 2022

MINOR SPOILERS

I was told over and over again that Cyberpunk didn't have anything to say, but after finally playing the game I have to respectfully disagree with that take.

Cyberpunk is one of the most politically heavy-handed and thematically cohesive games I've ever played! Night City depicts the logical endpoint of hypercapitalism, a world where businesses and corporations have successfully subsumed every aspect of American culture, creating a country where the bottom line supersedes any consideration for human life.

This game is CONSTANTLY touching on hot button issues like universal healthcare, police brutality, worker's rights, the dehumanization of sex workers, immigrant labor, political corruption, gun violence, poverty, and social inequality - constantly exploring how these issues would look if they were to go unfixed 50 years in the future.

Could you imagine a world where corporations are legally allowed to discriminate towards employees and even force them to undergo cosmetic surgery? Or where snuff films are a popular form of entertainment for a population that's become emotionally numb to constant gun violence? Maybe a world where a privatized police force drops any facade of protecting the peace and opts to brutalize anyone who gets in their way? Where sex workers frequently wipe their memories to avoid the psychological fallout of dealing with abusive clients?

This isn't the 'apolitical politics' of Far Cry where the game dunks its head in the sand and pretends its narrative has no ties to the real world.

This isn't the milquetoast commentary of Bioshock where the game vaguely gestures towards complex ideas while saying nothing of value.

And this sure as hell isn't the misanthropic satire of GTA, aimlessly shitting on anything and everything without a hint of humanity.

Instead, Cyberpunk is making pointed criticism towards Capitalists, abusive power structures, and the hollow promise of the American dream while still managing to show empathy to those suffering from this broken system.

This game sounds like it’s all doom and gloom, but it still finds time to tell deeply personal and intimate stories about the people of this world. Nearly every quest is about trying to find peace and comfort in the apocalypse, trying your hardest to do right by others when the system has beat any sense of happiness and love out of them.

One mission has you checking on a neighbor who has shut himself off from the world and refuses to talk to friends or family after witnessing the widespread corruption of the NCPD

Another mission has you comforting a death row inmate who wants nothing more than redemption and forgiveness for his actions and struggles to give back to a world that only wants him dead

Sometimes you're snuggling up to your best friend on a couch, babysitting a single mom's kids as she cooks dinner, helping an old friend come to terms with their fading legacy, convincing a soon-to-be father to stop his risky money making schemes or - my personal favorite - leaving messages on a friend's voicemail as you come to terms with their passing.

It's rare to see a game depicting such a dark and cynical world while maintaining a deeply emotional core. And it does it all with a concise script that drip feeds character development, world building, and plot without relying on fat exposition dumps - the writing in cyberpunk is snappy and lean, fitting an expansive rpg adventure in a 30 hour runtime without feeling rushed or underwritten. There’s a large cast of characters that get little screentime but immediately leave a lasting impression through their back stories, personal beliefs, and excellent performances. To top it all off, Night City is a beautifully realized world with an incredible attention to detail - everything you see has a history that steadily unfolds the more you slow down and pay attention to the environmental design, codex entries, and optional dialogue. Where are all the animals in the city? Why are buildings on the edge of town obscenely tall? What the hell is a braindance? Slowly piecing together answers to these questions was extremely satisfying and gave me the same feelings I had when discovering the RPG worlds from games like Mass Effect, SMT IV, and Fallout.

While I have a 1,000 great things to say about the narrative, the gameplay systems are consistently mid

Combat is a simple run 'n gun shooting gallery that's largely devoid of strategy - just walk into a room full of baddies and click their heads til they die. You can approach levels from multiple directions and use stealth/hacking abilities to spice things up, but each of the routes are functionally samey (and typically converge into 1 path anyways), stealth is incredibly slow, and hacking is nowhere as fun or efficient as just shooting people.

That being said, even though the combat is shallow and lacks the systemic depth of something like Deus ex or Prey, its fast pace and solid kinesthetics make it enjoyable in a ‘dumb fun’ kind of way. Personally, I would take cyberpunk's mindless run n gun nonsense over the flacid gunplay or janky melee of similar rpgs like Fallout or Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines. It also helps that combat is rather infrequent! If you stick to the questlines and ignore the dozens of random filler mercenary gigs (jesus there’s SOOO much filler), you'll find that combat is rarely the focal point. Most quests actively discourage conflict or have zero combat altogether, opting to focus on the narrative and world building instead.

There are other flaws like the game's insistence on hand-holdy setpieces that disregard player input, or a dull skill tree centered on tiny statistical buffs (+2% dps! Wow!), or the game’s need to signpost everything with gaudy quest markers - but they're easily forgivable compared to the game's AWFUL LOOT SYSTEM. This system is a poor man’s Diablo, centered on number bloat and raw vertical progression rather than meaningful trade offs or interesting synergies.

You find level 3 booty shorts only to replace them with level 4 booty shorts and then level 5 booty shorts - so on and so forth.

You find a level 6 handgun and feed it crafting materials until it's level 7, then 8, then 9, all the way up to the cap of 50.

Finding loot doesn’t open up new abilities or strategies or playstyles, you’re just inflating defense and attack stats in a linear fashion, making combat at level 50 nearly identical to combat at level 1. To make things worse, you’re absolutely DROWNING in loot with no way to filter rarity or instantly sell all.

This system is bad and does nothing but introduce tedious menuing and arbitrary difficulty spikes. Dying to an enemy who's 10 levels higher than me and kills me in 2 hits isn't fun or interesting or give me anything to learn from. Opening my inventory to sift through 100 similar pistols is boring, boring, boring. This might seem pretty tame to some people, especially since most AAA games have similar systems, but I think a system that actively detracts from a game without adding anything of value shouldn’t exist in the first place. This is cdprojektRED's 4th rpg and they STILL struggle to provide interesting itemization despite decades of crpgs providing examples of how to do it right.

I have problems with Cyberpunk and I wouldn’t blame anyone for hating the game (especially if you got scammed with the ps4/xbox one versions), but it has some of the best writing and world design I’ve ever seen in a videogame and stands with Yakuza, Disco Elysium, and Mother 3 as one of the few narrative games that left an emotional impact on me. Hopefully the game gets more attention once it’s fully patched cause I would hate for it to get forgotten.

the whole uproar about its premature release aside, i would say that (both collectively speaking and for myself) the primary grief with cyberpunk 2077 is its familiarity. there is—understandably, i think—a sort of unspoken and paradoxical desire for cyberpunk to simultaneously push boundaries and somehow return to what most would see as its conceptual roots: neuromancer, blade runner, and other works which set forth the feel and iconography of future worlds run by tech and overwhelming corporate power and corruption, as well as a profound posthuman interest. all of these ideas are well beyond familiar, now. this doesn't mean there aren't new frontiers for the genre... it just means that cd projekt red opted for nostalgia and pastiche. this isn't entirely a bad thing. (even those recent shadowrun games were very character-driven, nestled comfortably in their established and frankly derivative universe. and they're great!) it's a perfectly serviceable backdrop for character-driven stories, and for better or for worse, 2077 is abundant in this realm. for the most part, i think it's all really good! i mean, i really like some of these characters and enjoyed spending time with them unreservedly. to the point that... well, the culmination of my time with some of them almost left me feeling a bit empty, knowing there would be little left to look forward to outside my own imagination. (sux 2 b lonesome... heh heh.) maybe there is something "cyberpunk" about playing a game that makes one feel so forlorn in this era of everyone being so terminally online, connected by tech, yet no closer for it... seriously, i fuckin dream every night of finding someone who loves me and... uh, i kind of love those dreams despite the bittersweet aftermath of awakening.

Superhot VR is proof that VR is good for more than just porn. Its a must play and definitely the most fun I've had with the system so far.

The main game was fun, and to this date is the rarest and possibly hardest platinum I have. But after playing this, I can't imagine ever wanting to go back. It translates so well to VR its incredible. Dodging bullets in slow mo is both the coolest thing ever and also a great workout. Your enjoyment with this is probably gonna vary a lot with how much space you have and how active you are. You can beat this game stationary pretty fine, but it is at its absolute most fun when you are diving behind cover yourself or dropping to the floor like wannabe Max Payne.

The game is a bit short and can be beaten under two hours, but for an early VR game thats not really a big deal. Any longer might have overstayed its welcome. Plus if you want more out of it, completing the main missions unlocks quite a few modes, namely endless and alternate takes on the main campaign with harder challenges like one life or headshots only - so theres quite a lot to get out of this.

The game can be quite hard, and having to restart a level completely if you die can be frustrating. You'll be moving around a lot in this and might find yourself having to recenter when you jump to a new section a lot which led to a handful of deaths but ultimately is the only real negative I have about this. I do wish they added more campaigns or levels but as is I can't recommend it enough

Nancymeter - 90/100
Game Completion #110 of 2022
August Completion #30

So uh, I don't know what happened here. I've been playing through the yakuza series and even though I was so-so with Judgment I've had a good time with all of them so far. Kiryu is one of my favorite characters in all of gaming and while they certainly weren't without faults I thought all the other games were at the bare minimum pretty great. This ones not. In fact, its bordering on being a bad one. I imagine not many share the sentiment but to put it simply while playing this I was just straight up not having a good time.
The first issue is the plot. Its really really really (and I cant stress this enough: really) stupid. Now, the previous yakuza games have had their fair share of silly moments but Yakuza 4 goes past that. The moments arent dumb fun, they're just plain dumb. The same exact plot twist happens MULTIPLE times, and it was already barely believable the first time. Not to mention some incredibly baffling character decisions and poor writing. I am gonna refrain from going deeper into this to save my remaining braincells but the amount of time I stopped paying attention to the game to text my boyfriend about how stupid what just happened was, was astronomical (he's currently playing through it too, he's enjoying it more than I am at least!) Beyond the frequent stupidity was that the actual plot was just kinda boring? and uninteresting? Out of the five or so main antagonists, only one of them was actually interesting and they didnt even make it to the end. Out of three that are in the finale, one of them is about the most pointless character ever and nothing is done with him, while the other two are incredibly dull and forgettable. Then theres our new protagonists. And honestly? All of them are interesting. I wanna know more about them. But Yakuza 4 only gives you 4 chapters with each of them, which is absolutely not enough time to get attached to them or any of the side characters in their respective stories, so the big meetup in the finale while cool didnt really felt earned and the whole game I was just waiting for daddy Kiryu to show up. (it was glorious when he did) But as awful as the plot is told, I cant say I disliked all of it. There were a couple moments, particularly the end of Tanimura's section that I really liked a lot and at some point I had even considered giving the game as high as a 4/5 (before the disappointing finale) but.. if only the bad plot was the worst thing about the game. No no, that award goes to the gameplay.
Yakuza 4's final boss consists of said boss running around the arena shooting you while you 10 armored goons, some with knives, swarm you, stun lock and knock you down constantly. He respawns these endlessly until you are able to defeat him first. This is what I believe to be the worst final boss fight I've ever partaken in. Bloodborne while blindfolded would be a less infuriating experience. Now Yakuza 4 isnt the hardest game, as you have a large inventory you can easily stock up with healing items and essentially stall your way through the whole thing. But I would be lying to myself If I said I had a fun time with the combat. If the final boss was the only example of garbage game design, I could be pretty forgiving. But what if I told you: the entire game is like that. From bosses that spam evade to stunlock you from behind and then repeat the same combo over and over again knocking you down (this is literally every boss) to swarms of enemies that just spam grapple you and, because of course, one of the sections ends with an hour long fight full of bullshit grapple enemies and shotguns that you do indeed to have to restart in its entirely if you die. This section happens right after I began getting invested in the story. As you can imagine, after finally getting through it I wanted nothing more than for it to be over
Now, there are some redeeming qualities to the game I haven't mentioned. Obviously its not the worst thing ever as a 2.5 isnt exactly the worst score. The music is fantastic and the music reminded me of Danganronpa(non-derogatory) and this is the first of the series to my knowledge that actually lets you skip the mini game tutorials, which after forced golfing in Y3 was very appreciated. There were also a handful of genuinely funny scenes. But these dont make up for the rest of the game and if anything only make my disappointment in it greater. After this review Im gonna try to remove Y4 in its entirety from my memory. I beat it on normal difficulty, and I wont ever be beating it again. I hope Yakuza 5 is better, I'm still looking forward to it.

Also I couldn't figure out where to add this in the review, but nearly every finale taking place at the millennium tower is really getting old. It doesnt really affect story quality but it is way overdone and makes it hard to take seriously

Trophy Completion - 21%
Time Played - 20 hours 53 minutes
Nancymeter - 49/100
Game Completion #24 of 2022
March Completion #3