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114 Reviews liked by dudfrbr
Ghost of a Tale
2018
I wanted to like this more than I did. It comes down that most of what you do in this game is not fun. Running around and dodging guards is not fun even if its in a very realized world– interconnected and gorgeously designed. The main plot wasn't very interesting even if the world-building and characters were pretty decent. Despite how cartoony some could be, they all felt like inhabitants of this world. The lore in this game is good.
There are other small things to praise, like the overall art is good but the profile graphics are very expressive and often quite cute. This game was mostly frustrating. The stealth is bad and doesn't evolve much past the first hour. This game might have my least favourite stamina system with a sprint that drains too fast and refills very slowly.
I don't know if this will ever get a sequel and I really want it to because I think a lot of the game's problems come from it being a developer's first try and a sequel would iron out the issues. It's been nearly six years, though.
There are other small things to praise, like the overall art is good but the profile graphics are very expressive and often quite cute. This game was mostly frustrating. The stealth is bad and doesn't evolve much past the first hour. This game might have my least favourite stamina system with a sprint that drains too fast and refills very slowly.
I don't know if this will ever get a sequel and I really want it to because I think a lot of the game's problems come from it being a developer's first try and a sequel would iron out the issues. It's been nearly six years, though.
Celeste
2018
Genuinely one of my favourite games I have ever played, It's hard for me to fault literally anything about it because nearly every aspect of it is perfect to me
The story is so well done and what it represents is really beautiful and inspiring, the soundtrack is absolute ear candy from start to finish, the art style is gorgeous and the mixture of pixel and traditional art works so well.
Not to mention the flawless gameplay as well, the platforming feels like just the right balance of difficult and rewarding to complete, the movement tech is incredibly fun to learn and master, every single chapter of the game is fun and unique in its own way - making perfect use of the fun and intuitive mechanics it introduces.
I'm truly glad to have 100%'d this game, Trans Rights.
The story is so well done and what it represents is really beautiful and inspiring, the soundtrack is absolute ear candy from start to finish, the art style is gorgeous and the mixture of pixel and traditional art works so well.
Not to mention the flawless gameplay as well, the platforming feels like just the right balance of difficult and rewarding to complete, the movement tech is incredibly fun to learn and master, every single chapter of the game is fun and unique in its own way - making perfect use of the fun and intuitive mechanics it introduces.
I'm truly glad to have 100%'d this game, Trans Rights.
This is the greatest Super Mario game since World on the SNES. Hands down.
Earthlock
2018
I wanted to like this game, I REALLY did. The positives: the characters and interactions are extremely charming. You could really tell the small dev team loved making this game and it was a passion project. The battle system is kind of interesting where you could go against more enemies at once for higher XP return. Additionally, character "abilities" and bond system are fine and actually help.
The negatives: Start is really shaky - gameplay isn't engaging and story is all over the place trying to throw you into a new world. This does get alleviated after the intro and you get more gameplay introduced and the world opens up. The middle point is fun and interesting and bosses can be workaround'd with their gimmicks even when lower level.
But damn, the last third of the game STRETCHES and DRAGS like no other game I played before. it devolves into insane grinding where if you don't have maxed out character levels/talents, there's no point even trying to play the late game. All enemies go up in stats and elemental weaknesses reduce (checked bestiary) to force the player to grind to pad game time. Due to the smaller audience of the game, guides are hard to come by except for the final boss which is pretty much impossible without close to maxed out everything. I've never been frustrated this much from a game.
If this game stayed as charming and unique as it was in the midpoint, it would easily be an 8/10.
The negatives: Start is really shaky - gameplay isn't engaging and story is all over the place trying to throw you into a new world. This does get alleviated after the intro and you get more gameplay introduced and the world opens up. The middle point is fun and interesting and bosses can be workaround'd with their gimmicks even when lower level.
But damn, the last third of the game STRETCHES and DRAGS like no other game I played before. it devolves into insane grinding where if you don't have maxed out character levels/talents, there's no point even trying to play the late game. All enemies go up in stats and elemental weaknesses reduce (checked bestiary) to force the player to grind to pad game time. Due to the smaller audience of the game, guides are hard to come by except for the final boss which is pretty much impossible without close to maxed out everything. I've never been frustrated this much from a game.
If this game stayed as charming and unique as it was in the midpoint, it would easily be an 8/10.
Resident Evil 3
2020
Not bad overall, but the dodge button literally never worked and I don't like the design of just putting 50 zombies in one place. Also a little too linear especially compared to the RE2 remake. The nemesis fights were cool though.
Soccer
1985
It's called football
This review contains spoilers
Finished playing final fantasy 4 advance.
This is probably going to be the last game i finish in 2023 and we are ending with a banger! The main protagonist is Cecil who at the start of the game was a dark knight and the captain of the red wings. The king of baron ordered Cecil to commit evil actions so he goes into this journey to redeem himself and to stop the new captain of the red wings Golbez. You will meet many characters that will join your party to help you on your quest where you travel around a world visiting towns and exploring dungeons, each character have their own unique abilities and thankfully none of them are completely useless.
Cecil when he was a dark knight had the dark ability which is an attack that hits all enemies but it costs some hp, when Cecil becomes a paladin later on he gains a few white magic abilities such as cure and esuna.
Kain joins you at the start of the game but he gets controlled by Golbez twice and he rejoins your party twice. Kain is a very helpful party member, he doesn't have any magic but he has got a good amount of health and can deal a great amount of damage with his jump ability.
Rydia is a summoner who lost her mother because Cecil and Kain had to deliver something in the village she was living in which caused a little chaos. Rydia is obviously mad at you at first but later on she forgives Cecil. Rydia is a decent party member at first but when she returns after getting separated she becomes an EXTREMELY helpful party member due to her summons. There are a few more summons that she can learn the most helpful one being bahamut which can deal a massive amount of damage.
Rosa is in love with Cecil and she is a white mage. She joins your party once you cure her from desert fever and rejoins when you save her from Golbez. You will mainly use her for healing party members.
Cid is an engineer who is a very helpful character in the story because he helps with airships and at one point the mad lad sacrifices himself to help the others but he ends up surviving! He is not bad in combat encounters either, he can deal a good amount of damage with his normal attacks and has a decent amount of health.
Tellah is a sage who has both white and black magic making him very useful. Tellah wanted revenge on Golbez for the death of his daughter Anna but gets defeated when he fights him because he casted a powerful attack called meteor and then dies because of his desire for revenge.
Edward is the prince of damcyan and he was in love with Anna. He joins your party to help you get an item needed to cure Rosa's desert fever. He is probably the least useful party member but his normal attack being able to confuse enemies is pretty helpful and he has an ability where he can just hide. At one point in the game he helps you defeat a boss fight by playing on his harp and he also helps you in the battle with the giant of babil.
Palom and Porom are both mages that helped Cecil become a paladin. Palom is a black mage and Porom is a white mage. They sacrifice themselves to save your party but they somehow get revived later on in the game?Idk why anyone would use them when you have Rydia and Rosa on your team but they were pretty useful before their sacrifice.
Yang is a monk who joins your party once you help him. He even has a boss fight where he attacked you because he lost his memory or something. He is an amazing party member with his normal attacks dealing a great amount of damage and he has a ton of health.He has the kick ability which hits all the enemies and the power ability which deals a ton of damage. He sacrifices himself to save everyone but somehow ended up living and he helps you in the battle with the giant of babil. You can switch him back at one point in the game.
Edge joins you pretty late in the game but he is still extremely useful. His normal attacks deal a great amount of damage, he has a decent amount of health, he can steal from enemies, he has some magic abilities like blitz and his throw ability can deal a ton of damage.
Finally we have Fusoya who just like Tellah has both white and black magic but he has a few more abilities. He has a regen ability and you can use meteor with him. He isn't really in your party for long tho.
I really liked the story and some characters especially Cecil and it had a great balance between comedy and serious moments but i personally did not like Golbez very much🤷 in my opinion he is pretty damn generic and the only thing i remember about this dude is that he is Cecil's brother and how he got manipulated by Zemus. The turn based is really great, it is very strategic, it doesn't feel slow and imo the combat shines on the bosses i really liked how it forced you to make good use of your characters abilities and not just spam basic attacks. Speaking of bosses they are awesome!
My favourite ones are Zeromus, Rubicante, Demon wall, Asura, leviathan, Eblan king and queen, Barbariccia, Cpu and Dark dragon. The graphics are pretty damn solid and the ost is great, my favourite songs being: Crystal, the final battle, within the giant, the airship, mt. ordeals and fight 2.The game has a lot of enemy variety but there are 3 of them that i found annoying af which are the malboro , the frogs and those fucking bats. I don't really mind random encounters in games as long as the encounter rate isn't too bad which is not the case for this game the random encounters got annoying pretty quickly. The inventory system is pretty much perfect, it has the right amount of space and it never gets flooded with items. I personally found the difficulty to be perfectly balanced the game never felt too easy or too hard and the game also isn't that confusing to navigate.
I personally had 0 issues with how linear the game is but i did not like how it required some grinding and is it just me or are random encounters less frequent when you need to grind?
The advance version adds character portraits, new items, a re-translation, slightly improved graphics and switching party members.
Overall while it may have some issues like the random encounters, Golbez being a generic antagonist, grinding, very few characters i did not care for and those 3 annoying ass enemies final fantasy 4 is an amazing game in my opinion that still holds up to this day
9/10
This is probably going to be the last game i finish in 2023 and we are ending with a banger! The main protagonist is Cecil who at the start of the game was a dark knight and the captain of the red wings. The king of baron ordered Cecil to commit evil actions so he goes into this journey to redeem himself and to stop the new captain of the red wings Golbez. You will meet many characters that will join your party to help you on your quest where you travel around a world visiting towns and exploring dungeons, each character have their own unique abilities and thankfully none of them are completely useless.
Cecil when he was a dark knight had the dark ability which is an attack that hits all enemies but it costs some hp, when Cecil becomes a paladin later on he gains a few white magic abilities such as cure and esuna.
Kain joins you at the start of the game but he gets controlled by Golbez twice and he rejoins your party twice. Kain is a very helpful party member, he doesn't have any magic but he has got a good amount of health and can deal a great amount of damage with his jump ability.
Rydia is a summoner who lost her mother because Cecil and Kain had to deliver something in the village she was living in which caused a little chaos. Rydia is obviously mad at you at first but later on she forgives Cecil. Rydia is a decent party member at first but when she returns after getting separated she becomes an EXTREMELY helpful party member due to her summons. There are a few more summons that she can learn the most helpful one being bahamut which can deal a massive amount of damage.
Rosa is in love with Cecil and she is a white mage. She joins your party once you cure her from desert fever and rejoins when you save her from Golbez. You will mainly use her for healing party members.
Cid is an engineer who is a very helpful character in the story because he helps with airships and at one point the mad lad sacrifices himself to help the others but he ends up surviving! He is not bad in combat encounters either, he can deal a good amount of damage with his normal attacks and has a decent amount of health.
Tellah is a sage who has both white and black magic making him very useful. Tellah wanted revenge on Golbez for the death of his daughter Anna but gets defeated when he fights him because he casted a powerful attack called meteor and then dies because of his desire for revenge.
Edward is the prince of damcyan and he was in love with Anna. He joins your party to help you get an item needed to cure Rosa's desert fever. He is probably the least useful party member but his normal attack being able to confuse enemies is pretty helpful and he has an ability where he can just hide. At one point in the game he helps you defeat a boss fight by playing on his harp and he also helps you in the battle with the giant of babil.
Palom and Porom are both mages that helped Cecil become a paladin. Palom is a black mage and Porom is a white mage. They sacrifice themselves to save your party but they somehow get revived later on in the game?Idk why anyone would use them when you have Rydia and Rosa on your team but they were pretty useful before their sacrifice.
Yang is a monk who joins your party once you help him. He even has a boss fight where he attacked you because he lost his memory or something. He is an amazing party member with his normal attacks dealing a great amount of damage and he has a ton of health.He has the kick ability which hits all the enemies and the power ability which deals a ton of damage. He sacrifices himself to save everyone but somehow ended up living and he helps you in the battle with the giant of babil. You can switch him back at one point in the game.
Edge joins you pretty late in the game but he is still extremely useful. His normal attacks deal a great amount of damage, he has a decent amount of health, he can steal from enemies, he has some magic abilities like blitz and his throw ability can deal a ton of damage.
Finally we have Fusoya who just like Tellah has both white and black magic but he has a few more abilities. He has a regen ability and you can use meteor with him. He isn't really in your party for long tho.
I really liked the story and some characters especially Cecil and it had a great balance between comedy and serious moments but i personally did not like Golbez very much🤷 in my opinion he is pretty damn generic and the only thing i remember about this dude is that he is Cecil's brother and how he got manipulated by Zemus. The turn based is really great, it is very strategic, it doesn't feel slow and imo the combat shines on the bosses i really liked how it forced you to make good use of your characters abilities and not just spam basic attacks. Speaking of bosses they are awesome!
My favourite ones are Zeromus, Rubicante, Demon wall, Asura, leviathan, Eblan king and queen, Barbariccia, Cpu and Dark dragon. The graphics are pretty damn solid and the ost is great, my favourite songs being: Crystal, the final battle, within the giant, the airship, mt. ordeals and fight 2.The game has a lot of enemy variety but there are 3 of them that i found annoying af which are the malboro , the frogs and those fucking bats. I don't really mind random encounters in games as long as the encounter rate isn't too bad which is not the case for this game the random encounters got annoying pretty quickly. The inventory system is pretty much perfect, it has the right amount of space and it never gets flooded with items. I personally found the difficulty to be perfectly balanced the game never felt too easy or too hard and the game also isn't that confusing to navigate.
I personally had 0 issues with how linear the game is but i did not like how it required some grinding and is it just me or are random encounters less frequent when you need to grind?
The advance version adds character portraits, new items, a re-translation, slightly improved graphics and switching party members.
Overall while it may have some issues like the random encounters, Golbez being a generic antagonist, grinding, very few characters i did not care for and those 3 annoying ass enemies final fantasy 4 is an amazing game in my opinion that still holds up to this day
9/10
Stardew Valley
2016
I feel like Stardew Valley saved my life. During a time where I was isolated away from others for months, this is what I needed. I love the sense of community so much. In singleplayer, I love optimizing my farm, giving everyone perfect gifts, and doing everything at the different festivals, and I can still just relax and hang out on a co-op farm. Beautiful game, love you ConcernedApe
Far Cry 3
2012
For a 10+ year old game, I was genuinely surprised that - past the technical limitations of the time, the game is still genuinely fun and engaging to go through the story and complete some of the side activities.
I can't comment on the rest of the side activities like the hundreds of collectables or the radio towers/camps as there's a lot of "Ubisoft" padding that was avoided.
Past that, genuinely engaging gameplay and graphics that still look pretty good nowadays. Story was pretty good but the performances really sold the characters (other than MC Jason who sounded scrawny for a hardened killer lol).
Weapon unlocks and new equipment throughout the story kept things interesting. Set pieces were all also very fun (looking at you, skrillex weed and also classical music while Jason spits one liners)
I wanna give this a 7.8/10 since the Ubisoft padding and technical limitations mostly.
I can't comment on the rest of the side activities like the hundreds of collectables or the radio towers/camps as there's a lot of "Ubisoft" padding that was avoided.
Past that, genuinely engaging gameplay and graphics that still look pretty good nowadays. Story was pretty good but the performances really sold the characters (other than MC Jason who sounded scrawny for a hardened killer lol).
Weapon unlocks and new equipment throughout the story kept things interesting. Set pieces were all also very fun (looking at you, skrillex weed and also classical music while Jason spits one liners)
I wanna give this a 7.8/10 since the Ubisoft padding and technical limitations mostly.
Cute, wholesome game that's quick and easy to complete. Pretty funny for chronically online folk and is great in short bursts imo!
Smaller budget team with a lot of heart (also there's small amount of the game that's kind of sad, but overall has a happy tone :) )
Smaller budget team with a lot of heart (also there's small amount of the game that's kind of sad, but overall has a happy tone :) )
Super Mario Odyssey
2017
It just makes you happy to play :) Picking it up after shelving it during 2018 has you jump right back into it within minutes.
Definitely a pick-up for anyone with a switch who wants to play through a great 3D platformer and/or a collect-a-thon.
PS: Darker side is hella good
Definitely a pick-up for anyone with a switch who wants to play through a great 3D platformer and/or a collect-a-thon.
PS: Darker side is hella good
After nearly twenty years of playing this game, I finished the post-game of Final Fantasy XII! Both the vanilla superbosses and the Trial Mode The Zodiac Age added in. I left a review on the PS2 game’s page but figured I’ll add my thoughts on The Zodiac Age version.
The big sell here is the job system and it’s pretty cool! I like the dual-classing upgraded they added in this edition of FF12, but character being so focused creates a lot of small inconveniences. Only the Time Mage has Float, a very important spell if you are going through a place with traps. I had to keep my Fran out through most dungeons because I didn’t have a lot of Float Motes and mines were abound. You can unlock some extra abilities on everyone’s License Grids with Quickenings and Espers but there should have been more options available for late game conveniences. I was missing the absolute freedom of everyone sharing vanilla FF12’s maximalist License Grid.
While The Zodiac Age took away a lot of original’s need-guide BS like the whole thing with the Zodiac Spear, a lot of spells are stuck in normal-looking treasures that you can easily miss then go through the whole game never having that spell. It’s two steps-forward, one step back with this game.
The 2x and 4x speed settings were a great edition. Got a lot of use of them beating Hell Wyrm and Yiazmat. On the other hand, TZA could have improved the gambit system more. While the multiple gambit sets are a nice addition, I wished for more gambit types and additional complexity.
Overall, the speedup option and cool job system make this the definitive version of a game that I, despite my criticism, think it is pretty good and still love a lot. Maybe I don’t think it’s as good as I used to, but still something that is worth playing. A lot of my problems are things that became more obvious in the sidequest/post-game parts of Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age so someone playing a casual playthrough probably wouldn’t butt heads with those annoyances.
The big sell here is the job system and it’s pretty cool! I like the dual-classing upgraded they added in this edition of FF12, but character being so focused creates a lot of small inconveniences. Only the Time Mage has Float, a very important spell if you are going through a place with traps. I had to keep my Fran out through most dungeons because I didn’t have a lot of Float Motes and mines were abound. You can unlock some extra abilities on everyone’s License Grids with Quickenings and Espers but there should have been more options available for late game conveniences. I was missing the absolute freedom of everyone sharing vanilla FF12’s maximalist License Grid.
While The Zodiac Age took away a lot of original’s need-guide BS like the whole thing with the Zodiac Spear, a lot of spells are stuck in normal-looking treasures that you can easily miss then go through the whole game never having that spell. It’s two steps-forward, one step back with this game.
The 2x and 4x speed settings were a great edition. Got a lot of use of them beating Hell Wyrm and Yiazmat. On the other hand, TZA could have improved the gambit system more. While the multiple gambit sets are a nice addition, I wished for more gambit types and additional complexity.
Overall, the speedup option and cool job system make this the definitive version of a game that I, despite my criticism, think it is pretty good and still love a lot. Maybe I don’t think it’s as good as I used to, but still something that is worth playing. A lot of my problems are things that became more obvious in the sidequest/post-game parts of Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age so someone playing a casual playthrough probably wouldn’t butt heads with those annoyances.
Hollow Knight
2017
well holy fucking shit
Wow...just wow. What a fantastic ending to a fantastic series.
What can I say about this game that hasn't already been said? It looks absolutely gorgeous, plays incredibly well too, and delivers both another satisfying adventure with Nathan Drake and friends and also provides the perfect ending to wrap it all up nice and sweet. The few issues I had with it wern't even huge issues. The AI is alot tougher than previous games, just playing on Normal mode had me dying a lot more than I thought I would. This isn't really a problem though and probably more of a reflection of my skills. My other small issue were the villains. They never really quite felt like they were that villianess, they were just there the whole time. Compared to previous entries villains like Flynn, Lazarevic, and Marlowe, Rafe and Nadine aren't very compelling. The story also feels a little slower than previous games, but this isn't so much a complaint but more of the developers deciding to do things a bt differently.
Overall though Uncharted 4 is another awesome ride beginning to end. Getting to see the Drake gang go on one final adventure together is great and plays pretty much perfectly. And man, that epilogue chapter. So good.
*NOTE: Guess I should mention multiplayer too. While also looking gorgeous and handling pretty damn well, I haven't really gotten into the multiplayer in this as I did with 3. The changes they made are cool and all but I miss the system for 3. It's probably because I've sunk hours upon hours into the previous multiplayer mode, but this one is just missing the bits that really hooked me before.
What can I say about this game that hasn't already been said? It looks absolutely gorgeous, plays incredibly well too, and delivers both another satisfying adventure with Nathan Drake and friends and also provides the perfect ending to wrap it all up nice and sweet. The few issues I had with it wern't even huge issues. The AI is alot tougher than previous games, just playing on Normal mode had me dying a lot more than I thought I would. This isn't really a problem though and probably more of a reflection of my skills. My other small issue were the villains. They never really quite felt like they were that villianess, they were just there the whole time. Compared to previous entries villains like Flynn, Lazarevic, and Marlowe, Rafe and Nadine aren't very compelling. The story also feels a little slower than previous games, but this isn't so much a complaint but more of the developers deciding to do things a bt differently.
Overall though Uncharted 4 is another awesome ride beginning to end. Getting to see the Drake gang go on one final adventure together is great and plays pretty much perfectly. And man, that epilogue chapter. So good.
*NOTE: Guess I should mention multiplayer too. While also looking gorgeous and handling pretty damn well, I haven't really gotten into the multiplayer in this as I did with 3. The changes they made are cool and all but I miss the system for 3. It's probably because I've sunk hours upon hours into the previous multiplayer mode, but this one is just missing the bits that really hooked me before.
Infamous: Second Son
2014
Finished the good storyline, defintly enjoyed it a lot! It felt a lot like the original infamous which was a good throw back, especially since infamous 1 was my first PS3 game way back when. The game felt kinda short though, I was surprised when I realized the plot as wrapping up already. There's not of diversity in the game either. Besides the different powers everything ust kinda feels the same over and over which is a bit of a bummer. The story is good but I didn't feel as invested as I did in the first 2 infamous games, at least until the end.
I'm gonna do an evil playthrough soon but I have a feeling that will just be more of the same and be an even quicker playthrough. Still though not a bad game. Certainly enjoyed my time with it!
I'm gonna do an evil playthrough soon but I have a feeling that will just be more of the same and be an even quicker playthrough. Still though not a bad game. Certainly enjoyed my time with it!