ogto
2024
Robert Altman's 3000xWOMEN
Feels like a spin-off from a Yoko Taro alternate ending to a game that doesn't exist.
Some amazing use of cinematography and jumps cuts, clearly made with a lot of passion for both video games and films. Smart resources allocation make this game feel like a grand odyssey despite the small budget/team, the developers get so much mileage out "basic shapes" or "static poses". You rarely see games with such a well-defined vision, totally its own, like a one of a kind punch to the stomach (in a good way).
Feels like a spin-off from a Yoko Taro alternate ending to a game that doesn't exist.
Some amazing use of cinematography and jumps cuts, clearly made with a lot of passion for both video games and films. Smart resources allocation make this game feel like a grand odyssey despite the small budget/team, the developers get so much mileage out "basic shapes" or "static poses". You rarely see games with such a well-defined vision, totally its own, like a one of a kind punch to the stomach (in a good way).
2019
You'd think Rage 2011 plus Mad Max 2015 developed by Avalanche Studios (+id) would be a killer combo, but it's just fine. That Mad Max game was really close to being something special and Rage2 doesn't get any closer to fulfilling that potential.
1996
Somehow, I've never heard of this game or the TV show it’s based on. The term hidden gem gets thrown around a lot but this one is sure as shit hidden if nothing else. Probably because it only came out on the PS1 and the Sega Saturn, which is odd for a point and click adventure game, very very much in the LucasArts style.
You’re this young plucky dragon inventor, Flicker (lotta fire puns, go figure) and you have to become a knight, win a tournament, foil the bad guy, save the princess (in more or less that order). When i say LucasArtsy, i mean: mainly a comedy game, can’t fail or die, fully voiced and lavishly animated. The humor is very british (the TV show was co-created by Terry Jones, so figures) though I didn't find it’s writing to be quite at the caliber of the best LucasArts games, the humor is more cute than funny most of the time (though there are a few very good gags). Mostly this game has a ton of charm thanks to the pixel art, lots of custom animations+locales and the stellar voice-work. This is a who’s who of 90s voice actors, the cast is really insane (Kath Soucie, Jim Cummings, Cheech Marin, Rob Paulsen, Jeff Bennett, Gregg Berger, Jess Harnell, Roger Rose, Michael Bell, Charlie Adler, Terry Jones, Harry Shearer, B.J. Ward, Brian George).
The game is fairly short and simple (which is a plus in my book), but I used a guide anyway if i got stuck because I wasn't playing for the puzzles. There’s a few mini-games that can be bypassed easily with save-states. One mild annoyance is the fact that any scene transition has an associated load time. Takes just 3-4 seconds but it kinda kills the pace because it happens whenever there’s a background change, not just when going from room to room. And in cutscenes there’s a ~one second black screen between any cuts. Not a big deal, but something that would’ve not been a problem in a PC version.
My only gripe is that I wish there was a bit more dialogue and interaction with all the characters, and that the writing was a little sharper. You can finish this game in a couple of hours, especially if using a guide here and there. Don’t mind the short length at all, but it feels kind of like a waste to create all of this art and animation and have most dialogue interactions be a quick back and forth, or at most 2 or 3 dialogue options.
Still very much worth checking just for the overall production quality and I'm surprised it seems to be almost totally forgotten. Lack of a PC port is probably the main reason.
You’re this young plucky dragon inventor, Flicker (lotta fire puns, go figure) and you have to become a knight, win a tournament, foil the bad guy, save the princess (in more or less that order). When i say LucasArtsy, i mean: mainly a comedy game, can’t fail or die, fully voiced and lavishly animated. The humor is very british (the TV show was co-created by Terry Jones, so figures) though I didn't find it’s writing to be quite at the caliber of the best LucasArts games, the humor is more cute than funny most of the time (though there are a few very good gags). Mostly this game has a ton of charm thanks to the pixel art, lots of custom animations+locales and the stellar voice-work. This is a who’s who of 90s voice actors, the cast is really insane (Kath Soucie, Jim Cummings, Cheech Marin, Rob Paulsen, Jeff Bennett, Gregg Berger, Jess Harnell, Roger Rose, Michael Bell, Charlie Adler, Terry Jones, Harry Shearer, B.J. Ward, Brian George).
The game is fairly short and simple (which is a plus in my book), but I used a guide anyway if i got stuck because I wasn't playing for the puzzles. There’s a few mini-games that can be bypassed easily with save-states. One mild annoyance is the fact that any scene transition has an associated load time. Takes just 3-4 seconds but it kinda kills the pace because it happens whenever there’s a background change, not just when going from room to room. And in cutscenes there’s a ~one second black screen between any cuts. Not a big deal, but something that would’ve not been a problem in a PC version.
My only gripe is that I wish there was a bit more dialogue and interaction with all the characters, and that the writing was a little sharper. You can finish this game in a couple of hours, especially if using a guide here and there. Don’t mind the short length at all, but it feels kind of like a waste to create all of this art and animation and have most dialogue interactions be a quick back and forth, or at most 2 or 3 dialogue options.
Still very much worth checking just for the overall production quality and I'm surprised it seems to be almost totally forgotten. Lack of a PC port is probably the main reason.
2010
This one is quite an odd duck, in many many ways. It’s funny how many criticize open-world games from becoming too bloated, but Mafia 2 was criticized at launch for having NO bloat whatsoever. The open world is a backdrop in this game, not a playground, for the story of Vito, an up and coming mafia-boy.
So yeah this is a pretty classic mafia story, Vito comes from a poor family, resorts to crime, falls in with a bad crowd, goes to the war, comes back and gets right back in with the mafia. It checks off a lot of mafia tropes so it does feel a tad tired at this point.
Mafia 2 is also quite impressive on a number of fronts, especially for 2010. It exceless in place such as voice acting, world-building details and the game engine is also fairly impressive in certain spots, with the environmental destructibility or the detail it allows for. Some of the places you see or visit are insanely well crafted for what should be a throwaway-backdrop for a quick mission. If you like exploring finely crafted digital worlds, then Mafia 2 has something to offer.
Story and characters are the main draws of Mafia 2, since the gameplay is fairly standard driving and shooting. The driving some might find compelling since it can be set to “simulation” but i just kept it regular because i wasn’t here for the driving honestly. But you’re gonna do a LOT of it (no fast travel in this game), which can get tedious but the game is short enough that I didn’t get the chance to get annoyed, just a bit bored a few times. Classic music on the radio (which changes with time, i think?) helps with the driving and the overall atmosphere of the game.
What I found odd is that the story feels rushed/disjointed in places. Like other than Vito, Joe and to some extent, his prison papa Leo Galante or Henry (had to google their names), most nobody gets any significant screen time. At one point later in the game you have to whack a guy that fucked you over previously and it took me a minute to remember who he was since he appeared in like ONE cutscene or two at most. Same goes for Vito’s mother, you see her once in the intro, talk to her on the phone later, and that’s it. That’s the entirety of Vito’s interaction with his dear mother during Mafia 2. Same with his sister, they have like 2 interactions in the whole game. I think the game would have benefitted from a tighter cast that you spend more time with. Cause other than Joe and Vito I can’t really recall many others with detail, which you could say is fine since it’s THEIR story, but i still felt that a tighter more developed cast would’ve helped elevate the story overall.
That being said, Vito and Joe are fairly well developed, written and acted characters. I can’t say I LOVED them or cared about them too deeply, but their relationship was engaging and kept me at least interested till the end. Again, it helps that this game has no bloat, so it was a breezy 10ish hours or less i think (without any of the DLC). And I did find it interesting that this game is even less glamorous about the mafia lifestyle than usual. Sure you climb the ranks and “become somebody”, but I’d argue that most of the story is about Vito being given the short end of the stick. If you’re a pawn in the Mafia, then your fate is more or less sealed, a point hammered home in a more poignant way than I would’ve expected.
Honestly, I’ll take this approach to open-world games rather than the Ubisoft-bloat direction. That being said, I feel like there was room for SOME emergent gameplay since there’s some interesting systems that you never really have to interact with, like robbing gas stations. They’re not fully developed or anything, but there’s only ONE instance in the game where you are given an open-goal (make this amount of money) and allowed to go about it anyway you’d like. I feel there could have been a few more opportunities (at least 1 or 2) to let the player engage with the world a bit more freely without disrupting the story too much, give me a goal to make money, maybe some restrictions, and then let me do it however I can or want to.
Mafia 2 was for me, more than anything, an interesting anomaly to revisist. An open-world game that rejected many of the genre conventions of the time, trying to tell a fairly serious/mature story. I wouldn’t call it an amazing game, but it was a good time overall and worth the 9ish hours I put into it. I was looking for a captivating story in an interesting backdrop, and Mafia 2 provided. Not all the time, but it kept me going till the end, which most games do not. Worth mentioning that the end is somewhat abrupt (some called it a cliffhanger?) and predictable, but you know, the journey not the destination, yada yada.
So yeah this is a pretty classic mafia story, Vito comes from a poor family, resorts to crime, falls in with a bad crowd, goes to the war, comes back and gets right back in with the mafia. It checks off a lot of mafia tropes so it does feel a tad tired at this point.
Mafia 2 is also quite impressive on a number of fronts, especially for 2010. It exceless in place such as voice acting, world-building details and the game engine is also fairly impressive in certain spots, with the environmental destructibility or the detail it allows for. Some of the places you see or visit are insanely well crafted for what should be a throwaway-backdrop for a quick mission. If you like exploring finely crafted digital worlds, then Mafia 2 has something to offer.
Story and characters are the main draws of Mafia 2, since the gameplay is fairly standard driving and shooting. The driving some might find compelling since it can be set to “simulation” but i just kept it regular because i wasn’t here for the driving honestly. But you’re gonna do a LOT of it (no fast travel in this game), which can get tedious but the game is short enough that I didn’t get the chance to get annoyed, just a bit bored a few times. Classic music on the radio (which changes with time, i think?) helps with the driving and the overall atmosphere of the game.
What I found odd is that the story feels rushed/disjointed in places. Like other than Vito, Joe and to some extent, his prison papa Leo Galante or Henry (had to google their names), most nobody gets any significant screen time. At one point later in the game you have to whack a guy that fucked you over previously and it took me a minute to remember who he was since he appeared in like ONE cutscene or two at most. Same goes for Vito’s mother, you see her once in the intro, talk to her on the phone later, and that’s it. That’s the entirety of Vito’s interaction with his dear mother during Mafia 2. Same with his sister, they have like 2 interactions in the whole game. I think the game would have benefitted from a tighter cast that you spend more time with. Cause other than Joe and Vito I can’t really recall many others with detail, which you could say is fine since it’s THEIR story, but i still felt that a tighter more developed cast would’ve helped elevate the story overall.
That being said, Vito and Joe are fairly well developed, written and acted characters. I can’t say I LOVED them or cared about them too deeply, but their relationship was engaging and kept me at least interested till the end. Again, it helps that this game has no bloat, so it was a breezy 10ish hours or less i think (without any of the DLC). And I did find it interesting that this game is even less glamorous about the mafia lifestyle than usual. Sure you climb the ranks and “become somebody”, but I’d argue that most of the story is about Vito being given the short end of the stick. If you’re a pawn in the Mafia, then your fate is more or less sealed, a point hammered home in a more poignant way than I would’ve expected.
Honestly, I’ll take this approach to open-world games rather than the Ubisoft-bloat direction. That being said, I feel like there was room for SOME emergent gameplay since there’s some interesting systems that you never really have to interact with, like robbing gas stations. They’re not fully developed or anything, but there’s only ONE instance in the game where you are given an open-goal (make this amount of money) and allowed to go about it anyway you’d like. I feel there could have been a few more opportunities (at least 1 or 2) to let the player engage with the world a bit more freely without disrupting the story too much, give me a goal to make money, maybe some restrictions, and then let me do it however I can or want to.
Mafia 2 was for me, more than anything, an interesting anomaly to revisist. An open-world game that rejected many of the genre conventions of the time, trying to tell a fairly serious/mature story. I wouldn’t call it an amazing game, but it was a good time overall and worth the 9ish hours I put into it. I was looking for a captivating story in an interesting backdrop, and Mafia 2 provided. Not all the time, but it kept me going till the end, which most games do not. Worth mentioning that the end is somewhat abrupt (some called it a cliffhanger?) and predictable, but you know, the journey not the destination, yada yada.
Why are there so few driving games with compelling stories, or any story to speak of? I was hungry for a fun-first driving game and kept looking for one with a decent single-player campaign or story mode. Finally decided to revisit Driver SF and play it properly (played it twice in the past but fell off after a few chapters). For those unfamiliar with the game, it’s an open-world driving game where you can always shift from one car to another using “coma powers” (explained in the story) and use said cars to, for instance, crash into cops or opponents during a race. It’s a totally unique driving game, which could’ve been an all-time great game but is held back by a couple of things in my view.
My main problem with Driver SF is that I didn’t find the driving to be all that fun. I wish it was just a tad more forgiving, because I would really struggle to control certain vehicles or just slide out all over the place. I did get used to it to some extent, but in certain missions or vehicles, I still found myself wishing it was just ever-so-slightly more arcadey. Kinda felt like the game was stopping me from having fun by having to fight the handling so much.
My other problem with the game was that I didn’t find the cop chases to be all that fun, for a variety of reasons, I just felt like I had to luck my way through many of them cause I just couldn’ shake the cops in a fun or efficient way.
This changed significantly after (too) many hours with the game when I discovered mods for it. My mistake for not looking earlier, cause I kept thinking “man this game could be amazing, if you tweaked this and that”. There are 2 important mods that greatly increased my enjoyment with the game, one that redoes cops chases and one that adds a LOT of features but most importantly, a better 3rd person camera (the default one is too close to the car for my taste). I still don’t love the driving handling, but now at latest the cop chases did feel a LOT better to play, and generally chaotic in a more fun way, rather than just being frustrated that they don’t seem to play by the same rules that I have to as the player (something I felt happens often with other cars in this game).
If I had one more nitpick with the game, it’s how the dialogue system works. You can shift into any car, and if there’s a passenger, there’s a ton of skits that are written between different pairs of characters, outside of the side-missions. This is just stuff in-world that is there just for flavor but I found that in MOST situations, the only way to hear that stuff is to jump into cars outside of missions and maybe do a cops chase. If I ever engaged in a race or activity, the passenger dialogue would disappear. Or during other missions or events, I would jump to other cars quickly, get to hear half of a line of dialogue because I crash that car into an opponent and then I jump out. I wish they had found a way to more intelligently integrate this flavor dialogue into the side activities that have no story, which from my experience often couldn’t be combined with character dialogue from random cars. Just feels like they spent a LOT of time to write and record ALL of that dialogue (there’s a LOT of it), but most people won’t hear it unless they choose to fuck around the city without doing any side stuff, which i did many times just to hear some more of the conversations (also worth mentioning that some of the character stereotypes they use haven’t aged super well).
All this being said, I cannot overstate how insane and unique this game is. It has to be hands-down the best story in a driving game (not counting games with on-foot gameplay, or stuff that is Great it’s it’s own special way, like NFS Most Wanted). Sure it’s nothing mind-blowing, but as a wrapper for the gameplay experience, it’s incredibly compelling and well-executed. The style overall is very funky (Life on Mars inspired i’ve read), structured like a TV show, with nice cinematic recaps between chapters and a great old-school soundtrack that i very much enjoyed driving to. When everything works, and you’re jumping to random cars, crashing into opponents, it can be thrilling and like no other game. The mods really really elevate the experience, because there’s an even better game buried within this ambitious project. Maybe they needed more time, maybe a sequel would’ve nailed it, but as is, Driver San Francisco is an amazing game, for it’s ambition and uniqueness if nothing else, with some rough spots that hold it back from reaching it’s true potential. Mods help a lot, but I still wish we’d see Reflections or other developers try to chase this further.
My main problem with Driver SF is that I didn’t find the driving to be all that fun. I wish it was just a tad more forgiving, because I would really struggle to control certain vehicles or just slide out all over the place. I did get used to it to some extent, but in certain missions or vehicles, I still found myself wishing it was just ever-so-slightly more arcadey. Kinda felt like the game was stopping me from having fun by having to fight the handling so much.
My other problem with the game was that I didn’t find the cop chases to be all that fun, for a variety of reasons, I just felt like I had to luck my way through many of them cause I just couldn’ shake the cops in a fun or efficient way.
This changed significantly after (too) many hours with the game when I discovered mods for it. My mistake for not looking earlier, cause I kept thinking “man this game could be amazing, if you tweaked this and that”. There are 2 important mods that greatly increased my enjoyment with the game, one that redoes cops chases and one that adds a LOT of features but most importantly, a better 3rd person camera (the default one is too close to the car for my taste). I still don’t love the driving handling, but now at latest the cop chases did feel a LOT better to play, and generally chaotic in a more fun way, rather than just being frustrated that they don’t seem to play by the same rules that I have to as the player (something I felt happens often with other cars in this game).
If I had one more nitpick with the game, it’s how the dialogue system works. You can shift into any car, and if there’s a passenger, there’s a ton of skits that are written between different pairs of characters, outside of the side-missions. This is just stuff in-world that is there just for flavor but I found that in MOST situations, the only way to hear that stuff is to jump into cars outside of missions and maybe do a cops chase. If I ever engaged in a race or activity, the passenger dialogue would disappear. Or during other missions or events, I would jump to other cars quickly, get to hear half of a line of dialogue because I crash that car into an opponent and then I jump out. I wish they had found a way to more intelligently integrate this flavor dialogue into the side activities that have no story, which from my experience often couldn’t be combined with character dialogue from random cars. Just feels like they spent a LOT of time to write and record ALL of that dialogue (there’s a LOT of it), but most people won’t hear it unless they choose to fuck around the city without doing any side stuff, which i did many times just to hear some more of the conversations (also worth mentioning that some of the character stereotypes they use haven’t aged super well).
All this being said, I cannot overstate how insane and unique this game is. It has to be hands-down the best story in a driving game (not counting games with on-foot gameplay, or stuff that is Great it’s it’s own special way, like NFS Most Wanted). Sure it’s nothing mind-blowing, but as a wrapper for the gameplay experience, it’s incredibly compelling and well-executed. The style overall is very funky (Life on Mars inspired i’ve read), structured like a TV show, with nice cinematic recaps between chapters and a great old-school soundtrack that i very much enjoyed driving to. When everything works, and you’re jumping to random cars, crashing into opponents, it can be thrilling and like no other game. The mods really really elevate the experience, because there’s an even better game buried within this ambitious project. Maybe they needed more time, maybe a sequel would’ve nailed it, but as is, Driver San Francisco is an amazing game, for it’s ambition and uniqueness if nothing else, with some rough spots that hold it back from reaching it’s true potential. Mods help a lot, but I still wish we’d see Reflections or other developers try to chase this further.
2016
MILD SPOILERS
After rewatching the Venture Bros, I was in the mood for something with a different perspective, but also wanted to play a nice engrossing JRPG. So I searched for JRPGs where you play as the antagonist (relatively speaking) and I saw a LOT of recommendations for Tales of Berseria. This is basically my first ever Tales game, so everything I say is from the perspective of someone new to the franchise and who doesn’t play a lot of JRPGs generally.
First off, I was incredibly confused by the combat system for the first… 10-15 hours. It’s been a long while since I've felt this baffled by a combat system. I got the gist of it, but the tutorials weren’t great, and I just wasn’t sure if i was playing it well or not, beyond just using my “special” to burst enemies. It’s real time, fairly mashy and combo-based, where you can create combos by slotting in different moves you unlock as you progress. There’s a push and pull of trying to manage your “mana gauge” (not sure if that’s the actual name) which you use for special abilities and is tied to how long your combo can be, how susceptible you are to ailments and stuff like that. After reading a bit and watching a tutorial, I did sorta come to grips with it, but it’s really not my preferred style of combat. Having so much freedom to create combos from scratch without a lot of guidance is just more management than i’m used to, without a clear indication as to whether what i’m doing is working. So I spent most of the game playing as Velvet, the protagonist and just mashing my way through combat, doing the bare minimum while trying to check off all the sidequests and such.
Where Berseria does indeed shine is in it’s story and more-so in it’s characters. You play as Velvet, a nice girl from a small village who just wants to protect her younger brother. Shit happens, Velvet gets betrayed by her dead-sisters’ husband, he kills her brother, she becomes a d(a)emon, gets imprisoned and then becomes obsessed with revenge. Along the way she meets various morally dubious characters and they band together to take down the big bad (or the big good, since you’re the bad guys, technically speaking).
I was pleasantly surprised and impressed by how few punches they pulled in making your characters the villains and in general with the main cast. They go really dark in a few spots in order to justify your role as villains (or descent into villainy) and severity of some of the actions taken. I mean, poor Velvet sure gets put through the ringer and it’s hard not to side with her, in light of all of the awful shit that she’s suffered.
Now when making a game like this with a story like this, you can’t make your characters fully mustache-twirling villains, so of course your band of brothers and sisters aren’t actually evil, they’re just going against “the main authority”, which people see as good. You could very easily switch a few things and make the main authority evil (which, shockingly, they are, cause evil is a point of view yada yada) and have you go up against it. And it sorta does become that by the end, but i was ok with it since the journey was enjoyable most of the way through. There’s a lot of charm in the writing and acting, especially between the main cast and I liked all of them to some extent. Also helps that there is a LOOOOT of (mostly optional) interactions that flesh everyone out and they can get goofy. Despite being a fairly somber story, I’d characterize a lot of the atmosphere (up until a point) as quite cozy. And it’s refreshing to play a game like this (party of adventurers save the world) that avoids many of the tropes you’d see especially in JRPGs. The cast is not all about friendship and wanting to save the world, they’re in if for selfish reasons, they’re not that concerned with the fate of the world, and they don’t shy away from being “bad” when the situation calls for it (they also do a lot of “good”).
I will say that the actual ending wasn’t that great in my book. I get what they were going for, but it felt a bit hamfisted and predictable with a pinch of “deus ex machina” as well. Not to mention that i felt that the game had peaked emotionally at the previous “big turning point”.
So ultimately, Berseria doesn’t 100% deliver on the idea that you’re playing as the “villains”, more like some sort of vigilante (squad) that are going up against popular consensus, but for selfish reasons. The combat was something I… tolerated, and was at least engaged with it from a “what the fuck is going on” perspective, trying to figure it out. It was occasionally enjoyable, but never something I’d engage with if i didn’t have to. But I was very impressed with the characters, the voice acting (dub) and very much enjoyed my time in the presence of these very flawed but still very “human” characters. If you crave a game with a strong cast of engaging “villains”, Berseria is a pretty damn good time, despite a lot of flaws and rough edges (bland world design, slow traversal, somewhat bloated/unnecessary sub-systems). Spent around 49 hours with the game, doing most of the relevant side-stuff.
After rewatching the Venture Bros, I was in the mood for something with a different perspective, but also wanted to play a nice engrossing JRPG. So I searched for JRPGs where you play as the antagonist (relatively speaking) and I saw a LOT of recommendations for Tales of Berseria. This is basically my first ever Tales game, so everything I say is from the perspective of someone new to the franchise and who doesn’t play a lot of JRPGs generally.
First off, I was incredibly confused by the combat system for the first… 10-15 hours. It’s been a long while since I've felt this baffled by a combat system. I got the gist of it, but the tutorials weren’t great, and I just wasn’t sure if i was playing it well or not, beyond just using my “special” to burst enemies. It’s real time, fairly mashy and combo-based, where you can create combos by slotting in different moves you unlock as you progress. There’s a push and pull of trying to manage your “mana gauge” (not sure if that’s the actual name) which you use for special abilities and is tied to how long your combo can be, how susceptible you are to ailments and stuff like that. After reading a bit and watching a tutorial, I did sorta come to grips with it, but it’s really not my preferred style of combat. Having so much freedom to create combos from scratch without a lot of guidance is just more management than i’m used to, without a clear indication as to whether what i’m doing is working. So I spent most of the game playing as Velvet, the protagonist and just mashing my way through combat, doing the bare minimum while trying to check off all the sidequests and such.
Where Berseria does indeed shine is in it’s story and more-so in it’s characters. You play as Velvet, a nice girl from a small village who just wants to protect her younger brother. Shit happens, Velvet gets betrayed by her dead-sisters’ husband, he kills her brother, she becomes a d(a)emon, gets imprisoned and then becomes obsessed with revenge. Along the way she meets various morally dubious characters and they band together to take down the big bad (or the big good, since you’re the bad guys, technically speaking).
I was pleasantly surprised and impressed by how few punches they pulled in making your characters the villains and in general with the main cast. They go really dark in a few spots in order to justify your role as villains (or descent into villainy) and severity of some of the actions taken. I mean, poor Velvet sure gets put through the ringer and it’s hard not to side with her, in light of all of the awful shit that she’s suffered.
Now when making a game like this with a story like this, you can’t make your characters fully mustache-twirling villains, so of course your band of brothers and sisters aren’t actually evil, they’re just going against “the main authority”, which people see as good. You could very easily switch a few things and make the main authority evil (which, shockingly, they are, cause evil is a point of view yada yada) and have you go up against it. And it sorta does become that by the end, but i was ok with it since the journey was enjoyable most of the way through. There’s a lot of charm in the writing and acting, especially between the main cast and I liked all of them to some extent. Also helps that there is a LOOOOT of (mostly optional) interactions that flesh everyone out and they can get goofy. Despite being a fairly somber story, I’d characterize a lot of the atmosphere (up until a point) as quite cozy. And it’s refreshing to play a game like this (party of adventurers save the world) that avoids many of the tropes you’d see especially in JRPGs. The cast is not all about friendship and wanting to save the world, they’re in if for selfish reasons, they’re not that concerned with the fate of the world, and they don’t shy away from being “bad” when the situation calls for it (they also do a lot of “good”).
I will say that the actual ending wasn’t that great in my book. I get what they were going for, but it felt a bit hamfisted and predictable with a pinch of “deus ex machina” as well. Not to mention that i felt that the game had peaked emotionally at the previous “big turning point”.
So ultimately, Berseria doesn’t 100% deliver on the idea that you’re playing as the “villains”, more like some sort of vigilante (squad) that are going up against popular consensus, but for selfish reasons. The combat was something I… tolerated, and was at least engaged with it from a “what the fuck is going on” perspective, trying to figure it out. It was occasionally enjoyable, but never something I’d engage with if i didn’t have to. But I was very impressed with the characters, the voice acting (dub) and very much enjoyed my time in the presence of these very flawed but still very “human” characters. If you crave a game with a strong cast of engaging “villains”, Berseria is a pretty damn good time, despite a lot of flaws and rough edges (bland world design, slow traversal, somewhat bloated/unnecessary sub-systems). Spent around 49 hours with the game, doing most of the relevant side-stuff.
2011
This review contains spoilers
Rarely have I wanted to love a game as much as I wanted to love L.A. Noire. As a fan of detective fiction and growing up with stuff like L.A. Confidential and Grim Fandango, I could not have been more excited for a story-driven detective noir game, with a focus on collecting evidence, interrogating suspects and solving crimes.
But when I first played the game back in 2012ish, I fell out of love with it severely after the homicide desk. Recently I played Mafia 2 and after doing so much crime, it only felt karmically correct to try to solve some crimes, so I went back and finally played and finished L.A. Noire. These are my somewhat scattered thoughts on the game and its problems.
Spoilers ahead!
In short, L.A. Noire is an ambitious mess, with some amazing ideas that aren’t fully developed, some great writing but mostly sloppy and bloated storytelling. While I love elements of the game, I don’t feel they come together into something greater than the sum of the game’s parts.
L.A. Noire is essentially an adventure game in GTA clothing. Sure there is driving and shooting, but these elements are not essential to the game, they’re not great and can be skipped. The meat of the game is in collecting evidence, interrogating suspects and seeing the story play out.
My problems with the game are: the interrogation system makes no sense and often feels random; the protagonist is too much of a blank slate and I can’t really invest in his story; there are too many cases that don’t feel impactful or feel like they’re given enough time; the overall story is sloppy and left me unsatisfied at almost every big turn.
I’ll try to address these as succinctly as I can.
The interrogation system makes no sense
So you interrogate many different people and on each topic you have 3 options, Truth, Doubt and Lie. Said differently, if you believe their answer, doubt it or you think they’re lying and have some form of proof. BUT, during development, these prompts were Coax, Force and Accuse and in the 2017 remaster of the game these changed once again to Good Cop, Bad Cop and Accuse. The problem is that the system doesn’t actually make sense (in my mind). This system at its core is supposed to be about your ability to read and interpret these people’s answers, facial expressions, tone of voice, etc. Hell, the whole point of the face-scan tech they pioneered for this game was to capture nuanced performances, in order to give this aspect of gameplay some actual depth. But in practice, this breaks down a lot of the time, for several reasons. First off, the game’s story complexities are sometimes too much for this 3-pronged system, meaning what is the difference between someone omitting the truth or knowing more than they’ve said? None of them are “wrong” but I've often felt that I didn’t agree with what the game considered to be a “doubtful” answer or a “truth”. I guess the original system makes sense in this respect, since the prompts refer to the method by which you try to gauge more information, rather than your evaluation of the “truthfulness” of what a suspect said. “How can I get more information” is a more compelling thing to try to puzzle out rather than “what version of lying does the game consider this to be”. Cole’s responses often don’t help either, since the doubt option sends him flying into accusations that feel way beyond the scope of “doubt”. Playing the game my way of thinking quickly turned to “what the game wants to hear” instead of “do i think this person is lying”. The good cop / bad cop prompts feel less confusing but the questions written and answers given still feel trapped in some weird limbo of lies, truth, half truths, lies of omissions, and I don’t find any of the 3 sets of prompts to alleviate this problem. The game kinda admits defeat in this sense by letting the player “fail-forward”, which is a interesting design choice (especially in games like Pyre), but in this instance it just feels like the designers knowing that taxing the player for failure would expose the interrogation system’s imperfections and lead to frustration from having to redo these segments (if it’s not a cutscene, it can’t be skipped). But I still found the system more frustrating than anything, despite it being a great idea in theory.
Story woes
I’ll try to sum up my issues with the story by referring to the Homicide desk, which is where the game’s shoddy storytelling really feels at its worst (despite the desk overall having some great moments and characters, Cpt. Donelly most of all).
So you have a number of cases of women getting murdered in similar ways (lottaaaa violence against women in this game, which i guess is accurate for the time, still felt a tad strange). You catch 5 guys for, one for each crime, despite it being obviously the work of the same individual from a certain point onwards. This was frustrating since I know I caught the wrong man, but since I got 5 stars and did everything ‘right’, the game moves just moves on and I didn’t feel that the writing acknowledges this in a sufficient manner (until the 4th/5th case). A perfect exemplification of this is how in each case, right at the end you find some VERY incriminating evidence that is very obviously planted, but this is baaarely brought up. Towards the end, after the fifth case, you really start feeling like it’s all farcical, I mean you’ve arrested the wrong person FIVE times despite how obvious the setups were. But I could forgive that if this whole saga stuck the landing, which it didn’t, at all. In the last case you spend time basically chasing clues left by the serial killer that point to specific locations. This wasn’t super exciting for me since I’m not a resident of LA, the hints didn’t register, and the locations are already kinda marked on the map, so not much of a puzzle there. But the killer literally leads you to his hideout (he’s so “arrogant” that he thinks no one can catch him so he’s “taunting” you), but it felt incredibly unsatisfying to find the killer ONLY because he led me to him (instead of by, you know, doing detective work). And when you finally find the guy, you exchange 3 lines (he literally has to remind you who he was since he pops up once during the 2nd case or something) and he has nothing more to say than twirling his mustache and being menacing. He dies in a fire-fight, the case gets swept under the rug because of politics and to add insult to injury, I was at LEAST expecting this to tie in later with some of the bigger conspiracy. NOPE, that’s the entire story, you wrongfully arrest 5 people, like a dumb-ass, then you catch the killer only with his help and no time devoted to who this guy is, why he did it, or any form of resolution. “That’s very noir” you might say, but I felt that no element of this desk redeemed the overall story, since the individual cases also suffered from having to throw red herrings your way without giving away the big plot (which it did anyway).
This applies in some ways to the overall story and big conspiracy that gets revealed in the final act. A lot of what happens is either telegraphed, predictable, feels rushed or unearned, but I’ve ranted enough on this issue. I’ll just mention that I found it kinda ridiculous that you find a film reel that exposes the entire conspiracy in such a convenient manner (the fact that the “candid” footage is shot for multiple angles makes NO sense, especially in a game that strives for some kind of historical accuracy/believability). Extra ridiculous that the character leaves the film there, when it’s a crucial piece of potential evidence.
I also found Phelps to be a… weird protagonist. Very much a blank slate for most of the game, then suddenly he starts to develop a personality in the last act, but he still comes across as wooden and kinda uncanny. This especially stands out when most of the cast is so colorful and expressive. Maybe it’s the acting or the direction, and I get what they’re trying to do in having Phelps be more of a cipher (to make it easier for the player to project?), but it just made him kinda bland and hard to care for.
Another aspect of the game/story I took issue with is the high number of cases and especially the very high number of characters. I would often struggle to remember which case was which or which character did what when because there’s just so many of them and they get so little screen time per character. This is maybe more of a personal preference, but I feel like having fewer cases, with more time dedicated to a tighter cast of characters would’ve benefited the game greatly. The moment to moment story was generally engaging, but whenever I took a step back to think about what was going on, it just felt shallow.
It’s not all bad
I have a lot of issues with the game, big and small, but there’s also a lot to love about the game. It’s kinda amazing to see so many places recreated with such detail and obvious love. The music and overall mood and cinematography is solid and sometimes even great. Something I especially appreciated is how the game seamlessly cuts between action and cutscenes (something most games struggle with). And the big selling point of the game, the faces, are still kiiiinda amazing and creepy. But the limitations are more obvious than ever, like the fact that the body and faces often don’t match in animation quality or how the face visibly switches from a pre-canned animation to a looping “staring suspiciously” animation. The acting overall is a highlight and carries the game’s often sloppy writing so if nothing else, the investment in the face tech paid off in that respect. I even enjoyed some of the token action shootouts and on-foot chases that were visually fun because of the environmental choreography.
There’s also smaller cool ideas in this game, like how they handle the GPS system. You’ve got the minimap with GPS, like in GTA, but to keep it true to the time period you can press a button and your partner gives you directions, a GREAT idea. But not a fully developed idea, since it’s annoying to press a button after each street to hear directions. I would have made it a ‘partner guided’ mode where they tell you anytime you need to make a turn or something. Like many things about the game, it feels like a great idea that needed a better execution.
There’s more to say about this game, like how I was bothered by the fact that the story is told in 3 different timelines (present, newspaper, army flashbacks). But most of all i’m fascinated by L.A. Noire, a game that I’m amazed was made. In many ways, this feels like the world’s most expensive and ambitious FMV game, since the faces are in essence, video mapped onto a 3D model. But the ambition didn’t materialize in a cohesive gameplay experience, and for me at least, the story and characters didn’t hold up their end of the bargain. There’s no one element that I can point to and say “if this was changed, that game would be amazing” and I don’t think another year of development would’ve helped either. Seems like a game where they made too many big decisions too early and were beholden to them to the end. I love everything that L.A. Noire tries to do and to be, it’s just that it doesn’t manage to achieve any of its ambitions with caveat.
I spent 20+ hours with the game on PC, and if I had to rate the game, I’d probably give it a 7, profoundly flawed, but unique and worth playing for certain elements. Worth noting that the PC version is kinda funky (it’s the 2011 version, not remastered), some have big problems running it, but it seems like it was recently updated and at least it works at higher than 30FPS in my experience (but the car physics are weird and hilarious).
But when I first played the game back in 2012ish, I fell out of love with it severely after the homicide desk. Recently I played Mafia 2 and after doing so much crime, it only felt karmically correct to try to solve some crimes, so I went back and finally played and finished L.A. Noire. These are my somewhat scattered thoughts on the game and its problems.
Spoilers ahead!
In short, L.A. Noire is an ambitious mess, with some amazing ideas that aren’t fully developed, some great writing but mostly sloppy and bloated storytelling. While I love elements of the game, I don’t feel they come together into something greater than the sum of the game’s parts.
L.A. Noire is essentially an adventure game in GTA clothing. Sure there is driving and shooting, but these elements are not essential to the game, they’re not great and can be skipped. The meat of the game is in collecting evidence, interrogating suspects and seeing the story play out.
My problems with the game are: the interrogation system makes no sense and often feels random; the protagonist is too much of a blank slate and I can’t really invest in his story; there are too many cases that don’t feel impactful or feel like they’re given enough time; the overall story is sloppy and left me unsatisfied at almost every big turn.
I’ll try to address these as succinctly as I can.
The interrogation system makes no sense
So you interrogate many different people and on each topic you have 3 options, Truth, Doubt and Lie. Said differently, if you believe their answer, doubt it or you think they’re lying and have some form of proof. BUT, during development, these prompts were Coax, Force and Accuse and in the 2017 remaster of the game these changed once again to Good Cop, Bad Cop and Accuse. The problem is that the system doesn’t actually make sense (in my mind). This system at its core is supposed to be about your ability to read and interpret these people’s answers, facial expressions, tone of voice, etc. Hell, the whole point of the face-scan tech they pioneered for this game was to capture nuanced performances, in order to give this aspect of gameplay some actual depth. But in practice, this breaks down a lot of the time, for several reasons. First off, the game’s story complexities are sometimes too much for this 3-pronged system, meaning what is the difference between someone omitting the truth or knowing more than they’ve said? None of them are “wrong” but I've often felt that I didn’t agree with what the game considered to be a “doubtful” answer or a “truth”. I guess the original system makes sense in this respect, since the prompts refer to the method by which you try to gauge more information, rather than your evaluation of the “truthfulness” of what a suspect said. “How can I get more information” is a more compelling thing to try to puzzle out rather than “what version of lying does the game consider this to be”. Cole’s responses often don’t help either, since the doubt option sends him flying into accusations that feel way beyond the scope of “doubt”. Playing the game my way of thinking quickly turned to “what the game wants to hear” instead of “do i think this person is lying”. The good cop / bad cop prompts feel less confusing but the questions written and answers given still feel trapped in some weird limbo of lies, truth, half truths, lies of omissions, and I don’t find any of the 3 sets of prompts to alleviate this problem. The game kinda admits defeat in this sense by letting the player “fail-forward”, which is a interesting design choice (especially in games like Pyre), but in this instance it just feels like the designers knowing that taxing the player for failure would expose the interrogation system’s imperfections and lead to frustration from having to redo these segments (if it’s not a cutscene, it can’t be skipped). But I still found the system more frustrating than anything, despite it being a great idea in theory.
Story woes
I’ll try to sum up my issues with the story by referring to the Homicide desk, which is where the game’s shoddy storytelling really feels at its worst (despite the desk overall having some great moments and characters, Cpt. Donelly most of all).
So you have a number of cases of women getting murdered in similar ways (lottaaaa violence against women in this game, which i guess is accurate for the time, still felt a tad strange). You catch 5 guys for, one for each crime, despite it being obviously the work of the same individual from a certain point onwards. This was frustrating since I know I caught the wrong man, but since I got 5 stars and did everything ‘right’, the game moves just moves on and I didn’t feel that the writing acknowledges this in a sufficient manner (until the 4th/5th case). A perfect exemplification of this is how in each case, right at the end you find some VERY incriminating evidence that is very obviously planted, but this is baaarely brought up. Towards the end, after the fifth case, you really start feeling like it’s all farcical, I mean you’ve arrested the wrong person FIVE times despite how obvious the setups were. But I could forgive that if this whole saga stuck the landing, which it didn’t, at all. In the last case you spend time basically chasing clues left by the serial killer that point to specific locations. This wasn’t super exciting for me since I’m not a resident of LA, the hints didn’t register, and the locations are already kinda marked on the map, so not much of a puzzle there. But the killer literally leads you to his hideout (he’s so “arrogant” that he thinks no one can catch him so he’s “taunting” you), but it felt incredibly unsatisfying to find the killer ONLY because he led me to him (instead of by, you know, doing detective work). And when you finally find the guy, you exchange 3 lines (he literally has to remind you who he was since he pops up once during the 2nd case or something) and he has nothing more to say than twirling his mustache and being menacing. He dies in a fire-fight, the case gets swept under the rug because of politics and to add insult to injury, I was at LEAST expecting this to tie in later with some of the bigger conspiracy. NOPE, that’s the entire story, you wrongfully arrest 5 people, like a dumb-ass, then you catch the killer only with his help and no time devoted to who this guy is, why he did it, or any form of resolution. “That’s very noir” you might say, but I felt that no element of this desk redeemed the overall story, since the individual cases also suffered from having to throw red herrings your way without giving away the big plot (which it did anyway).
This applies in some ways to the overall story and big conspiracy that gets revealed in the final act. A lot of what happens is either telegraphed, predictable, feels rushed or unearned, but I’ve ranted enough on this issue. I’ll just mention that I found it kinda ridiculous that you find a film reel that exposes the entire conspiracy in such a convenient manner (the fact that the “candid” footage is shot for multiple angles makes NO sense, especially in a game that strives for some kind of historical accuracy/believability). Extra ridiculous that the character leaves the film there, when it’s a crucial piece of potential evidence.
I also found Phelps to be a… weird protagonist. Very much a blank slate for most of the game, then suddenly he starts to develop a personality in the last act, but he still comes across as wooden and kinda uncanny. This especially stands out when most of the cast is so colorful and expressive. Maybe it’s the acting or the direction, and I get what they’re trying to do in having Phelps be more of a cipher (to make it easier for the player to project?), but it just made him kinda bland and hard to care for.
Another aspect of the game/story I took issue with is the high number of cases and especially the very high number of characters. I would often struggle to remember which case was which or which character did what when because there’s just so many of them and they get so little screen time per character. This is maybe more of a personal preference, but I feel like having fewer cases, with more time dedicated to a tighter cast of characters would’ve benefited the game greatly. The moment to moment story was generally engaging, but whenever I took a step back to think about what was going on, it just felt shallow.
It’s not all bad
I have a lot of issues with the game, big and small, but there’s also a lot to love about the game. It’s kinda amazing to see so many places recreated with such detail and obvious love. The music and overall mood and cinematography is solid and sometimes even great. Something I especially appreciated is how the game seamlessly cuts between action and cutscenes (something most games struggle with). And the big selling point of the game, the faces, are still kiiiinda amazing and creepy. But the limitations are more obvious than ever, like the fact that the body and faces often don’t match in animation quality or how the face visibly switches from a pre-canned animation to a looping “staring suspiciously” animation. The acting overall is a highlight and carries the game’s often sloppy writing so if nothing else, the investment in the face tech paid off in that respect. I even enjoyed some of the token action shootouts and on-foot chases that were visually fun because of the environmental choreography.
There’s also smaller cool ideas in this game, like how they handle the GPS system. You’ve got the minimap with GPS, like in GTA, but to keep it true to the time period you can press a button and your partner gives you directions, a GREAT idea. But not a fully developed idea, since it’s annoying to press a button after each street to hear directions. I would have made it a ‘partner guided’ mode where they tell you anytime you need to make a turn or something. Like many things about the game, it feels like a great idea that needed a better execution.
There’s more to say about this game, like how I was bothered by the fact that the story is told in 3 different timelines (present, newspaper, army flashbacks). But most of all i’m fascinated by L.A. Noire, a game that I’m amazed was made. In many ways, this feels like the world’s most expensive and ambitious FMV game, since the faces are in essence, video mapped onto a 3D model. But the ambition didn’t materialize in a cohesive gameplay experience, and for me at least, the story and characters didn’t hold up their end of the bargain. There’s no one element that I can point to and say “if this was changed, that game would be amazing” and I don’t think another year of development would’ve helped either. Seems like a game where they made too many big decisions too early and were beholden to them to the end. I love everything that L.A. Noire tries to do and to be, it’s just that it doesn’t manage to achieve any of its ambitions with caveat.
I spent 20+ hours with the game on PC, and if I had to rate the game, I’d probably give it a 7, profoundly flawed, but unique and worth playing for certain elements. Worth noting that the PC version is kinda funky (it’s the 2011 version, not remastered), some have big problems running it, but it seems like it was recently updated and at least it works at higher than 30FPS in my experience (but the car physics are weird and hilarious).
I think a lot of people kinda wrote it off as another Ubisoft open-world checklist marathon, and with some good reasons: It's also not on Steam, like all the new ubisoft releases (leading to less exposure and/or the FUCKEPIC mindset), the name kinda sucks and it got changed after it's initial announcement, plus the late late 2020 release. Couple that with the turmoil at Ubi in general (horrible management and worker abuse) and i'm not surprised that it kinda went under the radar.
I just finished the game yesterday, after putting around 40ish hours into it, doing all the sidequests, and maxing out almost all my stats and skills. And I gotta say, it's a pretty good game.
I don't wanna do a full review or anything, but just to shine a light on a game that many people slept on and that clearly had a lot of love and passion put into it.
What I enjoyed Immortals and why I'd recommend it:
- It's pretty gorgeous and colorful all around, especially on PC or new consoles. Playing at 60fps really really makes a big difference for me personally, and I really enjoyed taking in the world, exploring, chilling.
- It takes some design ideas from Breath of the Wild, mixed with Ubisoft's approach to accessibility. So you get the big open world with lots of hidden nocks and crannies, but a bit of the icon barf of a regular Ubi game (though there are cool things to just discover, with no markers attached). You can climb everything and go almost anywhere, but there's less stuff to worry about (like temperature, rain during a big climb, weapon durability or inventory management).
- The combat is pretty good, "arcadey" and not as deep as some might like, but it looks cool, feels nice (especially when i compare it to the combat in the previous 3 Ass Creed games) and you get some of the BotW in there as well (enemies can hit eachother or can fall into pits/traps). If you're looking for deep combat then look somewhere else, but as a part of the game, it more than does the job (combined with puzzle-solving and exploration, that make up the other two thirds).
- A decent variety of things to do and see with useful or meaningful rewards for the most part (either resources you can use to upgrade your tools, or unique equipment that favors certain playstyles. no inventory trash to sort). There's a LOT of puzzle solving, most of it easy to medium-hard, with only a few few moments of frustration (there's some options to mitigate some of this).
- I really appreciate that they embraced (for the most part) the BotW ethos and the devs just let you break the game fairly often. I'm sure there were puzzles i solved in the not-intended-way or with brute force. There's still some restrictions (in the puzzle rooms especially), but still way more freedom than most open-world games. I'm sure speedruns for this game will become very entertaining (if they aren't already, haven't checked one out yet).
I've got some gripes as well, such as:
- The humor is VERY hit and miss, especially in the start. A lot of wink-wink references, modern jokes retrofitted, breaking the 4th wall, etc. But it's not all bad, and towards the end you get some decent character stuff, but the story was something to tolerate for the most part. If you want a great story in this milieu, then Hades is the way to go.
- The combat is ok, but it gets a bit repetitive. I enjoyed it on normal and it never became a slog (actually very easy after the midgame), so i don't think i'd recommend Hard, unless you really wanna get deep with the combo system (otherwise i suspect the enemies would get very spongey).
- Though it's not as full of meaningless activities as other games, it still feels a biiit bloated, especially if you wanna do everything or fill out the map. Not the biggest issue, but I would still cut like 25% of the chests in the world.
- The pacing cam suffer sometimes with too much puzzle-solving in one go. This might be on me, but i found some puzzle sections/shrines kinda long or tedious.
- Once the game is over, you can't continue exploring the world. Understandable with how the story ends, but a bit of a bummer cause i can see myself popping back in every now and then to get the platinum or something. Can still reload before the final stretch, but still worth mentioning.
Overall, I greatly enjoyed most of my time with Immortals Fenyx Rising, a more arcadey take on Zelda BotW, that gets rid of some of the tedium/bloat, refines a few ideas, adds some decent new ones, in a really colorful and vibrant world to explore. If i'd have to sum it up in one word, i'd say "breezy". If i had to give it a score, probably an 8/10 (on my personal scale of course). If you're looking for something easy to get into, a lovely world to explore and chill in, or maybe a BotW-like with more accessibility options (japan sadly lagging behind on this in many ways), then give Immortals a shot.
P.S. Before people crucify me, Zelda Breath of the Wild is an amazing game with some truly amazing ideas, but stumbles on some of the execution (again, this goes for me personally). This game is NOT a better BotW or a replacement, but it's clearly made by people who loved that game and wanted to put their own spin on it. If you bounced off BotW OR want something to scratch that itch, this is probably a decent bet.
I just finished the game yesterday, after putting around 40ish hours into it, doing all the sidequests, and maxing out almost all my stats and skills. And I gotta say, it's a pretty good game.
I don't wanna do a full review or anything, but just to shine a light on a game that many people slept on and that clearly had a lot of love and passion put into it.
What I enjoyed Immortals and why I'd recommend it:
- It's pretty gorgeous and colorful all around, especially on PC or new consoles. Playing at 60fps really really makes a big difference for me personally, and I really enjoyed taking in the world, exploring, chilling.
- It takes some design ideas from Breath of the Wild, mixed with Ubisoft's approach to accessibility. So you get the big open world with lots of hidden nocks and crannies, but a bit of the icon barf of a regular Ubi game (though there are cool things to just discover, with no markers attached). You can climb everything and go almost anywhere, but there's less stuff to worry about (like temperature, rain during a big climb, weapon durability or inventory management).
- The combat is pretty good, "arcadey" and not as deep as some might like, but it looks cool, feels nice (especially when i compare it to the combat in the previous 3 Ass Creed games) and you get some of the BotW in there as well (enemies can hit eachother or can fall into pits/traps). If you're looking for deep combat then look somewhere else, but as a part of the game, it more than does the job (combined with puzzle-solving and exploration, that make up the other two thirds).
- A decent variety of things to do and see with useful or meaningful rewards for the most part (either resources you can use to upgrade your tools, or unique equipment that favors certain playstyles. no inventory trash to sort). There's a LOT of puzzle solving, most of it easy to medium-hard, with only a few few moments of frustration (there's some options to mitigate some of this).
- I really appreciate that they embraced (for the most part) the BotW ethos and the devs just let you break the game fairly often. I'm sure there were puzzles i solved in the not-intended-way or with brute force. There's still some restrictions (in the puzzle rooms especially), but still way more freedom than most open-world games. I'm sure speedruns for this game will become very entertaining (if they aren't already, haven't checked one out yet).
I've got some gripes as well, such as:
- The humor is VERY hit and miss, especially in the start. A lot of wink-wink references, modern jokes retrofitted, breaking the 4th wall, etc. But it's not all bad, and towards the end you get some decent character stuff, but the story was something to tolerate for the most part. If you want a great story in this milieu, then Hades is the way to go.
- The combat is ok, but it gets a bit repetitive. I enjoyed it on normal and it never became a slog (actually very easy after the midgame), so i don't think i'd recommend Hard, unless you really wanna get deep with the combo system (otherwise i suspect the enemies would get very spongey).
- Though it's not as full of meaningless activities as other games, it still feels a biiit bloated, especially if you wanna do everything or fill out the map. Not the biggest issue, but I would still cut like 25% of the chests in the world.
- The pacing cam suffer sometimes with too much puzzle-solving in one go. This might be on me, but i found some puzzle sections/shrines kinda long or tedious.
- Once the game is over, you can't continue exploring the world. Understandable with how the story ends, but a bit of a bummer cause i can see myself popping back in every now and then to get the platinum or something. Can still reload before the final stretch, but still worth mentioning.
Overall, I greatly enjoyed most of my time with Immortals Fenyx Rising, a more arcadey take on Zelda BotW, that gets rid of some of the tedium/bloat, refines a few ideas, adds some decent new ones, in a really colorful and vibrant world to explore. If i'd have to sum it up in one word, i'd say "breezy". If i had to give it a score, probably an 8/10 (on my personal scale of course). If you're looking for something easy to get into, a lovely world to explore and chill in, or maybe a BotW-like with more accessibility options (japan sadly lagging behind on this in many ways), then give Immortals a shot.
P.S. Before people crucify me, Zelda Breath of the Wild is an amazing game with some truly amazing ideas, but stumbles on some of the execution (again, this goes for me personally). This game is NOT a better BotW or a replacement, but it's clearly made by people who loved that game and wanted to put their own spin on it. If you bounced off BotW OR want something to scratch that itch, this is probably a decent bet.
This review contains spoilers
This game is much better if you imagine Nahyuta sounding like Whis from Dragon Ball Super.
What a stark contrast to Great Ace Attorney and how it handles the "stranger in a strange land". Just a baffling set of decisions and a mountain of inherited narrative bloat that overwhelm the proceedings. In essence a saturday morning's cartoon understanding of most of the themes it approaches, like dictatorship, revolution, "insurgents", oppression, discrimination against minorities (such as defense lawyers lol), culture clash, almost all of it is laughable. It wouldn't be such an issue if the game itself weren't setting up the ball for a spike to then only fumble it in an almost embarrassing way. Imagine a world in which a chef poisons a beloved ruler and thus all chefs are banned and hated, like serial killers or rapist pedophiles. And if a chef should present himself in public, he should be scorned like a leper. We should be constantly baffled by why he isn't actively POISONING everyone around him, like a werewolf that can't help itself. That's how this game portrays defense lawyers and has characters react to them.
There's still fun to be had with the formula and the cast. But we are once again confronted with so so many of the same plot points we've seen before, done worse, some of them George-Lucas levels of comical (once again we have dueling lawyer and prosecutor, who go way back to childhood, and you end up defending him in the end, as JUST an example. oh and Maya's accused of murder. Again. And kidnapped for blackmail. Again). If this had been the final Ace Attorney product I would not be clamoring for more, but thankfully Great Ace Attorney was a flawed but inspired final act.
I'd much rather have a Great Ace Attorney 3, or just do another Edgeworth game. Those seem unlikely so I'll take a soft reboot over a proper AA7, I don't think they can pull off that balancing act, with so much 'lore' and not many places left to go.
What a stark contrast to Great Ace Attorney and how it handles the "stranger in a strange land". Just a baffling set of decisions and a mountain of inherited narrative bloat that overwhelm the proceedings. In essence a saturday morning's cartoon understanding of most of the themes it approaches, like dictatorship, revolution, "insurgents", oppression, discrimination against minorities (such as defense lawyers lol), culture clash, almost all of it is laughable. It wouldn't be such an issue if the game itself weren't setting up the ball for a spike to then only fumble it in an almost embarrassing way. Imagine a world in which a chef poisons a beloved ruler and thus all chefs are banned and hated, like serial killers or rapist pedophiles. And if a chef should present himself in public, he should be scorned like a leper. We should be constantly baffled by why he isn't actively POISONING everyone around him, like a werewolf that can't help itself. That's how this game portrays defense lawyers and has characters react to them.
There's still fun to be had with the formula and the cast. But we are once again confronted with so so many of the same plot points we've seen before, done worse, some of them George-Lucas levels of comical (once again we have dueling lawyer and prosecutor, who go way back to childhood, and you end up defending him in the end, as JUST an example. oh and Maya's accused of murder. Again. And kidnapped for blackmail. Again). If this had been the final Ace Attorney product I would not be clamoring for more, but thankfully Great Ace Attorney was a flawed but inspired final act.
I'd much rather have a Great Ace Attorney 3, or just do another Edgeworth game. Those seem unlikely so I'll take a soft reboot over a proper AA7, I don't think they can pull off that balancing act, with so much 'lore' and not many places left to go.
2023
What if Walt Disney turned Disneyland into the Truman Show with a smattering of The Village and the gameplay aspirations of Limbo, as well as the current-day first-person sections of Assassin's Creed: Black Flag.
these girls are hella gay and it's the cutest thing
2019
My ideal adventure game in terms of production value. The way this looks, animates and sounds is just best in class. There's not a single character without amazing voice work, that enhances the already great animation, which in turn hides its limitations deftly with a lot of careful placement and variation of how these character animations are reused. I really can't say enough good things about the production value of this overall, it's gorgeous and full of heart and character.
The story and overall design is where the game doesn't achieve "all-time great adventure game" status. It's still in my personal top-tier but a few things hold it back.
The final act feels rushed and too many threads are left dangling or are written off conveniently. Truthfully I just wanted to see the whole story play out cause it felt like there's at-least another game's worth of story to be told. I'm fine with leaving things open to a sequel, but this did neither successfully. This is far and away my biggest gripe with it the game.
To a lesser extent, there's a problem of missed potential with it's game mechanics. There's a lot of interesting ideas with it's 'sentence construction' method of puzzle solving and giving you dioramas of the action. But the dioramas are more for visual flair and maybe give you occasional hints. There's next-to-no gameplay element attached to them. While the sentence construction seems like it never evolves or becomes difficult enough for clever solutions or AHA moments. It's fine and functional, but it just feels like a replacement for typical 'use-item-on-X', rather than a truly transformative feature, like the log-book in Obra Dinn was. This isn't necessarily a knock against the game, but more so a feeling of "this could go from great to 10/10 with another iteration".
That's my ultimate hope, that SFB take what they've learned from these games and do another final sequel, blown-out to it's full potential. Take this game, treat it as act 1, and then do 2 more acts that develop the systems gradually, and you've got yourself an all-time great adventure game, that can stand toe-to-toe and surpass most of the greats in this genre.
And even if they never meet that potential, this still remains a high watermark for art, animation and voice work in adventure games, indie or otherwise.
The story and overall design is where the game doesn't achieve "all-time great adventure game" status. It's still in my personal top-tier but a few things hold it back.
The final act feels rushed and too many threads are left dangling or are written off conveniently. Truthfully I just wanted to see the whole story play out cause it felt like there's at-least another game's worth of story to be told. I'm fine with leaving things open to a sequel, but this did neither successfully. This is far and away my biggest gripe with it the game.
To a lesser extent, there's a problem of missed potential with it's game mechanics. There's a lot of interesting ideas with it's 'sentence construction' method of puzzle solving and giving you dioramas of the action. But the dioramas are more for visual flair and maybe give you occasional hints. There's next-to-no gameplay element attached to them. While the sentence construction seems like it never evolves or becomes difficult enough for clever solutions or AHA moments. It's fine and functional, but it just feels like a replacement for typical 'use-item-on-X', rather than a truly transformative feature, like the log-book in Obra Dinn was. This isn't necessarily a knock against the game, but more so a feeling of "this could go from great to 10/10 with another iteration".
That's my ultimate hope, that SFB take what they've learned from these games and do another final sequel, blown-out to it's full potential. Take this game, treat it as act 1, and then do 2 more acts that develop the systems gradually, and you've got yourself an all-time great adventure game, that can stand toe-to-toe and surpass most of the greats in this genre.
And even if they never meet that potential, this still remains a high watermark for art, animation and voice work in adventure games, indie or otherwise.