If it wasn't by its kinda underwhelming ending and other small details this game would be a 5 stars hands down.

Hopefully the dev won't listen people who complain about the absence of a map because that's what makes the exploration of this game so satisfying. You can get to zones you're not supposed to yet if you try hard enough and there's always a reward.

The movement is so good that I don't remember the last time I've played a game that is just so satisfying to move around in. The combat can be a bit simple most of the time, but is pretty good at certain moments, justifying its existence.

This is a game that I immediately started after finishing it and I barely have done that with a handful of games. This one is for sure a contender for my game of the year list and I hope the word gets around and more people play because it deserves it and more.

vi comparativas de esto con dead island y me parecen acertadas porque los dos juegos son una pija, lo que si este implementa un sistema de parkour que si bien se buggea todo el tiempo es bastante entretenido correr por los techitos y tiene unos desafios por tiempo piolas.
si van a jugar con gente les recomiendo que lo hagan solo para tener alguien con quien hablar mientras skippean las cinematicas y le pegan 30 veces al mismo zombi porque el cooperativo de este juego no es para nada cooperativo, lo jugue con 3 amigos y enseguida se volvio una cuestión de esperarnos entre los 3 a ver quien era el ultimo pelotudo que llegaba al waypoint para activar la proxima quest, nunca tuvimos que hacer nada que requiera coordinarnos, ni siquiera para pelear porque los enemigos son todos una garcha, los zombis comunes tardan demasiado en morir incluso con armas buenas, los zombis grandes tienen ataques con hitboxes KILOMETRICAS que encima te stunean y los humanos con armas de fuego hacen tanto daño que el combate del juego parece un chiste, y no es que "hay que ir evitando los enemigos haciendo parkour!!" porque el juego te da muchisimas herramientas para ir de frente contra los enemigos y se la pasa poniendote en situaciones de combate obligado, solo que estan planeadas e implementadas para el orto y son molestas de ejecutar.

una de las cosas que mas rompe el juego y a la que siempre va ser facil recurrir es la habilidad de rematar a los zombis que estan en el piso de una patada pero igual termina siendo una poronga porque el prompt para activarla aparece cuando se le canta el ojete. aún asi el acercamiento mas efectivo al combate siempre es tirar al zombi al piso -> rematarlo antes que se levante, y es divertido por un rato pero se vuelve taaan repetitivo, encima teniendo un sistema de crafteo y modificacion de armas interesante a lo dead island el juego opta porque lo mas efectivo sea hacer esta estrategia estupida. otra cosa que no entiendo es los niveles, cada tanto el juego tiene eventos de "doble experiencia" o giladas asi, el unico sentido que tiene que un juego fps singleplayer de zombis con parkour te haga grindear niveles para desbloquear tu moveset completo es agregar horas de juego sin contenido. nisiquiera son arboles de habilidades, es un conjunto de skills de mierda (que deberias tener ya cuando empezas a jugar porque los primeros niveles del juego se sienten muy malos)

ademas de todo esto la historia es una poronga, las sidequests son aburridas y tienen dialogo insalteable y el jefe final es un QTE de como 5 minutos

I genuinely hate Rockstar mission structure, it is a scourge of poor narrative pacing and game design that I hope whoever coined it first gets fired off a cliff. That being said, Red Dead Redemption is an alright time overall, mostly because when the narrative actually decides to hit, it does.

Red Dead Redemption is one part really weak open world with middling side stuff, one part gameplay that just barely passes, and one part great narrative poking fun at Wild West revisionism and revisionism in general that is somewhat taken apart by shitty pacing thanks to its meandering structure. That ends up all combining to make something cohesive and somewhat immersive, not really a match of gameplay and story because the mission mechanics undercut the freedom you can have (hey there's a NakeyJakey vid on this you should see for RDR2). But it works, at least.

I really do find however, that the story elements it offers are genuinely great and competent to be worth the venture. Rockstar's writing while not perfect does end up generally understanding and evaluating the culture and time period it works with, putting up heralded ideals of Wild West storytelling and then cutting its limbs, pointing out the issues of its supposed "freedom" as you go from Mexican war where both sides are narcissists, wanted lists that give no real glory, the old guard completely exploited by the police and government as capitalism decides the real truth. And even with all of that subtext, RDR still manages to bring out a last act that hits home with core family tenants. Again though, a lot of this is terribly paced, with a shitload of "do this favor for x so you can get to y, and then do another favor for x or maybe even y this time! And then after you've done this 5 times we'll actually continue the fucking story." It's grating, but I think the heart of it shines through over time.

Overall, it's an alright game where the positives while strong are cut under by the scope and structure it works with. It's fine, worth trying out at least but maybe not finishing. (6/10)

It doesn't do the game any favors that when trying to tell such a supposedly serious and personal story, it's full of parodic characters spouting their usual nonsense, following in the footsteps of GTA.

In those games it didn't matter because all the characters and missions were simple excuses for the player to destroy more things around the city.
But here it affects much more, having these characters subplots of 3 or 4 missions only to lengthen the game. Pure filler.

Fortunately how well written the dialogues are, how well drawn the ``normal'' characters are and how effective are the high points of the plot that make us travel from one place to another compensate for what it inherited from GTA.

------

Al juego no le hace ningún favor que al intentar contar una historia tan supuestamente seria y personal, esté plagado de personajes paródicos soltando las paridas de turno, siguiendo la estela de los GTA.

En aquellos juegos daba igual porque todos los personajes y misiones eran simples excusas para que el jugador pudiera destrozar más cosas por la ciudad.

Pero aquí afecta mucho más, teniendo estos personajes subtramas de 3 o 4 misiones únicamente para alargar el juego. Relleno puro.

Afortunadamente lo bien escritos que están los diálogos, lo bien dibujados que están los personajes ``normales ´´y lo efectivos que son los puntos álgidos de la trama que nos hacen viajar de un sitio a otro compensan lo heredado de los GTA.

Dismembering bodies, dismembering reality.

What i liked most from the first Nier was Taro's ability to play with what constitutes a being, and how bodies are transformed several times taking different forms. He has the ability to twist his stories and his characters, so that the confusion that arises from all the endings and new perspectives is not only to show the futility of conflict, but that the real conflict is upon our own bodies.

Nier Automata takes it even further. The only bodies that remain in the world are machine lifeforms. They can be replaced with spareparts, the androids are different from alien machines, but machines can fuse and give birth to androids, and androids are formed with machines' nucleus, and then everyone fights each other, while searching for a human soul.

They build community, they are greedy, they need connection, they need love, they need solitude. They feel. And their bodies keep twisting and turning and breaking and reconstructing and deconstructing and nothing remains the same anymore, because our bodies are in constant death and rebirth as time passes, and we meet new people and they change us and we change them in return. Such is the pain and grace of living.

For the first half, Humanity is an alright puzzle game. It falls into many irregular puzzle conventions of my personal dislike, focusing on introducing a large number of mechanics instead of being smart with the available tools, yet it still reaches some very high points of wit, even with the ideas that made me raise my eyebrow at first glance.

At the half of the game, the main surprise is the genre shift. The principal difference between the stealth, strategy, action, platformer or whatever else new facets of this second half is that, contrary to the first one, the quality ranges from bad to very bad. The principles established to make a good puzzle game do not cover enough range to go further from a surface recognition of the other genres. Even the genre shift idea itself seems less smart than the game thinks when noticing that the radical change comes from a single power up introduction. The first step to turn a Mario game into a shooter is giving him a gun.

This shift could be taken at least from its symbolic significance (hard thing to do considering the detachment that the narrative provokes by seeming more concerned with pretending to care about the big questions rather than caring about really anything), if it wasn't because of the occasional puzzle comebacks and, honestly, no idea how rejecting the puzzle nature or branching from it should be a positive read on humanity’s capacity instead of a signal of its incapacity.

To the puzzle that was the lack of ideas halfway through the journey, the proposed solution was to break all rules, forgetting why they existed, mistaking becoming a fragile shifting shadow of greater ones with an alternative way to find its own identity. The solution was to stop right there.

Here’s an idea: no more videogame ‘playgrounds’ set in developing nations. No, not even fictional ones. What ever emerges but colonialist mayhem?

How many sandboxes do we need? What is detail and authenticity worth if it’s all just local color? If it’s all serving the gun-fucking, world-skimming, kitchen-sinking cynicism of a videogame sequel?

When I lived in China, I met so many Westerners with the playground attitude: this is my place to have fun, to chase pleasure, to escape. No one knows me here, and no one is real. I don’t give a fuck. And I don’t have to pretend.

Initially, the game has no bad ideas at all. The Tartarus as the main (and almost only) dungeon being randomized gives it a sense of unknown in every journey, with even some team management elements in order to explore each floor in different ways. Speaking of teammates, the decision to not be able to control them directly gives the combat a fresh strategic view. Equally refreshing, the life simulation manages to convey its adolescent fantasy by mixing both mundane and supernatural worlds. Even the social links having direct effect and thus forcing you to relate with as many people as possible and to keep them happy whenever you encounter them is a right decision. True, it can lead to some condescending behavior towards everyone because of convenience, but it can also be understood as a way to understand each person.

And at the premises is where Persona 3 ends. The dungeon is soon revealed as poorly followed in thought. The floor generation is incredibly samey, and there is never a sense of getting lost (or a need to spread the companions around) because of using such a limited pool of assets in incredibly small sized floors. It fails both as a hassle to progress and as an adventuring device. The shadow enemies, being exactly the same during the whole game and the only enemy to encounter, are easy to observe and evade from the very beginning. The enemies happen to be so predictable that not only escalating to the next Tartarus checkpoint while avoiding combat or giving a back strike to start with an advantage is mindless, there is no trouble in doing both even with emulator turbo enabled.

Thankfully, you can progress through Tartarus at your own pace, but even if you defeat the bosses and reach the story blocked checkpoint, the game incentivizes you to go back and grind. It will be your only source of experience, money and personas to begin with. The worst part is noticing that the randomness of the dungeon that was supposed to make it intimidating ends up acting as a pseudogacha where to celebrate the encountering of rare chests and drops. And yes, your characters fatigue after a number of fights, but instead of making this as a threat, it is another incentive to keep grinding the dungeon while everyone is capable of combat (and the most interesting implications of this, getting blocked because of mismanagement, is erased for your convenience at the end of the game).

The JRPG dungeon grinding systems are the best part of the game.

The life simulation suffers from a similar need to press the turbo button because of its babyfied copy of Tokimeki Memorial being shallow, elongated, devoid of friction and with no interesting real choices to make (similarly, Tokimeki also had an implicit comment on time being wasted on improving oneself while life went away, it helped to get the point across that three years of high school went away in 5 hours at most in opposition to less than one year ending after 60+ hours). I could forgive this and other details like the weird push for romantic connotations with every female character, the friendship hilariously disappearing whenever the social link is completed (when the bond is unbreakable, according to the game own words) or the aforementioned convenient condescending approach to dialogue options if the stories would be any good. They start with an attempt of being lighthearted, and noticing how boring they are halfway through, they usually throw some half-baked drama that makes Inazuma Eleven secret characters' backstories look like Shakespearian tragedies.

Even though it is appreciated that the game main plot is rather calm to just enjoy the day to day (something that, as already said, fails to do so), the narrative obstacles in the smaller stories are just a teaser of the ineptitude of the whole game. The main group, despite living in the same residence and going to the same school, seems afraid to spend time together that is not relevant to the main plot. It is so clearly disinterested in making a group dynamic that up until the very end of the game it will be usual to approach one of your team members at night for a casual talk and hear a tutorial prompt instead. I have to admit that the overall insipidness of everyone helps to look at the dog the same as any other team member, at least.

The more “serious” story beats may be the worst part. Just to exemplify, the first arc of the story that wants to carry some weight deals with a group of girls bullying one of their classmates. As obvious as it is at this point, Persona 3 does not care in any human way about neither life in general nor in teenage life in particular, so the bully is forgiven and corrected after her life is saved by the bullied and the story is concluded, they are now inseparable friends even. This very same ineptitude could be discussed with every dramatic driven story beat, save perhaps for the admittedly okayish ending (talking about The Journey here, I prefer to ignore the whole existence of The Answer in every sense).

As much as Persona 3 ends up wanting to talk about the importance and impact of death and its worries or where our world is going to (in quite a conservative mindset where marriage and divorce rates are relevantly present in the news for instance), its attempt cannot be taken seriously at such a glaring misunderstanding of life itself.