Gears 5 is the best looking, best playing, most compelling game with the best story in the series to date.

Growing up, I was an Xbox gamer. Sure I had a DS and my family had a Wii because so did everyone, but the majority of my gaming time was spent on Xbox. Naturally because of this I ended up playing a good amount of the Gears series. Despite that, I actually never beat a single one of them. Eventually I moved on to Playstation and hadn't looked back since. That was, until this year. Seeing the great value of gamepass and how the future of exclusives was really starting to look up (barring the Redfall setback), I decided it was finally time to return to my gaming roots. As much as I was excited to be able to play things like Hi Fi Rush or Starfield, honestly one of the biggest incentives to get one was to play a series I had always liked but never given the treatment it deserved.

And that brings us here, now. A few days past a month of owning an Xbox, and I have played through all 5 numbered entries and Judgement. The original trilogy is not without its flaws but were all a very fun time, with 3 feeling like a fitting conclusion. Of course its a mega popular series though, so obviously things weren't gonna end there. First was Judgement which, well, its not very good. Its not bad either, I liked it. But... the gameplay changes are very clearly a step down from the trilogy and the story wasn't particularly interesting at all. As a spinoff being developed with a different studio, it was understandable that it was significantly weaker than the main games. The new control scheme meant to be more like Call of Duty didn't help.

But then there was 4. Looking amazing, feeling great to play, absolutely awesome set-pieces. But wow. As a setup for the future of the series, it does a piss poor job. The story feels both padded and incomplete. There's a long stretch in the middle that feels entirely designed to make the game longer, but my jaw dropped when the credits rolled because it felt like half a game worth of plot. It introduces three new main characters in JD, Kait and Del but does barely anything with JD and Del is literally a nothing burger of a character. Combined with how the new characters in 3 and Judgement are treated (Jace, the most useless man to ever exist?), the series seemed to have a serious issue with providing anything interesting for the characters beyond the core 4 (That being Marcus, Dom, Baird and Cole). I still enjoyed 4 but it was hard to feel anything but disappointed coming off from the end.

Now its finally time to talk about the actual one that I'm reviewing! Gears 5 fixed just about every issue I had with the series. JD's character is genuinely interesting, Del turned from a complete nobody to such a bro that he's top 3 characters in the series for me. They finally start to treat their female characters with a little more respect by not killing them offscreen or doing nothing with them by putting Kait front in center as the new protagonist. They finally make the gameplay more interesting by having two big areas with optional objectives, as well as upgrades you can work for. The open areas are really great, and even if the side locations aren't anything amazing what they do do is give great room for character development and by the end of the game I really liked and cared for the whole cast, something that hadn't happened for me since 2. Another thing I really liked was the game letting you make a story effecting choice near the end. It doesn't really effect things much for now as obviously by that point the game is almost over, but assuming Gears 6 doesn't discard this altogether - it really makes me even more excited to see how the series continues to evolve with more choice and options.

All this is to say is that Gears 5 is by far the best in the series, and after Judgement and 4 I'm very happy that my binge has ended on a high note. This year is absolutely stacked so I need to focus on other things for now, but I do look forward to trying out Tactics in the future. Gears 6 can take all the time it needs, but I'm more excited for it than just about any other Xbox property. Not to mention finally being able to play a multiplayer mode that isnt completely dead <3

Also, couldn't figure out where to fit his in my review but even though all games in the series have plenty of funny moments, this made me laugh out loud several times without betraying the darker tone and I really appreciated that.

Nancymeter - 90/100
Achievement Completion - 8% (20/181 - ffs lol)
Time Played - 12-13 hours
Completion #29 of August
Completion #161 of 2023

Ghostwire Tokyo is a weird game. Its more bloated than some of the ghouls walking its streets, and I didn't really understand much of the story. But I loved basically every second of it. The enemy designs, the setting, the lore, the color palette, the rain, the yokai... all of it is just so damn cool. Living in the world of Ghostwire Tokyo was an absolute dream, even if much of the actual game is busywork.

Storywise I don't have much to say but I did really like the main characters and it had some really cool levels. Where the storytelling really shines is the side quests. Despite its abundance, not all the side content is meaningless. Most of the side missions actually have some effort into them and are really cool and unique. Thanks to the free Spiders Thread update, there's a new quest chain in a haunted school that was absolutely phenomenal. Even if you ignore all the relics and other collectibles, it really is rewarding to at least check out all the quests.

Then there's the combat. Much like the rest of the game it is repetitive but still really fun. My only real complaint is that i never really felt like I needed to use the different elements much. But with how flashy it is and how cool the enemies are, it never really got old for me. Plus with how condensed the map is and how easy it is to grapple and glide around everywhere, the gameplay loop was consistently engaging. All the collectibles were just an excuse for me to spend more time in the world. Despite the downright unnecessary amount of collectibles, I still went for the platinum because I wanted to spend every second playing the game that I could.

I very much love a lot of what Ghostwire has going for it, but it still has a lot of room for improvement. From the leaked Microsoft court documents it has been confirmed that a sequel was at least once considered, but who really knows what the plans are now. I can't say I'm optimistic about its likelihood. But just knowing it was in the talks has given me a little bit of hope. I'm very grateful this game exists, and a Ghostwire 2 would instantly shoot its way up to my top 5 most anticipated games.

Nancymeter - 89/100
Trophy Completion - 100% (Platinum #272)
Time Played: 31 hours 42 minutes
Completion #5 of October
Completion #197 of 2023

I have a lot of free time. I often think about all the big games In my backlog, how well acclaimed they are and how I really should get to them. I also think about how I am still at the moment in my life where I could feasibly play all of those. There is constantly a sense of longing to be able to get into and love games like Skyrim or Tears of the Kingdom or whatever really. But, I don't play those. Instead I spend countless hours beating games like Marvel's The Avengers, Gotham Knights and well, Exoprimal. I'm not really sure why I am this way. In fact I think all three are good games in their own right. But I am constantly forsaking "better" experiences just to play a game about exosuits and dinosaurs. There are a million cool games out this year. Pikmin and Fire Emblem and Jedi Survivor and Final Fantasy and Rain Code are just rotting in my backlog, while I spent two and a half days almost entirely on this. I don't think its something I'll be able to understand about myself but hey, Its just what I do. And as one of the few people who has decided to beat this game, what better maniac to review it.

So obviously there is a reason why I spent over 20 hours playing this. And its simple, its pretty damn fun. The idea of it is so silly that its no surprise Capcom made it, but honestly its such a good mix that people should be ashamed they didn't think of it sooner. Shooting massive hordes of prehistoric raptors is peak game concept. (Most) of the exosuits are also really fun to use. There's 4 assault types, 3 tank types and 3 support types. While only 10 does feel a little small, they all have good roles. The only suit I actually disliked was Murasame the tank samurai. Honestly all three of the melee centric ones weren't good to use. But Vigilant, the hottest and of course last one you unlock, is insane at dealing high damage with her chargeable sniper rifle. Once I unlocked her I pretty much exclusively used her, except when my team decided to be chodes and nobody wanted to switch to a support class so ofc I had to play as Skywave instead, who is basically the mommy exosuit of the group. Her staff was very fun to use to both heal teammates and lay down some fire. I did dabble in the other classes a fair bit and while not all of them are really my style they're all very distinct and just fun. The enemy variety is strange, because there's actually a good amount of enemy types but so many of them you'll rarely see in your matches which can get quite annoying.

That's really the big problem with Exoprimal, most of its really cool stuff is probably like 15% of the game. When you get to the main story levels they are absurdly hectic and fun (if a bit bullshit) but for like, 45 of your 55 required matches to beat the main story you'll be going through the same 3-4 maps with the same few different objectives. You are unlocking more as you progress but its so little and so rare that it doesn't feel like much. Story progress is a little better since basically every match inbetween the big moments you'll unlock some more lore. And the story was interesting, and I found all the characters to be likeable, but its not really interesting enough for me to sit through like 60 individual glorified audio logs. After a few matches, piecing together the mystery becomes just as slow moving (and grindy) as playing the game. I think playing through matches to work your way to new story beats and getting lore along the way is a genuinely great idea for a multiplayer campaign but the sheer lack of variety in game modes and maps hinders Exoprimal more than anything. You do unlock a new mode after beating the story but its not available yet so pretty unfortunate all around.

Just because I have to mention it, there are microtransactions and there is a battlepass but these are pretty much entirely unintrusive. You can still buy plenty of good skins with ingame currency that is not held back at all. I never had an issue buying the cosmetics available that I liked without having to spend real world money. It would probably be a hella grind to buy every cosmetic on your own but I don't know why you'd even want to do that, and as far as I saw you can't buy more currency anyways.

So because of all that, I absolutely cannot recommend you buy Exoprimal right now. 60 dollars is just not enough for how feature incomplete it is. However, if you've got gamepass (also check out the new indie game Venba thats pretty good) I'd strongly encourage you to give it a try. It just might surprise you. And honestly do it soon, this game is gonna get shut down in like 2 years and it'll be very unfortunate.

So that's my review of Exoprimal. It's been quite a while since I've put up a review lol, but there are still plenty of reviews I'd like to get to. I'm not gonna do the standard "promise I'll have more up soon" thing because that literally never works so just expect a dramatically long hiatus after this so if I do post again soon its like an early Christmas. Thank you all for reading <3

Now time to play Redfall.

-----TLDR-----
+ Extremely Fun
+ some of the exosuits are hot
- Barebones content leads to the game feeling grindy

Nancymeter - 74/100
Achievement Completion - 77% (34/39)
Time Played - Xbox says 29 hours but I don't think that is possible
Completion #2 of August
Completion #133 of 2023

I had been meaning to review this when I platinumed it but once I did I just sort of went to bed and never got around to it. I think the fact that my gf still hasn't played beyond the prologue has me hesitant to say much about it, but I also feel icky having not said anything at all about what is almost certainly going to be my GOTY.

Yep, to the surprise of absolutely nobody, I loved it. I remember way back when the first trailers for this dropped and I really wasn't sure how I felt about it; the English VAs and the very Game of Thrones-esque setup and focus on politics, I was cautiously optimistic at best and maybe even slightly disappointed that it wasn't more familiar at worst. More fool me honestly, the "this isn't Final Fantasy" argument is so old by now it's as much a staple of the franchise as the deities. I don't care if this doesn't look, sound or play like 4, 7 or 10, it absolutely bangs.

I agree with a lot of the criticism I've seen around the combat, more specifically that the basic attack button is limited to essentially a single 4-hit combo, but what I don't agree with is that this makes the combat boring or plain. I've preached to everyone that will listen by now to play this game with controller mapped to scheme C so that magic is on L1 and I stand by this making the combat 10x more fun and fluid. Being able to chain together attacks, follow-ups, combos and specials in a variety of ways is so satisfying, and the "one combo" point is completely lost behind the ways you can use the skills together to slap around your enemies and look great doing it.

Furthermore, the story feels pretty damn "Final Fantasy" to me, the core plot is even built around giant crystals smh. I won't go into spoilers, but following a single character through multiple stages of their life ends up working really nicely I think. The timeskips aren't just noticeable but they're meaningful, you can physically see the changes to people and places based on the events of the previous arc. They could've done more with it I'm sure, but I think it's neat.

To that point, this means our boy Clive carries this game on his shoulders start to finish, and I'm not the first to say that Ben Starr totally nailed this performance. The cast across the board were superb - special shoutout to Charon for sounding exactly like every woman in the town I grew up in - but Square have shown once again that casting actors that don't have massive VA backgrounds can pay off really nicely. I love all the regular names as much as anyone else, but seeing Ben come in out of nowhere and leap to the top of my 'best performance' vote list somehow makes me appreciate the game even more than if it had been aced by somebody that I would expect to nail it.

In classic fashion I've said very little about the game itself, but hopefully this little gush was at least somewhat interesting to read. It can now serve as evidence that this franchise truly does have me by the balls. They aint perfect, but these games deliver for me personally on so many levels.

Quick shoutout as well to the lore catalogues in this game, Harpocrates' tomes and Vivian's map are two of the coolest and most dense lore-libraries I've seen in a game, maybe ever. Also the map actually wrinkles under her finger in cutscenes which is hot. And speaking of hot all the characters are super pretty again, especially Jill😌
I'm looking forward to Rebirth being my 2024 GOTY as well, (Sorry Persona 3 Reload 😔)

Thanks for reading all, hope you're enjoying your summers and whatnot! Not sure what my next review will be but I'm surprised to be really enjoying Sword and Fairy 7 right now so there's a good chance it'll be that!

Man this really blows! (Not really)

Really mixed feelings on this game if I'm being honest. It's split into a few different routes that mostly converge to tell a complete story, following Jill and Parker as they arrive on the Queen Zenobia cruise ship, Chris and Jessica as they conduct their own investigation and two guys I refuse to acknowledge as anything but 'the Morons' contributing to the plot in a way that's far more significant than their behaviour would have them deserve.

Jill's sections of the campaign I actually really enjoyed, especially early on. The ship is no Spencer Mansion, but the area designs and overall atmosphere of it where exactly what I want out of a ship-based Resident Evil game. Most of the off-ship areas suffer from being kind of bland for the most part, but given the way the story is told and the order it's told in I'm not too upset by these extra levels.

Chris' route was also pretty interesting I thought, and the overall plot of the game - while nothing absolutely mindblowing - kept me engaged or curious for most of the runtime, and had me casting a suspicious eye on some of the many new characters, which is always fun in any sort of mystery media.
(Worth noting too that while the mass of new characters was offputting at first in the usual 'why should I care' sense, I did find myself liking them at least well enough by the end. It'll be a shame if we don't see these folks again but I'm hoping that Revelations 2 brings them back if nothing else.)

The Morons are easily, far and away, the worst part of the game. Their gameplay sections are honestly not that bad considering they play quite similarly to the surprisingly fun multiplayer Raid mode; seeing you fight off enemies while running through an area normally just to find a key piece of information, that wouldn't make sense to be found by the other 2 teams. But my god are they annoying. I don't know who wrote these guys but the one you play as says about 30 variations of "this blows" despite only being in the game for maybe 2 of the 26 chapters, with a total screentime of maybe 20 minutes. His companion, meanwhile, is a comically over the top geeky dweeb, and I'm really pissed that he actually made me laugh that 1(one) time because the VA for him sold a line so well.

That aside, this game actually really surprised me. For some reason for years now I've expected it to be kinda mid - maybe even bad - but despite my current score of a (high) 3.5 I do think it's a genuinely good entry in the series. My biggest complaint aside from the Morons honestly is just the bosses. Half the boss rooms have a weapons box in the arena which seemed really weird until it became clear that they're huge bullet sponges and it's sometimes necessary to bring out old guns from reserve or swap damage buffs around when you run out of ammo.

I'm not sure if/when I'll do a second playthrough because the trophy list is awful, but if I do or even just by the time I beat all the Raid stages it's possible this may climb to a low 4.

Thanks for reading this quick word vomit of my overall thoughts, hope you're all having a wonderful week 🙏

Well folks, here it is. One of the biggest releases of this year, a remake of one of the most beloved and influential games in the genre’s history, and top 2 most anticipated 2023 games for yours truly. Did it deliver? Did Capcom succeed in producing the GOTY contender I was confident they would? You know damn well what the answer is, but if you’d like to stick around and read the ramblings of a man consumed, settle in. This one’s gunna be a ride. 😌
(if you don’t please just skip to the end and like it tyily)

-- Warning, I went Overboard --

I suppose I should start with a confession. Despite being a huge Resident Evil fan for most of my life, I was actually never massive on the original Resimid Evil 4. I enjoyed playing it way back in the day, and there’s really no denying how important it was for gaming as a whole, but the more I was spoiled by better mechanics over the years, the harder it became to go back and play it again. I know this is still something of a hot take, but tank controls and standstill aiming are such a hurdle in the original that the challenge never felt like it was by design, but due to restrictions of the game’s mechanics. One might argue that the mechanics were factored in as a part of the design to be fair, but idk, it just doesn’t feel right for me, and worse yet it breaks my immersion a lot.

Anyway! The reason I bring that up is because I don’t really remember all that much from the 2005 game, and as such will not be using it as a basis or reference for my opinions. I know the reception to this title has been absurdly positive, but almost every criticism I’ve seen has been “but x was better in the original” and I don’t really see things that way personally. It’s okay to prefer the things that the original did differently, but if you’ve played this game then you surely recognise that it’s not a straight remake, it’s a new version. It’s not there to replace the original like the 2001 Resident Evil remake, it’s a new take on the title, just like the RE2 and RE3 remakes were.

-- Reinventing the Wheel - Gameplay --

So let’s talk about the actual game, shall we? It’s amazing. Genuinely it is handcrafted to be the absolute best that it can be with the resources available. It looks gorgeous, it feels fantastic and the design as a whole is top tier honestly. Every area works exactly as intended, there’s not a single battle in the game that I can think of where the arena felt too easy, unfair or restrictive. Sure not every single room or part of a map looks entirely unique, but having beaten the game three times I didn’t find myself tired of a setting even once, and that’s pretty cool.

Further to this, the enemies are handpicked and diverse enough to ensure that you never feel entirely safe. You can approach each area or enemy differently, but with the inclusion of opponents that require a different strategy, you quickly find yourself having to adapt to every situation almost independently. This is especially effective for players like me, who tend to find weapons they’re most comfortable using and make them their primary arsenal. Personally I ran with the SG pistol and Riot shotgun, with a rifle for certain enemies and an smg for close quarter crowd control. Tactical, right? You might think I’m prepared for anything, I certainly did. That was until the introduction of a later enemy that almost demands penetrative or explosive damage. Suddenly my backup rifle I’d mainly been using to safely pop tentacle-y heads became my new best friend. Friendship ended with laser sight SG pistol and shallow but strong Riot shotgun, now the Stingray rifle is my best friend… For now.
Every weapon in this game holds on its own and the upgrades are really effective at allowing you to kit yourself out however you want to play, but what I’m getting at here is that no matter how well optimized everything can be, the game won’t ever become a monotonous “use pistol on approach, use shotgun when close, loot and leave” ordeal - you’re going to need to get into a groove of how to handle different enemies, and this groove is one of my favourite things in any game ever.

I know I said I wasn’t going to compare and I swear this is the only time, but being able to move while aiming and so effortlessly switch weapons, reposition yourself and effectively maneuver in general is such a godsend for this game. The flow of combat never stops being fun and for me personally that flow was a huge part of why I never loved the original. I couldn’t be more happy with how improved this is and Capcom have really gone above and beyond in making this version of the game feel like you’re in total control at all times.

-- Leon Kennedy: Survivor - Character & Tone --

As someone who for their teen years was mostly into Resident Evil through the Milla Jovovich movies and playing Resi 5’s co-op with half a dozen people, Leon Kennedy was always someone that I knew was cool, but didn’t really get to know properly until a few years ago. I’d played through his campaign in RE6, but as I’m sure you know that isn’t the best title to refer to when considering these beloved characters. So as you can expect, the RE2 remake was when I got my first real taste of Leon and of course I grew to love him quickly, but there was always a faint hint of “but I prefer Claire” when thinking of that entry on its own. Naturally they’re their own, very different characters, but this meant that Leon still hadn’t had a chance to shine brighter than anyone else. To me he was only “the bingo guy” from my long forgotten RE4 (2005), and now the lovable baby faced cop from RE2. Resident Evil 4 (2023) changed that.

Leon is such a bonafide badass in this game that he easily skyrocketed to the top tiers of my favourite characters in the series. Combined with my existing love from RE2R, seeing how different he was this time around was like reuniting with someone after they’ve had years to train and come to terms with what happened to them. A stark contrast to the original RE4’s Leon being comically smug and campy - Traits that make for some really great lines, but that don’t quite fit the tragic character arc that our boy has been on and is still going through. This remake is no stranger to silly one-liners and dorky quips, but none of them compromise the core theme that the title is going for. The campy moments feel more to me like Leon letting out his inner dork (or badass), enjoying those brief moments that he can and taking pride in his abilities, but not in a way that undermines how seriously he’s taking the situation. Leon truly cares every step of the way, he’s been through a hell of a lot and he’s allowed to be confident in himself after surviving something that would’ve killed almost anyone else. He’s true to his goals and every triumph makes that endgame feel just a little bit more possible:
“This time, it has to be different.”


-- The Controversial & The Cheese Lover - Side Characters --

I’ll have to stress here again that my memory of the original is lacking, so you might have guessed that until this remake my opinion of Ashley was pretty much “LEON!~” - I always thought she was a highschool student that had quite possibly never been outside before and was allergic to doing as she was told (So just any teenager really) - but alas! ‘New Ashley’ is here and she is just wonderful.

The updates to her appearance and demeanor have ultimately resulted in a different character to what I find most people remember. Now much more clearly a young adult, Ashley is a very welcome companion throughout the game, feeling much closer to the likes of Bioshock Infinite’s Elizabeth or TLOU’s Ellie, in the sense that I actually liked having her around and seeing her contribute on our journey. [Who knew that could be done by a character whose name wasn’t a variation of the name Ellie!?]
This reimagined Ashley works perfectly within the setting of the game, and the moments she shares with Leon as well as the way she reacts to things do well to establish the kind of character she is, despite her limited role in the overall plot. She’s not just a damsel in distress to be saved, she wants nothing more than to go home and she knows that the only way that happens is if she follows Leon’s lead, getting involved only when it’s really going to help, and otherwise letting him do his thing. I won’t go into specifics, but the way Ashley and her relationship with Leon develop over the course of the game made it impossible for me not to come away from it loving them both.

I have rambled so much so I’m afraid Luis and Ada are getting smaller parts, but the short version is that I enjoyed them both. Luis was a bit of an enigma for a lot of the game, and I can’t say I loved every single part of his story, but looking back at the full picture I really appreciate his role and actually quite like his personal arc. He’s fun to be around and somehow despite being a badass himself, he’s able to make Leon look even more like a badass by comparison, which is really something. One of the earlier scenes in the game with the two of them is one of the hottest scenes from a game in recent memory, and I mean that in the least gay way possible.

As for Ada.. Well Ada is an interesting character. I’ve heard a lot of takes on her performance in this and honestly I don’t know where I land. I’m hoping that the inevitable Separate Ways DLC gives us a better insight into why she behaves the way that she does. I’ve heard a lot of hate about the way she talks but I don’t think it’s nearly as bad as the drama makes out. To me it just sounds like everything she says is in a slightly erotic voice, but where she doesn’t fully want to be there in the first place? Like the director told her to be hot but distracted lol, idk. I didn’t find her character nor performance to be a detriment to the game and I look forward to coming back to see more of her. (Especially because her character model is stunning, seriously) - Speaking of coming back..

-- Different this Time - Replayability --

Resident Evil games have always been famous for their replay value, they encourage or even demand that you run through them more than once, often with specific handicaps or conditions in order to unlock certain rewards. When I first heard that this remake was gonna take around 17 hours on the first run, the thought of doing a second one quickly became more of a fear than a goal. I was convinced that no matter how much easier it was the 2nd time, it’d be nothing but a slog and there’s no way you could beat it in 1 or 2 sittings like all the games before it… More fool me, because Capcom simply does not miss. My first standard playthrough took me just shy of 18 hours to complete, with a number of deaths along the way and a slew of missed collectables and trophy opportunities. Being who I am, this meant that a replay was necessary, if only for the sake of breezing through to get the easy trophies. But that’s not what I decided to do.

I don’t quite remember what inspired this decision, perhaps just over-confidence from having beaten the game once, but I decided to try my hand at a NG+ Professional run. At the time, I had not unlocked any of the bonus rewards or weapons. I had a B in Standard difficulty and I’d missed about 13 of the Castellan dolls needed to unlock the knife that can become unbreakable. I also didn’t use a guide, but decided that if everyone online was beating the game in 4-5 hours the second time, then I could too.
This run would take me 5 hours and 35 minutes, just 5 minutes too long for me to get an S Rank. 😔

In my attempts to be as fast as possible I played fast and loose, running past or through as many encounters as I could, ignoring almost all loot that wasn’t within arms reach and regretting it dearly when I found myself without ammo going into a boss fight. This run was so much fun that I wasn’t even mad when I ended it so close yet so far from getting the S rank I wanted. I’d be lying if I said that some parts weren’t really fkn hard and equally as annoying, and I was torn up when the clock struck 6am and I finally conceded, buying an RPG for the final boss that I’d been too ill-equipped to beat for dozens of attempts, but I had fun.

And it wasn’t in vain! This A rank meant that I now had a bonus weapon that could be upgraded to have infinite ammo, and a costume for Ashley that, well if you read this far you know damn well what it does lol. Even after a collective 22+ hours (it was actually closer to 40 bc of deaths and idle time oop) and 2 completions under my belt, I wanted more.

I was hoping to use my new gun, but given the trophy list I instead decided to work on an Assisted run, in which I would get the trophies for all treasures, all Castellan dolls, no recovery items, no merchant, and pistol + knife only, in a single run. This went about as well as you might expect. I won’t break it all down again but what a challenge this was, every room had to be treated differently to the last two times and with my no healing nor merchant I couldn’t repair my knife/armour or regain any health if something went wrong. I’m telling you I’ve seen people complain that the knife durability is pointless, but when you can’t repair it even starting out with 2 fully upgraded ones will not help you. I went through every knife in the game and ended with about 10% hp on the one you unlock after your first playthrough. By chapter 12 I was finishing off downed enemies with bullets because stabbing them would’ve meant having no way to parry, and this was on Assisted.
This run was challenging as hell, but I beat the entire game - final boss included - using nothing but the SG-09R, the Punisher, and knives. Fuck yeah. 😌

The only bad news to come from all of this is that playing the game on NG++ Assisted with only 1 or 2 hits worth of hp per battle did NOT equip me for playing New game Professional at all lmao. But I’ll get there eventually!

-- Final Thoughts - Thank You for your Time --

In conclusion, it finally makes sense to me now why Resident Evil 4 is so often called the best game in the series, and this remake may even be just that. If the 2005 gamecube release was this mind-blowing to the players of its time, I get it.

If you read this whole thing then you have my dearest thanks. This game has become something of an obsession since it was released and it felt only right that I give it a ‘proper’ review to boot. (That and this is the best excuse I have to just talk about it lmao) - I hope this was enjoyable or interesting to read, I know a lot of my reviews are just me word vomiting every thought I have, often without a real point or through-line, but I choose to lazily write that off as passion. 😌

If anything I said was wrong, gave you a new perspective on something or was worth responding to at all please do let me know. It means a lot to know these reviews serve as even a little bit of engagement between y’all and I. Thanks again everyone, hope you’re having a wonderful week, and I look forward to seeing your own reviews or seeing you back for my next one… Whenever that may be. Take care! 🙏

🥱I played this through in one painful sitting and it honestly felt like I was being fucked with the whole time.

The game is insultingly dull, the enemies are lacking for the series and the areas are both uninspired and needlessly huge or complex. Every mission has at least one part that either makes no sense or exists only to waste your time, often both. The combat felt exactly the same start to finish and every boss could be killed near instantly by activating Devil Trigger and holding square.

Seriously the reputation is deserved, just skip this entry it adds nothing to the franchise but a sour taste.

I never reviewed Horizon Forbidden West when I beat it late last year. Despite being received quite well, for some reason most of what I see online about this series (and this site) is a lot of negativity and it just makes me not want to interact at all. But I promised to review every 2023 thing I beat this year and this is no exception.

First things first, like the base game (and me), its so damn pretty. I believe Horizon is unquestionably one of the best looking games out there right now - that are going for a "realistic" style anyhow. I'd say only really Ghost of Tsushima or the recent Dead Island 2 come close. The final boss of this is probably the best boss in the series as far as I can remember. The setting for it is just so beautiful and the fight itself is pretty sick as well. There's also some cool locations like a Dinosaur themed amusement park and such. The DLC does nothing but add to how gorgeous the game is. But being a DLC its still got all the issues of the main game, particularly the utterly jank climbing/parkour. Expecting that to be changed in something thats not a sequel would be silly obviously but its still as annoying here as it is in the base game.

The story of this is, pretty okay. The stories in Zero Dawn and Forbidden West are some of my favorites ever, the lore and everything surrounding them is just so damn cool. Even Dawn's DLC, Frozen Wilds, had a really interesting story going for it. Burning Shores just doesn't really hold a candle to them. It's a lot more character driven between Aloy and her new "friend" Seyka. And that's great. I really enjoy their relationship and I hope Seyka returns for the third game too. But because of that, the overall story is just not super interesting. Its basically just more character development and doesn't add much to the universe besides that. There's a couple new side quests, and those are pretty enjoyable as well but still nothing superb. It also introduces a handful of new enemy types which are neat additions to the already pretty stacked roster.

Overall, I would recommend Burning Shores to fans of the base game. It may be a little light on content for its price but the quality is definitely still there. Whether you get it now or on sale, its a worthwhile addition to the series and worth a playthrough for sure.

Thanks for reading <3

Nancymeter - 79/100
Trophy Completion - 88%
DLC Completion #3 of April
DLC Completion #19 of 2023