Sometimes, you just have to appreciate a well-oiled machine, and Nobody Saves the World is exactly that. It's a game that reveals its entire hand to you in little more than an hour's time, but it's also a clever game that finds a way to make its transparency work in its favor. Though its presentation is very much modern (as long as you don't mind characters that are adorably and intentionally kind of hideous), its focus on maintaining an extremely consistent gameplay loop feels delightfully old school. You could easily call it a one trick pony, but it's a dang good trick!

The story provides a sufficiently interesting mystery to explore, has charming characters with humor that generally lands and visuals that do an excellent job of depicting genuinely disgusting things as a way of portraying a world covered in a calamity that seeks to warp it into something unhabitable. Ultimately, though, the crux of this game, what makes it truly stand out, lies with its transformation system and how everything you do feeds into it and other aspects of the game simultaneously. Your character is capable of using multiple transformations that allow him to take specific forms for the matter at hand. To give a few examples, you can become a knight and fight at close range, you can try becoming a mermaid to travel across water and find different approaches, or you can just turn into a slug and shoot tears from a distance while your sliminess slows your foes down. You can even become an egg and roll around if that's your thing! Combat on its own isn't particularly deep, with a basic attack and three skills being all you get per form, but the sheer flexibility you have in choosing your skills is what keeps things interesting.

As you use transformations and satisfy goals such as "kill x using this skill y number of times", you'll gain experience for that form that feeds into its rank. Ranking up gets you new skills that can be used on any form you have, which naturally leads to some wonderful combinations. Sick of having to turn around to use the Horse's kick attack? Give it the Ranger's arrow attacks and you won't have to bother! Want the minion-heavy Magician to get even more minions than just his rabbits and tigers? Give him the Zombie's ability to infect people and you'll be running with a small army of zombies in no time! Even with just three skills, the amount of options you have really adds so much room to express yourself and find creative solutions to the game's many quests.

Instead of grinding experience or brute forcing things with a single build, you're meant to shift around constantly and try new things. If you ever struggle with a quest, you probably have a skill that'll secretly turn it into a cinch! Those aforementioned challenges serve as a wonderfully elegant way of teaching players about potential combinations, too, which is very helpful for those not accustomed to the particular logic that "Job System" games run on. To give an example, one of the slug's challenges asks you to poison enemies using your basic tear attack. By dedicating one of your four passive skills slots to the Ranger's poison accumulation ability in order to solve this "puzzle", you'll end up learning that poison works extremely well on rapid fire attacks in the process. It's really a stroke of absolute genius how well this system works in both educating the player and providing them a canvas with which to express themselves however they please!

Completing quests and form challenges also earns you experience for your general rank that serves as a base power level to be applied to any form as well as Stars, which are required to unlock the game's main dungeons. These requirements may feel a bit arbitrary at first, but they encourage you to engage with the game in all sorts of ways without forcing you to do dungeons that you may not want to do. Depending on how you play, you can knock out sidequests to get stars, you can just buy some using money, you can try out different forms and complete challenges, or you can discover optional demi-dungeons and complete those for stars. You wouldn't think the dungeons would be the lowlight of the game, but they kinda are, unfortunately. Each one features an incredibly inspired design (like entering through the mouth of a corrupted whale or a weird creature) and modifiers that limit or tweak every combatant's abilities/stats, but they never feature any interesting gimmicks or design twists within the dungeons themselves, ultimately resulting in dull corridors full of enemies you've already fought a bunch of times before. Boss fights are incredibly underwhelming across the board as well, usually consisting of a bigger version of an enemy you've fought combined with infinitely respawning allies. Main story dungeons have all the same issues alongside a restriction that prevents you from gaining experience inside of them at all, which feels like a somewhat bizarre choice. The idea is for you to "choose a build and rely on it for the challenge at hand", but considering how reliant the game is on that constant feedback loop of completing tasks and unlocking new tools to keep your attention, stripping that away just exposes the game's magic tricks in an unflattering way.

Nobody Saves the World is an interesting one to talk about because it feels like the kind of game where words are guaranteed to undersell it a bit. Unlocking forms and experimenting with them is an absolute joy, but it's also a fundamentally simple game to actually play, perhaps to a fault. With only a few buttons needed to control it and a dearth of interesting foes or dungeon threats to navigate around, its core gameplay loop can feel like something you'd mindlessly grind through in a free to play gacha mobile game or something, and it's honestly hard to deny that or defend it against skeptics. But if you're open-minded, this is the kind of game that you should really try for yourself and see if you have the kind of mindset that it needs to really thrive. Even if you lose interest in the gameplay, I feel like this one is a great case study in how to make interlocking systems successfully. It's truly commendable how DrinkBox made everything come together in a way that encourages any and every option you have, which is absolutely ideal for any kind of job system game. Definitely something to take note of if you're looking to develop a game like this! If you enjoy optimizing character builds, enjoy Gauntlet-esque mob clearing, using a variety of goofy looking characters, or just appreciate a constant drip feed of dopamine, you'll be impressed by how much this game can sink its claws into you and capture your heart.

I know this just now got its release on an accessible platform, but I'm a little surprised that I've been hearing about a different plot-heavy action roguelite steeped in Greek mythology for years now.

Returnal uses every element of its design to work towards its central theme. The plot is constantly introducing you to something else that doesn't fully make sense right as you've come to understand the last clue. Knowledge of Greek mythology will help a player quite a lot and let you skip ahead a bit in making sense of what's going on, but even then I found my own theories about the plot to be ever-shifting, and I'm sure if I went back to complete more of the Tower I'd find them changing yet again. I won't say much else because I think continually going "oh my god" (good realization) and "oh my god" (terrifying realization) is a key part of the experience, and I'd like to preserve that as much as possible for anyone who hasn't yet played it.

What I will say is that the game (story-wise) is deliberately unpleasant, making this possibly the first roguelite plot I've seen where your inevitable failure does not feel like something the developers have to hand-wave away to keep things moving. Your goals are vague - much of the game is spent with the objective of reaching something that Selene is fixated on. Instead of a surmountable, heroic challenge, the whole thing feels eerie and unnerving - a desperate, irrational struggle through the tendrils towards a distant, beckoning something that holds little chance of being friendly. The tentacles and tendrils and all the other ways that the forest grasps at you, the way the same forest has... a run-down house resembling nothing else on the planet? The way the ambient soundtrack sounds wispy and ethereal and flowing and aquatic, interrupted by unnatural stutters and surges of sound that lends the entire environment a feeling of vastness that simultaneously has too much and frighteningly little going on.

And it's because it all works so well together that the most video game-like parts of it begin to stick out. To be clear, this is a nitpick: I was tempted to start this off by saying that the fights are "too good". The further I progress, the more I'm thinking about the story, and the harder I can feel my thoughts being violently yanked off-course by seeing a gun on the ground and having to decide if it's better for the challenge ahead than the one I'm using. It's a nitpick because these encounters are still fun, the items still suit the game thematically - the only pure upgrades you get in Returnal are traversal tools - but after each fight I find myself thinking about consumables, one of the very few elements present that feel like they don't belong. To be honest with you, it's probably necessary if you want players to continue through multiple deaths, because combat in Returnal has been pretty aggressively trimmed down to a (very strong) set of action game fundamentals. Removing the most game-y elements would arguably suit the mood a little better, but those same bits that I'm griping about are the only parts that allow you some room for mistakes.

It is the best attempt at working a story into a roguelike I've seen yet, and if you ask me it's worth picking up based on that fact alone. Selene is a character with genuine depth, and the game is fully committed to exploring that depth.

I beat the game roughly over 15 years ago and I didn't recall it leaving a strong impression on me even though I already became a fan of Vanillaware due to Odin Sphere. I did wanted to give it another to see if my opinions have changed, but unfortunately it did not. If I had to sum up my feelings on it, I'd say it had a lot of interesting potential which weren't met.

I liked the setting, background and general story. There aren't many magic school type stories in the first place and the concept of time loops are intriguing. However, I thought the story moved way too fast without spending enough time developing it to be something more. There are plot twists here and there, but none were particularly amazing.

I have similar feelings about the characters. I liked Lillet and the other students and professors. They have interesting backgrounds, but like the story, didn't spend enough time developing these characters. Many of them didn't even get much screentime or interact much with each other. A shame since many of the gallery images have group shots that seemed more interesting than what was actually in the game.

The music was consistently good throughout. Not a ton of tracks though at just about 20 only.

The gameplay is pretty solid as well if you like strategy games. There's an option to pause the game while going through most commands, but I left it off. The combat has a lot of depth with many units to try out each with their own advantages and disadvantages. Mana gathering is very important as a resource so that always needs to be kept in mind.

Most of the game's new additions are used in battles. A new skill tree where earning coins after clearing battles and secondary objectives can be used to enhance certain battle effects and familiar units. There's 4 Grand Magic which can only be used once per battle normally and probably the most important of all is the fast forward function. Battles actually move very slow on the default speed and it could take a long time to complete them too. Some battles require surviving for 30 minutes, but the fast forward function chops it down to about 10-15 minutes depending on how much you use it.

Battles are surprisingly difficult at times even on Normal. Having every area blacked out unless you move a unit over there can really mess with your defenses/plans. I had to retry several times just to figure out what I'm dealing with.

Overall, the game is pretty short when using the fast forward function. I finished the game in about 9 hours on Normal despite retrying a few battles. I really wished there were more story and the characters were better developed since I thought they could make the game pretty special if it did.

I played the original Wii version many years ago and only finished Kisuke's story. I was already a big Odin Sphere fan at the time and so I was disappointed that Muramasa wasn't nearly as enjoyable. I decided to give the game another chance with the Rebirth version and finished both MCs' stories as well as two of the DLC stories.

Muramasa's main story is probably the part has left me the most disappointed in the game. I wouldn't go as far as say it was a terrible one, but it just wasn't particularly interesting. I thought about it a lot and I'm not sure why I didn't enjoy it more. There's some political intrigue combined with fantasy elements. Kisuke's story is a bit more interesting since I found him more interesting as a character, but even then, his story wasn't anything amazing either.

Part of me probably wanted a more epic story like in Odin Sphere and having multiple playable character stories crossover with each other. Unfortunately, there's barely any crossover to begin with and Momohime and Kisuke never really meet each other except at the very end or during the random hot spring scenes. This is surprising despite the connections they have via Momohime's sister.

I already touched on the main characters a bit, but the supporting characters could've been more compelling too. Other than Torahime, the only other characters I liked and were memorable were the two Kitsunes, but they didn't have much depth as characters. The antagonists were weak and lacked much of an impact.

Graphics and the art direction is what you would expect from a Vanillaware game. Beautiful 2D art and a few breathtaking scenery. Music is also solid with the heavy traditional Japanese theme.

Gameplay is where the game shines fortunately. The heavy combo based combat is quite fun. Being able to launch enemies into the air and then further juggle them for more hits is very satisfying. It's also fast paced as well. There's a lot of variety with bosses and they provide a fun challenge even more than Odin Sphere. My only issue with the combat in general is that it's incredibly difficult to defend against enemy attacks especially during those moments where projectiles are flying all over the place. Offense is heavily favored. Momohime and Kisuke don't have much to distinguish themselves despite being the only two main playable characters. This is in contrast with Odin Sphere where you have five characters and all play differently from each other. The only difference between the Muramasa leads are the swords they get which has different sword skills attached to them. It's not a whole lot, but it's better than nothing.

My other major issue with the gameplay is that there's a lot of repetitive backtracking. You don't get accessed to the standard fast travel until beating the game. The transporters excluded since they don't make much of a difference.

I've only played 2 of the DLC, but I think they are decent. $5 USD for each or $15 if you buy the bundle. They aren't very long at just about ~3 hours to beat the story, but the different and unique combat style for each character is quite good. The stories are on the smaller scale compared to the main story, but they are surprisingly entertaining. I do think they are worth the price if you enjoyed the combat and wanted more from the world.

Overall, Muramasa ranks somewhat low on my Vanillaware list. The combat is very fun, but the story and characters drag it down for me.

Assassin’s Creed 2 is the 2nd game I played after Rogue and it was what solidified my love for the franchise. As such it would be very hard for me to separate my love and nostalgia for the game from a nuanced look into its qualities.

“It is a good life we lead brother. May it never change and may it never change us.”

An exchange between the Firenze brothers followed by the hauntingly beautiful soundtrack of Ezio’s Family was an introduction that has been etched into my memory forever. A simplicity and masterful execution shown by this introduction is emblematic of the whole game.

Compared to the first game the story the game tackles is a simpler good vs evil one. Templars were unrepeatable assholes here driven by greed, not a worthy opposition to assassin ideology. Supposedly a low point in Templar history. Instead what carries this story is the charm of Ezio and the supporting cast, especially the ever lovable Leonardo. A revenge story at its heart, the story adds layers by making it about one of growth, for both our protagonist and the creed. How ever simple it may be, I don't remember ever losing interest.

In terms of gameplay, I never considered melee combat good in this franchise. But something I distinctly remember how good the progression was. You don’t start out as a master assassin like most games but rather slowly unlock hidden blade abilities throughout the entire game. This might not sound like much, but we have to keep in mind that this was the 2nd game in the franchise where all the systems that we take for granted were still very fresh. It was fresh to me as well since it was also my 2nd game.

The main appeal for me was the parkour. And what a treat it was to run around in renaissance Italy. The really slow parkour from 1 was possibly polished up cause despite having precise controls, it never felt slow to me back then. I still remember the glee I felt whenever I had to climb a tall building or encounter one of those parkour puzzles. Even now I consider 2 and Bortherhood's map to be the best in terms of traversal, only contested by Unity. And the music, my god it’s ethereal. Jasper Kyd has yet to top his work in this game in my opinion. Even now all these years later I occasionally listen to them.

To this day AC2 for me remains the perfect marriage of story, atmosphere and gameplay. It must realistically have aged with how much technology has evolved since then but in my memory it’s evergreen.

Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory: The best of the classic Splinter Cells definitely isn't perfect, but it has mostly withstood the test of time and is worthy of yours should you enjoy stealth-action games. This is a "replay" because I played it back when it came out, but barely remembered anything from it.

The biggest issues, first: in 2023, you'll be needing to download the widescreen fix from PCGamingWiki unless you're a rare CRT fanatic, then edit an .ini file to fix the FOV. This fix doesn't help with the cutscenes which are very low resolution and now stretched, though thankfully there aren't many. I ran into a hard crash which are never fun, so be sure to quicksave often, and if you want to alt-tab while playing you have to rapidly mash tab like a dozen times before it gives up its bizarre resistance and lets you. Never seen that one before.

Other than that? You're playing Chaos Theory, baby, the Splinter Cell game. It's easy to see why the game was (and still is) praised: the lighting and sound has received a comically large upgrade from the abysmal and forgotten nightmare of Pandora Tomorrow. Sam feels like Sam again, no longer the bland G.I. Joe from the previous entry but the uniquely bulky, lumbering, iconic ninja. Every level is just ripe with stealthy potential. The plot is still pretty stupid this time around, but at least it's not just following an uncharismatic dick while he makes phone calls. Pandora Tomorrow also had many segments where stealth was impossible and you simply had to murder dozens of guys in your playthrough: in Chaos Theory, you're actually penalized for killing people unnecessarily.

The scoring system after every level is probably the biggest upgrade from Pandora Tomorrow and exactly what this series needed. It's like Sam is being debriefed and told how he could have done better out there. You'll get a knife in Chaos Theory, but if you want that 100% rating, you'll only be using it to cut through tents and pierce generators. What's great is it's entirely your call: if you don't give a shit about a single digit percentage score at the end (it doesn't hinder progress), you're free to choose the 'Assault' loadout and bring a shotgun attachment and frag grenades with you on the operation. Do you want to dodge guards, only leaving a few fellas unconscious in dark corners, or do you want an onslaught with a trail of corpses? You do you.

I played on Hard and found it to be pretty challenging, it lead to my playthrough being a longer one. There's actually a difficulty above it, which sort of sounds insane to me, because on Hard enemies see you unless you're engulfed in shadow. On your meter, it can barely move out of pitch black before they "think they saw something" and come looking. Guards pull out flashlights or flares when this happens, too, adding to the challenge and atmosphere. Unfairly, multiple times they spotted me around a corner, though perhaps this has to do with the FOV stretching and widescreen fix. Remember, kids, ABC: Always Be Cuicksaving.

I enjoyed being a stealthy lad, taking my sweet time to ensure I got the 100% (or as close as my patience would let me). I didn't like how the penultimate level has an ending that's comically difficult to sneak out of, it felt jarring and poorly done. The last level does a better job of changing the pace and still lets you be quiet should you figure out how. You can't make any narrative choices in Chaos Theory outside of doing/avoiding secondary objectives, but I could see wanting to go back and trying out a 'bring the noise' playthrough.

As of a few days ago this game is old enough to smoke and vote, but I think it manages to play like it's somewhat fresh. It looks good, it sounds good, it plays... pretty good. Again, I wasn't crazy about some levels having entire sections that felt like they belonged in a Call of Duty instead of Splinter Cell. It's not perfect, but it's good, and the universal praise this game gets is simply tough to argue with.

I recommend Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory.

Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun: A clone of DOOM that doesn't deliver anything really unique outside of its Warhammer 40K paint job and even that is forgettable at times. Mostly competent but lackluster, it can feel like a slog and won't be remembered as a standout of the self-described boomer shooters.

Really, to sum it up: the game is fine, probably the picture-perfect definition of “average”. If you wanted a Warhammer game, it's not here, this is just a reskinned, slightly modernized DOOM. If you like DOOM, you'll probably enjoy this game, but there isn't much new for you here to see. If you came here for the atmosphere of 40K, it's there, but not as much as it is in something like Darktide.
There are some nice touches, like your heavy, metallic footsteps that can make you sound like a sprinting Abrams tank; your armor is called Contempt; the idling animation will have your marine consulting the Codex; there's a dedicated taunt key that'll have your space marine shout insults at the heretics. It would be nice if he did some of the taunting all on his own, as actually pressing the button to insult computer enemies is sort of a hollow gesture. Just spitballing, but maybe at the end of one of the numerous Purge sections, he talks some hard-earned smack? Oh well.

If the newer DOOM games have taught us anything, it's that exceptional music can help elevate “old” gameplay to ridiculously high levels. In Boltgun, the music is barely there. The main menu theme reminds me of the ambient music that played while you chose a track in Guitar Hero III or maybe the intro to a Bon Jovi song. During gameplay, you'll barely hear any jams playing at all. Sometimes there'll be single syllable chants every so often over a light beat. I've read online “Just put on the DOOM soundtrack,” as though that's not indicative of a pretty big problem with Boltgun. You may as well do that, as the sound effects of Boltgun's weapons aren't that impressive and there's zero monologue/dialogue you'll miss.
Listen to this track and tell me it isn't instant atmosphere, setting a clear tone. Darktide is known to have its fair share of issues, but music isn't one of them. Music can do a lot and its near-total absence is heavy, here.

The quality of game and its deservedly low price point reminds me of those Xbox 360 Arcade games, though towards the higher-end (in quality/competence) of them. I think they make it pretty clear to not expect very much, and so I didn't, yet I still feel sort of disappointed. It's hard to feel like a hardened space marine when my largest boss enemies manage to get stuck on the environment, standing still and waiting for me to slowly snipe them to death with my boltgun or plasma rifle, while they do little to nothing. The game tells me my weapon absorbed the machine spirit, but I'm not feeling it.
This may out me as a total moron, but I found myself getting lost in a lot of maps easily. A lot of the map design seems needlessly convoluted and when combined with the art style that can easily blend everything together into a pixelated blur, it can turn your brain to mush.
Lesser enemies shooting at me nonsensically did add challenge to the gameplay, but I felt like it made zero sense in the context of the game. Some shots were aimed right for you interspersed with shots aiming arbitrarily. Add four or five guys doing this at the same time and you don't really know how to move in that area without taking some hits. I think my opponents randomly flipping the switch between “competent” and “Stormtrooper” is a weird way to add difficulty, and ultimately, one I didn't really care for. I also cannot overstate how much I HATE Nurglings and the choice to just overload you with them (especially in the last fight? Seriously?) is a horrid one.

If you ask me, this game is repetitive, overstays its welcome, and just isn't that interesting. While its Warhammer 40K aesthetic is pretty good, it isn't a super strong coaxer. When I was finished with the first chapter, I had actually hoped it was over. I'm not entirely sure what it's missing, here, but it's obvious something is wrong. I don't think I can really recommend this game, though if you like “boomer shooters” to death, maybe this is worth checking out. Just don't expect anything great.

I don't really like writing negative reviews. I only log games I complete, write about games I care about. In both cases, I'm unlikely to make it to the end of a game I am not enjoying. But I will generally play any game recommended in earnest, and a friend was certain that Final Fantasy IX was a game I had passed over in error.

They were not correct. It is a shockingly empty game, full of ideas yet ultimately hollow, eager to work against its own systems and narrative at every turn. It is unintentionally lonely, mistaking a breakneck plot and shallow dialogue as the hallmarks of the return to high adventure it so proudly wanted to be. It leaves virtually every character's arc either unresolved or rushed to a conclusion, tears through its own cramped world with a destructive fervor that relies on bombast over substance, and approaches its themes with the absentminded languor of a high school theater teacher half-heartedly directing yet another play full of eager but painfully inexperienced children.

It is a game full of systems, minigames around every corner, secrets to find that could not possibly be found in a good faith playthrough. It is the very definition of a guide game, the apex of the Prima Strategy Guide era. Yet these systems and secrets are all disconnected, disjointed, their own self-contained ideas that are glued on to an existing beta of a game instead of being integrated in any meaningful way with the core gameplay. They are busywork, with rewards that are utterly unnecessary if the player is not planning on going after the superbosses.

And its core system, the skills-via-item mechanism at the heart of its combat, is somehow an even worse version of VI's fill-in-the-blanks magicite. At least there you could focus on giving the relevant basic spells to everyone, and then simply leave each character holding the proper stat-enhancing rock while occasionally trading them between the major spellcasters to flesh out the list. In IX, however, you are saddled with swapping clothes and boots and bracelets from the very outset, constantly shuffling wardrobes to ensure that everyone has every skill. Nevermind that virtually none of them affect your build or how you play, performing instead as a genetic switchboard you toggle in order to prevent the regional problem from being too much of a nuisance.

Which leads to the issues of just how much time you spend not playing the game. The battles are slow. Nothing new there, but the reason they are so slow is so frustrating because this was a lesson already learned, again in VI. There, the ATB system was meant to provide a more dynamic combat sequence, and was an admirable if ultimately somewhat failed attempt. Long animations would lock up the fight, forcing everyone to line up with their fully charged action bar while characters display their increasingly flashy visuals. IX commits itself to this with aggressive fervor, with even the most basic spells involving lovingly zoomed in animations and slow elemental resolutions, entire battles grinding to a halt as all involved stare at each other and the game struggles to figure out who gets to go next and then sends them on their way.

But that would be fine, forgivable if annoying, if so much of the game wasn't spent in menus. Not just trading outfits, but slotting gems in and out of various passive traits. You enter an area. You see a bird. You toggle on the trait that lets you kill birds easier. Another fight. Now someone has learned a skill, so it's time to find another hat for them to wear. The next fight: undead. Time to flip that switch as well. The next bit of combat reveals that there is an enemy that can cause the confusion status. Better make sure you're protected. Time to trade hats again.

It's all so tedious, so unrewarding and slow both in and out of battle. There's no skill, no joy in seeing the shape of an enemy and telling the game you want to be better at killing that enemy. There's zero need to commit to a build, so there's no consequence for any choices. You never need to swap in a character because the current one is built for offense and has thus neglected status protections, no need to bring spells specifically to protect that offense-oriented individual via a spellcaster if you decide you want to push through with them. Everyone can do everything, and when they can't you can brute force it all anyway.

The narrative, for all its faults, is even worse when it comes to these systems. The constant splitting of the party is bad enough as it is. Active Time Events are a clever concept, one I would have loved if it wasn't constantly used to separate characters and thus deprive them of desperately needed opportunities for interpersonal dialogue and growth. Mechanically, the party is split on a regular basis, leaving some members sorely lacking in levels. Not that it matters, as levels mean much less for most stats than gear, and the gear itself is tied to a broken itemization system. Your reward, then, is that any time a long-absent character returns to the fold you get to spend even more time rotating in items for skills, searching shops for gear with important abilities that you cannot see until you have bought or synthesized them.

That same narrative does nothing to make these faults worthwhile. I will play through a mechanically unsound game for a good story, but there is barely an element of IX that manages to be more than just barely cohesive. Dialogue is shallow, amateurish. Deep pains and existential crises are glossed over with casual apathy. A plot that has, at its heart, the idea that so many of its characters have been living a false life, one manipulated or fundamentally untrue, rarely takes a moment to consider what happens after that revelation. This is a game where one of its core systems, the emotionally-linked and narratively key trance state, is treated three times in the game as an excuse to start with a charged gauge instead of the impactful, introspective, character-baring mechanism it should be. Compare this to the eidolons emerging in XIII, deeply personal moments and fights the story lingers on, emphasizing the distress and ensuing growth of the characters and allowing the summons to function as both narrative and mechanical emblems of the same.

It's not all bad. The music is excellent. The character designs are often vibrant, despite Zidane's utterly needless Monkey King inspiration, and the world itself is well-represented in lovingly pre-rendered backgrounds. There are some clever ideas in the plot, despite the fumbling and lack of follow through. But none of it is enough to make up for the slow trudge through an unfinished game that sabotages itself at every turn.

The shooting and the movement/platforming mechanics are some of the most fluid and responsive in the medium. The campaign is surprisingly great, the set pieces are inventive, there’s a good variety of enemies, a good variety of weapons each with their own learning curve, the story, while fairly generic plot-wise, offers up some fun and memorable characters. The levels are very well thought out in the context of the game’s mechanics, it’s much much more than your standard corridor shooter.

The multiplayer as well is a ton of fun, the movement mechanics and the Titans really give the game it’s own unique flavour. The loadout items are all remarkably well balanced, the game heavily rewards skill, it rewards creativity, improvisation, knowledge of the maps and traversal mechanics, but at the same time, certain modes have A.I. controlled grunts roaming around for you to mow down, so even lesser players can still feel like they’re contributing. One of the most fun stunts I liked to pull off was to call my Titan to drop down on top of an enemy player Titan, killing them instantly. It’s easily some of the most fun I’ve had with a multiplayer shooter at it’s peak, though it’s tough to find full matches nowadays. The player count is fine, last time I played there were around 1200 active on PSN, but the servers and the matchmaking are busted, it takes some patience to get playing. If only the game had bot support (like, in the place of players I mean). It’s something I think more PVP games could benefit from, so their longevity isn’t entirely at the mercy of the servers and player count.

4/10 playable experience, 8/10 Star Wars experience

Gameplay-wise, this is the shittiest, jankiest souls-like I’ve ever played. Movement and combat are so floaty and unreliable, animations are glitching out, enemies have a stance meter that you have to break down, but it resets again when you damage them once so your combo will abruptly just shut down, parries don’t take into account the possibility of more than one stormtrooper attacking at once so if you’re fighting more than 2 guys (which you will be) and two decide to attack at once, you’ll just get screwed out of your counter, as well some galaxy brain thought it’d be a good idea to have unblockable attacks highlighted in red in a game where half the light sources are red, even the level in which you fight the final boss is like this, I don’t think I’ve ever hated a 3D model in a video game as much as I do her. Only semi-redeeming thing about this on the gameplay front is that it’s fun to toy around with force powers once you unlock them, throw enemies into other enemies, freeze bolts in midair, then pick up a guy and walk him into it, even then though, your options have limits.

The only reason why I’d ever recommend this to anyone is if you’re looking for a reminder of why you love the Star Wars IP. Whereas Force Unleashed felt like some kid’s fan fiction, this feels more consistent with an episode of Clone Wars. It’s basically Rebels but actually good (comparisons to Clone Wars and Rebels are exemplified by designs and voice actors from both appearing in the game). The crew is very down to earth and likeable, the villains are menacing while still being sympathetic, the heart is there, the spirit of adventure is there, the art design is there, the world just feels so thoroughly Star Wars, from the blue collar scavengers we’re with at the game’s start, to the mystique and the spirituality of the jedi and the force, which Star Wars stuff has always seemed to neglect post-original trilogy.

If you like Star Wars, and even if you think most Disney Star Wars stuff has been garbage, what’s here might be worth toughing out this busted ass game for.

A downgrade from RE4 in nearly every way. Your AI companion is braindead, constantly getting herself killed by enemies and hazards and wasting ammo and items (in a particularly frustrating instance she got ahold of a magnum before me and wasted it on some grunts). The bosses and minibosses are tedious and stupidly bullet spongey, unless you buy a magnum before every encounter be prepared to run in lots of circles, taking potshots until you get the melee prompt ad lapidum. And god damn the way they designed the inventory system genuinely boggles my mind, how limiting it is, how some items stack, some don’t, how you can’t expand it, you can give items to your partner, but that runs the risk of them using them on you, it feels designed to be an inconvenience. The story is some self-serious late 2000s action fare, a shame because there is some silly shit in here, Indiana Jones temples, Zulu zombies, boulder punching, they could’ve played up the schlock like RE4, but no, the game always takes itself 100% seriously. As well the game basically gives up on the horror side of things after the first two missions. Towards the latter half of the game the zombies start weilding AK47s and you get this broken cover system in a bizarre, rickety-ass attempt to mimic Gears of War or Uncharted. That said, if you look past all the issues I just mentioned, and if you can accept it on it’s own terms, there is still a semi-competent action game waiting for you underneath, albeit a disappointing one coming off of RE4.

Have to say too, I’m curious to see what they do with the inevitable remake of this.

It took me way too long to finally get to this. Such a varied game, the surprises kept coming right through to the end. A bit janky to control by today’s standards, but the game is remarkably well planned around it, every part of your arsenal will come into use at some point. It’s cast of characters feels right out of a Metal Gear game, and I love the way it’ll bounce you from silly campy one liners, roundhouse kicking heads off and exchanging shit-talk over the radio, to the thick, suspenseful atmosphere of exploring these locales and straight terror when facing some of the bosses. The slight clunk to the controls and a couple of less than fun moments prevent me from giving this the perfect score, but had I played this around the time I was getting into the Metal Gear Solids, I’d probably be calling it one of my favourite games right now.

And on that note, Resident Evil 4 Remake just shot up to the top of my Playstation 5 wishlist.

FUCKING hell what a game.

Batman and Arkham City at its finest; the gameplay still retains that seamless and perfect fighting choreography, making every kill and knockout as satisfying as ever.

Much of the dark, gritty and rainy criminal world of Arkham is just so atmospheric that you can't help but traverse and explore everywhere. The visual fidelity is still crazy and beats many of the new-gen releases like Gotham Knights.

My main critique with this game would be the design of the bossfights, really didn't like how there wasn't much emphasis on actually battling them like you'd do in Origins and City.

The game is still a blast from start to finish, an easy recommendation if you've played the other Batman games in the franchise.