goodchicken
145 Reviews liked by goodchicken
Party Trivia
2018
Paid 90p and I still feel ripped off
This review contains spoilers
Cyberpunk 2077 / Phantom Liberty Review
There are three things that cyberpunk 2077 and its expansion excel at and those are its major characters, its art direction and its setpieces, everything else works well enough but isn’t outstanding. I’m happy I got around to playing this now in its patched and re-released state, because if it was released in this state when it was actually supposed to, I think a lot of people would not only be more fair on it, it would probably be regarded as one of the greatest first person rpgs ever, a reputation it is steadily earning but it still sours people with how its launch went down and how it has still got a lot of rough edges. But I have to hand it to cd projekt, they got extremely ambitious and wanted to create something special, something different, something people would remember for a long time - and in my mind they did just that even with its rough edges, largely unimaginative gameplay and mild inconsistencies.
I’ll get the negatives out the way because I want to focus on what I loved about cyberpunk but frankly, I do not love cyberpunk’s open world all that much; its too small to feel worth exploring and didn’t motivate me to sink my teeth into it but it is simultaneously big enough that you’re forced to spend a long time just trying to get around when its simply not that fun and pads the game out somewhat. Up until you can get the dash and a double jump or charge jump, walking and running around is slow and boring especially since there’s not much to see or do besides admire the aesthetic, shop and interact with a bar or club once and never do it again because there’s no point. Driving is fine but just feels kind of tacked on, most vehicles feel too bulky and slow or too slippery and finicky to control. Shooting / combat is the main focus of cyberpunk’s core gameplay and definitely the most fleshed out and interesting part of it since there’s a lot of variety and a nice range of weapons and builds to play with, any of which can be used at any time with no restrictions or necessary optimisation. You could probably do this whole game melee and with only a few exceptions, you’d likely have no trouble, you can hard focus on a particular weapon / style as I did with the shotgun, or you can get a taste for everything and not suffer for it, its well executed. With this being said though, enemy ai is often plain dumb and the difficulty is never particularly challenging or balanced on normal since its largely a breeze + when it IS slightly more difficult, it feels kind of artificial because it means they just throw tons more enemies at you or have enemies zip around and just delay their inevitable death, same could be said for enemy hacks which just feel like a mild annoyance rather than a real challenging gameplay obstacle. There’s some noticeable dissonance in cyberpunk between the constant fear and stakes being held over V’s head / the trauma that V undergoes in cutscenes and the cakewalk shooting sequences which consist of a gallery of meat puppets that you can mow down with little more than a gust of wind. There’s times that style of gameplay works though, like making me seem like a badass in johnny’s sequences and during particularly driven story moments, but its often such a breeze that I feel like going stealthy or playing a hacker when you’re up against such pissant enemies would bore me to tears. I can think of two fights in this entire game where it was particularly difficult and one is because there’s infinitely spawning enemies and one is the final boss so, stands to reason I guess? There are times where the gameplay gets interesting and tries something new which I appreciate, such as scanning through braindances to find clues for your jobs, which I think work quite well and add to the immersion of a technologically advanced universe - but it could have been done more often and with more variety in honesty.
Which brings me to the story, the highlight and driving force behind everything in this game’s world, something cd prokect clearly put a ton of time and resources into, even hiring two a-list celebrities (keanu & idris) to work with and help promote the title and its expansion. All that work does pay off because when we’re talking the main story beats, the game at its finest moments, yeah its pretty fuckin’ preem alright. Not very gonk at all. Without going off on a complete tangent, what I will say is Jackie Welles is in this game for what, 2 hours? I love him so much, he is my choom for life, an absolute king and his death hit me like a truck and actually made me shed a tear. Not only that, while knowing my V was going to be a street punk with dreams of becoming a boss in the crime business, I never expected my ideal path would be so strongly swayed by Jackie’s irreplaceable friendship and shared dream of the ‘major leagues’ we were both reaching for. I never forgot my roots and wanted to fulfil our dream which I ended up getting, bittersweet as it felt without him by side. But just as important is Johnny, your ride or die partner, love him or hate him Johnny is not going anywhere and as a result, the game teeters on an edge narratively, wherein if Johnny does not work, the game does not work, he is purely that important. I had my doubts, I like Keanu as much as the next person but I never understood the worship of the man, but then after seeing him in stuff like the matrix, john wick and point break, I have a feeling this might be the best performance of his career and shows how he has honed his talent. Sure Johnny is just an asshole stuck on you like a leech, a professional cynic bitter and angry at the world, but Keanu and the writers make him so much more, they make you understand him. Johnny is a killer but so are you, he fucks people over and inevitably, so do you, V will have something in common with him whether you like it or not. He will question you, berate you, stare you down during ordinary encounters and judge your every move because he’s sharing the same body but has little control over the choices you make. But then, when you get down to it, I don’t think he even knows what choices he’d make in the same position, part of him just enjoys the chaos and he practically says so himself. While he’s a cliche in part as the anti-establishment rockerboy, Johnny actually breaks a lot of stereotypes and preconceptions as the story humanises him and forces you to see from his perspective. Aspects of his come off as childish and immature, but then he comes out with lines that make me question myself if im doing the right thing or being played and he demonstrates a far deeper understanding of the world and how it works than I once thought. Just seeing Johnny appear mid-conversation or mid-cutscene, knowing nobody else can see him, is so good, there’s something special about knowing you’re not alone at any time, even at your lowest, in your most humiliating defeats, Johnny is there with you and most of all, he will come around to genuinely want to help you. In the beginning he wants you gone but can’t get rid of you, so he too comes to understand you and it forms a bond, an unusual and one of a kind bond that nobody else could ever truly understand, its awesome stuff.
The relationship between V and Johnny is so good infact, that it feels almost like so many eggs in one basket that the other baskets become nearly empty, side quests and side characters like the fixers you’ll run into and folk you do gigs for won’t scratch the same itch, they are often hollow quest givers and faces, which is a shame. But there are exceptions, and like all of cyberpunk, at their best, they are outstanding. Judy, Rogue, Reed, Songbird and of course my man Jackie all won me over completely, showing emotional richness, flaw and vulnerability that build character and form deep connections and personal relationships. The strongest of V’s relationships form with some of the lowest or most hard up of society because V is going through the same shit and I think that’s great. In its main story beats there is tons of payoff, political intrigue and moral choices to be made and almost all of them hit. But they feel somewhat hindered by a relatively lifeless free-roam world, overly familiar looting & checklist formulas and an overload of random side jobs, gigs and errands that bloat the game out while you wait for the good stuff and rarely feel worth the reward. In my opinion, cyberpunk didn’t actually need to be open world, in a way, I think i’d like it even more if it was just a linear action rpg with a hub saferoom or something from which you can start missions, but what we got is far from bad, I just think you could save on all that time and double down your dev team on the already great story missions.
As for the art design and aesthetic, its all executed beatifully and many of the visual and action-packed setpieces it will throw at you are works of art. From konpeki plaza to the arasaka parade and the many gorgeous sequences in phantom liberty, there are some hugely impressive sequences that play out throughout the game. Phantom Liberty in particular involves a few moments of covert espionage and deception that rival some of the best movie scenes in just how intense and beautifully, intentionally crafted they feel. While the cyberpunk aesthetic and its key facets play an important role in gameplay from scanning your environment to hacking on the move to literally implanting cyberware into your body, the actual relative story & in-world implications of the advanced tech and dystopian ramifications of corporate greed are surprisingly few and far between. This is a story helped along by its timeline & setting, but not one that is hugely driven by it and while it can appear complex what with its own in world jargon / slang and detailed environments jam-packed with repressive imagery and corpo ad spaces, its honestly not that conceptually deep overall. The characters, their motivations and your own player choices are the driving force behind cyberpunk narratively, not so much the world you find yourself in, much as the game tries to drive the nail in with dialogue, journal entries and text logs that kind of hamfist the notion of ‘this place is a shithole and we’re all bad people’. Like alright, I get it!
Cyberpunk is actually very depressing huh! Where’s the hover skateboards mate? (kidding).
All in all I really enjoyed my time in night city and would come back for more, which is mainly because of the characters and the playstyles over wanting to spend much more time in the world, nice as it can be to soak in the incredible architecture & environments. This is a beautifully designed experience artistically and its dlc expands on it even more with phantom liberty offering some of the deepest and most intense final moments and personal decisions i’ve seen in a game to date, featuring a complicated moral dilemma and a gripping tale of loyalty and doing the right thing. There is one thing reed said in this dlc that stuck with me, mentioning Welles and the choice I made and it really made me think - infact, a lot of lines in this game make me stop and think and that’s rare because most of the time I just want to blow shit up. Infact, sometimes I want to be done with blowing shit up so that I can get back to the story, because its that fucking good!!
Cheers for reading this one was a bit of a ramble lol.
There are three things that cyberpunk 2077 and its expansion excel at and those are its major characters, its art direction and its setpieces, everything else works well enough but isn’t outstanding. I’m happy I got around to playing this now in its patched and re-released state, because if it was released in this state when it was actually supposed to, I think a lot of people would not only be more fair on it, it would probably be regarded as one of the greatest first person rpgs ever, a reputation it is steadily earning but it still sours people with how its launch went down and how it has still got a lot of rough edges. But I have to hand it to cd projekt, they got extremely ambitious and wanted to create something special, something different, something people would remember for a long time - and in my mind they did just that even with its rough edges, largely unimaginative gameplay and mild inconsistencies.
I’ll get the negatives out the way because I want to focus on what I loved about cyberpunk but frankly, I do not love cyberpunk’s open world all that much; its too small to feel worth exploring and didn’t motivate me to sink my teeth into it but it is simultaneously big enough that you’re forced to spend a long time just trying to get around when its simply not that fun and pads the game out somewhat. Up until you can get the dash and a double jump or charge jump, walking and running around is slow and boring especially since there’s not much to see or do besides admire the aesthetic, shop and interact with a bar or club once and never do it again because there’s no point. Driving is fine but just feels kind of tacked on, most vehicles feel too bulky and slow or too slippery and finicky to control. Shooting / combat is the main focus of cyberpunk’s core gameplay and definitely the most fleshed out and interesting part of it since there’s a lot of variety and a nice range of weapons and builds to play with, any of which can be used at any time with no restrictions or necessary optimisation. You could probably do this whole game melee and with only a few exceptions, you’d likely have no trouble, you can hard focus on a particular weapon / style as I did with the shotgun, or you can get a taste for everything and not suffer for it, its well executed. With this being said though, enemy ai is often plain dumb and the difficulty is never particularly challenging or balanced on normal since its largely a breeze + when it IS slightly more difficult, it feels kind of artificial because it means they just throw tons more enemies at you or have enemies zip around and just delay their inevitable death, same could be said for enemy hacks which just feel like a mild annoyance rather than a real challenging gameplay obstacle. There’s some noticeable dissonance in cyberpunk between the constant fear and stakes being held over V’s head / the trauma that V undergoes in cutscenes and the cakewalk shooting sequences which consist of a gallery of meat puppets that you can mow down with little more than a gust of wind. There’s times that style of gameplay works though, like making me seem like a badass in johnny’s sequences and during particularly driven story moments, but its often such a breeze that I feel like going stealthy or playing a hacker when you’re up against such pissant enemies would bore me to tears. I can think of two fights in this entire game where it was particularly difficult and one is because there’s infinitely spawning enemies and one is the final boss so, stands to reason I guess? There are times where the gameplay gets interesting and tries something new which I appreciate, such as scanning through braindances to find clues for your jobs, which I think work quite well and add to the immersion of a technologically advanced universe - but it could have been done more often and with more variety in honesty.
Which brings me to the story, the highlight and driving force behind everything in this game’s world, something cd prokect clearly put a ton of time and resources into, even hiring two a-list celebrities (keanu & idris) to work with and help promote the title and its expansion. All that work does pay off because when we’re talking the main story beats, the game at its finest moments, yeah its pretty fuckin’ preem alright. Not very gonk at all. Without going off on a complete tangent, what I will say is Jackie Welles is in this game for what, 2 hours? I love him so much, he is my choom for life, an absolute king and his death hit me like a truck and actually made me shed a tear. Not only that, while knowing my V was going to be a street punk with dreams of becoming a boss in the crime business, I never expected my ideal path would be so strongly swayed by Jackie’s irreplaceable friendship and shared dream of the ‘major leagues’ we were both reaching for. I never forgot my roots and wanted to fulfil our dream which I ended up getting, bittersweet as it felt without him by side. But just as important is Johnny, your ride or die partner, love him or hate him Johnny is not going anywhere and as a result, the game teeters on an edge narratively, wherein if Johnny does not work, the game does not work, he is purely that important. I had my doubts, I like Keanu as much as the next person but I never understood the worship of the man, but then after seeing him in stuff like the matrix, john wick and point break, I have a feeling this might be the best performance of his career and shows how he has honed his talent. Sure Johnny is just an asshole stuck on you like a leech, a professional cynic bitter and angry at the world, but Keanu and the writers make him so much more, they make you understand him. Johnny is a killer but so are you, he fucks people over and inevitably, so do you, V will have something in common with him whether you like it or not. He will question you, berate you, stare you down during ordinary encounters and judge your every move because he’s sharing the same body but has little control over the choices you make. But then, when you get down to it, I don’t think he even knows what choices he’d make in the same position, part of him just enjoys the chaos and he practically says so himself. While he’s a cliche in part as the anti-establishment rockerboy, Johnny actually breaks a lot of stereotypes and preconceptions as the story humanises him and forces you to see from his perspective. Aspects of his come off as childish and immature, but then he comes out with lines that make me question myself if im doing the right thing or being played and he demonstrates a far deeper understanding of the world and how it works than I once thought. Just seeing Johnny appear mid-conversation or mid-cutscene, knowing nobody else can see him, is so good, there’s something special about knowing you’re not alone at any time, even at your lowest, in your most humiliating defeats, Johnny is there with you and most of all, he will come around to genuinely want to help you. In the beginning he wants you gone but can’t get rid of you, so he too comes to understand you and it forms a bond, an unusual and one of a kind bond that nobody else could ever truly understand, its awesome stuff.
The relationship between V and Johnny is so good infact, that it feels almost like so many eggs in one basket that the other baskets become nearly empty, side quests and side characters like the fixers you’ll run into and folk you do gigs for won’t scratch the same itch, they are often hollow quest givers and faces, which is a shame. But there are exceptions, and like all of cyberpunk, at their best, they are outstanding. Judy, Rogue, Reed, Songbird and of course my man Jackie all won me over completely, showing emotional richness, flaw and vulnerability that build character and form deep connections and personal relationships. The strongest of V’s relationships form with some of the lowest or most hard up of society because V is going through the same shit and I think that’s great. In its main story beats there is tons of payoff, political intrigue and moral choices to be made and almost all of them hit. But they feel somewhat hindered by a relatively lifeless free-roam world, overly familiar looting & checklist formulas and an overload of random side jobs, gigs and errands that bloat the game out while you wait for the good stuff and rarely feel worth the reward. In my opinion, cyberpunk didn’t actually need to be open world, in a way, I think i’d like it even more if it was just a linear action rpg with a hub saferoom or something from which you can start missions, but what we got is far from bad, I just think you could save on all that time and double down your dev team on the already great story missions.
As for the art design and aesthetic, its all executed beatifully and many of the visual and action-packed setpieces it will throw at you are works of art. From konpeki plaza to the arasaka parade and the many gorgeous sequences in phantom liberty, there are some hugely impressive sequences that play out throughout the game. Phantom Liberty in particular involves a few moments of covert espionage and deception that rival some of the best movie scenes in just how intense and beautifully, intentionally crafted they feel. While the cyberpunk aesthetic and its key facets play an important role in gameplay from scanning your environment to hacking on the move to literally implanting cyberware into your body, the actual relative story & in-world implications of the advanced tech and dystopian ramifications of corporate greed are surprisingly few and far between. This is a story helped along by its timeline & setting, but not one that is hugely driven by it and while it can appear complex what with its own in world jargon / slang and detailed environments jam-packed with repressive imagery and corpo ad spaces, its honestly not that conceptually deep overall. The characters, their motivations and your own player choices are the driving force behind cyberpunk narratively, not so much the world you find yourself in, much as the game tries to drive the nail in with dialogue, journal entries and text logs that kind of hamfist the notion of ‘this place is a shithole and we’re all bad people’. Like alright, I get it!
Cyberpunk is actually very depressing huh! Where’s the hover skateboards mate? (kidding).
All in all I really enjoyed my time in night city and would come back for more, which is mainly because of the characters and the playstyles over wanting to spend much more time in the world, nice as it can be to soak in the incredible architecture & environments. This is a beautifully designed experience artistically and its dlc expands on it even more with phantom liberty offering some of the deepest and most intense final moments and personal decisions i’ve seen in a game to date, featuring a complicated moral dilemma and a gripping tale of loyalty and doing the right thing. There is one thing reed said in this dlc that stuck with me, mentioning Welles and the choice I made and it really made me think - infact, a lot of lines in this game make me stop and think and that’s rare because most of the time I just want to blow shit up. Infact, sometimes I want to be done with blowing shit up so that I can get back to the story, because its that fucking good!!
Cheers for reading this one was a bit of a ramble lol.
My first time doing the DLC! This is one of my favourite games of all time, if not my favourite. i love it so so so much. YEAH IM THINKING 5 STARS
A brilliant, insanely charming, instantly enjoyable gem of a game. A relic of a sadly bygone era, where Playstation (for which Katamari Damacy was originally an exclusive) were willing to publish weird, mid-budget games with eccentric presentation and weird ideas. There's nothing like Katamari out there anymore.
Its controls are really wonky in that up and down on the directional stick don't move you forward and back, but they move you around the circumference of the ball - and then you use the other stick to move once you've oriented yourself. It's a bit hard to get used to - but I think it's to the game's benefit and adds a lot of personality. If it were as cut-and-dry as "move forward to go forward" and "move back to go back" the game would be too easy, this gives it a unique feeling and makes it satisfying to get to grips with, and I think also adds a bit of depth to what would otherwise be a pretty shallow experience.
Katamari has this brilliant, off-kilter sense of humour. The King is such a fucking weido, frequently making weird remarks during levels in which he's asked you to roll up as many women or bears or crabs or whatever-the-fuck-else as you can possibly find. He lambasts you in-between levels and makes fun of your height and the size of your head, he roasts you for your failures but also gets really excited if you manage to roll up a big enough cow. I love him. He's my absolute GOAT. We will never see another video game character like The King Of All Cosmos. The game's levels also just frequently throw shit at the wall with no care for logic. Here's a couple of giant 100-foot-tall wrestlers swinging eachother around in the middle of the beach, here's a panda bear floating down from the sky on balloons, here's a random-ass unnamed kaiju that looks like Gigan from Godzilla rampaging through the middle of the ocean. Sure. Fuck it. Why not?
I'm particularly impressed by levels like the bear level and the cow level in which you're tasked with rolling up one of a single thing in the world and can finish the level no matter how big or small that thing (bear or cow) is, but are encouraged to get a bigger one to get a better score. In these levels it's not just about what you can roll up, it's about what you can't roll up (or, shouldn't, which is small bears or cows). You go around the whole level trying to pick stuff up and get bigger so you can get a bigger bear/cow for a better score, but the whole time you're having to dodge smaller bears and cows like your fucking life depends on it so the level doesn't just end and your hard work isn't wasted for nothing. It gets increasingly harder to dodge these things the bigger you get and the more ambitious you become in your bear/cow size hunt! It's a super smart inversion of the game's mechanics and in a really gutbusting way gets you super paranoid that you're about to roll over a tiny bear that you're too big to see now en route to the one you actually want! You start hallucinating bears and cows that aren't even there!! What the fuck do you mean this tiny-ass milk carton with a picture of a cow on it counts as a cow?? In the most loving way possible, absolutely fuck off man!! (I love this shit)
It's funny all the time, and it's fun all the time, because it wraps up in like 5 hours before it can even begin to get old. And do I even need to mention the soundtrack? This shit could chart it's that good, I mean it in the best way when I say that this game's OST is like a bunch of people doing bad impressions of Nujabes and Frank Sinatra. I fucking loved it, it's everything modern Playstation should be but isn't
Its controls are really wonky in that up and down on the directional stick don't move you forward and back, but they move you around the circumference of the ball - and then you use the other stick to move once you've oriented yourself. It's a bit hard to get used to - but I think it's to the game's benefit and adds a lot of personality. If it were as cut-and-dry as "move forward to go forward" and "move back to go back" the game would be too easy, this gives it a unique feeling and makes it satisfying to get to grips with, and I think also adds a bit of depth to what would otherwise be a pretty shallow experience.
Katamari has this brilliant, off-kilter sense of humour. The King is such a fucking weido, frequently making weird remarks during levels in which he's asked you to roll up as many women or bears or crabs or whatever-the-fuck-else as you can possibly find. He lambasts you in-between levels and makes fun of your height and the size of your head, he roasts you for your failures but also gets really excited if you manage to roll up a big enough cow. I love him. He's my absolute GOAT. We will never see another video game character like The King Of All Cosmos. The game's levels also just frequently throw shit at the wall with no care for logic. Here's a couple of giant 100-foot-tall wrestlers swinging eachother around in the middle of the beach, here's a panda bear floating down from the sky on balloons, here's a random-ass unnamed kaiju that looks like Gigan from Godzilla rampaging through the middle of the ocean. Sure. Fuck it. Why not?
I'm particularly impressed by levels like the bear level and the cow level in which you're tasked with rolling up one of a single thing in the world and can finish the level no matter how big or small that thing (bear or cow) is, but are encouraged to get a bigger one to get a better score. In these levels it's not just about what you can roll up, it's about what you can't roll up (or, shouldn't, which is small bears or cows). You go around the whole level trying to pick stuff up and get bigger so you can get a bigger bear/cow for a better score, but the whole time you're having to dodge smaller bears and cows like your fucking life depends on it so the level doesn't just end and your hard work isn't wasted for nothing. It gets increasingly harder to dodge these things the bigger you get and the more ambitious you become in your bear/cow size hunt! It's a super smart inversion of the game's mechanics and in a really gutbusting way gets you super paranoid that you're about to roll over a tiny bear that you're too big to see now en route to the one you actually want! You start hallucinating bears and cows that aren't even there!! What the fuck do you mean this tiny-ass milk carton with a picture of a cow on it counts as a cow?? In the most loving way possible, absolutely fuck off man!! (I love this shit)
It's funny all the time, and it's fun all the time, because it wraps up in like 5 hours before it can even begin to get old. And do I even need to mention the soundtrack? This shit could chart it's that good, I mean it in the best way when I say that this game's OST is like a bunch of people doing bad impressions of Nujabes and Frank Sinatra. I fucking loved it, it's everything modern Playstation should be but isn't
Metal Gear Solid
1998
yeah, mr gas mask guy, maybe i do like castlevania. whats it to ya.
Alwa's Awakening
2017
I think this game suffers from being a metroidvania. The puzzles and mechanics of the game work really nicely and felt good to play, unfortunately the movement system is sluggish and not very fun when you're navigating a map! It becomes a chore. I think I would've liked it more if it was level based, or if there were more warp points, but if it wasn't a metroidvania I probably wouldn't have picked it up! So yeah.
Final Fantasy XVI
2023
While Final Fantasy 16 has so many moments of pure style and flair that still hit the second time, my overall feeling towards 16 after playing through Final Fantasy mode is just...it's fine. FF mode ups the very by-the-numbers initial difficulty, but this usually amounted to more frustrations/monotony and made the deeper flaws of the gameplay even more noticeable. The encounters are roughly the same but with higher health pools that drive tedium more than difficulty; even mixing up some encounters with a random mini boss thrown in more so pad the experience than fundamentally change it, just another Lvl 5 Zantetsuken to charge or two to move on fast. The narrative, while not without very obvious faults, felt engrossing the first time and I still love the cast, but the bloated quests and very slow pacing hurt a somewhat interesting tale of free will vs fate and freedom vs oppression, though the yikes execution of many story beats and politics makes the themes ring a little hollow. That said, the Eikon battles still feel like the most next-gen thing with so much focus and intensity wrapped in them that I can ignore the simplicity of their movesets unlike the rest of 16's braindead combat and encounters. The DLC release next year may pull me back in, but I'm not sure there's much to come back to with 16 for now.
Rare glimpses of real weirdness can't redeem an otherwise drab and conventional open-world detective game. SWERY saw one episode of Twin Peaks and decided it was his personality; although it is never directly mentioned in the game one gets the distinct impression the man is an Invader Zim fan, just on how he seems to consume media. Yes, driving around and wasting time in town is pretty great, but you gotta counterbalance that with a few super-questionable reveals and how shitty everything looks and feels. The shittiness borders on charm, but never crosses over. Some good drone tracks though.
what if Twin Peaks but none of the flavor
This review contains spoilers
An unacceptable level of padding that made the game a pain to finish. I was able to deal with routine combat and bland environments with minor diversions (running away and hiding from killer), but they showed up so frequently and were intentionally bloated.
The puzzles weren’t even really puzzles (besides the side quest convenience store box push puzzle). People had built up how weird this game was, but it honestly wasn’t that bad for the most part. I’ve been exposed to extremely weird entertainment, which isn’t the norm so that’s why there’s a disconnect.
I started to care for a few of the characters by the end (Emily and Thomas). Even arrogant York, who wanted to do the right thing. Also the side quests were kinda bland fetch quests that build up supporting characters’ backstories. Some were interesting. Some were painful. I really liked the endgame fetch quest for the adopted son of the tycoon, where he acknowledges that he’s someone he can be proud of.
Too many plot twists that it became annoying. Didn’t expect Emily to die. Some cool boss fights at the end (thomas swinging around on the gears and FK different stages floating, chasing you, and giant where you climb his shoulder). There is a charm to the game.
Navigating the town was a pain. Constant frame drops, slippery car controls, the worst game map I’ve ever encountered (too zoomed in!), businesses open at random times not written anywhere in the game (you just have to know their hours), characters move around making completing side quests a pain, the map rotates depending on your direction, etc. The sound effects were very bad. Worst menu sfx I’ve heard. Terrible menu design that took forever to load. Constant loading screens that took around 10 secs each. The padding got inexcusable near the end with the dog running montage (19 mins long).
Thomas was a satisfying bad guy, George was boring and the lamest of the three enemies, FK was one note sadistic creep.
Cool sequence playing as the killer. A trading card spoiled that Thomas’s sister would be killed. Darts game was fun. Game relies on stereotypes to poke fun at different characters. Emily is a bad driver and can’t cook. Thomas is a great cook but acts shy and effeminate.
The puzzles weren’t even really puzzles (besides the side quest convenience store box push puzzle). People had built up how weird this game was, but it honestly wasn’t that bad for the most part. I’ve been exposed to extremely weird entertainment, which isn’t the norm so that’s why there’s a disconnect.
I started to care for a few of the characters by the end (Emily and Thomas). Even arrogant York, who wanted to do the right thing. Also the side quests were kinda bland fetch quests that build up supporting characters’ backstories. Some were interesting. Some were painful. I really liked the endgame fetch quest for the adopted son of the tycoon, where he acknowledges that he’s someone he can be proud of.
Too many plot twists that it became annoying. Didn’t expect Emily to die. Some cool boss fights at the end (thomas swinging around on the gears and FK different stages floating, chasing you, and giant where you climb his shoulder). There is a charm to the game.
Navigating the town was a pain. Constant frame drops, slippery car controls, the worst game map I’ve ever encountered (too zoomed in!), businesses open at random times not written anywhere in the game (you just have to know their hours), characters move around making completing side quests a pain, the map rotates depending on your direction, etc. The sound effects were very bad. Worst menu sfx I’ve heard. Terrible menu design that took forever to load. Constant loading screens that took around 10 secs each. The padding got inexcusable near the end with the dog running montage (19 mins long).
Thomas was a satisfying bad guy, George was boring and the lamest of the three enemies, FK was one note sadistic creep.
Cool sequence playing as the killer. A trading card spoiled that Thomas’s sister would be killed. Darts game was fun. Game relies on stereotypes to poke fun at different characters. Emily is a bad driver and can’t cook. Thomas is a great cook but acts shy and effeminate.
Final Fantasy XVI
2023
This review contains spoilers
My good pal goodchicken wrote a pretty extensive review of Final Fantasy XVI that I think covers many if not all of my major gripes with the story since I largely just agree with him.
https://backloggd.com/u/goodchicken/review/990179/
As an action game I think this game is like an 8/10, but the story is probably a 5 or a 6 out of 10, so I think it lands somewhere in the middle when you consider everything else. It took me ages to finish because I took a big break from it. When this game is good, it is absolutely fantastic and a breath of fresh air for the franchise, but what's funny is, simultaneously, it falls victim to some of the lamest, underdeveloped, half-baked anime tropes that do it no justice whatsoever. This is an evolutionary jrpg that transforms what a final fantasy can be into something new and exciting, so it should have and could have been better than the end result actually is which frustrates me, because I really wanted to love this one and instead I just think its a good game let down by a lot of things.
Creating a jrpg with a heavy action focus and fewer rpg elements than the rest of the series is not a bad thing at all, I don't resent this game for what it tries to be and I actually had a lot of fun with it. FFXVI is so clearly influenced by game of thrones and what is funny to me is that the holes it falls into aren't that dissimilar to it when you consider the similarities between ultima and the night king as big bads that take away all intrigue and drama from the characters, or when you consider how character arcs seemingly resolve themselves without really earning it, leaving a sour taste in my mouth (goodchicken covers this part far better than I could).
I love game of thrones seasons 1- 4, I grew up with it, its some of the finest television ever in recent years full of complex characters with mixed motivations and overlapping relationships with each other. Final Fantasy XVI clearly tries to replicate this with its world centred around noble families, warring nations and the inherent flaws of human beings, all carried along by a dark and gritty fantasy setting. There is even a very well implemented active time lore system you can access in and out of cutscenes and there's a 'lay of the land' encyclopedia & family tree type menu that presents you with waves of ever-updating information about the world and its inhabitants - which also shows character's bonds and opinions on each other, not unlike the interconnected web of characters and relationships found in GoT. But where this falls flat can be attributed to a couple of things but they boil down to - clive is the centre of attention at all times, a vast majority of characters with some notable exceptions like Cid are wholly secondary to Clive and the other thing is that Ultima's inclusion and constant puppeteering of the story and characters makes everything he touches less interesting as a result. I hate Ultima with a passion, he is such a lazy villain that never shuts the fuck up and yaps and yaps about making the 'perfect vessel' out of clive and creating a perfect new world. The nature of him pulling all of the strings and wanting Clive to destroy the mothercrystals, combined with the fact that his motivations are so flimsy cause him to be a complete wet flannel of a villain. There are better villains in daytime kids tv shows for real, I mean that 100%, he is a farcical, pointless, boring, uninteresting cunt and after he is introduced in the story it noticably declines. Also, why cast an actor as talented and brilliant as Harry Lloyd only to have him do his best salad fingers impression and talk in the most one-note boring ass voice for almost the entire game, he puts his all into it at the very very end when fighting clive but at that point I was just ready to be done with him. Ultima and his thralls like Barnabas are so uncompelling and make an otherwise fun and interesting game experience feel utterly nonsensical and dull. Anyway....
Despite FFXVI being a total zig-zag of quality, its highs are really high, notably its eikon battles, huge and beautiful setpieces, extremely well-animated cutscenes, powerful performances across its main cast and outstanding soundtrack, full of triumphant orchestral pieces and cozy serenades. The art design of FFXVI's world is phenomenal, taking you to all sorts of fantastical cities, dense forrests, sandy plains, blackened wastelands devoid of life and beautifully cozy little settlements dotted around the land. Its character designs and europpean influences in things like the architecture, costume designs and castles are perfection and there is a lot of complexity established in the games' main warring houses and nations to begin with, it is largely just thrown away later on and doesn't amount to much. Many characters have a short time to shine only to be cast aside when they're no longer relevant to Clive and its honestly crazy how little Clive interacts with Dion or frankly anyone from Sanbreque, y'know, the people that ransacked his homeland and killed most of his loved ones. As for Clive himself, I do really like him, I think he is one of the most interesting and genuinely human protagonists final fantasy has ever seen but they really work for that to happen since he undergoes a lot of trauma. Although, its trauma that isn't really explored that much, never is it really brought up how Clive spent 13 years as a slave having to kill innocent people because he's told to, nor do I feel like Clive's realisation that Joshua is alive and that he did not kill him after all is strong enough. Ben Starr's performance is totally killer and absolutely blew me away with how passionate and authentic his screams could feel, seriously best screams in the business, but it felt like the writing held him back. Similarly the writing hugely holds back its female characters and seems to refuse to allow them to shine, giving far too little screen time or development. Every female character exists on a surface level with maybe the exception of Annabella who is mostly only interesting because of her clear parallels with Cersei Lannister, but again, she lacks the development and complexity of Cersei in a big way and is far too underutilsed - oh she hates Clive, ok, is that going to amount to anything? Is Clive going to confront her about this? Is she going to try and stop him? Nope, because the game refuses to allow women to play any major part.
With this being said though, FFXVI puts a lot of time into humanising and developing Clive & Cid and it does this very well. Cid in particular won me over completely, I love him, many consider him the best incarnation of cid in final fantasy ever and for good reason, he is amazing, such a compelling character that gives purpose to Clive and Jill and drives the story in a big way for the time he is alive. He keeps the entire message of FFXVI alive and without him it would be an actively worse game, plus he's hot, has the best voice ever and points things out and acts with rationale in a way so many other characters don't for some reason? God I was so miffed when he died even though it was clearly telegraphed from the beginning, love that fucking guy, gonna frame his picture on my wall.
As for the combat and gameplay of FFXVI, although its more restricted and doesn't allow for a huge amount of exploration compared to previous entries and most traditional jrpgs, I do think its good, at least for an action game. Everything feels good and that's a really hard thing to do, because even when you're dodging or charging attacks it is a very active combat system especially since you also control torgal (which can make things a bit more hectic than they need to). But attacking and dodging both feel spot on and switching between targets and using your eikons is smooth and seamless, you can keep up the pressure constantly without getting punished too hard for it but you also get rewarded for paying attention to enemy tells, aoes and projectiles which feels hugely satisfying. You can also get a huge power fantasy literally just by mashing square and occasionally r1, its really beginner friendly. There definitely is some exploration in playstyle and how you build your eikons and special moves too so there's a level of replay value there, I particularly loved using odin who you unfortunately do not get until right near the end of the game, odin's quick slash attacks which build up a meter allowing you to perform an invincible combo with massive burst damage hits so hard for me, I ended up finishing the game using almost entirely odin. Getting new eikons and using them in battle works very well and is a ton of fun, it honestly makes this game more than worth it because the combat and action setpieces alone are so extra. You fight in the form of a giant fire god in space (twice) and tear giant kaiju monsters to pieces and it rips, the titan eikon fight in particular is peak action gameplay, that shit was utterly insane and felt like it went on for ages but I was never bored, it made me go silly.
Completely inconsistent and convoluted story that establishes a very cool world and then turns it into something completely contrived and one dimensional, Final Fantasy XVI deserves its praise but not in the narrative in my opinion. Its action gameplay, phenomenal art and audio direction and stellar performances carry it very hard, without Ultima it automatically becomes a better game. Its one that is worth playing and does a lot right for the series with its darker tone, grittier characters and dynamic, very involved combat that involves little to no menus, but its also hugely held back and stagnant because of the insistence of its lame BBEG and lack of development in its cast. I want to like this more, I really do!
https://backloggd.com/u/goodchicken/review/990179/
As an action game I think this game is like an 8/10, but the story is probably a 5 or a 6 out of 10, so I think it lands somewhere in the middle when you consider everything else. It took me ages to finish because I took a big break from it. When this game is good, it is absolutely fantastic and a breath of fresh air for the franchise, but what's funny is, simultaneously, it falls victim to some of the lamest, underdeveloped, half-baked anime tropes that do it no justice whatsoever. This is an evolutionary jrpg that transforms what a final fantasy can be into something new and exciting, so it should have and could have been better than the end result actually is which frustrates me, because I really wanted to love this one and instead I just think its a good game let down by a lot of things.
Creating a jrpg with a heavy action focus and fewer rpg elements than the rest of the series is not a bad thing at all, I don't resent this game for what it tries to be and I actually had a lot of fun with it. FFXVI is so clearly influenced by game of thrones and what is funny to me is that the holes it falls into aren't that dissimilar to it when you consider the similarities between ultima and the night king as big bads that take away all intrigue and drama from the characters, or when you consider how character arcs seemingly resolve themselves without really earning it, leaving a sour taste in my mouth (goodchicken covers this part far better than I could).
I love game of thrones seasons 1- 4, I grew up with it, its some of the finest television ever in recent years full of complex characters with mixed motivations and overlapping relationships with each other. Final Fantasy XVI clearly tries to replicate this with its world centred around noble families, warring nations and the inherent flaws of human beings, all carried along by a dark and gritty fantasy setting. There is even a very well implemented active time lore system you can access in and out of cutscenes and there's a 'lay of the land' encyclopedia & family tree type menu that presents you with waves of ever-updating information about the world and its inhabitants - which also shows character's bonds and opinions on each other, not unlike the interconnected web of characters and relationships found in GoT. But where this falls flat can be attributed to a couple of things but they boil down to - clive is the centre of attention at all times, a vast majority of characters with some notable exceptions like Cid are wholly secondary to Clive and the other thing is that Ultima's inclusion and constant puppeteering of the story and characters makes everything he touches less interesting as a result. I hate Ultima with a passion, he is such a lazy villain that never shuts the fuck up and yaps and yaps about making the 'perfect vessel' out of clive and creating a perfect new world. The nature of him pulling all of the strings and wanting Clive to destroy the mothercrystals, combined with the fact that his motivations are so flimsy cause him to be a complete wet flannel of a villain. There are better villains in daytime kids tv shows for real, I mean that 100%, he is a farcical, pointless, boring, uninteresting cunt and after he is introduced in the story it noticably declines. Also, why cast an actor as talented and brilliant as Harry Lloyd only to have him do his best salad fingers impression and talk in the most one-note boring ass voice for almost the entire game, he puts his all into it at the very very end when fighting clive but at that point I was just ready to be done with him. Ultima and his thralls like Barnabas are so uncompelling and make an otherwise fun and interesting game experience feel utterly nonsensical and dull. Anyway....
Despite FFXVI being a total zig-zag of quality, its highs are really high, notably its eikon battles, huge and beautiful setpieces, extremely well-animated cutscenes, powerful performances across its main cast and outstanding soundtrack, full of triumphant orchestral pieces and cozy serenades. The art design of FFXVI's world is phenomenal, taking you to all sorts of fantastical cities, dense forrests, sandy plains, blackened wastelands devoid of life and beautifully cozy little settlements dotted around the land. Its character designs and europpean influences in things like the architecture, costume designs and castles are perfection and there is a lot of complexity established in the games' main warring houses and nations to begin with, it is largely just thrown away later on and doesn't amount to much. Many characters have a short time to shine only to be cast aside when they're no longer relevant to Clive and its honestly crazy how little Clive interacts with Dion or frankly anyone from Sanbreque, y'know, the people that ransacked his homeland and killed most of his loved ones. As for Clive himself, I do really like him, I think he is one of the most interesting and genuinely human protagonists final fantasy has ever seen but they really work for that to happen since he undergoes a lot of trauma. Although, its trauma that isn't really explored that much, never is it really brought up how Clive spent 13 years as a slave having to kill innocent people because he's told to, nor do I feel like Clive's realisation that Joshua is alive and that he did not kill him after all is strong enough. Ben Starr's performance is totally killer and absolutely blew me away with how passionate and authentic his screams could feel, seriously best screams in the business, but it felt like the writing held him back. Similarly the writing hugely holds back its female characters and seems to refuse to allow them to shine, giving far too little screen time or development. Every female character exists on a surface level with maybe the exception of Annabella who is mostly only interesting because of her clear parallels with Cersei Lannister, but again, she lacks the development and complexity of Cersei in a big way and is far too underutilsed - oh she hates Clive, ok, is that going to amount to anything? Is Clive going to confront her about this? Is she going to try and stop him? Nope, because the game refuses to allow women to play any major part.
With this being said though, FFXVI puts a lot of time into humanising and developing Clive & Cid and it does this very well. Cid in particular won me over completely, I love him, many consider him the best incarnation of cid in final fantasy ever and for good reason, he is amazing, such a compelling character that gives purpose to Clive and Jill and drives the story in a big way for the time he is alive. He keeps the entire message of FFXVI alive and without him it would be an actively worse game, plus he's hot, has the best voice ever and points things out and acts with rationale in a way so many other characters don't for some reason? God I was so miffed when he died even though it was clearly telegraphed from the beginning, love that fucking guy, gonna frame his picture on my wall.
As for the combat and gameplay of FFXVI, although its more restricted and doesn't allow for a huge amount of exploration compared to previous entries and most traditional jrpgs, I do think its good, at least for an action game. Everything feels good and that's a really hard thing to do, because even when you're dodging or charging attacks it is a very active combat system especially since you also control torgal (which can make things a bit more hectic than they need to). But attacking and dodging both feel spot on and switching between targets and using your eikons is smooth and seamless, you can keep up the pressure constantly without getting punished too hard for it but you also get rewarded for paying attention to enemy tells, aoes and projectiles which feels hugely satisfying. You can also get a huge power fantasy literally just by mashing square and occasionally r1, its really beginner friendly. There definitely is some exploration in playstyle and how you build your eikons and special moves too so there's a level of replay value there, I particularly loved using odin who you unfortunately do not get until right near the end of the game, odin's quick slash attacks which build up a meter allowing you to perform an invincible combo with massive burst damage hits so hard for me, I ended up finishing the game using almost entirely odin. Getting new eikons and using them in battle works very well and is a ton of fun, it honestly makes this game more than worth it because the combat and action setpieces alone are so extra. You fight in the form of a giant fire god in space (twice) and tear giant kaiju monsters to pieces and it rips, the titan eikon fight in particular is peak action gameplay, that shit was utterly insane and felt like it went on for ages but I was never bored, it made me go silly.
Completely inconsistent and convoluted story that establishes a very cool world and then turns it into something completely contrived and one dimensional, Final Fantasy XVI deserves its praise but not in the narrative in my opinion. Its action gameplay, phenomenal art and audio direction and stellar performances carry it very hard, without Ultima it automatically becomes a better game. Its one that is worth playing and does a lot right for the series with its darker tone, grittier characters and dynamic, very involved combat that involves little to no menus, but its also hugely held back and stagnant because of the insistence of its lame BBEG and lack of development in its cast. I want to like this more, I really do!
Undertale
2015
YEAH ALRIGHT IT's pretty good. The writing is fucking fantastic, the music is also fantastic. The gameplay ranges from terrible to good. Goodbye
While the art style and feel of this game is absolutely lovely, I wasn't loving it for a lot of the time. I look forward to replaying Link's Awakening because I loved that game so much and think of it fondly, but it was also my first top down zelda game (not counting spirit tracks). This for the most part just felt like some good top down zelda, it was decent! The kinstones were annoying and I didn't really like the overworld puzzles too much here which is unusual for me. I was getting tired of the game and then I hit the fucking jump button area. suddenly I loved the game and was a very happy boy, I loved it, good jumping dungeon exploration and nice little puzzles. i breezed through it. The last dungeon is then also quite good but doesn't reach the heights ( O . O ) of the previous dungeon. If it wasn't for the jumping stuff this would get 5/10. only oracle of seasons and ages to go for top down zeldas now!!!
This is my introduction to the FromSoftware franchise.
I've wanted to play this series for so long, but I always felt left out due to the difficulty of those games. I've actually tried getting into it 2 times in the Past, but got my ass kicked both times, and gave up out of frustration.
The first time was when I tried the same game over a year ago, and the second time was when I tried Elden Ring at its release. This time, I wanted to give it a serious shot, asked for advices on Discord, Reddit, etc... and I was definitely more prepared to take on this adventure.
I liked how connected all the areas were. I was often surprised to find an elevator or a gate that would lead me directly to a previously explored area. Since you're so focused on trying to survive every enemy encounter, you don't immediatly notice that you eventually always loop back to another region that you've already traversed.
The world has a lot of verticality, which is very enjoyable and offers a lot of surprises during the exploration. I needed to be very observant cause there were a lot of paths & treasures that were viciously well hidden.
The lack of map & teleporters for a good part of the game obliged me to have good spatial awareness and memorization. It was somewhat difficult to remember all the different pathways & shortcuts connecting each location, but it gave a nice feeling of accomplishment when I eventually got used to it and managed to navigate from place to place without much issue. This eventually goes away once you unlock warping tho, but I didn't mind!
The World is full of ominous & otherworldly locations that really left a mark on me. Whether it's exploring Anor Londo for the first time; discovering Ash Lake deep under the earth of Lordran; meeting the Daughter of Chaos in Quelaag Domain; or entering Kiln of the First Flame to defeat Gwyn... The atmosphere surrounding those places is always top-notch, and the lack of music works surprisingly well. I liked the contrast with the epic themes you hear during most Boss fights.
For the first few hours, I only had the Longsword, until I found the Claymore and kept it till the end of my adventure, making sure to upgrade it regularly.
Once I found Havel Armor, I also kept it till the end, but I often switched with a lighter armor such as Gold-Hemmed for many of the Boss fights. Fast rolls are so useful.
I feel like the game doesn't encourage you to try out different weapons/game styles. If you went with a melee build and want to try a pyromancer or mage build midway through the game, you just can't, since you can't reset your caracteristics.
Even simply wanting to change your sword can also be discouraging, because you need to upgrade it all the way to +15 again, which is long & costly.
Beating Bosses was the most rewarding part of the game. My favorites are of course Smough & Ornstein with how challenging they were, and considering what happens after you beat them.
Nito was SO memorable to me. Not necessarily gameplay-wise, but he was by far the most intimidating Boss in the game. His aura, his theme, the fact that you traversed an area that is completely pitch-black to reach him... I was so frightened when the cutscene started!
Chaos Witch Quelaag and Sif are also some of my favorites because of their importance in the lore of Dark Souls.
I also want to point out that I didn't kill Priscilla. I mean, who would even attack her upon seeing her for the first time?
She is so nice with you and just politely asks you to leave her alone. I hope you didn't kill her!
Talking about Smough & Ornstein, I loved the part in Anor Londo. Defeating them felt so fulfilling. And your reward for defeating them is an encounter with Gwynevere, and the ability to warp between bonfires. The music in the princess chamber sounds so triumphant. This was really a high point in my adventure, probably the best part of the game.
Some areas were a bit tedious, and on the really stressful side. Blight Town comes to mind. No bonfire between the top and the very bottom of the area where the swamp is located, and the blowdart snipers are a pain in the ass. But in retrospect, the area isn't THAT terrible.
By far the worst area was Tomb of the Giants. You can't see shit, you have to switch between your lantern and your shield regularly, and the enemies make you fall off the ledge quite easyly, since like I said, you can't see anything. It simply wasn't fun.
I enjoyed the online features. The messages from other players giving advices along the way (or just being trolls), and the fact that I could regularly see their ghosts fighting or resting at the bonfire. It added a nice touch to the game, and made me feel less lonely. I really felt like we were helping each other and doing this adventure together.
While the music is absent most of the time, there are still a few ones that were really memorable to me: Daughters of Chaos; Great Grey Wolf Sif; Ornstein & Smough; Gwynevere Princess of Sunlight.
Duke's archives & Crystal Caves were my favorite regions. I prefer brighter & more colorful areas, and this place looked amazing. The reflections of light on the tiles in the archives were so nice to look at. Plus the area was easy to go through, including the Boss Seath. So yeah, best part of the game purely in terms of exploration.
New Londo was also one of the best places. I enjoy the atmosphere with the spooky ghosts, and the Abyss realm where you fight the Four Kings was very haunting.
The ending felt really abrupt. When I was fighting Gwyn, I didn't even realise it was the final boss fight, and I was surprised to see the credits roll.
I was disappointed to miss out on the DLC content. Finishing the game automatically started a new NG+ file, and I couldn't go back.
Since I missed on it but didn't want to replay the game, I watched a playthrough of Artorias of the Abyss on YouTube. Maybe I'll play it myself one day, but I had enough of Dark Souls 1 for now!
After I finished the game, I watched several videos of VaatiVidya to learn more about the lore of Dark Souls 1. Despite paying attention while I was playing, there were still many story details & subplots that I didn't understand during my adventure.
Especially to learn more about the fate of some important characters, such as the Witch of Izalith & her 7 daughters, Nito, Gwyn, Siegmeyer, or even Solaire.
DLC aside, I also missed some other content like Gwyndolin Boss fight and Solaire side quest, nor did I try to attack Gwynevere in Anor Londo (I watched what it does on YouTube tho)
The replay value for this game must be great. You can do another playthrough by adding some challenge to your adventure: trying a less conventional build, not upgrading your weapon & armor, taking a different path at the beginning... There would be tons of ways to make your adventure different!
As I said at the beginning, it was really hard to get into this franchise, but I'm glad I finally managed to break this glass ceiling. There are a lot of FromSoftware games, so I'm really excited for the future! My next step is gonna be Dark Souls 2.
----------Playtime & Completion----------
[Started on November 25th & finished on December 11th 2023]
Playtime: 50 hours
I got the "To Link the Fire" ending. I didn't do the DLC unfortunately... The game doesn't tell you how to access it, and I don't want to replay a big chunk of the game in NG+ just to do it. Maybe next time!
I've wanted to play this series for so long, but I always felt left out due to the difficulty of those games. I've actually tried getting into it 2 times in the Past, but got my ass kicked both times, and gave up out of frustration.
The first time was when I tried the same game over a year ago, and the second time was when I tried Elden Ring at its release. This time, I wanted to give it a serious shot, asked for advices on Discord, Reddit, etc... and I was definitely more prepared to take on this adventure.
I liked how connected all the areas were. I was often surprised to find an elevator or a gate that would lead me directly to a previously explored area. Since you're so focused on trying to survive every enemy encounter, you don't immediatly notice that you eventually always loop back to another region that you've already traversed.
The world has a lot of verticality, which is very enjoyable and offers a lot of surprises during the exploration. I needed to be very observant cause there were a lot of paths & treasures that were viciously well hidden.
The lack of map & teleporters for a good part of the game obliged me to have good spatial awareness and memorization. It was somewhat difficult to remember all the different pathways & shortcuts connecting each location, but it gave a nice feeling of accomplishment when I eventually got used to it and managed to navigate from place to place without much issue. This eventually goes away once you unlock warping tho, but I didn't mind!
The World is full of ominous & otherworldly locations that really left a mark on me. Whether it's exploring Anor Londo for the first time; discovering Ash Lake deep under the earth of Lordran; meeting the Daughter of Chaos in Quelaag Domain; or entering Kiln of the First Flame to defeat Gwyn... The atmosphere surrounding those places is always top-notch, and the lack of music works surprisingly well. I liked the contrast with the epic themes you hear during most Boss fights.
For the first few hours, I only had the Longsword, until I found the Claymore and kept it till the end of my adventure, making sure to upgrade it regularly.
Once I found Havel Armor, I also kept it till the end, but I often switched with a lighter armor such as Gold-Hemmed for many of the Boss fights. Fast rolls are so useful.
I feel like the game doesn't encourage you to try out different weapons/game styles. If you went with a melee build and want to try a pyromancer or mage build midway through the game, you just can't, since you can't reset your caracteristics.
Even simply wanting to change your sword can also be discouraging, because you need to upgrade it all the way to +15 again, which is long & costly.
Beating Bosses was the most rewarding part of the game. My favorites are of course Smough & Ornstein with how challenging they were, and considering what happens after you beat them.
Nito was SO memorable to me. Not necessarily gameplay-wise, but he was by far the most intimidating Boss in the game. His aura, his theme, the fact that you traversed an area that is completely pitch-black to reach him... I was so frightened when the cutscene started!
Chaos Witch Quelaag and Sif are also some of my favorites because of their importance in the lore of Dark Souls.
I also want to point out that I didn't kill Priscilla. I mean, who would even attack her upon seeing her for the first time?
She is so nice with you and just politely asks you to leave her alone. I hope you didn't kill her!
Talking about Smough & Ornstein, I loved the part in Anor Londo. Defeating them felt so fulfilling. And your reward for defeating them is an encounter with Gwynevere, and the ability to warp between bonfires. The music in the princess chamber sounds so triumphant. This was really a high point in my adventure, probably the best part of the game.
Some areas were a bit tedious, and on the really stressful side. Blight Town comes to mind. No bonfire between the top and the very bottom of the area where the swamp is located, and the blowdart snipers are a pain in the ass. But in retrospect, the area isn't THAT terrible.
By far the worst area was Tomb of the Giants. You can't see shit, you have to switch between your lantern and your shield regularly, and the enemies make you fall off the ledge quite easyly, since like I said, you can't see anything. It simply wasn't fun.
I enjoyed the online features. The messages from other players giving advices along the way (or just being trolls), and the fact that I could regularly see their ghosts fighting or resting at the bonfire. It added a nice touch to the game, and made me feel less lonely. I really felt like we were helping each other and doing this adventure together.
While the music is absent most of the time, there are still a few ones that were really memorable to me: Daughters of Chaos; Great Grey Wolf Sif; Ornstein & Smough; Gwynevere Princess of Sunlight.
Duke's archives & Crystal Caves were my favorite regions. I prefer brighter & more colorful areas, and this place looked amazing. The reflections of light on the tiles in the archives were so nice to look at. Plus the area was easy to go through, including the Boss Seath. So yeah, best part of the game purely in terms of exploration.
New Londo was also one of the best places. I enjoy the atmosphere with the spooky ghosts, and the Abyss realm where you fight the Four Kings was very haunting.
The ending felt really abrupt. When I was fighting Gwyn, I didn't even realise it was the final boss fight, and I was surprised to see the credits roll.
I was disappointed to miss out on the DLC content. Finishing the game automatically started a new NG+ file, and I couldn't go back.
Since I missed on it but didn't want to replay the game, I watched a playthrough of Artorias of the Abyss on YouTube. Maybe I'll play it myself one day, but I had enough of Dark Souls 1 for now!
After I finished the game, I watched several videos of VaatiVidya to learn more about the lore of Dark Souls 1. Despite paying attention while I was playing, there were still many story details & subplots that I didn't understand during my adventure.
Especially to learn more about the fate of some important characters, such as the Witch of Izalith & her 7 daughters, Nito, Gwyn, Siegmeyer, or even Solaire.
DLC aside, I also missed some other content like Gwyndolin Boss fight and Solaire side quest, nor did I try to attack Gwynevere in Anor Londo (I watched what it does on YouTube tho)
The replay value for this game must be great. You can do another playthrough by adding some challenge to your adventure: trying a less conventional build, not upgrading your weapon & armor, taking a different path at the beginning... There would be tons of ways to make your adventure different!
As I said at the beginning, it was really hard to get into this franchise, but I'm glad I finally managed to break this glass ceiling. There are a lot of FromSoftware games, so I'm really excited for the future! My next step is gonna be Dark Souls 2.
----------Playtime & Completion----------
[Started on November 25th & finished on December 11th 2023]
Playtime: 50 hours
I got the "To Link the Fire" ending. I didn't do the DLC unfortunately... The game doesn't tell you how to access it, and I don't want to replay a big chunk of the game in NG+ just to do it. Maybe next time!
Another metroid, another banging game, does this series miss? (Apparently Other M doesn't exist). Also just a great all round remaster that knows how to rebuild a classic game from 1986 and modernise it to make it a more enjoyable and quality game, game design had come a long way from 86 to 2004 and this game accounts for that and makes tons and tons of great quality of life changes and adds hours of new content to make the original feel like a properly fleshed out experience.
Its the same sort of gameplay style as super metroid and particularly metroid fusion, albeit the movement is slightly different and there's abilities you have to unlock that are just a normal thing in many other metroid games like ledge grabbing, high jumping and being able to shoot full screen. Its just a game I was guaranteed to enjoy and I did, especially because it comes with a share of its own little surprises, the ost is actually pretty damn good for a metroid game and there's a whole post-game 'chapter' that follows on where the original metroid ends and the game becomes metal gear solid for a while which is dope as fuck. Then the moment you recover all of your abilities and then some has some great, albeit relatively small lore implications and then you become this unstoppable force, it serves as a reminder of just how powerful samus gets when she's at full strength, love it!
My only gripes are that norfair is a bit of a maze and very easy to get stuck in which happened to me and I spent like 40 minutes circling the whole place until I found one very discreet wall I had to screw attack. The mother brain fight, though it did receive some small updates, is largely unchanged and is very annoying since its basically bullet hell and its a kind of dps check since you need a ton of missiles to get through it which you may not have, but at least you can go back a screen and farm them for a few minutes. But the game more than makes up for it with the new final boss, which I thought was great, that whole section in general is just a ton of fun since you're mowing enemies down and blasting through the space pirate mother ship. Though not as compelling narratively (not even close) and in its overall vibe as super metroid or fusion, in many ways this is even more fun to play and a bit more 'arcadey' in its action which I like a lot. Banger!
Its the same sort of gameplay style as super metroid and particularly metroid fusion, albeit the movement is slightly different and there's abilities you have to unlock that are just a normal thing in many other metroid games like ledge grabbing, high jumping and being able to shoot full screen. Its just a game I was guaranteed to enjoy and I did, especially because it comes with a share of its own little surprises, the ost is actually pretty damn good for a metroid game and there's a whole post-game 'chapter' that follows on where the original metroid ends and the game becomes metal gear solid for a while which is dope as fuck. Then the moment you recover all of your abilities and then some has some great, albeit relatively small lore implications and then you become this unstoppable force, it serves as a reminder of just how powerful samus gets when she's at full strength, love it!
My only gripes are that norfair is a bit of a maze and very easy to get stuck in which happened to me and I spent like 40 minutes circling the whole place until I found one very discreet wall I had to screw attack. The mother brain fight, though it did receive some small updates, is largely unchanged and is very annoying since its basically bullet hell and its a kind of dps check since you need a ton of missiles to get through it which you may not have, but at least you can go back a screen and farm them for a few minutes. But the game more than makes up for it with the new final boss, which I thought was great, that whole section in general is just a ton of fun since you're mowing enemies down and blasting through the space pirate mother ship. Though not as compelling narratively (not even close) and in its overall vibe as super metroid or fusion, in many ways this is even more fun to play and a bit more 'arcadey' in its action which I like a lot. Banger!