In the realm of deduction-based mystery games, Botany Manor probably will feel a lot simpler than games like Case of the Golden Idol or Return of the Obra Dinn. What it makes up with is the game's vibes and charm.

Set in a British manor in a different time period, most of what you're going to be doing in this game is reading context clues, deducing facts about plants and attempting to make them bloom. Your main method of achieving this is by attaching clues you find to specific plants. While the level of deduction required for these plants are less demanding, it does ramp up to add complexity as you're attempting to deduce multiple plants towards the end of the game. The "Aha!" moments in this game is decidedly the most satisfying parts of this game.

Combined with this satisfying gameplay loop is a very The Witness-like artstyle and a simple but poignant story. I sincerely was not expecting to find a story about a woman trying to lead her own life (And not being forced to marry) and being subjugated to relentless sexism in the field of botany in this game! The ending in particular really caps off the narrative well and made the runtime of the game worth playing.

Speaking of runtime...I was surprised by how short this game is (Around 4 hours). This might make it a hard pill to swallow considering its 30 ish launch price. In addition, I felt that some of this runtime is being padded out by having to run back to reread clues due to the fact that you cannot review clues you've found in your book.

With all the nitpicks aside, I really enjoyed my time with Botany Manor. If you're in the market for a nice little mystery game that doesn't make so much demand of the player but still uses your brain enough, I think you'd have a good time with this. A perfect game to try out on Game Pass as well!

I was pretty onboard with the vibes of Pacific Drive from the start. While it began and maintained as an oppressive "What the f is going on??" vibe, you slowly begin to piece together some understandings of how the Zone functioned. Combined with satisfying upgrade and crafting mechanics, it kept me quite entertained for its roughly 20 hour run time.

To start things off, I'm not much of a survival game person. I eventually find a lot of these types of games rather aimless or frustrating to the point where it loses me. I was surprised to find myself not in this situation (for the most part) in this game. I always had the next thing I'm looking forward to getting and was able to make decent progress towards that objective. While death is quite punishing, you can definitely alleviate some of these design decisions with generous accessibility options.

Combined with a satisfying upgrade system is a semi-roguelike system where you make "runs" to collect resources and make it further into the Zone. I did notice towards the latter half of the game that running earlier zones just to collect some early-game resources was rather tedious. But, as you begin to understand the anomalies that pepper the Zone and make longer trips, the game turned into quite a satisfying loop.

What accompanies these loops in the Zone is a narrative that features several disembodied voices that supports you as you make your way around the Zone. While you never seem them, I noticed myself getting quite attached to these characters as I went along. While I can totally see why some folks might find their presence annoying, I really enjoyed the light-hearted banter in such an oppressive environment.

Finally, the upgrade system and narrative comes to a head in the final stretch of the game. I did notice towards the end of the game that the amount of endgame resources required to get some of these upgrades became, for the lack of a better word, a tedious chore. Combined with an ending that ends up not really explaining anything and just kind of...ends, I can see why a lot of people were disappointed with the ending. For me, I realized that by the end of the game that I cared more about the characters rather than the Zone itself, and I'm glad the game structured the main mission line to not make some of these late-game upgrades a necessity to finish the game as it probably would've ruined the pacing.

Overall, I'm mildly surprised by the fact that I enjoyed Pacific Drive so much. I found that the game is pretty uncompromising in what it set out to do. I'm sure as soon as players noticed how meticulous Ironwood has built out the player's interactions with the car (For example, you can hurt yourself by dropping the rear door on your end), a lot of players would have bounced off. But for me, the satisfying car upgrade / loot run loop, the familiar and unsettling vibes of the Zone set in my home of Washington and the cast of characters allowed me to enjoy an experience that I haven't quite seen in other games. I look forward to what they do next!

I think Dragon's Dogma 2 is a pretty bold game. From what I've heard, the way the game is designed is pretty similar to how the first game functioned but as someone who only dabbled in Dark Arisen, I was taken aback by how uncompromising they are being with their vision. I just wish I liked this game more.

The thing I really enjoyed with this game that I had nothing negative to say about is the combat. I love how strange and dynamic the combat is especially with the larger monsters in the game. While the fodder enemies (goblins, harpies, and wolves) gets a bit obnoxious with how many of them you run into on the road, every time I encountered one of these huge beasts was a joy to play. I also loved that each vocation was perfectly viable in combat and has a good set of abilities to play around with.

The combat gets super exciting and cool when your skill synergized with your pawns...the unfortunately reality for me is that the pawns worked about 10% of the time. Most of the time I played this game, my pawns often fell off cliffs / into deep water to their death, rarely had meaningful things to say (Mostly yelling about how I pick everything up, pointing out ladders or chests I can't get to) and not provide anything helpful even when the quest is marked with the symbol of that pawn having information. This made it seem like I was constantly fighting the game for those sweet sweet moments where the pawn system works in favor of the game's design to produce the cool moments you see online.

And while I praised the game for being uncompromising in its design, the flaw that I noticed with the pawn system and its AI really exacerbated some of the obtuse and frustrating systems within the game for me. When you have to run back into town on-foot (due to the limited fast travels) because your pawn fell off and died due to no fault of your own, it's really hard to shake the feeling that the game is not exactly being mindful of your time or being able to make meaningful progress. Some people may see no problems with it and engage with the immersive nature of some of Dragon's Dogma 2's systems, I mostly found it frustrating.

Overall, there's a lot of interesting things I found super neat about this game. But when the game is so focused around systems that has issues that may cripple some player's experiences, I began to understand why there's such disparate reactions to this game. I may return to this one day but maybe I'll see if there's some patches first.

To start things off, I do think this game is better than FF7 Remake. There is way more to do, the game is full of visual splendor and the character interactions in the party as well as expanded lore and character backgrounds are splendid for the most part. The combat has been expanded too with additional ways to build out your party too.

But I also think that the game has some super lows and largely share the same problems I have with FF7 Remake. I genuinely think your enjoyment with FF7 Rebirth (and this remake series as a whole) depends on how much you can deal with the weird stuff it's doing to the story. While I was intrigued in the beginning, the more it went on with cryptic scenes and Sephiroth showing up saying nonsense that I began to realize I genuinely didn't care. In my eyes, it felt like it was elongating a story that could be told in a much more concise manner in the most confusing way.

Speaking of elongating, while the open areas are a wonderful addition to the corridor-centric design of FF7 Remake, it sure does feel like typical open-world design with towers to unlock icons and activity icon spread about the map. It's fun at the beginning but when you notice the same set of activities in each area you visit, you may begin to feel the fatigue. The game also doubles down on my main gripe with the OG FF7...minigames. There are SO many of them. Yes, some of them are fun (Queen's Blood is the most I've gotten sucked into an optional card game than I ever have) but this also may feel unnecessary to some.

The thing I noticed from playing this game is that FF7 is bigger than ever now. Everything seemed to be built around the overarching metaseries of games, media projects and products that must tie into each other (Some of the nods and winks in this game went right over my head). And for me, I think I just like the original game and that's it. I'm super happy for all the folks that are super engaged and loving being in this world but perhaps I won't see myself playing Part 3 in four years.

I was genuinely impressed, having seen this game as a kid, how much they use the PS1's limited processing power to create a world that is so dripping with atmosphere and dread. Yes the camera, controls and combat feels dated but I got surprisingly used to it pretty quickly. I also genuinely enjoyed seeing what this demented game was going to throw my way next as I played through this game.

I also miss this era of games with little hand-holding and trusting that the player is smart enough to figure out what's next. Yes, some of them are super obtuse (and might require looking it up) but I genuinely think its part of the charm.

I think some of the sequels does more interesting stuff with the narrative with this one but I was very satisfied with the ending I got. The OG Silent Hill made me appreciate seeing the background on how we have the horror games we have today and I love games like Signalis and Crow Country is giving homage while providing its own twists / modernizing some elements. Loved it!

I think most gamers nowadays that they find Ubisoft games to be very formulaic. However, every once in a while, we have titles like Immortal: Fenyx Rising and this title coming out that feels like a smaller budget title that someone made with passion. The thing I've noticed about these titles is that they tend to wear the game that influenced the design pretty prominently. In the case of Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, that game seems to be Hollow Knight and Dark Souls.

The strengths of this comes from its satisfying traversal and rewarding exploration. Sargon is a joy to control from the start of the game and it becomes even more so as you unlock new powers. In addition, the game allows you to save locations you know you need a power for using memory shards which I found to be game-changing mechanic for metroidvania. I found the joy of exploring and finding little nooks and crannies to be an element I enjoyed from start to end.

Accompanying this traversal system is a frankly pretty brutal combat system. I honestly underestimated how difficult this game was going to be when I started it. Especially early on, a couple fodder enemies can quickly kill you. Once you get into the rhythm of combining attacks / dodges and parries, it becomes a very satisfying combat system. However, you always have to be on your toes and have the right amulets equipped (Another influence from Hollow Knight) or you will meet your demise pretty quickly.

The game truly tests your combat prowess with challenging boss battles. I found these, especially the ones early on, to be the highlights of the game with satisfying mechanics and a good level of challenge. I found the later bosses, to start bordering onto being a bit of a chore which is worsened by the fact that the bosses strong attacks trigger an unskippable over-the-top flashy attack scene that not take the control away from the player, but also stops the pacing of the battle dead in its track. I found these interruptions insufferably annoying towards the end of the game with how much later bosses do these ON TOP of phase change cutscenes. One boss in particular mixes these interruptions with time-based mechanics that had the player helplessly watch as the boss kills Sargon with zero ability to provide input.

Finally, the biggest gripe I have with this game is the story and characters. I'm rarely the type of person that skip cutscenes or dialogues in this game but I seriously could not have cared less about any of these characters. Sargon in particular is just so bland and half the conversations doesn't even sound like the characters are talking to each other. Combining these with aesthetics and dialogue that is ripped straight out of anime that its so clearly influenced from and it had me skipping full dialogue sequences.

All in all, I think I enjoyed my time with this game but was pretty soured on the annoyances that the game presented by the time I reached credits. However, I also quite appreciate that Ubisoft is willing to fund these "smaller" titles that is doing something different from their very comfortable formula. I didn't love everything about Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, but I can certainly see the talent and passion behind it.

Endwalker, being the conclusion of the first major arc in FFXIV, has a pretty lofty set of things to conclude during its runtime. And despite it having such a large mountain to climb, I think it succeeds pretty well.

With Endwalker, being the first expansion I "caught up" on, I spent more time engaging in content outside of the MSQ and I found the experience really wonderful. Engaging in stuff like the new alt jobs, FATEs and interesting little side quests, I felt the grind of the MSQ way less than some of the other expansions. I also found the beginning area to be pretty cozy and also found the initial mystery to be pretty engaging as well.

The biggest surprise I had with Endwalker that was also engaging for me was that I felt like for the first time in a while, that I had no idea where the story was going. I felt like I was doing what is typically the end-of-expansion Trial at a Level 83 quest and going "Wait, that can't be it. How the hell is this going to continue?" which made the twists and turns every more exciting.

It's not all rainbows and unicorns though. Endwalker has been somewhat criticized for its pacing which is not as tight as Shadowbringers. But while I found the MSQ for Shadowbringers to be tighter, it ended up with a pretty noticeable peaks and falls that became formulaic at the end. I also found the peaks in Endwalker, which even came during dull sequence of quests, to really hit the high notes as a culmination nearly 10 years of this game running.

While the expansion did kind of flub things toward the end with what I found to be an uninteresting (but BEAUTIFUL) zone and boss, it's undeniable how much they expanded the narrative of FFXIV with this expansion and how many narrative threads they were able to conclude within this expansion. I'm pretty stoked for Dawntrail and being able to experience a new expansion with everyone else. I totally see why this game means so much for so many people.

In my "series" of playing through an entire series of games (that began with Final Fantasy last year), I decided to revisit an old favorite. I have a ton of fond memories playing this game in high school whether it be single-player, co-op or multiplayer.

First thing first, this gameplay really does holds up. Playing through the campaign again, I realized why so many games copied the formula from this game for their own third-person cover shooters and I found the core mechanics to be satisfying as ever. While the campaign does provide a decent amount of variety, it does not stray far from the core shooting mechanics.

Other elements...hold up less gracefully. The story is pretty barebones (fleshed out in sequels), and the characters and writing is grade S "video game ass video game". A good dose of macho-ness AND cringey one liners. Also, it's wild thinking back to 2006 where the graphics in this game was considered top-of-the-line where now it's the pretty noticeable 360 era "brown and grey with a lot of bloom lighting" artstyle.

Another thing that took me aback was how challenging the campaign is! I'm pretty certain this campaign is much more fun in co-op where you don't have to restart large encounter sequences due to being one-shotted by a Boomshot or a Torque Bow. Similarly, this game extended usage of the "walk and talk" segments that people loathe now but you could tell it was something new as every death involved going through that segment AND their accompanying dialogue.

Overall, I still quite enjoy this game. It's a decent dose of nostalgia talking but I still think the gameplay is solid especially with the FPS boost on Series X. I'm curious what the sequels add in terms of core gameplay.

Continuing my journey through FFXIV with the expansion everyone is lauding! I did notice that Shadowbringers is one of the Top 5 highest rated games on this site so I was curious to see how it goes.

And it went...pretty fantastically for the most part! This is by far my favorite bit from FFXIV so far. Filled to the brim with amazing characters, music, dungeons and trials (My favorite batch of them so far) and probably one of the best villains in recent memory, there isn't a ton for me to complain about in this expansion.

With all that being said...it's certainly not perfect. The pacing, while probably better than anything else that has come by for FFXIV, still has areas in the story where the MC is doing what's essentially chores which really breaks up the urgency of the story. In addition, much like Heavensward, the way the community hypes up the story with words like "Best FF story since FF whatever" or "It will change your life" is probably not setting it up for success.

And ultimately I can't help to notice the fact that I had to play this game 200+ hours to get to these shining moments. Yes, there are plenty of high points along the way (Despite not enjoying Stormblood a whole ton, I still think back to parts of the patches for that expansion), it is a lot to ask of players especially when parts of the MSQ is so time-consuming or simply drab. You're also spending a lot of your time just watching cutscenes...which I feel like for those that have a problem with that wouldn't have stuck around this long

I'm curious how this arc concludes with Endwalker but perhaps it will be better to let this game breathe a little. Perhaps this is not a surprise when I've been cramming 10 years of content into a few months! But I enjoyed my time with Shadowbringers and curious how they wrap this all up.

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The above is what I wrote after finishing 5.0. After finishing the patches, I totally see why people love this expansion so much. After being worried by a couple pretty slow patches narrative-wise, it really blew up in the middle with a thrilling patch with all the spectacles, development and closure I was looking for when I finished Shadowbringers. I admit that reviewing these expansions are hard due to all the expanded narrative that comes with the patches and the more I play through, the more I realize how strong they are.

After playing through Heavensward and this, my enjoyment with this game is starting to wane a little...

To start off with the good things, I ADORE the music in this expansion (especially the militaristic drum beat version of the Crystal Prelude in the title screen). Also, the aesthetics of Doma was quite delightful for me and a breath of fresh air in this game.

In addition, the quality of the group content keeps getting better and better. I've really started to enjoy that the reason the WoL is going to these dungeons is part of the core narrative and not just "Oh just go to this random place because" from earlier in the experience. Oh and the trials...THESE are probably some of my favorites so far and I'm enjoying how mechanically complex they're getting.

And the negative is...pretty much everything else. The narrative is pretty poorly paced with it split between several regions (and a corresponding cast of characters) and one is significantly more interesting than the other. On top of that, Stormblood seems to be continuing the trend of sections of the MSQ being filled with characters demanding the WoL to do some unrelated obnoxious chores and I'm just like "Why is my character listening to this?". It's been such a consistent pattern with the way these expansions that are set up that I'm worried long-winded uninteresting detours in MSQ in Shadowbringers and Endwalker now.

Speaking of uninteresting...I was already a bit concerned from the fact that this expansion focused on the Empire as I find them to be one of the least interesting part of this world. And surely enough, this resulted in a very predictable and boring arc with a very one-note main villain. I did think some of the secondary and tertiary villains were somewhat interesting in their motivations though.

I'm mildly curious where the story goes in the patches but maybe I should give myself a break... 😅

My initial attempt at giving Cocoon a try didn't last long (I think it came out around all the fall blockbuster games) but MAN am I glad I did eventually. The core mechanics of the puzzles in this game, manipulating and nesting worlds inside orbs is seriously one of the most creative mechanics I've encountered in a game this year. The mechanic builds upon this core with denser and unique abilities thrown in as you get further into the game which I found endlessly refreshing. While the mechanic becomes perhaps a little too mind-bendy towards the end, that is a small critique.

The game is also accentuated with incredible art direction, fantastic music, clean graphics and fantastic boss fights (It was honestly so cool to have some form of combat in these indie puzzler games). I personally never quite bonded with titles like Limbo and Inside but decided to play this due to word-of-mouth and I'm so glad I did. This is my favorite indie game of the year by far and I will certainly keep an eye out for this studio in the future. So so highly recommended!

I agree with the general assumptions that Heavensward is better than the base A Realm Reborn experience. However, I also think that a lot of people are overselling it a bit.

I noticed playing through Heavenward's MSQ (Main Story Quest) that a lot of the things that bugged me in ARR, such as pointless "talk to X" quests, pointless "humorous" sidetracks and the fact that narrative is rather disjointed with so many players at play (The new characters in Ishgard, the empire, the Ascians). This can definitely result in pacing problems with the progression of the MSQ.

With all that being said, the things I enjoyed about ARR, such as the great characters, music, locations and dungeons (The dungeons in this so much more interesting mechanically) is still here if not better! I also worried about if the dreary mountainside of Ishgard is the only place this story will take place in and was surprised and delighted by the wealth of biomes.

And the story...the story is pretty good. I definitely don't think it's "the best FF story in the last decade" or whatever some people are saying on the internet but when it picks up, it really picks up and makes you want to continue blasting through the MSQ.

I'm curious where the story goes in the 3.0 patches next!

EDIT: Above is what I wrote after finishing the 3.0 patch and now that I've completed the Heavensward storyline, I think I saw why people liked this story so much. The patch storyline really expands on the fallout of the ending of the main Heavensward MSQ and takes the story to some interesting places with strong emotional highs and a satisfying payoff.

Viewfinder has a real cool hook that's pretty easy to impress when you see a trailer. I think the game succeeds on the mechanics they introduce (I'm still baffled about how they programmed this game) except on two fronts: Difficulty curve and narrative.

The game's first two chapters are filled with a lot of simple puzzles that should come to you pretty intuitively once you're in the right frame of mind. The game also provides a lot of freedom with your solutions which can be pretty fun. However, the last couple of hubs turns the difficulty up a notch which is incredibly jarring after so many levels with borderline too-simple puzzles. The final trial in particular was a test in managing frustration which I didn't particularly care for despite the game introducing a plethora of very neat gameplay twists.

The narrative is also the other place where this game seem to fall apart. With a bunch of obnoxious and vague audio logs and sticky notes that providing little context. I also found the general context around why you're doing these puzzles to be trite and not particularly interesting.

Overall, I think the core gameplay mechanics of Viewfinder to be pretty freaking solid and would love to see them make a sequel at some point. Definitely a solid first stab and I'm curious to see what other interesting games this developer will end up making.

I have this game marked as "Shelved" but it's honestly somewhere between "Shelved" and "Abandoned"...

I can see how the gamplay system driven by the Junction system as being innovative and cool...however, I found it to be mostly tedious. 90% of my battles ended up becoming "putting it on 3x speed and smashing Draw until its 100". And with the combined adaptive enemy levels, it just gave no uniqueness to party members if they get the same junction with GF/spells. And considering how much this game loves to party swap, I feel like I spent the majority of the game moving GFs and spells around different members when the game dictated it.

So with the gameplay system not really working for me for the most part, I was largely relying on the characters and story to carry me through. I honestly found the majority of the characters in this game to be insufferable. Squall, in particular, never voices his own opinion because of his broody lone wolf attitude and is essentially made to do the story beats by other characters (Cid in particular who is useless and terrible). Despite there being some real stakes and quality scenes coming at the end of Disc 1, the story being largely consisting of melodramatic YA romance plot and the mercenary school did nothing for me as someone who was way past that age when I started this game.

But what ultimately broke me from being able to continue this game is how linear it is. I'm somewhere in the middle of Disc 2 and I rarely got a chance to explore an open terrain, training my party and go off the beaten path. Combined with obtuse changes to gil, weapons, gear, limit breaks and overworld travel was basically making me feel like FFVIII took away everything I enjoyed about playing a Final Fantasy game. I assume that the game opens up with an introduction of an airship later but how has this not happened at 15 hours?!

I will say that Triple Triad (at least the base rule) and the music is very good though!