it feels somewhat rare that an indie game really captures a retro style in a way that does more than pay lip-service to its predecessors. shovel knight was one of those games: a pitch-perfect recreation of NES-style action challenges stripped away of the mechanical uncertainty of the actual games of that era. cuphead captures that for the run-and-gun in a way that makes it not only a loving tribute but a legitimate cornerstone in the genre.

cuphead feels borne by a rigorous design methodology that demonstrates a deep understanding of the fundamentals of boss design in a 2D space. each fight is undergirded by the movement and platform features; this is generally the unifying trait. plenty of fights take place on a featureless flat ground, but very quickly wrinkles such as scrolling, conveyors, limited platforms, or combinations of these are introduced. a great late-game example is the ghost train stage that features of a platform that can and must be moved between left, center, and right using parry controls. these establish for the player the laws of their dominion so to speak: what space can the player leverage? what options exist at any given time to dodge a certain obstacle?

with each phase then comes the primary attack. bosses generally lack dynamic reactive capabilities unlike a human, so they are incapable of mindgames generally speaking. thus, in virtually all boss fights the boss cycles between random attacks that the player must apply a counterstrategy against. in modern games the design parlance is as such: windup animation begets the attack proper begets an opening for a player to either 1) rest if their counterstrategy is not efficient enough to yield a counterattack or 2) counterattack. too unthreatening and the player barely needs to muster a counterattack, and too overpowered and the player will have no time to respond. cuphead weaves in a truly surprising variety of primaries to challenge the player: the enemy may momentarily remove the player's control of the space, such as with the cat at the end of the rat tank fight batting its paws to swat the right and left sides of the screen, or perhaps the enemy creates antagonistic autonomous elements that force the player to utilize their spatial reasoning and pattern recognition to deduce a projectile's movement habits and shift their position accordingly, such as in the bee queen's middle phase where she incorporates stochaistically-drifting geometric projectiles as well as bullets that move in a linear back-and-forth climb on either side of the screen.

primary attacks on their own are only a lock-and-key design principle: find the counterstrategy that works against a particular move and apply it when needed. what creates true tension in the fight are the auxillary attacks. virtually all bosses are able to separately cycle through auxillary attacks that generally involve an entirely separate on-screen entity attacking on their own accord out of sync with the primary opponent. auxillary attacks on their own already heighten the experience by creating a space-constraint intersection that forces the player to adapt their key to more than just a single lock. certain intersections of attacks may prevent successful counterattacks or force the player to fall back on safer strategies, thus making the risk-and-reward judgment more critical and ever mutating. where cuphead really succeeds is having the auxillary attacks cycle as well. it's much like having three basic collared shirts and three basic ties: the combinations they present give you nine outfits, yielding an multiplicative amount of potential attack intersections. phase one of the sea medusa fight is a great example of this: three primary attacks (either summoning ghost projectiles or bringing one of two different fish out of the water with their own projectiles) with three auxillary attacks (staggered puffer fish projectiles, a water jet that forces a positive y velocity, and bombs that explode with a octagonal bullet pattern). each on their own is manageable, but combined there is an additional level of fluidity demanded of the player with adapting on the fly to intersections they may have never seen before.

of course cuphead doesn't simply hew to these elements in every fight; it expands on them and plays with the potential they possess. take the pirate ship fight: this begins with both a small primary attack (pellets fired by the captain one by one) with an auxillary component (a barrel that moves back and forth at the top of the screen, attempting to crush the player when they pass underneath). within time the captain will begin preempting his own pellet attack with a cycle of attacks from different sources, each with their own tell: a shark that consumes the left half of the screen, small bulldog fish(?) that slide across the ground, and a squid that both creates a fountain of bullets and can turn the screen dark if not defeated in time. on its own this is a perfectly interesting fight: manage the primary and auxillary attacks while being cognizant of primary attacks from external components via tells. however, in the second phase, the ship itself begins shooting cannonballs on a timer. at this point the player must not only manage transient attacks from the captain but also track the separate rhythms of the barrel and the ship's cannonballs. these intersect in a truly polyrhythmic fashion that pushes the fight into truly challenging territory that feels immensely rewarding to lock in with.

this is also boosted by cuphead having a stellar kit and smooth controls that feel sharp without being too abrupt or linear. his ability to parry specific objects (which are colored pink to distinguish them) adds a scale of mastery of many bullet patterns, with basic familiarity only yielding the ability to dodge while a complete understanding allows navigation to specific bullets for a parry and the reward of extra super meter. the super meter attacks are all rather useful and feel well balanced, though for the full-meter arts I can't really imagine someone using anything other than invincibility. however, I found myself legitimately switching out his shots and charms for different fights, which is not to say I found all of the variety useful (I mainly stuck to chaser and spread along with the smoke dodge and one extra heart depending on the fight), but to require a level of specificity in strategy for each fight encourages me to experiment more than I may otherwise. there are virtually no points of frustration I can attribute to a failure in the controls or a lack of a specific tool; almost every time I was stumped on a particular counterstrategy I always eventually worked something out even if it wasn't optimal.

I would really go as far as to say I don't think cuphead has any particular failings or even elements of unfair frustration that I can think of. while an immensely challenging experience, the primary and auxillary attacks are synergistic in such a way that a given intersection can't truly render an attack undodgeable or debilitating. never did I feel like a particular portion was just inserted because it felt cool or to fill space; rather, every bit of the game feels handled with care and finesse. the dragon fight was the peak of this for me... that particular fight walled me and put me off the game quite a bit. while the exasperation I felt was valid, I could never pinpoint a particular aspect that really felt unfair to me. at the end of the day, those projectiles that explode into smaller projectiles when hit really preyed on my spray-and-pray instincts in a way that punished me (and many others I assume) far more than most games are willing to muster. if I had to name one little thing that did feel off to me, it was the platforms during the bee queen fight. the scrolling part and random gaps don't bother me, but their collision box doesn't feel quite lined up with the art, which sometimes led to me falling randomly in confusing ways.

I do wish the flying stages had the same level of customization as the ground stages, but understandably that's a scope issue and not something I would expect from a small production. the non-boss levels also feel a bit perfunctory, but they are all still fun and only necessary for collecting coins for purchasing items in the shop. both of these won't get in the way of anyone looking to experience this: the core of the gameplay is still the tremendous boss fights. this has given me a a nice little kick in the pants to go back and dive into the early 16-bit fundamental works that helped mold this into the genius showpiece that it is.

Back in 2017, around when the game first came out, I was a Junior in High School. I remember watching YouTube videos on all the bosses in the game while I was in my computer class and thinking it looked awesome. Only problem is, I didn't own an Xbox (and still don't). Fast forward to 2019, the game comes out on the Switch and I buy it. Now I rarely buy digital games but I figured it was a big game I've always wanted to play and that it might not get a physical for a while, so I purchased it. Me and my girlfriend at the time played it for a bit and I myself got up to Grimm Matchstick but eventually dropped it. Fast forward again to 2022, on a whim I decide I want to play it again. I restarted the game and went and beat it for the first time finally. I thought it was really awesome! Once I heard they were coming out with a physical copy, and with the DLC included..I knew I had to buy it again. And that's what I did, so I decided to replay it once again. Not only did I beat it again, I beat every boss with an A- or higher and not only that, I beat every boss on expert difficulty and got the platinum trophy!

I'm just gonna start with the absolute best aspect of the game. You all know what it is, the presentation and art style. It's the main reason this game is loved, it's immaculate. The attention to detail in replicating old rubber hose cartoons is just amazing. The game is just pure eye candy and it's wonderful. This game will always hold the test of time because of this one aspect alone...but luckily there are other great aspects about the game as well.

Accompanying the amazing artstyle is the soundtrack. Now, it may not be an OST I'd listen to a ton outside of the game but wow it's a treat. It's upbeat, it's jazzy, and it's all orchestrated. It just makes the game feel more grand and way more authentic in it's homage to the time period these cartoons came from. My personal favorite songs would have to be the the Isle Three theme, Murine Corps and Floral Fury. The Isle three theme especially is my standout favorite. Idk man it's sooo jazzy I love it.

Now were onto the real meat and potatoes, the gameplay. It's a run and gun shooter and it's pretty simple. You have your normal attacks, your special move, your maxed out special, a dodge and a parry. Pretty simple move set but it works well with how chaotic the game can be. You can choose from several different normal attacks, special moves and charms. Charms just give you an extra ability. For most of the game I just had the charge shot and crackshot, the 1st special and the smoke bomb charm. I feel like a ton of people love the charge shot and smoke bomb especially since I've seen a ton of people have those in their arsenal.

What levels do you use these moves on? Let's start with the run and gun stages. They're alright! They are not the main focus of the game, and apparently were only added because of fan outcry but they're decent overall. If the game was just composed of these, it probably wouldn't be nearly as well liked as it is cuz people seem to not really dig these stages. Which I can see, they are definitely the weakest part of the game I think. However, they aren't the main focus of the game. Those would be the bosses.

The bosses on the other hand are awesome. These were gonna be the main and only focus of the game and it makes sense. They're pretty much all well done and a lot of fun to go against. Here's where the visuals are at their peak too because one of the most fun things is to just see all the different boss animations. This is why I wanted to play this game so bad back in 2017, the bosses are a sight the behold. This is also why I'm so excited for the DLC because I've barely seen any of it as of now so I'm ecstatic to see all the new animations contained in it. Anyways back to the bosses, like I said they're awesome. Some of my favorites were Captain Brineybeard, Werner Werman and Sally Stageplay. I guess I just really like Isle three lol. There were also some very brutal bosses. Back in 2019, Bippi the Clown gave me the hardest time and he was still tough nowadays. Dr. Kahl's robot can be brutal for newcomers and he gave me a hard time. However, the hardest for me still was the devil. I dont think I died quite as many times as I did back in 2022, but it wasn't far off. However in expert mode, he was absolutely ridiculous. Expert mode in general could be really crazy, mostly the plane bosses, but the devil was on another level at least for me. Either way, I beat em all and got the platinum in the end which I still can't believe. Never doing expert mode again lol. Also never ever doing the one pacifist trophy again fuck that one.

Glad I replayed this again cuz it was still an amazing time, even if going for the platinum made me lose my sanity at points lol. Definitely one of my favorite indie games now. Can't wait to dive into The Delicious Last Course!

Agonizingly AAA. Surprisingly racist, even for mainstream Western media. No idea how to motivate a character beyond "my loved one is dead". Bottomless disdain for the player. But damned if they didn't make fighting a robot t-rex pretty fucking sick. The combat is the real selling point, and between setting up traps, capitalizing on weak spots, and carefully choosing skills it made me feel consistently clever.

I can't fathom how embarrassing this must have been to release next to Breath of the Wild though. A game with graphics a full console generation worse than this that nevertheless runs circles around its open world design. Even knowing this was pre-BotW I keep trying to go to spots that look interesting on the map and being crushed when there's nothing there or, worse, it's totally inaccessible.

2017 game that would have been revolutionary in 2007.

The entire art team deserves some awards for their achievement on this, the game is still beautiful and a lot of effort went into tiny flourishing details.

The rest of the teams who worked on this just made a by the book gamey game for gamers.

You climb on yellow stuff, you talk in worthless dialogue trees, you unlock basic gameplay through skill trees, you craft shit, you buy gear with colorful rarity, you slowly farm nonsense off of the ground, you go on dumb side quests. You do it all in a giant open world filled with icons. It's a game and all those things are there because that's what you do in games like these, and I'm so tired of it.

I think I would've appreciated a straight forward, linear, 10-20 hours experience a lot more, maybe I just want to play Enslaved again.

The fact that this game is put on a pedestal as not only one of gaming's flagship titles but was nominated for multiple game of the year awards and has a sequel on its way that is one of the most anticipated releases of 2022 is something that I feel sums up everything about modern gaming.

Let's start with the positive - Horizon is a stunning looking videogame. I've gone back to my old save file - one I bailed on back in 2017 - on PS5 and I can't quite believe this is a five year old game and not a native PS5 title. The smooth 60fps upgrade is likely doing a bit of heavy lifting but even in the many screenshots I have taken from my playthrough, it is an undeniably good looking game, right up there at the very top of the pile.

That's it. That's the positive.

Christ, where do we start with the negatives? What Horizon: Zero Dawn offers is little more than a visual treat. As an open world game, it is doing nothing more than the stuff we got bored of on the 360/PS3. As an action game, it feels awkward with all of the attacks feeling far too over-animated and taking far too long to give you a snappy sense of control. The stealth elements are basic, barebones, nothing special but certainly not bad. Most of the sidequests are fetch or kill quests. The characters are all generic tropes, from the father figure who dies to give you a motive to the villain you remember from your childhood - there's not a single original character arc in the entire thing. The overall lore of the world of Horizon comes dangerously close to being actually interesting but then spaffs that up the wall by only revealing itself to you via an insulting amount of audio logs or, in two hilariously bad sections, unskippable exposition dumps.

Open world games are extremely popular and everything about this feels so fucking cynical. Skill trees lock away basic abilities because heaven forbid you have too much freedom from the word go. Yellow fucking objects show where you can climb and you better not get any ideas about climbing on anything other than these obvious climbing markers! From the lead character, sub-Netflix "box set" show storyline and game mechanics that are so well-worn that you basically know exactly how this game plays and feels before you've even started it - and this is all entirely by design. You're supposed to know exactly what you're getting in to and that is one of the main reasons behind its success. It's a game for the lowest common denominator. It's a game that doesn't want any friction whatsoever. It's the gaming equivalent of wall painted in magnolia white with a Live, Laugh, Love framed poster on it.

It is the most basic of basic bitch stuff.

I think it speaks volumes that this - the absolute fucking DEATH of the old style of open world game that Ubisoft and their ilk have been milking since the first Assassin's Creed and has been begging for death for over a decade - came out only a few weeks before Breath of the Wild showed up and instantly made anything that treads the same boards as Horizon look like a relic almost immediately.

Looks great though so you know 10/10 GOTY please tune in to the Game Awards!!!!!!

The AAA game of AAA games. Everything works and looks fine and dandy, but nothing here is interesting nor innovative. I tried to let this game impress me, I wanted to explore the visually stunning world and see the full potential of its solid combat. But everything the game tasked me to do felt so incredibly pointless.

Alloy is dull as a piece of paper and every interaction is awkward as fuck and has a weird blend of seriousness and wit where you can't tell if they're trying to be funny or intentionally unlikeable. Every task consists of following a trail, kill the enemy in front of you, suffer through an awkward conversation, kill an enemy with more health than usual and so on.

The quests, the world, the crafting, the dialogue choices; everything feels so pointless and only exists because it can. All of it felt like a chore and none of it felt fun.

A must play for fans of Majora's Mask. As is my experience with randomizers in general, the fun is mainly in the beginning, seeing how lucky you get with item drops, but as soon as it becomes clear where I need to go, and especially once I reach "go mode", I kind of lose interest because it kind of just becomes a normal playthrough at that point. Still, it's excellent. This randomizer seemed to have had a lot more options than most others from the get-go (freestanding items, in-game events, and so on available to be added to the pool) but I think has been surpassed by Ocarina of Time's randomizer - to be fair, that one has had much more time to cook, and with a bigger following.

Even all the hype surrounding this game couldn't prepare me for how beautiful an experience this game is. The levels, fun, fast and flowing. The music, sweeping and graceful orchestras. The bosses were fun, offering spectacle and occasionally some light challenge.

What can you say? It's all been said before, the game is dazzling. There is so much content. But content you actully want to do, not content shoved in by Ubisoft to make the game 400 hours longer than it needs to be. I was bummed out finding a stopping point to do the final boss level. And the storybook could be genuinely sad, but still warm and joyful at the same time. I delighted when the game said another chapter was unlocked.

All you really can say is this is "Good Feelings: The Game." I am shocked there's a direct sequel that people seem to hold in just as high a regard. I cannot fucking wait.

Foi um prazer enorme revisitá-lo! Eu adoro a ambientação de Resident Evil, a cada troca de câmera eu me deparo com arte pura, e o fato dele ter as ilustres presenças de Rebecca, Jill, Chris e Barry (ou mesmo o Wesker, e F Richard!) torna-o um Confort Game pra mim, apesar da atmosfera amedrontadora em que se encontra a mansão Spencer e seus arredores. O Remake consertou algumas falhas do original e com esse Remaster a Capcom tornou essa a versão definitiva pra quem quer presenciar o início do gênero Survival Horror.

Sabe um detalhe curioso que eu gosto tanto? Que cada porta do jogo é única! kkkkkkk Pô, eu fico de cara com isso. Platinar Resident Evil 1 era um sonho de infância e ta aí, consegui fazer 100% de um dos meus jogos favoritos, porém agora não consigo nem abrir as portas de casa mais, do tanto que vi essas animações🚪

"I don't know about angels, but it's fear that gives men wings."

Still kicks all kinds of ass even after a dozen replays. Max Payne, along with its sequel, slot comfortably into my top 10 games of all time. It still holds up (save for some weird compatibility bugs that are easily patched), plays great and has writing and voice acting that is still unmatched compared to most games that have come out since.

Remedy has been on an absolute tear with Control and Alan Wake 2 so if they can take that magic and apply it to the upcoming Max Payne remakes then a stone cold classic could possibly be made even better.

Yoko Taro's NieR: Automata is a game that I've been aware of ever since it came out due to me watching Dunkey's video on it once or twice, but I didn't get the urge to actually go out of my way to play it until years later. Since I've mostly been focusing my attention on games from the 7th console generation and everything that came out before it, I put my search for a copy of NieR: Automata on hold for the time being, but when a friend of mine lent me her copy of the game back in December (shoutout to Catherine, by the way), I knew that it was the first thing I wanted to do when I got back to York in January. After spending a week beating the game's three main paths across a total of just under 23 hours, I can safely say that NieR: Automata blew me away on every level, and even with all of the praise that has been built up for it over the years, I really didn't expect to love it as much as I did.

Since God Hand is currently my fifth favorite game of all time, I was really interested to see what a studio originally comprised of people who worked on that game would be able to come up with on their own, and while I didn't actually realize that NieR: Automata was made by PlatinumGames until I actually booted it up for the first time, I don't think I could've asked for a better introduction to their body of work. In terms of its core gameplay, NieR: Automata works wonders as a hack-&-slash character action game that's equal parts hectic and buttery-smooth, as the amount of mechanics to manage and aggressive machines to keep track of made each enemy encounter feel just as exciting and tense as the last, and I found myself constantly countering moves and unleashing combos that were incredibly satisfying to pull off successfully. The game's implementation of RPG elements worked really well alongside this, with the unique plug-in chip upgrades feeling varied in their uses while also making my own approach to combat feel personalized. NieR: Automata was also very admirable in how willing it was to branch out and go beyond its respective genre, as its massive sense of scale was achieved brilliantly through its implementation of shoot 'em up and even text adventure sections throughout its more conventional character action missions. On top of just feeling great on their own, the slick, responsive controls made me appreciate the game's gorgeous artstyle and world design, and travelling around the game's open world made me feel just as excited to see all of the new, dilapidated vistas as it made me anticipate whatever new loot or sidequests came my way. Keiichi Okabe's phenomenal score is very easily one of the very best video game scores I've heard in a long time, as his music perfectly captures the melancholic, yet grandiose and profoundly emotional tone of the game itself.

NieR: Automata was one of those games where every element on display was terrific in its execution, but one element that especially impressed me would be its writing. Across its multiple pathways and shifts in perspective, NieR: Automata explores densely philosophical themes such as what it means to be human, the motivations that fuel violence and war, and the value of our own individual lives, and its navigation of these topics through the increasingly fractured psychology of its main cast was riveting. The story itself was already compelling in its twists, turns, and overwhelming sense of loss and tragedy, but the layers of existentialism that grew more prevalent as the game went on made for some outright heartbreaking moments, and it all made the game's stakes feel heavy and palpable. The game's structure involving multiple playthroughs worked really well for me, with the slight shifts and additions in gameplay being welcome changes that were a perfect fit for the recontextualization of certain events, motivations, and reveals. There's no doubt in my mind that NieR: Automata was one of the very best games I have ever played, and not only do I want to play what directly preceded it, NieR, but I also want to eventually play the game that NieR was a spinoff of, Drakengard.