proximete
2024
i dont know wtf is going on here cooking this primordial soup of pokemon legends arceus, zelda botw, and valheim, and nearly all the designs look like ai using official sugimori assets.
........... and it's very fun, and i can't stop sipping from the ladle
........... and it's very fun, and i can't stop sipping from the ladle
2022
that intro, my god. the face of troubled development does not bother to mask itself. while it's a pity overall what volition endured during this game's development, it's also a pity that the writers wrote any one of these lines. it's a pity this is how the reboot goes.
notice the game is rated T for Teen. that was when i played borderlands 1, a teen. i don't think you would have caught me playing this then though, and you certainly won't see me putting in another hour now lol
the game glitching out preventing any further progress was a blessing, believe me
the game glitching out preventing any further progress was a blessing, believe me
2023
a dull, lifeless thing. how can you even get mad at starfield? it's unaggressively nothing. it's barely trying. good god, remember outer worlds? no joke, that game runs circles around this one somehow. i guess outer worlds has an ounce of soul to it while starfield's content to check off the boxes. even with obsidian's surprisingly rough writing--rough's better than generic. most things are.
bizarre. it feels like you're playing airsoft when shooting the ineffectual guns world war z aftermath, and i mean this as horribly as i can stress: these guns feel like nothing. no impact. no feeling. the sound is off--most guns dump their loads like they're afraid of someone walking in. the handling is off--there's virtually no kickback. the animation is off--there's virtually no motion. you pick up a shotgun and it shoots like a pistol. you pick up an assault rifle and it shoots like a shotgun. you pick up a heavy shotgun and it shoots like a shotgun shoots like an assault rifle shoots like a pistol shoots like every fucking worthlessly designed weapon placed into the hands of one of fourteen or twenty or however many of these strange soulless player designs. except the worn out asian mom with the sweater. she's cool looking. the rest look like they came out of a chuck e cheese arcade booth. you'd have a lot more fun with those arcade booths than you would with world war z, too--promise. in fact, i bought this game on sale for $19.99. do you know how many tickets that would get you at the house of mouse? all i'm saying is i know what i'm doing with MY steam refund.
what's more unbelievable: the fact that a thrice delayed darktide launches at full price in a near unplayable state where fps tanks, matches stutter, bottom halves of bodies disappear, and games continuously crash... or the fact that they have the nerve to jam a microtransaction store right into this mess?
trick question, neither is unbelievable because both seem to be the industry standard in what decays with every launch just like this one. but the worst bit is in how much fun darktide can be past all these issues. i went with an ogre named 'CHUSTY' and believe me, cutting through hordes of goons with clean shovel sweeps rarely fails to entertain. there's a great loop to swingan and shootan and stompan and killan to the point where you almost forget about the technical issues until youWE APOLOGIZE FOR THE INCONVENIENCE! OUR GOAL IS TO PREVENT CRASHES LIKE THIS FROM OCCURRING. PLEASE HELP US DIAGNOSE AND FIX THIS PROBLEM BY PROVIDING INFORMATION ABOUT WHAT WAS HAPPENING AT THE TIME OF THE CRASH.
the worst part about having the game crash on you is, should you bear a difficulty altering 'grimoire', that item is incredibly forfeit. for instance, just lastTHE GAME HAS CRASHED. A BUG REPORT HAS BEEN SENT TO THE DEVELOPER. IF THE PROBLEM PERSISTS SEND A BUG REPORT TO THE DEV TEAM.
but hey, if you want to spend forty dollars to bug test a game, be my SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE. TO IDENTIFY THE CRASH WHEN COMMUNICATING WITH THE DEVELOPER PLEASE USE THE BUTTON 'COPY TO CLIPBOARD' AND PASTE IT INTO YOUR MESSAGE. ASSHOLE.
trick question, neither is unbelievable because both seem to be the industry standard in what decays with every launch just like this one. but the worst bit is in how much fun darktide can be past all these issues. i went with an ogre named 'CHUSTY' and believe me, cutting through hordes of goons with clean shovel sweeps rarely fails to entertain. there's a great loop to swingan and shootan and stompan and killan to the point where you almost forget about the technical issues until youWE APOLOGIZE FOR THE INCONVENIENCE! OUR GOAL IS TO PREVENT CRASHES LIKE THIS FROM OCCURRING. PLEASE HELP US DIAGNOSE AND FIX THIS PROBLEM BY PROVIDING INFORMATION ABOUT WHAT WAS HAPPENING AT THE TIME OF THE CRASH.
the worst part about having the game crash on you is, should you bear a difficulty altering 'grimoire', that item is incredibly forfeit. for instance, just lastTHE GAME HAS CRASHED. A BUG REPORT HAS BEEN SENT TO THE DEVELOPER. IF THE PROBLEM PERSISTS SEND A BUG REPORT TO THE DEV TEAM.
but hey, if you want to spend forty dollars to bug test a game, be my SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE. TO IDENTIFY THE CRASH WHEN COMMUNICATING WITH THE DEVELOPER PLEASE USE THE BUTTON 'COPY TO CLIPBOARD' AND PASTE IT INTO YOUR MESSAGE. ASSHOLE.
2006
a long time ago, i tried playing grand theft auto 3. this attempt didn't last very long considering the brutality of failing a mission: no checkpoints, no saves and, hell, no restarting--the game's decided you are an idiot (a stupid one) and you have to drag your dumb idiot ass all the way back over to the mission giver, skip their very intelligent cutscene, and try again.
suffice to say, i was that dumb idiot dipshit that rockstar thought me as, and i did not attempt to prove otherwise. or, in other words, i gave the fuck up. who has the time or patience?
years later, i played saints row. this one. it's kind of like... well, if inspiration could be seen on volition's sleeve, it'd just be a series of gta logos from shoulder to wrist. and of the many similarities saints row shared with grand theft auto, one was more brutal than the others: that exact same fucking lack of checkpoints and the basic ability to restart the damn mission. the game simply thinks your moron ass either better drag it all back to whoever gave you a cutscene or fuck off.
but unlike gta3, i didn't fuck off. why not?
because i played saints row 2 first, and saints row 2 is awesome. i'd go so far as to call it a near perfect game, and i, then, wanted to know the backstory of such a near perfect game, and said backstory could only be obtained by playing a game that's anything but. so i persevered, and it's now been years and years since then, and so i've persevered a second time through a medley of mission starts, mission failures, and mission driving-all-the-goddamn-way-to-the-starts.
in other words: i've played and beaten saints row twice. in more words: it's not really worth playing and beating twice--BUT! these two experiences have allowed me ample time to fully digest what volition presented to xbox 360 owners in 2006, and now i will relay to you, reader in 2022 or beyond, what i have learned, experienced, hated, and enjoyed.
first thing's first: this is one of the worst sandbox cities ever made. ever. history of ever, guaranteed. i've played just about every grand theft auto, certainly every saints row, and all sorts of gta/sr likes like the simpsons hit and run and mafia 2, and THIS is easily the worst designed of them all. it's bad enough that just about every neighborhood bolsters the same ugly shades of brown, red, and grey which makes quickly identifying areas around you based on appearance alone quite difficult, but the real problem lies in navigation. over and over and over, you'll find yourself hitting dead ends, pulling into parking lots with only one entrance and exit, speeding down alleys and into walls, and maddeningly smashing into obstacles your car should have been able to clear... but volition's city designers thought otherwise. but that's just a ground level problem. look to the air for the next: saints row's psychotic highway system. it makes NO fucking sense. none whatsoever. you'll look it over on the gps and be baffled on where exactly entrances and exits even are, and you'll be even further pressed to actually find that there are barely any exits/entrances at all! that's great for a fucking means of fast transportation that can't actually be accessed for a great majority of the map. god, words alone cannot quite describe just how miserable these highways are designed, and you'd be foolish to think saints row 2's kept things the same. no, in fact, saints row's highway and city layout are so indescribably terrible that volition came up with 'flooding' as a lore friendly excuse to gut the absolute miserable shit out of this absolutely miserable excuse for a sandbox layout in its sequel. fuck me, i'll never take well designed highways for granted again.
second thing's second: the mini game named activities suck. i mean, absolutely all of them do. want to protect a drug dealer? then you'll do it with the shitty guns your dealer wants you to use, and with a paltry amount of ammo to boot. want to ho? good luck getting the car bound whores without trouble--damaging a car without damaging your own car is HARD--and on that note, you best be careful when your vehicle's even remotely close to exploding. if a fire starts, you have genuine seconds to get out of the damn thing before it mission failures your ass back to square one. oh, the best activity actually is insurance fraud, surprisingly, because you can just steal a police car and rack up insane point combos by virtue of your vehicle being of the state. hell, you don't even have to hit anyone: slamming your car over and over into a wall is enough to pass each level of activity with flying colors. eight levels, by the way, and that goes for every single activity. and the rewards? well, sometimes, it's a homie. other times, it's a necklace. you have zero way of knowing this beforehand. oh, and don't rack up too many activity-rewarded respect points. in saints row 2, the meter would change to infinity upon reaching a theoretical 'max'. here in saints row 1? your game flips a coin every time you boot in, and every time it's heads, the console shuts off. dead fucking serious.
now, given these first and second major points, you might think saints row not worth playing and, in the age of youtube where anyone can just watch a stitched together cutscene compilation... yeah, yeah maybe it isn't worth the hassle. but then, it's not as if the whole experience is rotten. the general gameplay of pulling up on gangsters or police and icing them's fun. getting into highway warfare with three of your homies comprised of a soccer mom, zombie, and a baseball wielding chicken suited teenager... is pretty fun, too. the problem is it's just better in saints row 2. the writing's pretty solid, too, and i never offer such praise lightly--the dialogue plays with some silliness while still steering straight, though it's often not enough or not fleshed out as much as it should be. so, that's better in saints row 2, too. the activities i described are better in saints row 2, actually, and the city design is better in saints row 2, and, well...
you know, there's just SO much of this game that looks even shittier in comparison to its better fated sequel, and i guess that's not totally fair, but we don't exist in a vacuum and i can't help playing the game and thinking every thirty seconds "man, this detail sucks and is so much better in saints row 2". mission checkpoints? saints row 2. city free of dead ends? saints row 2. memorable locations based on visual identity alone? saints row 2. anything that saints row 1 does, 2 does better, and that leaves the experience pretty sour admittedly. but hey, there's at least one thing saints row has that its sequel doesn't: a bizarre loan shark that'll lend you, what, $1000, and failing to pay back such will sick a helicopter on you at all times of the day. so that's nice.
one last thing that's pretty cool: i selected 'xbox 360' as my platform, but the truth is i actually emulated the entire experience in 'xenia' right in the comfort of my pc. yeah, and saints row 2 runs well, too. how about that?
suffice to say, i was that dumb idiot dipshit that rockstar thought me as, and i did not attempt to prove otherwise. or, in other words, i gave the fuck up. who has the time or patience?
years later, i played saints row. this one. it's kind of like... well, if inspiration could be seen on volition's sleeve, it'd just be a series of gta logos from shoulder to wrist. and of the many similarities saints row shared with grand theft auto, one was more brutal than the others: that exact same fucking lack of checkpoints and the basic ability to restart the damn mission. the game simply thinks your moron ass either better drag it all back to whoever gave you a cutscene or fuck off.
but unlike gta3, i didn't fuck off. why not?
because i played saints row 2 first, and saints row 2 is awesome. i'd go so far as to call it a near perfect game, and i, then, wanted to know the backstory of such a near perfect game, and said backstory could only be obtained by playing a game that's anything but. so i persevered, and it's now been years and years since then, and so i've persevered a second time through a medley of mission starts, mission failures, and mission driving-all-the-goddamn-way-to-the-starts.
in other words: i've played and beaten saints row twice. in more words: it's not really worth playing and beating twice--BUT! these two experiences have allowed me ample time to fully digest what volition presented to xbox 360 owners in 2006, and now i will relay to you, reader in 2022 or beyond, what i have learned, experienced, hated, and enjoyed.
first thing's first: this is one of the worst sandbox cities ever made. ever. history of ever, guaranteed. i've played just about every grand theft auto, certainly every saints row, and all sorts of gta/sr likes like the simpsons hit and run and mafia 2, and THIS is easily the worst designed of them all. it's bad enough that just about every neighborhood bolsters the same ugly shades of brown, red, and grey which makes quickly identifying areas around you based on appearance alone quite difficult, but the real problem lies in navigation. over and over and over, you'll find yourself hitting dead ends, pulling into parking lots with only one entrance and exit, speeding down alleys and into walls, and maddeningly smashing into obstacles your car should have been able to clear... but volition's city designers thought otherwise. but that's just a ground level problem. look to the air for the next: saints row's psychotic highway system. it makes NO fucking sense. none whatsoever. you'll look it over on the gps and be baffled on where exactly entrances and exits even are, and you'll be even further pressed to actually find that there are barely any exits/entrances at all! that's great for a fucking means of fast transportation that can't actually be accessed for a great majority of the map. god, words alone cannot quite describe just how miserable these highways are designed, and you'd be foolish to think saints row 2's kept things the same. no, in fact, saints row's highway and city layout are so indescribably terrible that volition came up with 'flooding' as a lore friendly excuse to gut the absolute miserable shit out of this absolutely miserable excuse for a sandbox layout in its sequel. fuck me, i'll never take well designed highways for granted again.
second thing's second: the mini game named activities suck. i mean, absolutely all of them do. want to protect a drug dealer? then you'll do it with the shitty guns your dealer wants you to use, and with a paltry amount of ammo to boot. want to ho? good luck getting the car bound whores without trouble--damaging a car without damaging your own car is HARD--and on that note, you best be careful when your vehicle's even remotely close to exploding. if a fire starts, you have genuine seconds to get out of the damn thing before it mission failures your ass back to square one. oh, the best activity actually is insurance fraud, surprisingly, because you can just steal a police car and rack up insane point combos by virtue of your vehicle being of the state. hell, you don't even have to hit anyone: slamming your car over and over into a wall is enough to pass each level of activity with flying colors. eight levels, by the way, and that goes for every single activity. and the rewards? well, sometimes, it's a homie. other times, it's a necklace. you have zero way of knowing this beforehand. oh, and don't rack up too many activity-rewarded respect points. in saints row 2, the meter would change to infinity upon reaching a theoretical 'max'. here in saints row 1? your game flips a coin every time you boot in, and every time it's heads, the console shuts off. dead fucking serious.
now, given these first and second major points, you might think saints row not worth playing and, in the age of youtube where anyone can just watch a stitched together cutscene compilation... yeah, yeah maybe it isn't worth the hassle. but then, it's not as if the whole experience is rotten. the general gameplay of pulling up on gangsters or police and icing them's fun. getting into highway warfare with three of your homies comprised of a soccer mom, zombie, and a baseball wielding chicken suited teenager... is pretty fun, too. the problem is it's just better in saints row 2. the writing's pretty solid, too, and i never offer such praise lightly--the dialogue plays with some silliness while still steering straight, though it's often not enough or not fleshed out as much as it should be. so, that's better in saints row 2, too. the activities i described are better in saints row 2, actually, and the city design is better in saints row 2, and, well...
you know, there's just SO much of this game that looks even shittier in comparison to its better fated sequel, and i guess that's not totally fair, but we don't exist in a vacuum and i can't help playing the game and thinking every thirty seconds "man, this detail sucks and is so much better in saints row 2". mission checkpoints? saints row 2. city free of dead ends? saints row 2. memorable locations based on visual identity alone? saints row 2. anything that saints row 1 does, 2 does better, and that leaves the experience pretty sour admittedly. but hey, there's at least one thing saints row has that its sequel doesn't: a bizarre loan shark that'll lend you, what, $1000, and failing to pay back such will sick a helicopter on you at all times of the day. so that's nice.
one last thing that's pretty cool: i selected 'xbox 360' as my platform, but the truth is i actually emulated the entire experience in 'xenia' right in the comfort of my pc. yeah, and saints row 2 runs well, too. how about that?
2022
you and i may well be aware of the absolute deluge of indie and double a backed video games that wear childhood nurtured inspiration on their sleeves, titles like a hat in time or here comes niko all too proud to let players know a timeline absent of the gamecube would just as well be one absent of either title. but little did i ever expect a small studio to find themselves filled with inspiration and passion stemming from the absolute most boring fucking trite of video games: those that play themselves. you surely know of those i refer to--the last of uses and the bow raiders and the arkhams and spidermans and ghosts of assassins dogs ages. games that exist as some sort of hollywood mimicry in which high production values are, lol, valued far above anything else, far above the relationship between players and gameplay. games that push, push, push the player forward down the water slide--or really, those dark rides you can watch a defunctland on featuring garfield, because either way, passengers sit tight, see the sights, and leave.
and a large problem with these games lies in their tunnels stretching far, far too long--its passengers lose the novelty of garfield, and most finish climaxing should they have brought a partner aboard far before the eventual light flickers in.
well, the novelty of stray's cat protagonist is one that lasts twenty minutes, a span of useless contextual button presses for reddit and twitter gifs, and this is followed by a further three hours of cinematic slop to slog through. and then the game still goes (for those who have never heard of the sunk cost theory and/or those who, holy fuck, somehow like this shit), and it goes and goes and goes: down linear hallways, up linear walls, along linear paths disguised as well as a blanket disguises the couch. it's a particularly frustrating feeling to emerge into stray's city and find yourself met with all sorts of balconies and vents and roofs and rubble and be able to climb absolutely none of it save the sole path its designers intend.
are linear games bad by design? no. half life 2 is lovely. half life 2 is also not a game made up of multitudes of contextual button presses and cutscenes strung together by cutscene gameplay strung together by more cutscenes. when a chopper chases dr. freeman, the player is threatened and has to haul fucking ass. when completely nonthreatening silverfish chase the stray, the player holds forward, holds their arbitrary run button, the threat of danger not even remotely present, until the next cutscene appears. of course, these moments are broken up by hub world dickery filled with toothless robots who offer no whimsy nor intriguing in their empty words, and the same can be said for your personality-less companion no doubt boardroom blasted to ensure no player would grow weary (or attached).
let's stop dancing around it: stray is an abysmal video game. stray is a complete failure of neutered, paw holding gameplay that is less interested in giving the player tools to navigate its world and more in making sure the wittle pwayer doesn't stway from the wittle path ): and on that note, i wonder to fucking god if its qa players actually enjoyed the experience. were they having fun? were they giving honest feedback? were they actually playing? if i were stuck with this shit, i know i'd be trying to stay off the controller and on my phone as much as possible.
it's rare for a game to truly feel like its designed to waste and absorb your time like a robotic parasite, but stray nails it, let me tell you.
anyway, the star is for the hints of creativity. the half star is for the surprisingly excellent soundtrack from the... guy who did cave story wii of all things. huh.
play this if you don't like video games.
and a large problem with these games lies in their tunnels stretching far, far too long--its passengers lose the novelty of garfield, and most finish climaxing should they have brought a partner aboard far before the eventual light flickers in.
well, the novelty of stray's cat protagonist is one that lasts twenty minutes, a span of useless contextual button presses for reddit and twitter gifs, and this is followed by a further three hours of cinematic slop to slog through. and then the game still goes (for those who have never heard of the sunk cost theory and/or those who, holy fuck, somehow like this shit), and it goes and goes and goes: down linear hallways, up linear walls, along linear paths disguised as well as a blanket disguises the couch. it's a particularly frustrating feeling to emerge into stray's city and find yourself met with all sorts of balconies and vents and roofs and rubble and be able to climb absolutely none of it save the sole path its designers intend.
are linear games bad by design? no. half life 2 is lovely. half life 2 is also not a game made up of multitudes of contextual button presses and cutscenes strung together by cutscene gameplay strung together by more cutscenes. when a chopper chases dr. freeman, the player is threatened and has to haul fucking ass. when completely nonthreatening silverfish chase the stray, the player holds forward, holds their arbitrary run button, the threat of danger not even remotely present, until the next cutscene appears. of course, these moments are broken up by hub world dickery filled with toothless robots who offer no whimsy nor intriguing in their empty words, and the same can be said for your personality-less companion no doubt boardroom blasted to ensure no player would grow weary (or attached).
let's stop dancing around it: stray is an abysmal video game. stray is a complete failure of neutered, paw holding gameplay that is less interested in giving the player tools to navigate its world and more in making sure the wittle pwayer doesn't stway from the wittle path ): and on that note, i wonder to fucking god if its qa players actually enjoyed the experience. were they having fun? were they giving honest feedback? were they actually playing? if i were stuck with this shit, i know i'd be trying to stay off the controller and on my phone as much as possible.
it's rare for a game to truly feel like its designed to waste and absorb your time like a robotic parasite, but stray nails it, let me tell you.
anyway, the star is for the hints of creativity. the half star is for the surprisingly excellent soundtrack from the... guy who did cave story wii of all things. huh.
play this if you don't like video games.
This review contains spoilers
what a charming, heartfelt, unique experience this is.
what a beyond rushed, artificially extended, transparent experience this is.
wind waker is the ultimate yin and yang for me, an opinion born from my two 100% runs played back to back within the past eight months. i have been exposed to absolutely every single piece of brilliance the game has to offer just as much as i've found myself facing cracks of all sorts of varied shapes and sizes--it's often with wind waker that those cracks may as well be gloryholes for their size... at least the stall door it's cut from's so lovingly rendered and lit.
the moment the title screen opens, wind waker hits you with a mini presentation of the gorgeous visuals and models awaiting your adventure: good.
as soon as you leave your home island, an agonizingly boring "stealth" section slams you in the chest: bad.
the pace continues to suffer as the story brings you to peaceful windfall and as peaceful as a predungeon gets with dragon roost island: also bad.
the game brightens up once again with its first dungeon, followed quickly by a second island and too its dungeon: good.
under duress of deadline, the game tricks you into finding your third destination in tatters, the hero too late: badass.
this does not eventually lead to a dungeon but, instead, a quick cutscene inside a rock: bad.
our collectathon quest culminates in a tower of challenges and a peek at something much, much larger: good
then we fuck ganon's fort up: badass.
then we get to ride in the great sea with medli and makar on the boat: adorable
but we're riding straight to dungeons, and hitting [a] on either has them slowly chastise you for not picking up the pace: excruciating
triforce hunt: sure
the peek at something much, much larger was actually just a fancy hallway: no
boss rush final dungeon: what
easiest final boss in zelda history after: what.
but the cracks go deeper--it's the barely there existence of forest haven, how there's very little to do or see beyond moving onto the dungeon and on your way out. it's the existence of stealth at all, complete with wall peaks and barrel hiding, being absolutely worthless and unused. it's this fucking boat who drags out his dialogue as molasses as possible nagging the piss out of your tunic for every single possible little thing. when that old asshole bit it at the end, i didn't bat an eye. were i given the choice to slide ganon's domer right out of his stone noggin, i would've had my next target not more than a couple feet away.
perhaps the biggest issue of the wind waker is its flat, generic story full of flat, generic characters existing in a completely unique, captivating world full of unique, well-crafted designs. i mean, EVERYTHING has a great fucking design. and the silhouettes are so goddamn impressive--character and island alike. turn a model pitch black and i could just about identify every single one of them from posture alone. and these islands are filled with mystery and intrigue: a thin island scraping the air with its needle... a land shaped around the ocean's deadliest, an assembly of green topped minecraft blocks... but there's just not fucking much done with them. you pop in, do one of three generic mini-dungeon designs, and you leave with either a piece of heart (if you're lucky) or another worthless helping of rupees in a game where they're handed out like candy, in a game where there isn't anything at all to spend them on. no seriously, what are you meant to do with these besides buy bait, pears, and the occasional blue gatorade? yeah you're gonna dump a load into tingle's pants with all those garbled charts begging to be ungarbled, but every triforce chest is surrounded by rupee showering pots in the first place, so what the fuck does it matter?
you know, it seems like i'm endlessly dumping onto this game with reckless abandon, and that's because i AM dumping onto this game with reckless abandon--i have spent eight long, long months scraping up against every single inch of the wind waker, attempting to view every possible possibility of dialogue npcs could offer, attempting to scrounge up all available rewards this great sea could conjure up for me. and i did it twice. issues are unavoidable in doing so, and staying silent on annoyances and problems is a disservice to anyone who spends that long playing a game. but it's clarifying the wind waker's cracks that makes it extra special because, here we are--me writing, you reading--in a 4.5 starred review.
in other words--this game freaks it, and it freaks it all over the place. and yet, its strengths are so strong, its ambition so contagious, that the wind waker navigates the currents and waves its haphazard development and hypocritically miyamoto induced crunch creates... and finds itself successfully sailing out from the storm and onto calm waters. the secret to the game's success is found in its simple execution of grand ideas, aforementioned sailing its highlight.
i adore sailing. i love the distance and scale between islands, rendering complaints about long "waiting" times too silly for me. the time passed is a part of the experience, the time spent with king charting courses through white and blue. the experience is spotting a watch tower and parking king to stab its occupants--if bombing the shit out of them from below isn't an option taken, of course. the experience is finding you've inadvertently come across a sea chart's x, treasure soon to be yours. the experience is passing by enemy ships and deciding whether to wage war or spare them (and your time). the experience is passing by beedle and deciding whether to wage war or buy bait (and remember: one can very well do both). it's being chased by sharks and deciding whether to take them on or hope to outrun them. it's fighting against the wind to navigate a reef and win against its occupants. it's circling an island's coast in search of cartographers. it's heading dead straight for a circling of seagulls while deciding whether it's time for bombs, boomerang, or the arrows for a change.
the experience is sleepily making your way back to outset island, the moon finally dipping below the horizon and lighting your boat in the first few glimpses of morning.
and on that note, it's actually downright criminal how incredible the main hubs of the wind waker can look in sunset/sunrise conditions. you don't know what that's like, do you? that's because i'm almost certain it's impossible to see such without exploiting the game in some way. but it's incredibly worth it to find windfall bathed in the last of the day's light, to see dragon roost's shore as the sun greets valoo. these sights are intoxicating, and this is just again one of the many ways to praise wind waker's extremely sharp use of lighting, its fantastic models, its brilliantly simple colors.
every screen is an art piece.
dungeons are cool, too. they're all pretty piss easy and about as braindead as any ocarina of time dungeon that isn't the forest or water temple, and that's disappointing, but they each carry such strong aesthetics on their backs as well as offering unique enemy variety and puzzles that it's hard to forget any of them. it's also doubly hard to forget the dungeons given there's only, what, five of them? christ, lol. so i suppose if a dev's going to be rushed and must make the work done count, it's good they opted for tightening what they had versus thinly spreading a meager plate before their players. i don't think anyone would've appreciated a wind waker with twice as many dungeons half as much if they featured... half as much. still, i really wish they were harder. this aspect can't even stem from my eight months of continuous playing--the wind waker was outright one of the first discs i ever pressed into my gamecube, and even the young asshole who played then snored his way through everything that wasn't the wind temple. well, okay, the earth temple scared me, so i was wide awake for that one. it was still easy, though. spooky... but easy.
have i mentioned link's eyes yet? i've been kind of vaguely praising models and all, but our protagonist for this zelda's just the best. see something interesting? so does he. see something spooky? so does he. get scared of your fucking mind? so. does he. link and i were certainly not alone in the earth temple (also literally, since the bird woman was there). also, wait, i put medli in parentheses, but she's a really interesting example of something wind waker sucks and excels at i for sure have mentioned already: great models, terrible writing. medli's cute. damn cute. i crushed on her as a kid, but it was all in the design, and i was reminded of that with every playthrough as i'd be repeatedly exposed to her flat characterization and how pathetic it whimpers: she exists for other men. that's her character. medli exists to serve link, serve valoo, and serve komali. she plays the harp, but only because another woman who served their dragon freeloader told her to. half her dialogue concerns prince komali--her fucking LAST LINE in the GAME is about komali. and i think this wraps back around to a particular point of failure with the wind waker that's reflected in another nintendo classic: chibi robo. both feature lovely music, lovely gameplay, lovely art... and flat, dead, bonedry writing.
guess that's why i always loved the thousand year door a little more than this as a kid. but believe me, i still loved them both.
and i still do love this game! i wouldn't have spent eight months playing it if i felt any less so. i wouldn't have invested so much time and energy into a passion project completely built off the skeleton of what these devs poured their souls into with what little time they had. and god fucking damn do i wish they'd been given more time, but i'm thankful the wind waker released at all, and i'm thankful it became a cornerstone of my childhood. i played the game to such depths and scourings that i would return to the great sea just to create my own stories and narratives--i'd be running from some evil dude who's tracking me island to island, or i'd be running mail deliveries for the rito, or--what i'm trying to express is THIS is the extent to which i adored this zelda's gameplay and sailing, its aesthetics and presentation.
and i still adore all these things, and the faults may be several golfball sizes too large, but let me re-emphasize: the wind waker is the best stall door i've ever pissed next to in my life. and... wait... there's something etched into it that i can just barely make out.
"A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad."
oh, fuck off, miyamoto.
what a beyond rushed, artificially extended, transparent experience this is.
wind waker is the ultimate yin and yang for me, an opinion born from my two 100% runs played back to back within the past eight months. i have been exposed to absolutely every single piece of brilliance the game has to offer just as much as i've found myself facing cracks of all sorts of varied shapes and sizes--it's often with wind waker that those cracks may as well be gloryholes for their size... at least the stall door it's cut from's so lovingly rendered and lit.
the moment the title screen opens, wind waker hits you with a mini presentation of the gorgeous visuals and models awaiting your adventure: good.
as soon as you leave your home island, an agonizingly boring "stealth" section slams you in the chest: bad.
the pace continues to suffer as the story brings you to peaceful windfall and as peaceful as a predungeon gets with dragon roost island: also bad.
the game brightens up once again with its first dungeon, followed quickly by a second island and too its dungeon: good.
under duress of deadline, the game tricks you into finding your third destination in tatters, the hero too late: badass.
this does not eventually lead to a dungeon but, instead, a quick cutscene inside a rock: bad.
our collectathon quest culminates in a tower of challenges and a peek at something much, much larger: good
then we fuck ganon's fort up: badass.
then we get to ride in the great sea with medli and makar on the boat: adorable
but we're riding straight to dungeons, and hitting [a] on either has them slowly chastise you for not picking up the pace: excruciating
triforce hunt: sure
the peek at something much, much larger was actually just a fancy hallway: no
boss rush final dungeon: what
easiest final boss in zelda history after: what.
but the cracks go deeper--it's the barely there existence of forest haven, how there's very little to do or see beyond moving onto the dungeon and on your way out. it's the existence of stealth at all, complete with wall peaks and barrel hiding, being absolutely worthless and unused. it's this fucking boat who drags out his dialogue as molasses as possible nagging the piss out of your tunic for every single possible little thing. when that old asshole bit it at the end, i didn't bat an eye. were i given the choice to slide ganon's domer right out of his stone noggin, i would've had my next target not more than a couple feet away.
perhaps the biggest issue of the wind waker is its flat, generic story full of flat, generic characters existing in a completely unique, captivating world full of unique, well-crafted designs. i mean, EVERYTHING has a great fucking design. and the silhouettes are so goddamn impressive--character and island alike. turn a model pitch black and i could just about identify every single one of them from posture alone. and these islands are filled with mystery and intrigue: a thin island scraping the air with its needle... a land shaped around the ocean's deadliest, an assembly of green topped minecraft blocks... but there's just not fucking much done with them. you pop in, do one of three generic mini-dungeon designs, and you leave with either a piece of heart (if you're lucky) or another worthless helping of rupees in a game where they're handed out like candy, in a game where there isn't anything at all to spend them on. no seriously, what are you meant to do with these besides buy bait, pears, and the occasional blue gatorade? yeah you're gonna dump a load into tingle's pants with all those garbled charts begging to be ungarbled, but every triforce chest is surrounded by rupee showering pots in the first place, so what the fuck does it matter?
you know, it seems like i'm endlessly dumping onto this game with reckless abandon, and that's because i AM dumping onto this game with reckless abandon--i have spent eight long, long months scraping up against every single inch of the wind waker, attempting to view every possible possibility of dialogue npcs could offer, attempting to scrounge up all available rewards this great sea could conjure up for me. and i did it twice. issues are unavoidable in doing so, and staying silent on annoyances and problems is a disservice to anyone who spends that long playing a game. but it's clarifying the wind waker's cracks that makes it extra special because, here we are--me writing, you reading--in a 4.5 starred review.
in other words--this game freaks it, and it freaks it all over the place. and yet, its strengths are so strong, its ambition so contagious, that the wind waker navigates the currents and waves its haphazard development and hypocritically miyamoto induced crunch creates... and finds itself successfully sailing out from the storm and onto calm waters. the secret to the game's success is found in its simple execution of grand ideas, aforementioned sailing its highlight.
i adore sailing. i love the distance and scale between islands, rendering complaints about long "waiting" times too silly for me. the time passed is a part of the experience, the time spent with king charting courses through white and blue. the experience is spotting a watch tower and parking king to stab its occupants--if bombing the shit out of them from below isn't an option taken, of course. the experience is finding you've inadvertently come across a sea chart's x, treasure soon to be yours. the experience is passing by enemy ships and deciding whether to wage war or spare them (and your time). the experience is passing by beedle and deciding whether to wage war or buy bait (and remember: one can very well do both). it's being chased by sharks and deciding whether to take them on or hope to outrun them. it's fighting against the wind to navigate a reef and win against its occupants. it's circling an island's coast in search of cartographers. it's heading dead straight for a circling of seagulls while deciding whether it's time for bombs, boomerang, or the arrows for a change.
the experience is sleepily making your way back to outset island, the moon finally dipping below the horizon and lighting your boat in the first few glimpses of morning.
and on that note, it's actually downright criminal how incredible the main hubs of the wind waker can look in sunset/sunrise conditions. you don't know what that's like, do you? that's because i'm almost certain it's impossible to see such without exploiting the game in some way. but it's incredibly worth it to find windfall bathed in the last of the day's light, to see dragon roost's shore as the sun greets valoo. these sights are intoxicating, and this is just again one of the many ways to praise wind waker's extremely sharp use of lighting, its fantastic models, its brilliantly simple colors.
every screen is an art piece.
dungeons are cool, too. they're all pretty piss easy and about as braindead as any ocarina of time dungeon that isn't the forest or water temple, and that's disappointing, but they each carry such strong aesthetics on their backs as well as offering unique enemy variety and puzzles that it's hard to forget any of them. it's also doubly hard to forget the dungeons given there's only, what, five of them? christ, lol. so i suppose if a dev's going to be rushed and must make the work done count, it's good they opted for tightening what they had versus thinly spreading a meager plate before their players. i don't think anyone would've appreciated a wind waker with twice as many dungeons half as much if they featured... half as much. still, i really wish they were harder. this aspect can't even stem from my eight months of continuous playing--the wind waker was outright one of the first discs i ever pressed into my gamecube, and even the young asshole who played then snored his way through everything that wasn't the wind temple. well, okay, the earth temple scared me, so i was wide awake for that one. it was still easy, though. spooky... but easy.
have i mentioned link's eyes yet? i've been kind of vaguely praising models and all, but our protagonist for this zelda's just the best. see something interesting? so does he. see something spooky? so does he. get scared of your fucking mind? so. does he. link and i were certainly not alone in the earth temple (also literally, since the bird woman was there). also, wait, i put medli in parentheses, but she's a really interesting example of something wind waker sucks and excels at i for sure have mentioned already: great models, terrible writing. medli's cute. damn cute. i crushed on her as a kid, but it was all in the design, and i was reminded of that with every playthrough as i'd be repeatedly exposed to her flat characterization and how pathetic it whimpers: she exists for other men. that's her character. medli exists to serve link, serve valoo, and serve komali. she plays the harp, but only because another woman who served their dragon freeloader told her to. half her dialogue concerns prince komali--her fucking LAST LINE in the GAME is about komali. and i think this wraps back around to a particular point of failure with the wind waker that's reflected in another nintendo classic: chibi robo. both feature lovely music, lovely gameplay, lovely art... and flat, dead, bonedry writing.
guess that's why i always loved the thousand year door a little more than this as a kid. but believe me, i still loved them both.
and i still do love this game! i wouldn't have spent eight months playing it if i felt any less so. i wouldn't have invested so much time and energy into a passion project completely built off the skeleton of what these devs poured their souls into with what little time they had. and god fucking damn do i wish they'd been given more time, but i'm thankful the wind waker released at all, and i'm thankful it became a cornerstone of my childhood. i played the game to such depths and scourings that i would return to the great sea just to create my own stories and narratives--i'd be running from some evil dude who's tracking me island to island, or i'd be running mail deliveries for the rito, or--what i'm trying to express is THIS is the extent to which i adored this zelda's gameplay and sailing, its aesthetics and presentation.
and i still adore all these things, and the faults may be several golfball sizes too large, but let me re-emphasize: the wind waker is the best stall door i've ever pissed next to in my life. and... wait... there's something etched into it that i can just barely make out.
"A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad."
oh, fuck off, miyamoto.
This review contains spoilers
while the initial transition from peaceful twoson or threebie or whatever number named town to whatever number named town's sewers is jarring in an intentional, well paid off way, its inability to stay committed to that changed voice is a huge point of failure that makes playing through the middle chunk of toby fox's halloween hack a tonally confusing slog. or in other words... it's silly, then it's dead fucking serious, then it's silly whoopsie grunty repeatus whacky hijinkal eat shit faggots megalovania immediately starts playing. experiencing this game's like you've got two tabs of a serious thriller and lighthearted comedy running and you're sort of just flicking back and forth between them arbitrarily. there are definitely ways to synthesize comedy and drama with more fluidity like contemporaries barkley, shut up and jam: gaiden or saints row 2 execute well themselves. or, lol, undertale itself--demonstrable proof of the value of putting yourself out there, accepting criticism, and then really sharpening up your work and concepts into something that reflects the ability you've since honed. you can see all these undertale-lite themes and ideas weaving in and out of the hack, so it sort of functions as an interesting capsule and demonstration of fox's writing level at this time. it also functions as a gore demonstration. like, he gets real visceral with how you kill enemies. the descriptions are so vivid that you don't even notice they're not animated.
this sort of writing is valuable--it's childish and immature in many aspects, but there's such undeniable potential for charm. it's written not like a voice that's putting in minimum effort or mechanically writing like a robot--it's a voice that's speaking because it's desperate to speak. and it's also apologizing for making the game so fucking tedious and overly difficult.
yeah... just flip on a level 99 and infinite health hack.
this sort of writing is valuable--it's childish and immature in many aspects, but there's such undeniable potential for charm. it's written not like a voice that's putting in minimum effort or mechanically writing like a robot--it's a voice that's speaking because it's desperate to speak. and it's also apologizing for making the game so fucking tedious and overly difficult.
yeah... just flip on a level 99 and infinite health hack.
This review contains spoilers
i can't tell what i love most about david cage's latest incompetent masterpiece... is it the world ripped straight from deus ex: human revolution and bladerunner 2049 without the nuance or subtlety of either? is it the complete inability to followup on what should be meaningful choices? is it cage refusing to follow the rules of his own world while constantly making up new bullshit as he goes? could it be even the way the female protagonist's route is dead bottom the most boring, straightforward SHE IS WOMAN SHE IS MOTHER story within this genre possible, complete with a worthless twist? perhaps even the unbelievably heavy handed civil rights metaphors that cage himself vehemently denies?
i don't know. i just do not know. but let me tell you, cage is a thoroughly entertaining writer in ways completely unintended. detroit's just so fucking fun to play because of how drop dead serious he is at writing this pseudo-intellectual slop. i mean i just fucking love it, i don't know what else to say. it's incompetent writing in a way that's fun versus something bad but stale, you know? like icarus trying to fly towards the sun with a set of wings made from construction paper and mayo.
just for clarity, i'll tell you how my playthrough went. kara? tried my best to have her surrogate daughter hate her, but despite everything i did, they were simply inseparable. now, towards the very end you've got kara and revealed robo daughter walking towards the gas chambers, and you have ample opportunity to start stressing her the fuck out. so i did so, because i know the rules of this world: a robot gets stressed out... a robot explodes. i figured if the girl exploded, the surviving bots (including kara herself) could escape. so i build her up and up and up aaand... she hits 100%, runs over to kara, gets shot, and dies. consistency, cage. consistency.
as for marcus, i played him as an ultra pacifist to humanity with a mightier message at heart that valued less his android companions and moreso the overall goal. so what this meant was i had every human spared throughout the game, but i let my robobuddies die. it was pretty awesome seeing marcus give a speech completely alone, admittedly. what was hilarious was towards the very end, as humanity marched towards my peaceful marcus and co, that he began to sing. and they all sung, and they all sung the same song together. did i sequence skip the chorus recital chapter or something? taking a step back, i adore marcus's robo jesus deal where he can just tap the shoulder of an android and force them into sentience. and let's be clear: it is forcing. imagine you're asleep and someone suddenly wakes you up, gives you a gun, and says "start firing". and it's not like you have a choice now, because you're going to be found out for going deviant any day from here on out due to marcus' meddling. man, what a guy.
connor was the best, though. i played him as a completely soulless policebot dead focused on solving the case and not a scrap more. that meant he didn't give a shit about android lives, didn't give a shit about deviancy, and most certainly didn't give any ounce of tin can shit about hank. and what this resulted in, surprisingly, was a badass scene. connor ends up going deviant without actually going deviant, which is oddly... brilliant, as he sets up his sniper rifle in an attempt to assassinate the peace loving marcus, and he's stopped by the same police squad from the beginning of the game. connor proceeds to fuck. these guys. up. and it's brutal, and i love it. and cage doesn't do much with it at fucking all after--we get a choice to assassinate marcus at the very end with absolutely no followup. not even a final meeting with his creator or whoever the hell kept bitching at him to kill some androids. come on, man. and here i thought arkane games had no ending.
yeah, anyway, this is great and terrible. wish i played it drunk
i don't know. i just do not know. but let me tell you, cage is a thoroughly entertaining writer in ways completely unintended. detroit's just so fucking fun to play because of how drop dead serious he is at writing this pseudo-intellectual slop. i mean i just fucking love it, i don't know what else to say. it's incompetent writing in a way that's fun versus something bad but stale, you know? like icarus trying to fly towards the sun with a set of wings made from construction paper and mayo.
just for clarity, i'll tell you how my playthrough went. kara? tried my best to have her surrogate daughter hate her, but despite everything i did, they were simply inseparable. now, towards the very end you've got kara and revealed robo daughter walking towards the gas chambers, and you have ample opportunity to start stressing her the fuck out. so i did so, because i know the rules of this world: a robot gets stressed out... a robot explodes. i figured if the girl exploded, the surviving bots (including kara herself) could escape. so i build her up and up and up aaand... she hits 100%, runs over to kara, gets shot, and dies. consistency, cage. consistency.
as for marcus, i played him as an ultra pacifist to humanity with a mightier message at heart that valued less his android companions and moreso the overall goal. so what this meant was i had every human spared throughout the game, but i let my robobuddies die. it was pretty awesome seeing marcus give a speech completely alone, admittedly. what was hilarious was towards the very end, as humanity marched towards my peaceful marcus and co, that he began to sing. and they all sung, and they all sung the same song together. did i sequence skip the chorus recital chapter or something? taking a step back, i adore marcus's robo jesus deal where he can just tap the shoulder of an android and force them into sentience. and let's be clear: it is forcing. imagine you're asleep and someone suddenly wakes you up, gives you a gun, and says "start firing". and it's not like you have a choice now, because you're going to be found out for going deviant any day from here on out due to marcus' meddling. man, what a guy.
connor was the best, though. i played him as a completely soulless policebot dead focused on solving the case and not a scrap more. that meant he didn't give a shit about android lives, didn't give a shit about deviancy, and most certainly didn't give any ounce of tin can shit about hank. and what this resulted in, surprisingly, was a badass scene. connor ends up going deviant without actually going deviant, which is oddly... brilliant, as he sets up his sniper rifle in an attempt to assassinate the peace loving marcus, and he's stopped by the same police squad from the beginning of the game. connor proceeds to fuck. these guys. up. and it's brutal, and i love it. and cage doesn't do much with it at fucking all after--we get a choice to assassinate marcus at the very end with absolutely no followup. not even a final meeting with his creator or whoever the hell kept bitching at him to kill some androids. come on, man. and here i thought arkane games had no ending.
yeah, anyway, this is great and terrible. wish i played it drunk
i'm not really sure if the writers involved with this project--of which there are five of--even like or understand video games. and i say this in the sense that life is strange: true colors doesn't seem interested in the player nor their agency, nor their decision making, nor their interest or interpretations of characters. and i say all this because never before has there been a life is strange where your choices are a game of "well, what's the LEAST embarrassing of the two?", where your choices are "alex says something vapid and stupid" and "alex says something vapid and stupid but with a smile".
and alex, good lord, is the wet blanket protagonist of all wet blanket protagonists, a player stand-in that doesn't really even work considering how you may want her to act or speak doesn't matter because it doesn't align with how the five writers want her to speak. am i making sense, here? if the first life is strange player, for instance, did not like a character, that player was given the tools to express it. everyone is soft and spongy in true colors, speaking in mounds of references and absolutely terrible, bog standard romcom slurry. and what a cast this is--you know, there's nothing wrong with the slow paced slice of life approach that i keep seeing nowadays from western companies and studios, but it seems they all forget that these SOL attempts require a main ingredient: lovable, interesting casts. and who the hell am i supposed to latch onto when everyone spouts out that same aforementioned slurry, where every line is right on the edge of irony poisoning and extreme self awareness? how am i supposed to connect with generic indie rock loving hipster girl alex whose offered observations could not be any less boring, any more forgettable? i can't remember a single line she's offered about her environments save for the very, very dry references to REAL BAND here and REAL BAND there and REAL MOVIE here and... so forth, and so forth like a marvel convention equivalent of a mixer.
i made the claim that these writers don't like or understand video games, and it's based on all i've written thus far and just three more points. ONE: nearly everything feels set in stone, as if the game is a compromise to the writers to tell their otherwise straightforward forgettable young adult novel i had to suffer through many of in college. TWO: you're given a power to read the thoughts of others, but this is heavily limited to very, very, very few characters, the majority of NPCs seemingly unable to give you anything, as if they aren't there, as if the writers did not want to push themselves just a little bit more to add some flavor to this lifeless mess. and THREE: why the fuck can't you land in the minecart in that arcade game? come on, now.
i just can't find a single positive trait in this. the graphics are fine, the soundtrack may or may not even exist because i don't remember any of it. the voice acting is a medley of first takes. the actual "gameplay" sections impose without merit. the choices have never been more meaningless. the consequences have never been more toothless. the observation mechanic has no real development for what it is. the flavor text is lifeless. the characters are lifeless. the story is lifeless. the developers' ambitions are lifeless, and this game may as well not exist at all for all it isn't: no teeth, all gums.
and alex, good lord, is the wet blanket protagonist of all wet blanket protagonists, a player stand-in that doesn't really even work considering how you may want her to act or speak doesn't matter because it doesn't align with how the five writers want her to speak. am i making sense, here? if the first life is strange player, for instance, did not like a character, that player was given the tools to express it. everyone is soft and spongy in true colors, speaking in mounds of references and absolutely terrible, bog standard romcom slurry. and what a cast this is--you know, there's nothing wrong with the slow paced slice of life approach that i keep seeing nowadays from western companies and studios, but it seems they all forget that these SOL attempts require a main ingredient: lovable, interesting casts. and who the hell am i supposed to latch onto when everyone spouts out that same aforementioned slurry, where every line is right on the edge of irony poisoning and extreme self awareness? how am i supposed to connect with generic indie rock loving hipster girl alex whose offered observations could not be any less boring, any more forgettable? i can't remember a single line she's offered about her environments save for the very, very dry references to REAL BAND here and REAL BAND there and REAL MOVIE here and... so forth, and so forth like a marvel convention equivalent of a mixer.
i made the claim that these writers don't like or understand video games, and it's based on all i've written thus far and just three more points. ONE: nearly everything feels set in stone, as if the game is a compromise to the writers to tell their otherwise straightforward forgettable young adult novel i had to suffer through many of in college. TWO: you're given a power to read the thoughts of others, but this is heavily limited to very, very, very few characters, the majority of NPCs seemingly unable to give you anything, as if they aren't there, as if the writers did not want to push themselves just a little bit more to add some flavor to this lifeless mess. and THREE: why the fuck can't you land in the minecart in that arcade game? come on, now.
i just can't find a single positive trait in this. the graphics are fine, the soundtrack may or may not even exist because i don't remember any of it. the voice acting is a medley of first takes. the actual "gameplay" sections impose without merit. the choices have never been more meaningless. the consequences have never been more toothless. the observation mechanic has no real development for what it is. the flavor text is lifeless. the characters are lifeless. the story is lifeless. the developers' ambitions are lifeless, and this game may as well not exist at all for all it isn't: no teeth, all gums.
and i thought ddlc was obnoxious. wonderful everyday is an abysmally written shock factor focused cheese-fest that thinks itself smarter than what its philosophical sludge mouthpieced through cartoonish characters genuinely is. wrap all that up with some irony poisoning, pretentious characters, too much self awareness, and pure honest-to-god ego-stroking... and you have this visual novel. sit through four hours of trope jokes and time wasting to sit through another four of chunibyo philosophy and contrivances. dialogue that could be said in three messages are spent on thirty. the game actually thinks you've invested in its characters. if it's supposed to get better, eight hours is a poor cost of admission and i won't spend another minute.
what a frustrating read.
what a frustrating read.
2022
aggressively boring visuals meets aggressively generic rtx lighting meets aggressively generic soundtrack meets aggressively simple wait-and-see gameplay meets gorgeous, charming in-game instruction manual that outshines legitimately every other soulless aspect of this adventure meets aggressively tedious backtracking meets aggressively cowardly lack of writing, dialogue, and environmental storytelling whatsoever meets aggressively cute gator enemy meets aggressively one-note enemy designs otherwise meets thirty fucking dollars.