I really wanted to like this game. Games that are lean on gameplay and heavy on writing don't scare me, I specifically chose to play this game due to that. I didn't know much else about it though.

When I played through the first Act, I thought to myself: OK, what the fuck? I have 0 idea what is going on. I don't know if I like it, but let's give it more time

When I played through the second Act right after, I thought: OK, what the fuck? I have 0 idea what is going on. I don't really like it, but I'll give it more time. There must be something that I hang on to at some point.

When I played through Act III, I realized that the game was not going to satisfy what I'm looking for. I like the visual style, I think the songs that play are nice (albeit not really leaving any impact on me) and I think the game's style is unique and certainly worth experiencing for yourself to see if it sticks with you in a way it didn't with me.

One major thing that I didn't really gel with was the "magical realism" style that this apparently has. Never heard of the term before, but it's basically a realistic, mundane setting with magical elements in it. It's not sci fi, not fantasy but it's own thing and personally, I dislike magical realism. At first I thought the game would have a grounded setting and would tell a deeply human story. There is certainly the attempt of it here (a successful attempt if you ask many others), but I just couldn't buy this setting. Give me something grounded or buy into the magical more. I, subjectively, dislike the middle road a lot and I doubt I'll interact with media in this literary style again.

The game has a heavy focus on dialogue (I don't mind. I read plenty of books, I enjoy visual novels and Disco Elysium is one of my favorite games of all time for example), but a lot of conversations just felt so odd and unpleasant. For one thing, too often I think characters don't conversate, they just say things unrelated to what their conversation partner is saying. The game was sold to me as very realistic, but I've never done that in my life. Second, a lot of conversations drag on by going on tangents for no apparent reason. Third, a lot of the dialogue and characters were too cryptic. Sure, I get that there is commentary about life, about the highs and lows, about death, about regret and a lot more topics that make life what it is, but the way these topics are addressed left me unimpressed for a lack of a better word than be brought along a mysterious, bittersweet journey like it seems to be the case for many others. Ultimately, I have felt more emotional about these topics while playing dozens of other video games, either by telling a grounded story and or a story in a fantasy setting with human stakes involved rather than what Kentucky Route Zero tries to do.

Look at the review score for this by critics and on many online sites. They're pretty high. Needless to say, this is just my opinion and it's not shared by the majority. So if you own it, give it a try. For me personally, the game was not fun as game, which was a given, but also was not enjoyable as a novel, which was not.

(This is the 97th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet/blog is in my bio.)

It surprised me to see the very positive reviews about this game online. Usually, I find that my thoughts on these older games align for the most part with consensus, or are even more positive. With Contra: Hard Corps, the follow up to 1992's excellent Contra III: The Alien Wars, I stumbled upon a game where I found my time to be significantly less fun than it seems to have been for many others.

I'm not gonna dive too deeply into it because I "only" played the game for 3 hours, but as someone who thought that Contra III definitely was among the 3 best games to release in 1992, the amount by which I disliked Contra Hard Corps was very surprising and easily my biggest disappointment out of the 1994 playlist. Why? Level design would probably be my number one answer to that. For a game that is as fast-paced and action-packed as Contra games tend to be, there were a LOT more moments in this game where you couldn't skip dialogue or certain scenes. For a game made to be replayed constantly, this had me bored out of my mind after the 10+ failed attempts each area took me. Then there is the bosses and mini bosses in each level, which felt unfairly designed here more than anything. Where Contra III's bosses usually made me feel like I mastered them after a while and could reliably get past them, bosses in Contra Hard Corps just seem to constantly corner you or have attacks that are just barely avoidable by a frame and overall feel way less reliable to beat. Weapons seem to do less damage here than in Contra III as well, which means for a lot of fights with basic enemies, you can't just "run and gun" your way past them, but instead have to stop, aim and shoot, which for a game like this really isn't something I should ever be forced to do.

There is no stand and shoot diagonally button for starters. Controls are not tight either. If one projectile comes at you, they are reliably dodgable, but two or more and I found myself praying to the Contra gods that my input would allow me to dodge them. Even if you do, hitboxes seem too large and you get hit anyway.

It's things like that that just made this incredibly frustrating to play. I can't say I enjoyed any of this. It felt like a less clever, more unfairly punishing Contra III with worse visuals.

Clearly, I'm in the minority with that opinion, but unfortunately this was my experience for a game I was looking forward to.

(This is the 98th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet/blog is in my bio.)

Couldn't really bring myself to get back to this game after having played it for 10 or so hours a while back. Probably a prime candidate to be replayed some time in the future but for now, there are two main reasons for why I ended up dropping this.

1) I played a lot of Final Fantasy the past year, 3, 4, 5 and now 6, in addition to other JRPGs of its time. As commendable and ahead of the pack Final Fantasy was at this point, these turn based battles are usually tolerable at best, considering that the majority of battles are very simple and repetitive in how they unfold. If you loved combat from FF3-5 or even the successors to FF6, then this should not discourage you from playing FF6.
2) The above would be more tolerable if I enjoyed the dialogue and liked the cast of characters as well as where the story was headed. In this regard, FF6 chooses to do things differently to other entries in the series, which, again, is very much going to be something each individual will have their preferences about. In FF6, there are a lot of "main characters" instead of one or up to 4 of them, and you are sent back and forth between them over the course of this game. Considering that there are multiple characters with mysterious backgrounds who don't have much in personality in the early going, I thought giving them little screen time made me care very little about pretty much the entire cast as a result, at least during the time I played. The resolutions might be satisfying, but combined with everything else, I could not make myself play this for 20-30+ more hours to see the results.

Again, I might revisit the game at some point, especially if FF7 and beyond finally make me fans of Final Fantasy games. For now, what I can say, despite my subjective criticisms, is that it is clear during every minute that you play this that FF6 is way beyond 99% of video games at its time in terms of production values. And if there is one thing I really liked about this game, it would be its soundtrack. Terras Theme is definitely my favorite Final Fantasy theme as of now.

But to conclude, FF6 progresses the series forward but the paths it chooses to take in storytelling combined with your affinity (or lack thereof) for the battle system will determine whether you will want to see this through.

Count me among those who see Lies of P as their favorite non-FromSoft Soulslike. In pretty much every aspect, Neowiz pulled off an immensely well crafted game and put themselves on the map as developers to look out for henceforth. The setting that is inspired by Carlo Collodi's The Adventures of Pinocchio, the beautiful visuals, the top tier boss presentations, the satisfying and varied combat and a satisfying resolution to the story made this such a joy to play through. If you're a fan of the genre, you definitely have to check this one out.

STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 8/10

The setting is Krat, a city where puppets were invented thanks to a power source called Ergo. Puppets can be police offers, porters at railway stations and all kinds of servants for the people of Krat. In what is called the "Puppet Frenzy", puppets have started to act out and kill the same humans they once served. In the midst of this, you (Pinocchio) awaken on a train. A voice calls out to you, the voice of a mysterious woman called Sophia. She tells you to meet them at Hotel Krat.

Not too long after, you get there and get your next task. Find Geppetto, your father. With the help of Geppetto, Sophia and a few other characters you meet along your journey, you are tasked with figuring out the cause for the Puppet Frenzy and with ultimately putting an end to it.

At the same time, a sickness called the "Petrification Disease" is spreading as well, which is deemed incurable and slowly kills its victims. As with many occurences and persons in this game, it too has an aura of mystery regarding its existence.

The story starts slow. As you make progress in the game and as you meet more of the characters, you can engage in mostly optional conversations where you will hear a lot of the same words. Puppet Frenzy. Petrification Disease. The Grand Covenant. The Alchemists. Ergo. These are all presented in a mysterious way and slowly but surely you uncover the fog. It's all done in a typical way, but thankfully, when the game reaches its conclusion, a lot of the mysteries in this game reach a really satisfying and partly unexpected conclusion.

There are three total endings and the ending you get depends on the choices you make. For this, the game has a unique LIE system, at least that's what I think it's called. Since you play Pinocchio, a puppet, you shouldn't be able to lie, just like every other puppet - but you can. So a lot of times, you will be faced with questions and two choices. Either lie or tell the truth. Lying makes you feel more like a puppet, while telling the truth brings out more of your humanity. There are also a few other, somewhat hidden ways you can increase your humanity, which were all pretty satisfying to figure out in terms of exploring locations and being rewarded for it in unexpected ways. From what I've seen online, I got the true ending and I can only say that I was really satisfied with that. Looking at the other endings, what strikes me is that they all appear pretty meaningful and make a lot of sense. This adds plenty to replayability, if you want to do a NG+ or just another NG run.

The story is told similarly to From Software games. You'll notice while playing this that Lies of P is inspired by From Software games A LOT. Bloodborne chief among them. Similarly to that, you explore a city in which all residents that survived hide in their homes. Lies of P has a similarly dark, gothic style. There are even residents here who you can't see and talk to through windows. And these residents, alongside many other characters, are the main ways you figure out the setting and the lore of Krat. If you've played any Soulsborne game, you'll be instantly familiar. What struck me though is that I found the writing in Lies of P to be a bit weaker and more simplistic than Soulsborne games. Obviously this plays second and third fiddle to the game's focus on combat and its visual style, but dialogue and writing can add a lot to the atmosphere, and some character dialogue, your voiced companion Gemini (who ultimately seemed like a pointless addition to me) and the numerous logs/notes/articles sometimes features writing that subtracts from that.

Again, the game ultimately pulls off its story conclusion satisfyingly, but engaging in dialogue didn't always keep me as intrigued as the games Lies of P is inspired by. When I say the story was concluded well though, I don't just mean the main story, but also many of the characters own little side stories. Sophia, Eugenie, Polendina, Giangio, Alidoro, Antonia and many more characters get their own moments to shine and I loved that.

Overall, even with the small complaints, Lies of P exceeded my expectations (a theme for this game) in terms of its storytelling and cast of characters.

GAMEPLAY | 17/20

Do you like Soulslikes for their gameplay? Then go play Lies of P, I really think it's one of the few non FromSoft Soulslikes that are exceptional in terms of combat. And I mean EXCEPTIONAL. If I didn't know, I would think this game was developed by From Software, truly.

At the start, you get to pick one of three weapons (I picked the Saber). Alongside your Saber blade, you also get the Saber handle. These things aren't tied to each other however. No, you can grab any of the dozens of blades in this game and combine them with any of the dozens of handles. What does this do?

Well, the blade is relevant in terms of the damage output. Blades do a certain amount of damage, can be upgraded by finding upgrade stones, reduce different amounts of damage while guarding and their damage output also scales similarly to Soulsborne games, but instead of Strength or Dex scaling, here it's called "Motivity and Technique" scaling. The handle you equip with the blade can change how the scaling for it works, it can change the moveset and handles have different "Fable Arts" equipped to them, which are special attacks or passives during combat.

I stuck with the Saber blade and handle for the entire playthrough and upgraded it to its max. I got its Motivity scaling to B, got Motivity up to 36 at the final boss and a +4 Motivity amulet (you can equip amulets in this game) and this setup was more than good enough to have a good chance during the final few boss fights. I'm definitely going to do another playthrough and be more experimental then, but having seen some combat clips from others, I don't think I saw the same blade / handle combo once in them, which should tell you how much replayability the game has in terms of its weaponry as well.

You might have picked up on it, but yes, there are no shields in this game. To be successful in battle, you have to play a style similarly to Sekiro, where parrying perfectly can give you a major advantage. Parrying will increase the "Stagger meter" on opponents, fill up your Fable Arts bar and therefore let you do more damaging attacks later on. There is also a "Legion Arm", which is a robotic arm you can equip to mix up combat some more. There are 6 or 7 options I believe, like an arm that can shoot projectiles, that can shoot electricity/fire or even one that can act as a shield. Personally, I didn't find it to be too useful, but I'm sure there are people who use their Legion Arms to make fools out of bosses. Ultimately though, the game introduces a lot of these features to you and succeeding in Lies of P will really depend on how well you can adjust to these mechanics, especially parrying. I've read that some think the game is really difficult, but as a below average Soulslike gamer myself, I can tell you that using all these mechanics will make the game challenging, yes, but very doable. There were just three bosses that I had to attempt 10+ times, but none more than 20.

There were many boss fights that felt impossible at the start. It didn't take long however for me to figure out what approach would work best, and I always found myself rewarded for it. Oh and on top of that, the bosses were presented amazingly well, so well that each time a new boss would show up, I'd put my controller down and just enjoy the show before the fighting starts. All of this is what makes great bosses in my opinion, and Lies of P does a phenomenal job. You might not always think so while you find yourself struggling, like I did, but thinking back, there wasn't a single boss fight I would call bad and all of them felt really different and, most importantly, fun and challenging.

One reward you often get in this game is called "Quartz", which is an item used to upgrade your abilities. There are a lot of choices for how you want to build your character. You can add to your Pulse Cells (healing items), you can make your Pulse Cells heal more, add amulet slots, make strong attacks deal more damage, make you regain more health when you guard, make your Fable Arts charge faster, add more consumable slots etc.

While we are on Pulse Cells, the undoubtedly best unique feature in Lies of P is recharging Pulse Cells. Once you run out of Pulse Cells, you can get another one by hitting your enemy enough times. And then another. And another. This means you never are out of a fight. An amazing incentive to not just throw in the towel. This mechanic saved me multiple times during boss fights and helped me sneak in a win.

In terms of itemization, here is what I didn't like. The game has tremendous amount of customizability in terms of weaponry, so I do appreciate that the devs gave the players a bunch of different consumables to use as well, but in the end, I just think there are too many items here and too many that don't feel very useful. They also are quickly consumed, so constantly switching equipped items didn't feel like something that felt all that fun, which is why I only stuck to abrasives (items that add status effects to your blade) and Fable Catalysts (which add to your Fable Arts meter). This doesn't stop you however from finding tons of items while exploring and being disappointed when 80% of them are not really useful. To add insult to injury, you can only sell them for 10-50 Ergo as well (the "Souls" of this game).

The worst offender would be the repair items and the system that comes with it. In Lies of P, there is the "Weapon Degradation" mechanic. Luckily, this mechanic rarely becomes an issue, but that is all the more reason why I wonder about its inclusion. As you use your blade, it degrades, and to repair it, you use your grindstone. That's it. There is no limits to how often you want to use your grindstone, and for like 90% of the game, you don't even need to use your grindstone, because by the time your weapon is at low durability, you find the next Stargazer ("bonfire") and your durability is back to full. Where it does get relevant however is for enemies and bosses that give you the "Decay" status effect, which drastically reduces durability. During boss fights in particular this gets annoying. Does it make one in particular harder? Sure. But unlike the rest of the game, that particular part of the boss was just annoying rather than anything else, and overall, I think the game could have definitely done without the degradation mechanic.

Overall though, let me reiterate that if you enjoy gameplay of Soulsborne games, then this game is almost assuredly going to be to your liking. Combat is great and can be customized in a lot of ways, which means you can tackle all the bosses in a lot of ways, which means you might just blink and find yourself at NG+4.

MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 10/10

It took a while for me to get warm with some of the voice acting in this game, but I liked it overall. Giangio is probably the one that left the biggest positive impact, and all the other ones were solid, but no other stood out. Gemini's voice actor does kind of feel out of place though, just tonaly, and that's worsened by the fact that the game doesn't really do anything with the character, which felt weird (maybe going to be done in DLC?).

Where the game truly, truuuly shines though is in its soundtrack. My god is it great. The tracks used during exploration are good. The theme of Hotel Krat is burnt inside my memory now. The boss fight soundtrack is filled with great songs that fit them really well. But the real MVP is the soundtrack used for the game's records. Vinyl records are collectibles in this game, and you can listen to them in the Hotel. "Feel" is already much beloved online, but I want to give a special shoutout to "Divine Service", which gives me goosebumps every time I listen to it. This whole collection seems to have had one rule for one entry though: "Be a banger". And my god are they.

GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 10/10

Fantastic, beautiful visuals. The number of times I just stood on a cliff or some place with a great view and just appreciated the visuals the game threw at my face would be too high to count. There is a lot of Bloodborne-esque world building here, but I also got Resident Evil 4 vibes for some reason. Apart from that though, the game also has tremendous presentation, whether it's whenever new bosses are introduced (their design is also phenomenal) or often when you enter new areas. There were lots of moments like that that made me go "Wow" audibly. During normal dialogue, lip movement doesn't really match what is being said and for budget reasons (probably), a lot of cutscenes are cut short and turn into in-game conversations, but man does this game go above and beyond in every other way.

ATMOSPHERE/IMMERSION | 10/10

As I said, there are a lot of inspirations from Bloodborne and other Soulsborne games here, but also a hint of Resident Evil 4. Despite this, the game manages to feel unique anyway. The Pinocchio setting is used really well, the locations you visit all feel distinct and visually interesting and the Human-Puppet-dilemma takes center stage in many moments and is a theme that is well explored. This all culminates perfectly in all endings in my opinion.

CONTENT | 9/10

There is plenty of content in this game. It took me 30 hours to beat, which includes doing the majority of side content and exploring almost everywhere I could. Apart from the main bosses, there are many smaller, optional bosses which give you rewards such as new weapons (there must be 30+), new costumes, new masks and lots of Quartz to improve your skills.

Exploring areas also leads to many hidden chests, items and even characters and side quests. Doing these side quests can reward you with the above or even with collectible records. Unfortunately, you can't collect them all during one playthrough, but I suppose that adds to the replayability of this game. Side quests usually involve making progress, stumbling upon the item they are looking for and bringing them back to them, like some wine for a woman who can't leave her home because she has the Petrification Disease.

Then there are phone booths in many areas, through which the King of Riddles gives you riddles. These are usually very easy and giving the right answer gives you Humanity points and a Trinity key, which can be used to open hidden Trinity Sanctums, which give you Quartz, costumes or weapons. Finally, there are Cryptic Vessels, which a character in the Hotel can decrypt for you. These are usually pictures of areas you've visited and treasure marked on that picture. Go back to the area and grab the treasure.

Overall, there are a lot of fun activities apart from just following the main quest, and not distracting in any way.

LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 8/10

If there is one thing the game lacks compared to Soulsborne games, its clever level design. The levels look great, all of them have several branching paths which you can all explore to find optional areas, but they lack the interconnectivity and the overall complexity that Soulsborne games can and usually do possess. That's not a bad thing necessarily, especially for people who are fine with just going a laid out path to the next boss, but it's worth mentioning. The levels become more complex in the latter chapters (though the final one dragged a bit imo) and again, each of them does provide plenty of exploration.

CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 6/10

It's a Soulslike alright. It wears its inspiration on its forehead sometimes, for the whole world to see, but does so many things well and plenty of things differently that it doesn't really feel negative. At the end of the day, it IS a concept we've seen however. Lies of P does introduce many great things to the genre, such as interchangeable blades / handles and healing item recharges, and I'd love to see the latter concept being used more regularly in Soulslikes, and Lies of P's boss fight presentations are among the best in the genre, so there is a lot that Lies of P does that makes it stand out anyway.

REPLAYABILITY | 4/5

Amazing replayability. The main story stays the same for the most part, but you can do an entire playthrough lying or telling the truth, you can give multiple side quests unique resolutions, you HAVE to do two playthroughs to get all collectable records and you can use dozens of weapons and blade / handle combinations, as well as different builds by using Quartz, which will make a second playthrough feel plenty different. If there is one thing that holds the game back in this regard it's that the levels are pretty simple and you'll likely have found every corner during your first playthrough by just being thorough.

PLAYABILITY | 5/5

Works well at all times.

OVERALL | 87/100

An amazing experience in pretty much every way and has reminded me why I love Soulslikes so much. Combat is fantastic, the story turns out great, visuals and bosses are stunningly designed and replayability is really high. Can't wait for the DLC.

Bought the DLC after 100%ing Cuphead. The creativity on display for Cuphead and its DLC is just off the charts. I'm so glad that this visual style exists in video game form. Oh, and the game behind it is also extremely challenging and fun.

StudioMDHR could have given us DLC that only included the 6 or 7 bosses that are in this 8€ package and could have called it a day. It would have been a lot of fun either way. But no, apart from the - once again - such unique bosses in terms of presentations and attack patterns, this DLC also gives you access to a whole new playable character (Ms Chalice) and her own skill set. New super arts, a different parry style, ability to dodge and jump twice and the ability to do a lower dodge to gain a second of invincibility.

On top of that, there is a secret boss fight AND a really worthwile arena with 5 additional "boss fights" where attacks are disabled and you can only win by parrying. Then there is the final gauntlet level for this mode where you have to defeat all of them back to back, as well as an optional relic that you can get in a cursed form (if equipped, you start fights at 1 HP and your attack is randomized every time you start shooting) and turn into a divine form by beating a certain number of bosses with it equipped, and ultimately, this DLC will provide you up to 10 hours of challenging and really fun content.

I got Cuphead close to release and played through it in about a week and about 20 hours. I'm by no means a skilled gamer, and thankfully, despite its high difficulty, you actually get better really fast in this game.

Fast forward to today and I have put over 64 hours into it through multiple playthroughs of just playing around on my own or with my little brother without really getting far, including the most recent 20 hours which I spent to get all achievements in the game. I'm not someone who goes for achievements usually, but I recently got the itch to do so and chose Cuphead for my first (intentional) 100%, and I'm glad I did.

First off, replaying Cuphead has shown me once again what a fantastic game it is, both in terms of gameplay and especially visually. Cuphead's presentation is among the very top for video games. The attention to detail in every level is just absolutely insane. On top of that, the devs went as far as to create three different difficulties, all of which add plenty on top of what is already present in the boss fights, making it possible to go for three different runs, all of which are tougher than the other. Going above and beyond is a statement that fits Cuphead very well.

The soundtrack is great, the bosses and their variety is great, the challenge is almost perfect (Why do I not get invincibility frames after I use my Super Art???) and the replayability is very high.

Maybe don't go for 100% if you're not a skilled gamer or OK with getting the urge to punch the wall a couple times, but do play Cuphead, it's one of the must play video games in my opinion.

I jumped into Metal Gear Solid II: Sons of Liberty right after beating Metal Gear Solid 1 and I'm very glad I did. Metal Gear Solid II is a true sequel to MGS 1, which ends on a post-credits phone call scene between one of the antagonists of MGS 1 and the president of the USA. MGS 2 released on November 13, 2001 for the PlayStation 2, which means this game released three years after the original and for a new generation of consoles.

As someone who has played a lot of old school games over the past couple years, I was pretty used to MGS 1's visuals (I usually played games before the 32-bit era, so MGS 1's visuals actually looked really good in that respect). This meant that seeing the jump to MGS 2 and all those improvements felt even more exciting and I can happily say that MGS 2 truely feels next-gen for its time. Visuals are much improved, controls are smoothed out and gameplay has a lot more features, including much more persistent enemy AI, among other things.

So if you enjoyed MGS 1, MGS 2 is a must-play, though I preferred MGS 1 slightly over its sequel for a couple reasons which I will go over in my full review.

STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 9/10

There is a lot I loved about Metal Gear Solid 2's story. The last two hours of it felt incredibly relevant for today and I'd almost consider the story GOATed just for that (the story was relevant in its time for other aspects, as the 9/11 incident occured just before release and a lot of content had to be cut, as it was too similar, which is just eerie). There are some very emotional scenes in the game that were excellent in delivery and near made my cry in one particular scene. Finally, there are two full "books" in the Bonus section of the game with 100+ and 300+ pages (though with a very low word count per page, so around 1 hour's worth of reading for the latter), the sort of detail that I love in games. One is from the perspective of Nastascha Romanenko, who was on comm support in the first game, and the other is from a conspiracy theorists perspective.

Overall, there is a lot to like here. The setting is great (the Big Shell part especially), the themes are great and well-explored, the bait and switch part I was more than OK with (though I see how people at the time could have been mad), Otacon remains a legend, the connection between war and misery and how it affects nearly every character in the game is just very tragic and finally, Snake's post-game speech is fantastic. The two things I thought could have been better was 1) keeping the 4th-wall breaking or the jokes out of certain scenes, as it took away from their meaning a little bit and 2) the gameplay-cutscene balance. The series is obviously famous for "interrupting" gameplay with cutscenes and codec calls on a regular basis, and while it's not something I see negatively per se, I thought MGS 1 struck that balance better. Maybe it happened this often here because Kojima realized how many more cutscenes he could fit in thanks to the power of the PS2? Either way, I can see how certain gamers would not be too fond of this, though it didn't reach WTF levels for me.

A final word regarding the game's preditive nature and its themes. Look at these quotes that are incredibly relevant regarding social media and fake news. "Rumors about petty issues, misinterpretations, slander..." / "All this junk data preserved in an unfiltered state, growing at an alarming rate" / "The digital society furthers human flaws and selectively rewards development of convenient half-truths". There is more like this on that topic, on AI, on censorship and more. The game also explores themes more hopeful and in a more optimistic way, which I hope you discover on your own by playing this game, but suffice it to say that I loved the messaging and I can see why a lot of players where impacted by these games at a younger age, when even today I can only tip my hat to Hideo Kojima for this.

GAMEPLAY | 17/20

As with the Storytelling part, gameplay could have been slightly more enjoyable, if the balance was struck better. Rarely do you play for more than 5-10 minutes uninterrupted, unless you are really lost on what to do or where to go next, which can happen on two or three occasions. TIP: Keep an eye out for doors that require a higher level keycard to open. When you get an upgrade to your keycard, go back to these places to sometimes find items that you will need for later.

Gameplay overall is once again very unique and a lot of fun in Metal Gear Solid 2. The movement controls have been smoothed out a bit over the original and you feel more in control of what exactly you are doing here. There are also several other improvements and additions that have been made. Most notably, whenever you alert enemies to your presence, they don't become completely oblivious to your presence after the fact. Instead, they stay on alert afterwards by keeping more guards in that area and by roaming the place searching for you. Meanwhile, you can use some more tactics yourself to stay out of sight or gain an advantage in combat. First-person mode lets you aim at specific targets, you can peek out from cover and quickly take a shot at enemies and you can hang off of railings to get past enemies that cover walkways.

As per usual, boss battles are a big part in this Metal Gear game. It's subjective, but I think I enjoyed the bosses in MGS 1 more, though I think this speaks more positively of MGS 1's bosses than it does negatively of MGS 2's. There are memorable boss fights in this game and the antagonists are all very interesting personalities, but the Fatman fight for example took too long imo while the Metal Gear battle felt almost insulting to the threat Metal Gears are supposed to represent, as you can take out not just one, but 3 (!) of them singlehandedly in this game. But then there is Vamp, the Solidus fight and the Metal Gear and Fatman fight having their positive qualities that are definitely worth mentioning, plus the aura of impossibility surrounding Fortune and just like that, you got a pretty strong line up. The resolution to these boss fights were also pretty satisfying and I'm sensing a theme that defeating every boss in Metal Gear games is just a bittersweet experience.

MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 10/10

Voice acting is great once again, which isn't too usual for a game of this era. The only character whose voice acting I didn't quite enjoy for a while was Rose, but I feel like that got better over time. The sound design is great just like in MGS 1 but takes it up a notch, especially with its use of ambient sounds and music in each area that you are, whether it's on the connecting bridges outside at the Big Shell where you hear the wind and the birds chirping, whether it's the sick Crew's Lounge track or the sounds of rain on the Tanker and more, it's really well done and adds something distinct that you can remember these locations by.

The soundtrack is great as well. Just listen to the Main Theme and you should already be hooked. The game's subtitle is "Tactical Espionage Action" once again, and the soundtrack captures that very well throughout while adding an additional pinch of epic or suspense to the tracks whenever appropriate. And shoutout to Fortune's theme as well, it captures the Metal Gear theme so well.

GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 10/10

Visuals are much improved over the original. It helps that locations are more varied in this game as well, which keeps things looking more fresh visually, especially in terms of color. Once again, what makes the game stand out is its presentation, especially in cutscenes.

ATMOSPHERE/IMMERSION | 10/10

The quintessential Metal Gear atmosphere shines through once again. The feeling of being a special ops spy, especially when you manage to get past a particularly tough section of the game undetected. The seemingly supernatural antagonists that are omnipresent. The exploration of real world themes. This time, all this happens in multiple locations to keep things fresh visually as well. On top of that, you have the final two hours and some parts of the game as a whole that can leave you thinking through things for hours. I'm not going to spoil anything, but it's pretty special at times.

CONTENT | 9/10

Unlike Metal Gear Solid 1, there is a lot more additional content apart from the main story. There are collectable dog tags in this game for example to provide a challenge to those looking for it. Personally, I didn't get a single one because I forgot about them after I read about them before starting the main game, but also because they don't just lie around everywhere but have to be acquired by pointing your gun at an unsuspecting enemy for several seconds, which makes their dog tag drop.

Then there are a lot of VR missions and alternative missions to play through if you want, the latter of which include bomb disposal mode, elimination mode and hold up mode, with several challenges in each. Finally, you can read three "books" / "reports" to get more background information and different perspectives on events in the first game. It also serves as a refresher on the original's story, if you didn't pick up MGS2 straight after MGS1.

LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 8/10

For as great as a setting the Big Shell is visually, repetition is unavoidable due to its layout. The game keeps things fresh in terms of your objectives often enough to where I never truly got bored or anything like that, and each strut looks more than different enough once you're inside but walking over the same bridges multiple times wasn't always enjoyable. Then there is the Fatman boss fight, which just takes way too long and is also way too repetitive.

Other than that though, levels and locations are packed with plenty of different methods to achieving different objectives that you are going to face through your 10+ hours with this game. The Tanker chapter is a great introductory level that highlights all the great parts with MGS 2's gameplay as well.

CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 9/10

MGS 2 doesn't innovate as much as its predecessor, but that wasn't going to be possible anyway. Where it can and does succeed a lot is in its concepts and exploring those pretty thoroughly, and in a way that is relevant even to this day, if not much more so.

REPLAYABILITY | 2/5

After beating the main game, there is only one thing that makes it replayable, which is exploring higher difficulty settings. For things to do outside of the main game, check out "Content".

PLAYABILITY | 5/5

Works well at all times.

OVERALL | 89/100

The Metal Gear Solid series keeps going strong with MGS 2, another fantastic stealth action game which proves to also be prophetic through its exploration of its themes. "In the current, digitized world, trivial information is accumulating every second, preserved in all its triteness". Unlike trivial information though, there is nothing trivial about MGS 2, and I'm glad it gets to be preserved with the upcoming Metal Gear Solid collection. I'll likely pick that up and play through this and the other MGS games rather soon. I'd recommend every other gamer to try the series out as well.

Initially beat this in 2017, but went back to it because it aligned pretty well with my current situation of "detective game itch / something to play on my Steam Deck / as a bonus a game I can get all achievements in". Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders was a pretty solid choice in that regard, as I only had a few more achievements to get from my initial playthrough, plus I had forgotten most of what this game was about.

As someone who has had no prior or subsequent experiences with detective Hercule Poirot, I can't say this is a good introduction to the character. Or maybe it is? Poirot doesn't have much of an interesting personality, he's just a rude dick and can also be an terrible detective based on the dialogue choices you pick and the writing in general in this is not great. An example for how dumb Poirot can be, the game sometimes asks you to deduce something via dialogue choices and the "wrong" dialogue choice pretty much makes Poirot sound like a 5 year old imbecile, like when you're asked about whether you know anything about the killer and can answer with "he is unpredictable", even though you just went through 2 hours of detective work with roughly 89 points of evidence clearly showing a pattern.

There is a nice bait and switch to the resolution of the ABC murder mystery here (probably more due to the source material rather than what the devs came up with), and a few of the puzzles are challenging in a good way, so I'm not going to say that this is a bad detective game. But the pacing is one of the issues I've had, being locked out of investigating thoroughly because you accidentally investigated the person/item that moved the story forward is not great, areas in this game are very tiny and lack much detail and as mentioned, the writing is forgettable.

It's probably below average all things considered, so I guess to sum up I would say: If there are other, more acclaimed detective / mystery games that you have not played (Disco Elysium, Return of the Obra Dinn, Her Story, Orwell, Ace Attorney, Judgment, LA Noire and lots more), I would suggest picking those. If Agatha Christie is in your library and you got very few other choices though, I guess the game is servicable enough to provide you with two afternoons worth of entertainment. But I doubt that's the case (The Wolf Among Us, Grim Fandango, The Council, Danganronpa, Paradise Killer, Subsurface Circular, Sexy Brutale, Ghost Trick Phantom Detective, AI The Somnium Files ... again, the list of games I'd rather recommend is pretty high).

There is no reason to really review this too deeply. There are 3 games in this collection and all are pretty much identical 45 minute "detective" adventure games. They all have that very low budget modern indie game charm. The games are not meant to be taken seriously and the mysteries surrounding these games are similarly silly, and whether you will enjoy these games or not will depend on two things.

The Frog Detective games live and die by their humor and their vibe. The vibe the games go for is the chill, turn your brain off and just have a cozy, comfortable little adventure type. If you really dig that vibe, you probably will like the humor as well. For me personally, the games weren't funny, but needless to say that is a very subjective matter. But if the humor doesn't hit, these games become pretty boring. If it does hit, and you dig the vibe, well, you got a very cozy afternoon or two to look forward to playing Frog Detective: The Entire Mystery.

The reason why I say that the games live and die by their humor and vibe is because the gameplay is very basic. You go around a small area that the games play in and talk to every person there. Each person wants an item from you and will give you something else in return. You pick up an item that you can find in the game world to start, give it to the right person and start a chain reaction of giving Person A's item to B, B's item to C etc. It's the same for all three games and then the games end. I think even games that go for this style can offer a lot more, but clearly, a lot of people enjoyed what the first game was going for, so I don't blame the devs at all for sticking with it for the next two games.

Possibly the best written and most replayable video game out there. It's been over a year since I originally beat this, but coming back to it the past few days and deciding to play things differently confirmed the magic of this game to me once again.

I'd be lying to you, if I said I understood everything, especially when the characters start getting into long discussions on political ideologies mixed in with Disco Elysium lore in a way that is hard to differentiate at times for layman like me, which makes me doubly confused. Notwithstanding that, the dialogue in this game has me hooked nonstop anyway, and I suppose if you're more of a politically inclined person, even those long discussions would be a major positive for you.

There are so many iconic moments in this game, an unreal amount of laugh out loud lines that rivals and bests almost any video game I ever played and to top it all off, some truly magical scenes that I won't spoil.

I started this review with the keyword "replayability", so I want to end this review by explaining what I am. 1) There are thousands of passive checks that lead to different and/or additional conversation paths. How you pick and develop your skills impacts conversations quite notably. 2) There are dozens of "thoughts" you can internalize, leading to even more dialogue choices, and I got 3 thoughts I didn't get in my first playthrough within the first 2 hours of playthrough #2. They also sometimes allow you to DO certain things as well, not just make dialogue choices. 3) There are a lot of ways to tackle your overall mission of solving a case. I don't want to go into them, since they are spoiler territory, but it's pretty wild how significantly different approaches can be. 4) You can align yourself with and against many of the bigger characters, again leading to very different (smaller scale) outcomes.

In terms of games that don't have any actual combat, Disco Elysium to me is far and away the best game out there right now, and it's one of the best games I ever played period.

To The Moon regularly gets praise online for its story and seemingly everyone I've seen talk about this game cried at the end. Interestingly enough, 3 games made me teary-eyed over my lifetime, and I consider those to be the three best games I've ever played, so To The Moon would be in elite territory if it accomplished as much.

In all seriousness, the reviews set expectations for a short, walking simulator like, 2D indie pixel adventure game made with RPG Maker really high, almost unfairly so. I'm happy to say though that those expectations were met. I didn't cry, but the twists and revelations of the story did have an impact on me either way. Unfortunately, revealing nearly anything would rob you of the experience, so I'm going to refrain from doing so. The gist of it is that an old man has a dying wish: He wants to experience going to the moon. A special agency can dive into memories of their clients to grant them this wish by altering their actual memories into artifical memories, and two employees of this agency, Dr. Eva Rosalene and Dr. Neil Watts, must uncover the clients (Johnny Wyles) backstory to be able to make the right changes to his memories.

It starts slow but gets going quickly and never really lets up from there. It's a very short and linear experience at pretty much exactly 4 hours, and that's perfect for what this game is. The story includes little to no filler and is told really well, with the two employees Watts and Rosalene making for a pretty funny combo to balance out the otherwise emotional ride the game's story is.

If you're looking for gameplay, you won't find much of it here. Gameplay doesn't go beyond walking to your target locations and doing a few very simple puzzles. I'm not the biggest fan of walking simulators or visual novels but I do enjoy the occasional one. If you feel similarly or stronger about these genres, you gotta play To The Moon.

The Elder Scrolls: Arena is iconic not because of its own quality as a game, but because of the series that has its roots here. This is not to say that the game was of no good in its time. Quite the opposite actually. That said, one would be hardpressed to find many arguments to recommend this game to fans of the more modern games of the series, let alone gamers as a whole.

As someone who is a very big fan of Bethesda's work from Fallout 3 to today, and as someone who has always wanted to look at their library before that point as well (Oblivion & Morrowind mainly), I'm pretty happy to have finally taken that step by playing a good chunk of time of the first Elder Scrolls game ever made. I did not beat the game, for many reasons, but I've played enough and read up on the game enough to be able to give you a run down on what this game offers and why you probably wouldn't enjoy this much once the novelty wears off.

The game released initially on March 25, 1994 after a three-month delay on its original 1993 Christmas Day launch date. For various reasons, the game initially only sold roughly 3.000 units, but in what should show you the quality of the game at its time, word of mouth was what ended up pushing The Elder Scrolls: Arena into a success commercially and by the end of 1994 and 1995, critically through the reception of many awards.

STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 5/10

What I like about playing the first game of any franchise spanning multiple titles vs. starting from the newest one is that you don't feel overwhelmed by the amount of lore in it. Instead, you get to enjoy the ride from the very start, and every bit of info you receive is all there was up to that point. You quickly realize that it's not as daunting as it seemed, though this is not to discount the fact that there certainly is a lot of lore in place even in The Elder Scrolls: Arena.

For starters, a lot of locations, names and dates will instantly be familiar to players of other Elder Scrolls games. The game's setting is Tamriel (a continent located on the planet Nirn). It plays in the Third Era and its 389th year. While this is the beginning date, each time you fast travel elsewhere, a lot of time passes depending on the distance, and you're unlikely to spend less than a couple years in the game before finishing it. Theoretically though, you could fast travel so much that you end up going thousands of years into the future and to the date of more modern Elder Scrolls games, which is a funny thought (at least I think there is no limit).

Jagar Tharn is the main antagonist in this game, betraying Emperor Uriel Septim VII, whose betrayal is witnessed by a mage apprentice called Ria Silmane. She is killed by Jagar Tharn, but takes up an incorporeal form, meaning she can't take a physical form, but reveal herself to the player in their dream. The player starts the game imprisoned (of course) and gets a message from Ria Silmane regarding the events that led to her death, and she tasks you with stopping Jagar Tharn. To do so, you need to get the Staff of Chaos' eight fragments, piece it together and destroy it to kill Jagar Tharn, whose life force is held within it.

It's a very typical story for a game of this time I realize more and more with each game I play, especially RPGs. There is only so much different gameplay that these games can offer, and apparently the only way to tell stories is to tell the player that there are x number of objects/people/locations that they have to collect/visit/destroy in order to win the game. It's not necessarily something I dislike in and of itself, but when the gameplay truly is one dimensional, focusing on just the main story can be quite repetitive and tedious.

Thankfully, this is Bethesda we're talking about, and the main story is only one part of your adventure. Elder Scrolls: Arena doesn't just take place in one province, but in the entire continent of Tamriel. Depending on the race you choose, exiting the first dungeon sends you to your home province. Not only that, but you are also randomly sent to one of dozens of unique villages/towns in each province. From there, you can travel to and explore every single one of them if you so desire, as well as explore the outskirts of these towns if you so wish. While they look same-y after a short while of course, there are differences, including in weather, building structures and placements, textures and types of citizens.

From my understanding, each player gets the same locations in every playthrough, and even every village's inns for example have the same unique names every time. NPCs might even be the same at all times, but then there are many things that are randomly generated. The outskirts for example seem to be procedurally generated and will look differently in each playthrough for specific villages, but I doubt there are many different variants there. Either way, in terms of story and exploration, they don't really have had any role in my playthrough. Dungeons are procedurally generated as well, and not only that, but side quests are too. This means that asking for work can result in you being tasked to bring an NPC item A from NPC B in Location C until the Deadline D, and you will be compensated with X amount of gold for doing so. If we go back to 1994, this is a pretty neat way of constantly giving the player things to do and reasons to enter dungeons and explore other areas. Clearly, it won't result in a lot of exciting, unique moments, but for 1994, this was unique and also probably pretty enjoyable. From a lore standpoint however, these don't offer any value other than maybe sending you to certain towns in, say, Skyrim, many of which are still named the same in the Elder Scrolls V, which I thought was pretty cool.

Bigger side quests exist as well though, especially from a lore standpoint. There are "Artifacts", legendary items of lore, which you can collect. You ask for General rumors, and if you're lucky, get one regarding one of these Artifacts, which you can then find in a dungeon. These are mainly items you can wear, but there is also the "Oghma Infinium", which gives you 50 attribute points to distribute. These Artifacts have descriptions however and some might even be relevant in future Elder Scrolls titles.

That said, the main way you will learn more about the Elder Scrolls universe is through the main story, which is quite disappointing in that regard. Similarly to many Bethesda games, the main story seems a bit like an afterthought, though the side content is not filled with excellent exploration to make up for it here. Ultimately, you will need to be satisfied with the small story you get with the three main characters being Ria Silmane, Jagar Tharn and Uriel Septim VII. Is that worth playing the game for? I don't think so. But if you're expecting very little here, the number of areas and NPCs that exist here and have actual names, jobs and tasks makes for a cool, somewhat immersive setting. The main way of progressing the story adds a lot to this as well, since you have to ask NPCs for information on dungeons to be able to pinpoint their locations. But thanks to the Elder Scrolls series growing since, I think anyone looking for an RPG where you need to use the help of NPCs instead of quest markers should simply play Morrowind.

GAMEPLAY | 9/20

There is no sugarcoating it, the game hasn't aged well. Controls are unintuitive, combat is incredibly unforgiving, you can easily find yourself losing hours of progress by being stuck at the end of a long dungeon, items and their benefits are not explained until you use or wear them, dungeons are repetitive and you either have to grind a ton or cheese the game's systems to get incredibly rich and make combat very easy for yourself.

First, here is what you do as part of the main story. Go to a village. Ask for information on a dungeon. The dungeon name is given to you by Ria Silmane whenever you sleep after finding the previous piece of the Staff of Chaos. You get information on the province where it will be. Go there. Ask around some more, get to person who needs you to find an Elder Scroll, which will reveal the location of the dungeon you're looking for. So go to dungeon to get the item that unlocks the main dungeon. Now go to main dungeon. Find your way to the lowest floor and find the piece. You get dialogue with Jagar Tharn when you do, who is pissed, but won't do shit about it other than sending minions because guess what, there are no bosses in this game apart from the finale I believe. Now repeat this process many times.

Second, here is what you do outside of the main story. Go somewhere, walk around the villages, talk to people to get to know their name and occupation, ask for general and work-related rumors, pick up a randomly generated or artifact related side quest, do the side quest.

That's pretty much it. If you're playing this in 1994 or the years afterwards, many of you would have clearly had a solid time based on the game's reception. Play it today and you'll be left with a repetitive game that has been improved upon not only by hundreds of other RPGs since, but by 4 iterations in the same series as well. So apart from the novelty of it all for the first couple of hours, there is no reason to indulge.

If the general things you can do here don't scare you off, here is the gameplay. Combat is done by pulling the mouse across the screen in a bunch of directions. Up and down, diagonally up/down, left/right, every way you can imagine basically. Some of these attacks do more damage, but are likelier to miss. Some deal less damage, but are likelier to hit. Some are neutral. There are plenty of weapons to choose from with different animations, but the idea remains the same. There is also spellcasting though, which adds a nice extra layer to it.

As you explore dungeons, you fight a rather low number of different enemies, at least until the point that I played, with Lizard Men, Orcs, Skeletons and Spiders being regular foes. You collect loot from their bodies or loot piles, which gives you gold, armor and other items like "Mark"s, which are items with special abilities, such as the ability to heal you or to cast certain magic attacks. Items have different tiers and the better you want your gear to be, the more gold you need of course, but from my experience, getting the gold necessary to properly deck yourself out takes a loooot of time of doing the same thing over and over again. Instead, what you can do is simple.

Mage guilds sell certain Ebony items that are very expensive. Absurdly expensive. You can simply pickpocket these and sell them back. If you fail, you can simply kill the mage, exit the guild, re-enter and the mage reappears, meaning there is no real system behind it other than the fact that pickpocketing exists in the game. Do that a few times and you're rich and can test out all sorts of items to your hearts content. It sounds like that's cheating and boring, but I'd say it's the only thing that will keep you from yawning your jaw off and actually opens up the game a bit more.

One final point regarding combat here: I feel like about half of my encounters started with me not even seeing the enemy. You get visually and audibly alerted to an enemy attacking you, so it's not the end of the world, but the amount of times enemies got a hit in without me seeing them was crazy. The path before you in dungeons is dark as you approach it, and any dead angle can have an enemy getting alerted to your presence, and especially early on, by the time you realize you're attacked, you'll have nearly your entire health drained by some of the enemies.

Looking at gameplay clips of Daggerfall makes me realize how dated Arena looks compared to its sequel, which is shocking considering that there is only a two-year difference in release dates. If you really want to dabble with old-school Elder Scrolls, Daggerfall looks like a much, much, much better choice, while Arena can safely be skipped in my opinion.

MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 7/10

There is voice acting here and it's actually not terrible. Jagar Tharn does a better job here than Ria Silmane in my opinion, but neither sounds as bad as you might expect 1994 voice acting to sound. The sound design has some discomforting qualities to it, in a good way, and I'm sure I'll find myself awakening in my own pool of sweat to the door sounds in this game at some point in the future. Add to this disturbing sound the sudden and in-your-face level-up tune and you got yourself a horror RPG a la Elvira. The soundtrack itself is quite long at 40 total minutes compared to other games at the time, but for an RPG that is quite long, this still means listening to the same tracks over and over again. The soundtrack can be best described as the most 1990s Fantasy RPG OST of all time. Puts you in the right mood, but does not stand out.

GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 6/10

The fact that this game is so massive in terms of number of villages and dungeons is both a positive and negative for it visually. On the one hand, the game can show off the surprisingly varied designs used to create these villages. On the other, there obviously are not nearly enough differences to make up for so many villages. On top of that, dungeons in particular look same-y quite quickly, and considering that that is what you're looking it for most of your playthrough, your eyes will deserve a raise after you're done with the game for the sacrifices they make. That said, special effects used in this game and the design of the cutscenes were some of the standouts here visually, though overall the game is meh in that regard.

ATMOSPHERE/IMMERSION | 9/10

Towns/Villages in this game are MASSIVE. Tons and tons of buildings, lots of NPCs, all of them with unique names and jobs, plenty of rumors to hear, inns to visit, provinces to travel to and the vibe you get from the soundtrack make this game a hell of a lot more immersive than one would expect. It felt like a Morrowind-lite in that regard, where the ideas are there already, but not the means to execute properly.

CONTENT | 5/10

Lots of provinces, races, classes, and weapons. Lots of towns/villages, NPCs, dungeons and more. Content quantity is truly large. Content quality on the other hand is lacking in many regards.

LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 5/10

I truly appreciate the way you find your main mission locations: By interacting with the NPCs and asking them, which gives you the feeling of immersiveness that makes Morrowind so beloved and unique to this day. Obviously, the systems are extremely limited here even in comparison to Morrowind, but just giving you instant quest markers would make this game even more boring than it already is in modern times. That said, the repetitive nature of both how you get to your locations and the dungeon layout within is hard to ignore.

CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 7/10

The game is very ambitious, but unlike many other unique, ambitious games of its time, this one doesn't quite hit the mark like its sequel "Daggerfall" might have. Ultimately, the game presents you with a really large world, but with very few ways to interact with it that you are meant to repeat ad nauseam. You can already see what kind of games Bethesda want to make, and how they want their games to be ultimate fantasy RPG simulators, but the systems in place here are not refined at all, probably mainly due to the technology available in 1994, but also probably because of what ultimately led to a delay out of the Christmas Day window. 2 years later, at least at a glance, Daggerfall looks like on a whole nother level within just two years, and I don't think PC gaming got along THAT far during that time for their to ostensibly be such a massive difference in quality, though I might be underestimating the growth of gaming at the time.

REPLAYABILITY | 3/5

Yeah, the game is replayable, but replayability must also mean fun to replay, and I think the only part that provides that is the fact that you can have an entire playthrough feel different by placing an emphasis on spell-casting instead of melee combat.

PLAYABILITY | 5/5

Works well at all times.

OVERALL | 61/100

I respect this game a lot for its ambitions and for bringing us the Elder Scrolls franchise. That said, if you are intrigued by its "talk to NPCs to figure out your way" system, just play Morrowind. If you're OK with more hand-holding, just play Oblivion and/or Skyrim at this point. Elder Scrolls Arena does not have much to offer anymore after its first few hours.

(This is the 96th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet/blog is in my bio.)

After putting Metal Gear Solid off for waaaaay too long, I finally sat down and devoured the entire game in just 2 days, putting 11 hours into it overall. Before this, I've spent a year playing about 100 games between 1990 and 1994, so I'd like to think I got a good idea of what gaming looked like at the start of the 32-bit era. Yes, some fantastic and ambitious games came out in the years between 1994 and 1998, where Metal Gear Solid released, but I can confidently say that Metal Gear Solid was and still is a truly special game.

STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 9/10

I'm probably the one millionth individual who is about to give a story synopsis for Metal Gear Solid, so I'll cut it short, because the setting of this game is not as impactful as the countless plot twists, bombastic moments, fantastic cutscenes and diverse, iconic characters in this game.

You play Solid Snake (again, for those of you who played Metal Gear 1 and 2 for the MSX, which I doubt you did, if you still haven't played MGS 1 to this day), and Solid Snake is brought in again for a high-stake covert operation. This time, it takes you to Alaska, and the Shadow Moses Island to be more precise, where a nuclear storage facility is situated. It was captured by a certain Liquid Snake and other members of FOXHOUND. They are holding two important officers hostage there, who both have a password each that Liquid Snake and his gang need to make true on their threats against the US government. These threats? Launching a nuclear strike with the help of a secret war tank with capabilities of launching missiles that was secretly being developed in this facility, called Metal Gear REX. Input the two passwords and it gets activated. Solid Snake is tasked with freeing those two officers, but when he gets to them, they mysteriously die by a heart attack, though not without telling Solid Snake that the bad guys got both of their passwords and are ready to launch. Solid Snake is informed that he needs three card keys to deactivate Metal Gear REX again.

Again, this does not do any justice to how wild it gets. Storytelling in some video games has come far, but in 1998, few games match what Hideo Kojima achieved with Metal Gear Solid, and I'd venture to say that no game achieved it by using such well put together cutscenes as he did with this game. The story becomes convoluted, though that's probably an overexaggeration, if you ask any Metal Gear veteran, who are, I hear, used to much, much "worse" after having played all the other canon Metal Gear entries that would follow.

As with Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake from 1990, Hideo Kojima uses themes linked to real world issues. The nuclear arms race, the vicious circle of war, its affects on the surviving soldiers and our genes and how (and if) they define us as people. There are several moments in this game that really get you thinking, though this might be lost on you if you take the complete opposite of these moments too seriously. Because in something that Kojima become famous for, Metal Gear Solid is filled with silly interactions and immature moments to mix in with the more serious parts of storytelling. The Yakuza series comes to mind as another that mixes these two parts really well together. I've seen some people take offense to some of it but I think that's taking something way more seriously than you should be. Yakuza games have some of the most impactful main stories I've had the pleasure of experiencing in video gaming, and a side quest where you deliver a pizza even though a foreigner wanted to say visa doesn't diminish that one bit. One point I've read about a couple times is that Solid Snake is a dick for flirting with every female character in the game. While I'm unbothered by it for many reasons (they flirt back or flirt first for example), it also helps round out Solid Snake's character and makes his development more impactful as the game goes on. All the other silly moments in this game help create a similar situation for other characters later on, or are just simply there to lower the tension at a few points.

Characters in this game are very diverse and a lot of them have their own times to shine, including some really beautiful moments, especially for some of the bosses that you end up defeating. The death of one particular boss was really touching and the presentation of it was literally perfection. When these defeated people utter their final words, they give you a peak behind the killer, as they tell you how their own messed up fates led them down the path they took. It makes you feel for them, but it also is another form of meta storytelling, as these kinds of people are formed every single day in the world we live in as a result of war. I can imagine how impactful this must have been for all those people playing it close to release, especially those at a younger age who were mainly used to playing games for the gameplay before this. And while the game has some supernatural elements included, it's always nice to see more "grounded" stories in this medium, which feel like more and more of a rarity.

If there is anything I didn't enjoy here, it's probably the fact that Meryl's character is inconsistently written and that there are some awkward parts in the game's writing.

GAMEPLAY | 17/20

Great storytelling with great gameplay is always the best possible mix, and it's present here. As someone who did play Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake before this, I was surprised at how familiar it felt. This game truly is Metal Gear 2 in 3D, so much so that certain boss fights and challenges were used in pretty similar fashion. The differently-colored walls that can be blown up, the shape-shifting key, the mine detector part and several boss fights felt more modernized and had some slightly different challenges tied to them, but Hideo Kojima did re-use some of his ideas for a brighter audience, not to say that it is a bad thing at all.

Metal Gear Solid's gameplay is a lot of fun and it is pretty challenging. It's extremely challenging, if you choose one of the higher difficulties, but even on Easy you will die plenty of times (like me). Enemies have a certain field of vision that you can track on the radar in the top right, and stepping into it alerts them to your position. You avoid them by, well, staying out of the FOV, but also by crawling under tanks, tables and other objects, by disabling security cameras with chaff grenades, by shooting them with a silenced pistol and more. It's a stealth game pretty much, and one with little to no similar games to lean on for influence at that.

There are a lot of optional items to collect as well that can make your life easier in this game. You can find them by exploring or by backtracking to areas and opening up doors that were previously inaccessible to you. You acquire key cards with different security levels to do so. There are some smaller items to grab, like Body Armor, cardboard boxes, night-vision goggles and more, but also some more important items can also be optional pick-ups if you want to make it harder on yourself for whatever reason, such as the suppressor to your pistol, the mine detector, diazepam (removes trembling when you aim with your sniper) and even the gas mask is optional I believe, though I might be mistaken on that.

Generally, there are enough ways to make your way through areas undetected, though I suspect the number of options will increase by a lot in the upcoming sequels. What's most important however is that you always feel challenged, the gameplay maintains a level of tension that keeps it from ever becoming boring and at the same time, punishment for being detected is not instantly fatal depending on your difficulty, so even players who aren't the most skilled should get through this game with not much issue.

An optional part of gameplay, if you want to call it that, is interacting with the Codec. It leads to dialogue, so gameplay is pushing it, but as you are free to move around, you can use the Codec to make dozens upon dozens of optional calls to your contacts to learn more about your mission, the characters and the Metal Gear universe as a whole. Talking to Nastasha for example gives you a lot of information about the nuclear arms race, while talking to Master Miller leads to tips addressed to both Snake and the player himself, such as not staying up too late because your reflexes would be slowest at 3 am in the morning.

Overall, the 10-11 hours flew by thanks to well balanced story and gameplay segments and generally a fun gameplay loop.

MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 10/10

The voice acting is surprisingly great in this. I knew David Hayter nailed it as Snake, but nearly the entire cast did a great job. I think Mei Ling's VA takes the cake though with her reading of "SNAAAAAAAKE". The best voice acted line in gaming history I think. The sound design is not even worth mentioning here because everyone knows how iconic it is, while the soundtrack is equally fantastic. The track that plays at the end of the game gave me goosebumps, but a lot of tracks here are very memorable.

GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 9/10

The graphics judged by modern standards are obviously not great. Judged by 1998 standards, the graphics are solid (heh) but what makes the game stand out is its presentation first and foremost. There are better looking games by 1998 but few that are as well put together in a cinematographic sense. Many beautiful setpieces are present here as well, but it didn't set a new benchmark visually like it did in many other aspects.

ATMOSPHERE/IMMERSION | 9/10

By now, if you've had any experiences with the series, you'll know what a Metal Gear game feels like, and obviously, this game feels like quintessential Metal Gear, a unique type of feeling to this day. It also makes you feel like a stealth operative on a mission thanks to its presentation, but it feels like it could have been expanded upon by putting you in more memorable locations for some of its bigger story beats. There are a couple of those, but mainly the gameplay takes place in warehouses and blue/grayish buildings.

CONTENT | 9/10

Don't get me wrong. I love modern gaming. But from time to time, it's nice to play a game with no collectable distractions. Just one, linear main story and paced in one specific way. That pacing is phenomenal for the majority of the game. There is one annoyance though, which is the backtracking you have to do. It's not a lot of backtracking, don't worry, but it's enough that it made me yawn a couple of times. It's not egregious though, and if there is a silver lining, it's that it sends you back to certain special locations where you defeated bosses, and not seeing them there anymore is a pretty cool, yet sad visual.

LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 9/10

The backtracking is not great, as established. But the level design overall is great otherwise, and there are plenty of unique levels to mix things up. Rarely are you doing the exact same thing twice, and levels are designed in a way that makes sense. They're also not too small that there is just one clear path forward, and not too large that they just end up having a lot of empty space. If there is one improvement I would like, it would probably be that there are more alternative routes through the levels a la Deus Ex for example, so that the player can feel clever as they discover them and so that levels feel more replayable.

CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 10/10

We could debate ad nauseam how influential Metal Gear Solid has been. I'd say it has a unique concept more than it is influential, but I also would say that it is pretty influential. First and foremost, conceptually, this game is fantastic. Really well balanced story/gameplay segments, a cinematic approach to storytelling, a unique style of gameplay (stealth) that was pretty rare at the time and a game that tackles multiple real world themes. The stealth gameplay and cinematic storytelling approach might be the two most influential parts about this game, and I'd say they increased the value video games provide for me, which is all I'm looking for for a 10/10. The latter part might have been overdone in future entries (I'll be the judge of that when I get to playing them), but it's very well balanced here.

REPLAYABILITY | 2/5

Higher difficulties, finding some hidden items in future playthroughs, engaging in more optional Codec conversations and ... well, I think that's it. Not a lot of replayability here in terms of new stuff to find and do after beating it initially.

PLAYABILITY | 5/5

Works well at all times.

OVERALL | 89/100

It's definitely among my absolute favorite games of the 90s, and you could say among my favorites all time as well, as great games don't age in my opinion. I got wowed and moved by the story and characters several times, I laughed, I was in deep thought about some of the real world issues the game brings up and I had a blast with the gameplay. It left me very satisfied with the story conclusion and hyped af for the sequel with that after-credits scene. I think I'll jump right on that after posting this review.

As a fan of both TES and Fallout games made by Bethesda, Starfield hits on pretty much anything that makes their games so fun to me. There are a lot of quests of main, side and faction variety, a large number of NPCs, a ton of handcrafted locations, four massive cities and an unreal number of optional systems to engage with. Apart from the faces of misc NPCs, the game is a pleasure for the eyes thanks to its beautiful visual design and a pleasure for the ears due to the fantastic work done on the game's general audio and soundtrack.

I've spent my 100+ hours on this game in a large variety of ways and I haven't even come close to getting through all the handcrafted content yet. Not that the game doesn't respect your time or anything, but it offers you so many options of engagement that it truly is for the player to decide how much time they want to spend with it before beating it by seeing the main story through to the end. That main story takes about 25 hours, but obviously, BGS games have a lot more to offer than that, though the main story is one I did enjoy in Starfield.

Apart from doing main quests for 25 hours, I've done side quests for probably another 25-30, I've traveled to and surveyed planets for about 10 hours, built a ship for 2 hours, dabbled with outpost building for another few hours, read books, visited a Museum filled with lore and talked to all kinds of NPCs for 10s of hours, visited every nook and cranny of two of the four major cities, had multiple run-ins with my in-game parents (an optional trait) and many dozens of random encounters in space and on planets.

My expectations for this game were immense, and Starfield met them. If you're wondering whether you will enjoy Starfield, here are two things: 1) you can play it on Game Pass for $10 or whatever a month costs these days. 2) If you don't want to do that, I'd look at whether you enjoyed Fallout/Skyrim and I'd think about whether it bothers you that you can't manually fly from orbit to planet or from planet to planet within a system. If it would take a few minutes to do that each time, would you be one to really spend your time doing it after the novelty wears off? If yes, that's fair and you probably should stick with a more hardcore space sim experience. If not, then I can only highly recommend Starfield to you.

While I'm going to put Starfield on hold now and play Cyberpunk now that 2.0 and PL are finally about to release, I can give Starfield the highest honor I've given Skyrim and Fallout 3, 4 and New Vegas as well, in that I found yet another comfort game that I am looking forward to return to at least once a year and check out all the new mods that come out in the meantime as well. But even without mods, Starfield, for the right player, has enough to entertain for hundreds and hundreds of hours.

I like to pride myself in the fact that I enjoy almost every type of video game genre. If you asked me what my Top 20 games were, you'd probably get games from 10+ genres. That said, one genre I didn't manage to gel with before for some reason ended up being Metroidvanias. I played quite a few, but the only one I enjoyed was Guacamelee. I do like the Metroidvania-defining progression though. "Finding things to interact with, not being able to do so until I get a specific skill, coming back hours later to use that skill and finally interact with the thing" is a pretty satisfying thing.

I suppose the part that becomes a issue for me would be the maze-like design of levels coupled with that system. Where do I go, what do I do, where even am I, why are save points so far apart? Hollow Knight is probably the most notable Metroidvania I tried and bounced off of multiple times for reasons like this. I did want to go back to that however, and I think playing and beating Super Metroid gave me a lot of extra motivation to check out Hollow Knight and many other Metroidvanias that came out up to this point.

Super Metroid released on March 19, 1994 for the SNES and is the third installment in the very popular Metroid franchise. It's the second game for a home console and the first for a fourth-gen system. I played Metroid II for the Game Boy a few months ago, but only gave it a 52 for multiple reasons, chief among them that the limitations set by the Game Boy meant that many things I enjoyed about Super Metroid simply couldn't translate. But yes, Super Metroid ended up being much, much more enjoyable and is another fantastic release for Nintendo's SNES.

STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 4/10

Super Metroid tells its story through its atmosphere. In terms of pure storytelling, the game doesn't do a whole lot, but it has one moment that the game pulls off pretty well near the end. It also generally continues the story of one of gaming's most recognizable characters, which is worth acknowledging, and it doesn't do anything wrong in that regard, it just doesn't do a whole lot.

To give you the short of it because, frankly, there ain't a long version, Samus Aran brings the Metroid that she left with in Metroid II to the Ceres Space colony to be studied. It is found ou that its energy-producing abilities could be used for good. Ridley, the game's antagonist, steals the Metroid and Samus follows Ridley to the planet Zebes. Here, Samus must once again move through extremely hostile territory.

The ending in this game is interesting in that it feels like a proper conclusion, with no cliffhanger or anything else pointing to the continuation of Samus' story. There also was no Metroid game for the next 8 years, the longest ever gap between releases for Metroid games. This feels weird for a game that is so popular these days, but Super Metroid never was a mega-seller, selling "only" 1.42 million copies by 2003, so maybe that's part of the reason why the 5th gen was skipped. [Reading through some posts online, it appears director Yoshio Sakamoto had other commitments during the gap of 8 years and didn't feel like the N64 would be a suitable system to make a Metroid game that would live up to expectations.]

GAMEPLAY | 17/20

One of the most fun games to play as far as the early 90s go. Controls are smooth, the gameplay loop is fluid and the constant acquisition of abilities as you play means you never really see everything the game has to offer until you're pretty much done with it.

The game is a side-scrolling action-adventure / platformer with a big focus on exploration and constant progression ('Metroidvania'). You start the game out with a basic weapon and the ability to jump. You quickly start gaining new abilities that not only make you more powerful, but also allow you to enter areas that you were previously locked out of. For example, rolling up into a ball lets you enter tiny passages. Gaining the ability to place bombs while in bomb-form lets you jump up to enter tiny passages that are placed higher. Missiles allow you to open stronger doors. It's a timeless system that can both fail and succeed depending on execution. In Super Metroid, it is executed very well.

The only issue I personally had with the gameplay was how it dealt with your health. If you have very low health for example, you can get it back up by either finding a rare location that fills it up for you or by killing enemies, who drop items whenever you need them. The idea is fine, but in practice, I found myself "grinding" by constantly entering and exiting rooms and killing the enemies that spawn to max out my health again. Die and you respawn on your last save point with the health you had at that time. So either that save point is "useless" in that regard, or, if you saved at full health, it literally is a better idea to let yourself get killed than to spend a couple minutes filling up your health manually.

MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 10/10

No voice acting apart from the intro. The soundtrack does a phenomenal job in setting the atmosphere. I'd say the majority of the tracks are very good, but Brinstar (Underground Depths) and the Ridley / Draygon Boss Theme, especially the former, are some of my favorites from the 95 games I've played for this challenge so far.

GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 9/10

The visual quality is pretty good for a game of its time. Locations have varied styles, there are lots of different enemy designs, special effects look nice and the whole vibe the game is going for is excellent.

ATMOSPHERE/IMMERSION | 10/10

One of the most atmospheric games I've played from this time period. The visuals, the soundtrack and the theme of this game just work extremely well together. I didn't play this game when I was young, but I can easily see myself being very scared playing this, because even in my mid 20s today I notice how daunting the atmosphere feels.

CONTENT | 9/10

The only complaints I have in regards to the game's content is that unlike more traditional platformers, where a lot of hours are spent trying to get past a hard challenge through trial and error, Super Metroid adds hours to its playtime by making it somewhat difficult at times to figure out where you should even go. I'll go over this more under "Level/Mission Design", but apart from these complaints, what you get will be 8-12 hours of a fun time that for the majority of it, flows really well and keeps giving you new upgrades and powers to play around with, no challenges to conquer, new areas to explore and new bosses you defeat. It's a fun time.

LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 8/10

Your opinions in regards to the game's level design will vary greatly depending on your frustration tolerance and your understanding of what makes a video game fun. Firstly, it's undeniable that a lot of thought went into the design of the levels and how their setup would work for progression as a whole. In addition, visually and environmentally the levels stand out in that there is a lot of variety in play here. I think there will be much less debate about these points. Where it gets more contentious is when it comes to the basic philosophy of this game and, by extent, the whole Metroidvania genre.

When at first you have 1 route to take, all of a sudden you have 4 more that open up when that first route gives you a new ability. From here, 4 routes may turn into 8 routes, and later, those 8 routes may turn back to just 3 routes, but you have already discovered so many parts of the game that you're not quite sure where those 3 routes were. Playing this game and then taking a break for a week for example will make it nigh impossible to beat because a lot of it is dependent on the player keeping in mind certain areas that they couldn't enter in the past, so that when they get a certain ability later, they know where it will be useful. If you don't do this, get ready to go everywhere trying to figure out what to do, which can sometimes feel more, and sometimes less intuitive.

Ultimately, I personally didn't find this to be a big issue, though I've had to look up a guide once or twice (the solution felt obvious in hindsight). I think it's a formula that won't be for everyone, but in my opinion Super Metroid succeeded in balancing the difficulty, where it may take you a little while to figure out where to go next, but it's rarely ever cryptic, and you will find your way to go, if you just concentrate on the game.

Once you beat it however, and once you understand what needs to be done without having to think about it too much, I could see this being a very fun "comfort game" to come back to, because the gameplay, when it flows and is not disrupted by you trying to find the next path, flows reeeally well and beating the game will probably take an expert 3-4 hours.

CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 10/10

Super Metroid is the first game to truly refine the Metroidvania formula, at least by popular belief. Not only is that a genre that pumps out great games to this day, but based on my own limited experience, I'd say Super Metroid still is among the genre's highlights, though I assume, and hope, that the rest of the Metroid series pulls me in even further. As far as this challenge I'm doing is concerned, I've played almost 5 year's worth of games and have not experienced anything quite like Super Metroid, which is not only a breath of fresh air but also genuinely one of the best games of the first half decade of the 90s.

REPLAYABILITY | 2/5

If you're into speedrunning, or if you want a quick comfort game to play, Super Metroid I feel like will be just that after you initially beat it. In terms of pure replayability though, Super Metroid doesn't offer a lot. There are some optional power ups you can find here and there, but it's basically one linear playthrough otherwise.

PLAYABILITY | 5/5

Works well at all times.

OVERALL | 84/100

If you want to go back to the roots of the Metroidvania genre without it feeling too aged, Super Metroid is a fantastic starting point. Not only is it the game that refined the formula, but it truly aged really well and will provide you with a few afternoon's worth of fun entertainment.

(This is the 95th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet/blog is in my bio.)