making your way through spaces of angular, alien structures. levels alternate between cramped, even claustrophobic moments and wide open areas with an epic sense of scale. not exactly a "walking sim" because the "making your way through" involves a consistent rhythm of puzzle platforming that's not highly difficult, but nontrivial enough that i could see people getting stuck or frustrated at points. moreover i wouldn't say the platforming and movement "feel good" in a way that you'd typically hope a platformer to feel, so even if almost all the sections in the end only took a handful of tries at worst, it often felt a bit painstaking, which might well be the intention. the way this game's level design unfolds, and the way the levels play with your perception of light as you try to progress, and especially the way the levels play with your perception in more extreme ways as the finale gives way to intense psychedelia, is unlike anything else i've experienced in a game. the ambient electronic music is what really seals the immersion though. i don't think its an overstatement that even with the beauty of the game's architecture, it'd be in a lot greater danger of becoming a slog without the music. so many points here where as soon as it really kicked in i felt so much more keyed into the play process.

if you're looking for a folk horror adventure to play through this season, you probably couldn't do much better. just really well constructed in all the genre nuts & bolts as you'd expect from wadjet eye: fun puzzles (not too easy, not too obscure), solid voice acting, solid art style (with some very memorable animated perspective shots!), near perfect pacing. setting is just extensive and moody enough to capture that spooky, dreary deep-rural town atmosphere (always overcast, frequently rainy). don't think i'd rank it above unavowed or the blackwell epiphany but its not far behind.

I put this off for a long time because as much as I appreciate elements of REmake 2 it wasn't a game I ultimately enjoyed playing all that much. the difficulty balancing never really felt solid to me, casual is too easy and on standard and hardcore i just personally find the zombies annoyingly tanky and i found the greater density of concerns in navigating the game relative to the original PS1 games simplicity exhausting rather than fun. i did beat the game on hardcore, but i kind of just... never really want to do that again. certainly not over just booting up the original game. i'm thankful that i enjoyed this game more overall for a few different reasons even if its not really something i would play over the original either. for one the dodge is a good mechanical addition and actually helps enemy encounters feel better balanced to me relative to REmake 2 since you're not just screwed if enemies get too close. secondly, though i wouldn't put any individual segment of this game in the case of level design over the mostly quite good reimagining of the progression through the police station in REmake 2, i do find the overall snappier pacing of the playthrough more enjoyable. the drain demos section, carlos siege, and lab sections were still very exhausting and. especially with the drain demos, annoying to get through on hardcore to me, so i probably wouldn't play those again on the difficulty without a damage upgrade or something which might possibly push it into the right tuning for me. but the opening city portion, with the addition of the dodge, exploding barrels for zombie mobs, and the fact that this game actually gives you an unbreakable knife at the start for checking downed zombies, along with the fact that i felt as if the zombies weren't quite as tanky here as they were as remake 2 (tho still pretty tanky, might be wrong about this i don't actually know the health values, but i know none of them got up more than once after being downed, when there was multiple instances of zombies getting up three or more times in my hardcore playthrough of remake 2), i actually had a lot of fun, maybe more fun than i had with even my favorite stretches of remake 2. i really despise the sewer section in REmake 2 so the sewers were more enjoyable here too. boss fights here overall were MUCH better to me as well, particularly the nemmy clocktower arena fight i really wish the terrible bits of this game weren't in it or better balanced because i found myself almost loving it as much as i wanted to, but i'd probably rather play through village again than this, which is a game i wasn't blown away by but found more consistently engaging. i should really replay RE7 since its been so long, but i'll probably start REmake 4 first.

something about the way straight combat feels in this game made me want to avoid it pretty much universally, and in particular the claustrophobic defense against assault portions like in the cabin or with the yukiko escort section it honestly felt kinda broken to me, so most of the game experience here was me sneaking through the maps, stealth killing, gathering crafting resources to upgrade equipment and make sure i had enough syringes/medkits/ammo for minimal pain in the boss fights. and for the most part i baseline enjoyed it but compared to the first game (especially after booting that up right after i finished this one) this one felt a little banal, and especially given its length i'm not too likely to ever play through it again. there are open world games i love but the maps and gameplay dynamics here just don't hold together in a very compelling way to me.

run up through anor londo is about as perfect as games get. the lordvessel arch is still a spottier affair for me but it didn't turn me off quite as much as i was fearing. i can see why the tomb of giants has its defenders even if i'm not a huge fan and the new londo ruins is kind of enjoyable. four kings aren't as annoying of a boss to solo as i remembered either. once i realized their attacks don't do much damage if you stick close to them i could literally just tank their hits and dps them one a time before the next one spawned in. i still like dukes archives; in particular i love the stretch after you wake up in the cell and make your way down the tower with the odd siren going off. even the invisible bridge is more forgiving and shorter than i remembered it being. lost izalith i still mostly don't care for, but i did manage to use the shortcut this playthrough.

i have mixed feelings about gwyn. i like the vibe the fight seems to be going for but it ultimately just feels like a grind to get parry consistency down, insofar as that isn't the case he's a pain in the ass in a manner no other boss in the game is, insofar as you've got it, he's uniquely trivialized. in my case given how much damage he did per swing i really didn't have much room for practice per attempt before i was toast, so i wound up trekking back to the boss arena far more times than i had to with any other boss (precisely as i remember my first time trying to beat him). can't help but think he could be balanced in a more compelling way. maybe next playthrough i'll use a faster weapon and try trading attacks in a more straightforward way, while building fire defense so the chipping isn't too costly. you have next to no room for estus chugging after dodging any of his attacks other than the grab which also amplifies the difficulty of a straight fight relative to other bosses.

went with a strength build using a fully upgraded large club + sorceries + pyromancies, so with all the souls i needed for all of that i elected to spend a lot less points on pumping my health and endurance bars than i normally would have, so i had overall more flexibility than any build i'd done previously but also less room for error. had a blast for the most part.

Sharp refinement of the first revelations. Really dig the outdoors environments and overall level pacing. Some of the episode parts felt a little overlong at first but going back through them for the good ending they're much quicker when you know what to expect. Appreciate the well placed autosaves too. Character moments mostly hit their mark. Back and forth gameplay between partners in single player mode isnt too clunky and I like the basic dynamic between Barry/natalia with the latter giving enemy position awareness for Barry's stealth kills. And Moira and Claire are just a fun duo. I feel like I never really need to play the first revelations again but I could see myself actually going back to this occasionally.

played a character more based around physical and mental rather than social skills and with storyteller mode on i didn't have too much issue getting through the game with the (often quite extensive) range of options it gives you to approach each situation, but i'm definitely interested to replay with a radically different character and taking Julian's path. solid writing and character designs. a good place to dip into the worldbuilding of WoD if you haven't played bloodlines yet or have tried but couldn't get past the games clunkiness.

The most fun I've had with a new to me horror game in quite a while; love how sludgey and deadly this feels. Gameplay mix of stealth + environmental kills + match domino effects when ammo needs to be conserved and gunplay when youre stocked is consistently super engaging with how the enemy encounters across the linear progression are devised. Loved the way the setup allows for disorienting, regular, impossible shifts in setting. Can tell I'm gonna have even more fun with this on replays optimizing strats on higher difficulties.

i am very unexperienced with fighters in general, even moreso with anime fighters as someone who entirely grew up with mortal kombat, soul calibur & aki wrestling games (+ DEF JAM). that said this is definitely the most fun i've ever found the core gameplay of its kind, compared with my smattering of blazblue, skullgirls & guilty gear. not sure i'm too convinced of the way it articulates its lore (though its more interesting after some perusal of the wiki makes the dialogue more intelligible), but the persona 3 reminiscent urban fantasy setting of the arcade story and arenas is very appealing. character designs are generally great, i've gone through about half of their arcade stories and all of them have been pretty fun to play, though my favorite is definitely AKATSUKI. no real interest in getting good and i can't play online anyway due to terrible internet, but i have been practicing some of the intermediate/expert combos in the mission mode and while they are somewhat tricky for my fingers to articulate it feels pretty cool when i pull them off. very fun game.

First time going through it in my current replay of ds1 (first time playing the remastered version). Really good, certainly better than anything in the base game post anor londo. Can see why people praise the bosses, artorias could be my favorite boss in the whole game and while I haven't beaten manus or kalameet yet (will keep trying for at least a little while!) I have gotten close and I can see their appeal, all have pretty fast and dynamic movesets that can do big damage. They make the bosses in the base game seem a bit stilted and in comparison. I think their speed and fluidity may clash a little with the slower movement of ds1 compared to 3 but nonetheless they all feel pretty doable even if I personally decide to move on for the time being because I'm a slow and clunky person with a million other things to do than grind souls bosses and no one cares about my gamer cred. want to beat the base game so I can get going on my first replay of ds3, which throughout the entirety of going back through the Lord vessel arch for the first time in a long time I've really, really wanted to be playing instead. this dlc was a respite from that for sure even if the level design doesn't stack up to the base games first half (only a handful of other games at best do to be fair)

At first I thought the days passed too quickly but I realized that the balance of the games passage of time is one of it's core strengths, much slower or faster and the time management decisions across whichever goals you may be focusing on in any given day across it's farming, social sim, or dungeoneering systems wouldn't be as engrossing on a moment to moment level. It could feel too loose to really pressure in the right way or too fast obviously to get anything done at all, or at least to put too much emphasis on efficiency. Thought this might feel too shallowly incremental in a cookie clicker with more window dressing sort of way but the personality is definitely there. there are moments when the soundtrack and art style hit just right to be surprisingly moving. Characterization is bite sized but cumulatively very charming. Put about 30 hours so far and I'm into my first winter, looking forward to another 30 and seeing how much more the game might grow on me across the 2nd and 3rd in game years.

Rented from gamefly, got to the final boss and unfortunately had to call it quits as I had too much going on this month and I'd already kept it out too long. I'm confident I could beat it eventually but I just won't be in the headspace for a while. I'll get there someday if I ever actually own the game and have time for at least one ng+ run. regardless, very good game but axes the more open exploratory feel (both in level design and gameplay) of other from soft titles for a pretty fun focused combat system and mostly good boss encounters. Bosses have never been my favorite part of these games, though certainly I wouldn't take (most of) them out. I definitely prefer the souls games and I don't really ever see myself putting in as much time as I have ds1/2/3 but it was worth going through most of this before finally getting into elden ring (maybe next month?)

Actually played on the recent Capcom fighting collection. I'm a single player only person due to poor internet and ps4 online multiplayer being paywalled so these old fighting games live or die for me on ai balance, and in the difficulty settings of the collection 0 is plainly too easy, but even 1 (out of 8) seems to have wildly inconsistent ai on both us and japanese versions, with one round being a pushover and then the next round the cpu just decides to be a pain. Still rating this a 3 since I do mildly enjoy the gameplay, character and stage designs and can totally see this being a blast playing in an arcade or rotating locally with friends, but as is it's unfortunately not super useful to me.