GOD SONIC you were THERE with being a game I enjoyed. the first few stages are so much fun just blasting through areas at top speed, and the 2D/3D variants are super cool! but BLIMEY do you just have to be like “we really need sections where you need to slow down and Actually Platform like a lameass” like I want to use my boost and Feel Like Sonic but I never know when I’m going to have a good time or when the stage is just going to decide that it would be Really Funny!! if there was a spike or death hole or even just a WALL barely offscreen and I end up with a hernia. giving Mania a try at some point but only because I bought it like 4 years ago and need to feel at least some value for anything I purchase. pretty thin ice we’re on here buckaroo

I’ve tried to like this game, I really have. And I’ve tried to like JRPGs as a whole for a while. But I have to make the firm resolution that while a part of me will always feel empty never playing any of the Final Fantasy games, never experiencing the wondrous stories of the Dragon Quest series, never engrossing myself in a 50+ hour tale, never experiencing the euphoria of numbers getting bigger with every levelup and equipment upgrade, these kinda games are just not for me. JRPGs do not represent why I play video games.

This game is truly fun when I can get into it. When I don’t feel overwhelmed by not knowing if I have enough healing items, just wanting to get from one place to another without endless random encounters, trying to balance my stats, all and more while still being able to keep up and know what’s going on, I am enjoying myself. I’ve seen many people complain about the lengthy flashback section, but that was one of my favorite experiences here. Seeing the story play out mostly uninterrupted was so much fun. I don’t think I would want a full game like that, but the simplicity drew me in compared to the rest of the game. Battles were fun when I felt like I knew what I was doing, and winning the elevator boss fight during the Shinra escape was a big rush of good feelings. Most of the time though, I just felt unprepared somehow, and it became increasingly difficult to want to continue playing.

I really respect what this game is as well as JRPGs as a genre. I’ve since read up on the rest of the story and I can say (from whatever meaningless perspective this is of not actually having played most of the game) that I think the story is great! The cinematic moments and music and overall atmosphere of the game really come together to make this a great piece of art. I will not bash on turn-based combat because I know that’s a staple of the genre and I don’t think it’s as bad as some make it out to be. I’ve wanted to expand my horizons here a bit and play some games with a legendary status I’ve had my eye on for ages, but overall I’m not having a good time here, and no final experience would be worth the struggle I would put myself through forcing a completion of this or any other major JRPG.

I think I go to video games for experiences that you can’t get from any other medium, which most of the time ends up in exploration games and arcade-style games. The gameplay elements of most JRPGs don’t grant me the same joy that playing other games do. And the heavy story-focus of these games doesn’t serve as enough interest to slog through any unenjoyable experience. If I want to experience a story, I’ll tend towards a book or movie as the physical process of experiencing that story is a much more relaxing, pleasurable one.

I feel “wrong” in some way for not being able to truly grasp the enjoyability of games like this. My 2-star rating here is not a statement that this game is capital o Overrated or straight-up Bad; it is a resolute conclusion that if the grade-A standard of this genre cannot convince me to enjoy it, it is simply not for me, and I do not want to try any harder to like it for the time being.

I WOULD die for Barrett.

played this again. incredibly witty and silly to the point where I wanted to include a quote somewhere here review but every line is pure gold. probably not the best from a balance standpoint with certain attacks being far better than others, but I can’t think about this game and not take in all of the love this project pulses with.

it feels strange to say, but this game has deeply affected me on how I want to experience stories, especially those through video games. RPGs have a too-often tendency to be interesting to me for the first hour but completely lose me once battles start happening and I just get too overwhelmed by it all. I don’t want that anymore.

RPGs scare me. the concept of starting into a 50+ hour questline is a monolithic challenge to mentally accept before I get past a title screen. but I place great importance in taking in the loves of others, and I want to be able to experience all of these wonderful stories told via an interactable medium. this ridiculously stupid little story about b-ball has made me want to try to better appreciate what I ultimately consider the largest part of my life. and for any creative project to be able to conjure that determination in me, I can’t consider it as anything less than perfect.

a floor-to-ceiling tapestry that’s beautiful when viewed from a reasonable distance, yet one that reveals itself as comprised of overwhelmingly many uninteresting elements when viewed a bit closer, and yet whose imperfect-but-trying-to-be-flawless individual brushstrokes create a sense of discontent when viewed even closer.

after taking a long hiatus from video games and engaging with creative projects in general, I was feeling mentally ready to approach one as huge as this. RDR2 has sat within my mind for a long time as having exquisite detail and a gripping narrative. and the first of those is undoubtedly true. picking up on every little flourish that was otherwise so natural it had escaped my notice was always a great experience.

but at some point, I had to begin to wonder: is this what games really are for me? so much of the experience here boils down to “talk to this person, hold W for a few minutes while they exchange dialogue, walk a little bit, shoot 50 cowboys, get rewarded.” every mission is an errand. RDR2 is Getting Groceries Simulator but You Also Have to Shoot a Bunch of Guys Sometimes. (good lord, there’s a ridiculously video-game-ified sense here that made me feel like I was playing an NES game where enemies just infinitely respawn when you bring them back on screen) this doesn’t feel like a video game except for the parts where it feels too much like a video game. I think I play video games mostly to have fun in the act of playing them; good story or other elements that tag along is a nice bonus to my experience. I just don’t find the systems in this game fun. walk here, ride there, alright, I get it.

trying to reorient my mindset to treat this game differently led to more missteps. once I was introduced to the cinematic camera, I wanted to use it all the time given it would make the experience feel more like I was watching a movie or TV show. but it doesn't feel the game was made for this. camera angles look randomly generated, getting stuck behind trees, or shoving Arthur to one side of the screen leaving a lot of empty space. and good luck trying to control Arthur, especially when camera angles switch. removing the HUD and letterboxing the frame doesn’t help much for immersion when I run into someone I couldn’t have seen or my horse immediately switches direction because the camera angle suddenly faces the complete opposite direction. not a great sign when the only way to progress the game forward becomes a complete slog.

and outside of the missions, I simply felt no desire to further inspect anything in the world. there’s plants, hunting, fishing, running into random NPCs, gambling, fashion choices, horse choices, and, god, so much choice overload that I couldn’t bring myself to care about any of it. I never once went into a store or other location outside of mission relevance because I never felt the need to. I hardly ever used any consumables yet still felt the need to loot every Bad Guy I shot down. maybe if I had gotten involved in each extra activity as it was added, or maybe if there was more purpose to engaging with them, I would have felt more inclined to check them out, I don’t know for sure.

what I do know is that I just stopped playing this one day about two weeks ago and haven’t thought about it until this morning with absolutely zero desire to pick it up again. I was never engrossed in the story enough to have any care of what happens to these characters, I was never in the mood to just ride around the world, I was never feeling like I was doing more than merely checking off a list of tasks to make some fictional entity give me 2 fictional dollars that I would never use on some fictional bottle of alcohol. and I think that’s simply not what I want out of video games.