incredible game. somehow even better than the first, though the original has such a unique charm to it that it's hard to pick a favourite. combat is improved, moving through the overworld is improved, the plot has more depth and the map is incredibly detailed and interconnected. the "secret" ending subtly guides you toward it well enough if you're paying attention that it's entirely possible to do it on your first blind playthrough (which i did). the characters are well written and fun to interact with and the puzzles are significantly better than the first game. there's like a thousand ways to make your way through Prehevil. masterpiece of a survival horror game. Miro doesnt miss

Okay, actual review time.

If you've been following the excellent saga that is 'random Irish guy writes shitty one-liners about video games' the beloved spinoff to 'random Irish guy writes shitty webnovels inspired mostly by video game plots as well as whatever was in the Spotify playlist that day' you'll know I wrote an actual review of Portal , and thought it was just okay. A decent demo of new tech with a fun enough plot even if the momentum based puzzles were a bit jank in areas. But everyone said Portal 2 was the great one and god damn they were right.

Right from the beginning when Wheatley wakes you up and the world starts crumbling around you as Glados notices your presence, in psychics showcases that to this day are extremely impressive looking, with dialogue that's genuinely funny as you talk to two parties who absolutely hate each other, going through more fun puzzles that feel more tightly designed than in one.

Then the big halfway twist happens.

I'm not gonna go too in detail on how you end up in the abandoned part of aperture, because I knew what the twist was and was still shocked at it. But the second half leads to the game's greatest strength.

atmosphere.

Every part of this game oozes atmosphere thanks to the more varied settings, getting to traverse with portals outside of the first games testing environments for longer periods of time. The prerecorded messages as funny as they are deeply unsettling. I do have a personal phobia of both abandoned places and the whole 'upload your brain into a machine' concept so maybe this whole thing spoke to me on a deeper level, but god damn if I wasn't creeped out the whole time. This has scared me more than basically any horror movie I've ever watched, and the plot and premise probably wouldn't be that hard to rewrite into a dreamworks film, which adds to the game's artistic qualities.

So in general, it's a masterpiece. You didn't need me to say that. Only flaw is some of the later puzzles last a tad too long, and the orange gel kept sliding me just besides my portal instead of into them (or maybe that's just me getting filtered by first person gaming again)

ff8 is a game that is very hard for me to compile my thoughts on, but i thought i might as well try now that it's been a bit since i've finished it

i can get 8 not being somebody's favorite final fantasy, but this is such a beautiful piece of art to me that it feels like most of the game's bad reputation is just a mass gaslighting campaign perpetuated by early 2000s gaming magazines and kept alive by people who are scared of earnest emotionality in their video games. not everything that happens in this game is necessarily logical and it does have its flaws—the main antagonist is good but far from the series strongest and the disc 2 twist, while not nearly as bad as anyone has ever made it out to be, is delivered a little bit clumsily—but i feel like that's in service of being such an emotionally resonant game that it can barely be seen as a downside. the story of squall and rinoa is so beautiful to me in a way that so few love stories between a man and a woman can be for me and there were multiple points where i started to tear up a bit just because of how much i loved my experience with 8's story and characters.
when it comes to ff8's gameplay the junction system is unironically one of the few times that the atb battle system has been even remotely enjoyable, and while it isn't as strong mechanically as materias from 7 and the tutorials conveying the system in game aren't the best, i think it's a bit sad how having to engage with the mechanics differently is enough to put people off to the game's combat. with just a little bit more time in the oven and an audience more willing to engage with change, the junction system would probably be one of the most celebrated battle systems in any square enix jrpg with dickriders at the level of smirk and press turn from smt, and maybe in general final fantasy 8 would be more celebrated for the amazing game that it deserves to be seen as.

also gunblades are raw as shit and are by far the coolest weapon that any square enix game has ever had don't @ me