let's lay it all flat: paper mario: the thousand year door has much less interesting level design and enemy variation than its predecessor on the n64. while paper mario 64 goes all in on a diorama aesthetic, ttyd's stylistic choice is the stage, the drama, the theater, and the long rectangular hallway design that reflects such, as if it's all continuously moving before a curious audience. i appreciate this, but much less so do i when backtracking is so prevalent--it's like the worst aspects of shy guy's toybox and flower fields back for round 2. and let's be clear--i'm not complaining about the backtracking in, say, chapter 4, because your circumstances differ (almost) every journey. but it's that last backtracking, and it's the backtracking in chapter 2, and it's the monumental one all done for a piss-take towards the end, and it's everything else--it's cruel and stupid, a transparent attempt at lengthening out the game. and with the enemy designs, it's disappointing to face so many recolors when even paper mario 64 was able to pull out some unique final creatures to spar with in its finale.

and on one more negative comparative point: ttyd is so fucking easy. like, leaps and bounds easier on the player than paper mario 64 is, although i hesitate to describe whether or not this is a legitimate problem. why? well, a lot of the ease of access to ttyd comes in the form of skillbased timing--press well and defend against attacks, but press perfectly and you'll completely negate damage. that much is all on the player and an interesting way of forgoing standard jrpg grinding. but then there's just general cheese, like power punches and charges and multibonks. and then there's fucking danger mario, although that's hilarious so whatever.

... lots of negatives, right? and yet, 5 stars. paper mario: the thousand year door is one of the few examples i can point to where a game's writing and aesthetic can more than make up for its faults, where the story progresses with a great flow and rhythm, complemented by well spoken characters not content to stay in the background like mario's 64 bit partners. the game's easily my biggest writing inspiration: when characters speak, i pay attention because it's always funny or interesting. when the plot develops, it does so with simple, tangible consequences and causes and effects. when new chapters start, there's such an indescribable amount of excitement that wells up within wanting to know just what could be in store next... and how can it disappoint when locations vary from wrestling goons at an arena in a bid to win the champion belt or leading a revolution within a massive tree against its invading occupants or solving agatha christie novels aboard a train in a doubling down of shiver city from paper mario 64?

that last bit is important, because something i've noticed between replays of these two initial paper stories is a series of parallels: thousand year door does so much of what 64 does, but grander. both games see mario sailing to an island, but one has it off the back of a whale you briefly meet before while the other has you paired up with a crew you've assembled, then besieged by ancient spirits and shipwrecked onto what is ostensibly deserted. both games see peach baking an item, but while 64's is a cake, ttyd's is an invisibility potion to help her infiltrate the head office of the head goon of the head terrorists, dude. they both have trains and trainrides, murder mysteries and penguins, a goomba who'll prattle off about every npc and location in the game... but ttyd does it better.

aesthetic's incredibly unique, too, and also a big inspiration on myself. while 64 could best be described as a binary tool heaven a la mspaint, ttyd is the now defunct macromedia flash 8, every character a saturated in color motion tweened black outlined standout. combat felt stiff in 64, but ttyd contrasts such with the smoothest you could ever anticipate. and the designs! 64 has a goomba with... a hat. and a koopa with... a scarf. and a bobbomb that's... pink with angel wings. exciting. thousand year door has a goombella decked out in archeological gear, a koopa covered in bandaids and casual wear, and a sea-salty bombomb donning an admiral cap. pretty fucking stark.

also the music fucks an insane amount.

no need to worry about spoilers, but goodness, ttyd concludes so satisfyingly. it's a story you can tell was thought out right from the start, and the way it reflects all your journey up to its ending... yeah, that's ttyd for you. a game with something to prove, a sequel that wanted to not only build off the foundation of its predecessor but carve out an entire world for itself. that's ttyd for you. oh, but also, some villains should never be forgiven, you know. not everyone changes. anyway...

in a way, i feel very spoiled by having played paper mario the thousand year door first in the same way i felt spoiled playing saints row 1 after having ventured through its sequel in which every single concept was built upon to soaring heights, because that's exactly what's going on here. paper mario 64 lays out strong concepts: a battle system that, despite being turn based, feels very involved and greatly rewards strategy just as much as it does reaction time and timing. an aesthetic that celebrates simple, cel shaded art displayed on various dioramas atop dioramas. writing that isn't afraid to get cheekier than mario ever has before.

but all of these named concepts are half baked, its sequel completely forcing paper mario 64 into its shadow given its sequel's focus on mastering that combat, mastering those dioramas, mastering that cheek factor. let's examine each point closely.

paper mario's gameplay is simple but effective. you've got your health, a pool of special action points, some items masquerading as stars, and then the combat itself which exemplifies small numbers... 0's, 1's, 2's, and so forth, thank god. time your actions and you'll deal more damage, time your blocks and you'll lower the consequences. but it isn't the most rewarding: badges are gimped at the paltry 30 point cap, limiting your toolset, and that toolset itself is a little ridiculous when some badges are retired by "improved" versions of themselves (compare charges and power smashes/jumps) and others being just point hogs (why in fuck is a 20% chance to dodge a whopping 10 points total? that's a THIRD of your entire badges!). and of course, there's no way to fully negate damage with perfect, precise timing--a very, very satisfying improvement made in ttyd.

paper mario's locations and locales are... just alright. they follow the "mario format" so to speak: grasslands, desert, forest, jungle, ice world--but not completely. the grasslands and desert are ho hum, but that named forest is actually a pitch black one with twists and turns that leads to a haunted mansion which leads to a dried up gulch which leads to a stealth mission within a large manor.... and that's pretty incredible. there's also a miniature world mario visits, which conceptually is cool, but in action turns out to be a backtracking hell (something ttyd did not learn from, unfortunately). but beyond these two, the locales mario visits end up being about as bog-standard as they come (minus a murder mystery...). they're by no means boring, but they're foundation laying, and what is built upon them in ttyd is....

anyway, the writing. i don't really know what's going on here. there are moments where it's hard to hold back laughter at just the absurdity of a moment, such as a flower pointing out her assaulting miscreants and choosing to randomly include a passer-byer with comical timing, but then there's also a diary kept by your brother where most of the entries lack any sort of punch at all, and you wonder why they even bothered. who's at fault here? the japanese devs? the american localizers? it's strange how half of paper mario 64 can make you smile and the other half can leave you with a straight face. your partners also get it the worst, here--they have nearly zero personality aside from their introductions. you can sort of tell as you play through that the writers get more into the groove and start handing out unique lines, but it's a little late on the delivery. of course, not to worry... ttyd doubles down on it and spit-shines the writing into absurd heights.

while i've spent the entire review denigrating the experience and offering its sequel as a worthier play, by no means would i ever suggest anyone skip such an interesting first entry in the paper mario series. it's definitely good! it's very good! but the shadow it lives in is massive, and perhaps paper mario 64's worth playing if only to see what improvement from game to sequel can truly be.

... oh, but that shouldn't be the last note to leave on, actually. i know what you want to read: what did paper mario 64 do BETTER than ttyd? and actually, a few things. there isn't a single chapter in the sequel better paced than pm64's island chapter. the reoccurring rival of an egg shelled turtle is enormously endearing and his absence in ttyd is missed. the binary art is also very endearing, although the flash 8 presentation of ttyd is by no means bad, either--just different. the soundtrack, helmed by koji kondo, is phenomenal of course, although ttyd's is no slouch, either. and i absolutely adore those fanmail letters mario can receive, complete with original art and everything--such a concept is sorely missed in paper's sequel.

but, ah... yeah. that's it. it's a great game, and then you play ttyd, and suddenly it becomes demoted to "pretty good". this is by no means a bad thing--i thought about this earlier with artists who create landmark albums despite having previous, great entries. said landmarks do not delete the existence of what came before and, in fact, it's worth checking out to every fan of the artist to explore the discography beforehand... because it preps the appetite for a feast not too soon after.

"if you can't slam with the best, jam with the rest"

there's a million words i could write about the million b-balls dribbled dunked and slam jammed throughout the brief 4-6 hour adventure of barkley and his crew of basketball renegades but the simplest i can write is this: if you have an absurd concept, you need to see it through. riding off the name alone a la kanye quest is a surefire way to make an ass of your lazy self. barkley, shut up and jam: gaiden goes all the way, and it does so with a level of ambition in its writing that shines past its asset rips, and does so with gameplay where diabetes is a status effect, and does so with humor so deadly funny, barkley's practically a litmus test for weeding out those who have a charred black heart and those who don't.

in a world where great stories are a rarity, barkley gaiden will stand the test of time. because they went all the way.

all the way.

i'm trying to think of when exactly i heel-turned on the pokemon series... i cut my teeth on third and fourth gen, returning back in time for gamefreak's arrival onto the 3ds with x and y, and the cracks certainly showed then, but nothing could have been more damning than the release of omega ruby/alpha sapphire, its absence of the beloved frontier explained away in an interview citing "well, who the hell finishes these games anyway?" and that sort of blew my mind, hearing a game director outright handwave inattention to the delivery of their own product with "oh, who cares?"

inattention... is certainly one word that comes to mind when playing pokemon legends arceus. the entire game feels cobbled together from breath of the wild's sloppy seconds, some mmo styled fetch quests and tasks, and youtube videos of pikachu running through an unreal engine wheat field, comments repeating one another with "THIS is the game eight year old me dreamed of playing!"

well, dream bigger.

here's the gameplay: you, the player, enter a map from rust with unloaded textures. in this ugly mess of morrowind bump mapping, you run around and collect resources. of the many things you can make with them, a pokeball is one, and that is how you'll build your team. once you've lobbed enough of the things at unsuspecting wildlife (or suspecting because you ran full steam ahead and threw the damn things like mad), your new goal is to train the team and fill out the pokedex... in addition to completing story beats, of course.

but let's talk pokedex. capture a 'mon and move on, right? wrong. capture 5 of that mon. kill 7. see it use 'ember' four times, and so forth. you do this for every single pokemon, these series of menial tasks designed to give players SOMETHING to keep them in their far cry 2 usermaps long enough so that they don't run through the game too quick. and you have to do this, by the way--the pokedex acts as gym badges do in the mainlines, each badge ("rank") allowing you to use higher leveled pokemon. don't give a shit about screwing around with budews and geodudes? well you better, and you better do it often lest you lose control of your own pokemon.

how about the battles? it's funny--i feel like the initial trailers made combat seem more involved than it really is, which is... your standard turn based affair, really. there's some reworked 'speed' stuff going on, but it's genuinely whatever you're used to from the mainlines with the strange addition of being able to walk around and harass the poor beast you're fighting (or, rarely, its trainer). it's fine, too--don't mess with what works. it's actually fantastic how smooth the transition is in and out of battle, too, a player in legends being able to cut through five starly in the same amount of time a bdsp player might take with just one. this begs a question, though: why no multiplayer? huh? it's the same battle system as anything else, so what's the excuse? why can't i go fight my friends with the shiny zubat i nabbed? gamefreak can't handle seeing me run around in an arena crouching really fast in front of the opponent?

let's get back to the map, again, where all these battles take place. there's not much going on in them. the moment you exit the city hub's gates and find yourself with newfound freedom (after an hour of excruciating tutorial), you see.... virtually nothing of interest. there are some poorly rendered trees out in front, and some... rocks to the left. some grass. there's mountains in the distance, but don't be deceived--this isn't an open world game. you aren't climbing that mountain. you're certainly welcome to piddle about around them, though, the only 'reward' for exploration ever being just finding large pokemon every so often (at turkey leg dangling higher levels, too). for all the ideas nipped from botw, creating intrigue in landscape design isn't one of them. it's just your very, very painfully average set of bump maps with repeating water textures, repeating dirt textures, repeating rock textures--

it's an ugly fucking game, is what i'm trying to get at.

"graphics don't matter!" graphics matter. they aren't the end all be all, but a book in light grey print on pages sopped with coffee certainly presents a more unenjoyable reading session than you'd like. it's questionable why the game is in this state at all, barely steps past the original alpha trailers. this is the part where i must iterate and reiterate: pokemon is THE most profitable media property in the world, eclipsing genuinely anything you or i can think of. gamefreak and the pokemon company bring in over 170 million dollars annually--so where the fuck has it all gone?

well, i can make a guess: straight into exec's pockets. these games hardly matter when the pokemon company's biggest source of income stems from merchandise of all things, so here's the position pokemon legends found itself in at gamefreak: the studio wanted to make a nintendo-hire-this-man type game, they were told "sure, and you'll do it in two years!" to which someone probably complained, asking why so little time, how they'd have to dramatically cut down the scope and intent, to which they were probably told "so?" among "it'll sell regardless" and maybe even "no one finishes these damn things anyway."

and that's where gamefreak found themselves, having to create a scope actually manageable. it has its good little bits that the team knew they needed to get right, like going in and out of pokemon battles, qol changes making managing a team easier than ever (choose when they level? choose their names after? hell yeah), and even the brief interest of just hearing a faint, familiar pokemon cry quite near you... but it all takes place in these ugly, lifeless worlds sorely lacking trainers, sorely lacking cities and towns and settlements at all, sorely lacking actual level design and creativity and care.

so maybe it isn't inattention. in all honesty, gamefreak probably did the best they could given the time they had and the ideas they wanted to work with, and they knew the shit that was bad... was bad. the end result is a barely fun gameplay loop with tried and true designs smothered in mediocrity, in fetch quests and genshin tasks, in a lack of art style and cohesion, in sandboxes that fail to justify themselves, in a story that i wanted to spend a paragraph writing about but what the fuck ever, it's a pokemon story, that shit was always going to be bad.

let me wrap this review up by describing the (spoiler free) circumstances leading up to deciding i'd had enough. i did my fair bit of exploring and leveling up, and it got very old very quick, so i plowed ahead with the story and ended up at a boss fight with baby's first dark souls mechanics on display--one i ended without even using a pokemon. this granted me access to a new area, and it was there that i found the same ugly level design but with 50% more brown. i hightailed it to a ruin (which was a large, square, empty box) and met a character who hated my guts. i found three bandits after a hyped up cutscene all to just face one level 23 pokemon, and then i returned to the ruin character who now suddenly loved me as a result, her character arc completed in the span of 5 minutes, and i then realized that if i wasn't playing any longer for the exploration, and i wasn't playing for the gameplay, and now i didn't even care enough to play for the story... then there just wasn't any reason to play a minute more.

gamefreak could've done better--even if you end up playing and loving legends, you may still find yourself agreeing with that sentiment. but they won't do better, and they won't have to when these games sell the incredible gangbusters amounts that they do. the pokemon company knows this, and that's why gamefreak's never going to get the dev time they actually desperately need. so long as half baked $60 early access crap like this is peddled out and sold in the millions, nothing will ever change. in other words...

should you buy pokemon legends, you aren't supporting a brave new direction to take the series. you're supporting a grindhouse dev studio forced into mediocrity, and that's the direction they've gone for the past decade, and it'll be the same till they or this series dies. just don't forget an arceus plushie on your way out.

when it comes to failing in a video game and trying, trying again, it's easy for me to reach for the quickload key to avoid repeating already made progress. anything less feels like a head against the wall, a repetition so repetitive i'd rather repeat uninstalling the game. over-exaggerating obviously, but it's easy to crutch saves to keep the flow going, and this is a reason why rougelites and like--even prey's mooncrash--are so fearsome to me. this is also a reason why deathloop initially put me off, a full fledged project built off said prey dlc. no quicksaves, no quickloading, and you're going to see these levels a whole, whole lot...

and it works brilliant.

deathloop offers you four distinct playgrounds, each filled with npcs set to schedules and routines for you to observe and plan around. and when you disturb them? you can't go back on your word, so you either take a stand and empty some clips or bail and haul ass to the complete other side of the map. it can feel frustrating entering unfamiliar territory and constantly getting caught by surprise... just as much as it can feel rewarding to weave through learned territory to the degree it becomes colt's proving ground.

colt's the main character by the way, and he and primary antagonist julianna spend much of the game bickering across the radio and trying to kill or escape one another during gameplay. players can control julianna, by the way, in a form of dark souls-esque invasions less about dueling (and taking advantage of inexperienced players) and more about cat-and-mousing (and taking advantage of inexperienced players). the feeling is intoxicating for a well played arkane player. with the dishonoreds, thiefs, and deus exes under my belt, i take a lot of pride in the ways i stalk unsuspecting players, distracting them and rerouting them and waiting on them until suddenly my blade's in their back. i also take my fair slice of humble pie when a julianna invades my own world and drops every peg in my leg... three times, too.

right, you get three lives in a loop, and it allows for a fine sweet spot of allowing for experiments and punishing strings of one too many failed. and you'll want to experiment: colt's got a lot of tools ripped from arkane's previous work in addition to some fun new ones, and there's a lot of ways to traverse levels through combat, stealth, and somewhere inbetween. it's not perfect, though... ai is at a bizarre level of simple where you can get away with a lot more than you think just as much as you can suddenly have the entire half of the map zeroed in on your location because you stepped on a fucking rock wrong. and when you see enemies, you're going to want to mark them: this works half the time, and every mis-click or mis-mark will... get rid of the ones you actually got successfully marked. yeah, you'll want a sniper, and don't even try doing this shit through a fucking window for whatever reason.

but you'll keep fucking pushing through it, and not just because it's fun... you want to know what's going down with the fucking story. also, the fucking story sucks. deathloop features a cast of just 9 fucking characters and every single one of them fucking sucks. dialogue is fucking wretched. these characters fucking talk like they're trying to out-quip or out-annoy each fucking other, and the personalities themselves of the fucking targets could not be any fucking duller. i'm having a tough time caring about the fucking drugged out painter who slurs words or the fucking party owner who sounds like a prissy yuppie, and it's a fucking shame because it could be so much fucking cooler than it fucking is. also, i wish they fucking swore more if i'm fucking honest because i love when characters fucking swear over and over and over and fucking over and fucking over and fucking over like they're a fucking sixth grader let fucking loose onto the fucking internet with un-fucking-supervised fucking access. goddamn.

sorry had to get that out of my system--the dialogue really is wretched and the ending, in classic arkane fashion, won't deliver on anything either because of course it won't, it's a classic arkane game. these fools know how to create masterclasses in game design and generate incredible intrigue in their narratives only to fumble the fucking ball legitimately every single time. with how fast and done these games' endings always are, arkane's next project may as well have the player just walk up to a button that says "PRESS HERE TO END GAMEPLAY AND ROLL CREDITS".

and while all that's unfortunate on the writing end, it's not something i expect out of an arkane experience: i look for damned good imsim shenanigans and gameplay that rewards planning and experimentation. deathloop is damned good imsim shenanigans, and deathloop is gameplay that rewards planning, experimentation, trial and error and successes and failures and wins and losses and personal, weighty progress. it's not about the destination even if that certainly docks it a few points: deathloop is about tools and rules, and how you break them from loop to loop to loop. and it's damned fun. or fucking fun. fuck.

i'm still not over my copy of ghost trick being stolen by my ex. you seen how much these bad boys go for now on ebay? i bet she didn't even play it.

... anyway, ghost trick is one of those games that can best be described as "near perfect", or even outright "perfect" if you're a backloggd mutual of mine, apparently. and the game makes a solid argument for both: crisp animations, sharp art style, charming portraits, catchy bgm, captivating story, and a simple to understand gameplay system all combine to form one good ass goddamn video game. but there are little issues.

the prison segment trips up a lot of players. and, fair, it can be a leap to just assume you can do a certain maneuver (though a character beforehand lampshades the mechanic--sorry, i'm trying to tiptoe as carefully as i can to avoid spoiling). the fault in this part is a time wasting punishment for "losing", and that gets old. there's also a bit of the game where you obtain additional "powers" to use, but... they kind of freak me out, mentally. like, i'm barely holding myself together here working with the physics and know-how of just sissel himself, now i have to--oh man.

the story is just sublime, and character interactions are chock-full of soul and humor in just about every segment--except the main antagonist. he's so cartoonishly over-the-top, it's honestly grating given how interesting everyone is around him. there are better ways to establish an evil presence than maniacal saturday morning villainy. also, there are a few minor story beats that happen throughout that are.... very convenient, or sometimes completely unexplained (seriously, what is up with being called out? what was going on there? again, spoilers...)

but this isn't a 2 star review. it's 4.5, and that's because the complaints i've offered are minor. ghost trick grabs hold of you from the start with its intoxicating atmosphere and unique gameplay loop, and it just won't let go--not until you've discovered the phantom truth. of the detective. of the phantom detective. using ghost tricks. on the DS. unless you're my ex.

well first off, and this one's on me, i made the mistake of stopping and resuming months in-between with an inventory full of items i had no idea what on earth to do with. how many of these keys have i already used? the game certainly wasn't going to tell me. after stumbling around aimlessly for 5 minutes i decided to just throw in the towel and go ahead and write out the thoughts that created the months long gap in the first place.

i do not understand resident evil 2 whatsoever. it seems to be a game about making very little sound, given the presence of enemies drawn towards loudness and the domino effect of one loud disruption awakening several enemies around. so the goal is to not shoot your gun, basically. okay, and i got through the west wing not doing so at all, bobbing and weaving inbetween these undead assholes in narrow corridors and taking a few punches along the way. but hey, no big deal, i've got a ton of ammo now. like, a ton ton ammo. should i even have this much? well, why would i spend even a single bullet if it means causing the aforementioned dominos to fall and make things even harder on myself? but now i'm brought to an even bigger problem: why is the gun here at all if i'm incentivized not to shoot it? is this why gunless horror like amnesia exists?

i'm viewing resident evil 2 in the same lense as i view dishonored, and in that latter game, you have a bunch of crazy ass killing tools at your disposal while the game actively incentivizes you NOT to use them. sounds familiar, right? but the difference between this and re2 is that it's still fun to sneaky sneaky stealth rat your way around guard patrols and navigate levels, while in this game it's excruciating to fumble around tight hallways and screw around with this shephard simulator. that's actually exactly how i felt when circling the shotgun room--leading sheep. and i bet that, in the same way dishonored's stealth appeals to me, re2's sheep herding appeals to others.

but again, not to me. i'll stick with re4.

this game is awesome if your fetishes include unreal stock assets, enemies with sight ranges of two inches from their head, middle fingers to z-targeting, unresponsive health bars, or incomprehensible dialogue and story telling. i think i'm the only player who has ever beaten the first part and i say that with confidence because who else on god's earth has the patience to get through the first chapter. also, there's a mode where you can drive a car with all of its parts missing save for the driver seat around a foggy racetrack. the first best thing about clockwork pussy is its title, and the second best thing is that the writer tried very, very hard.

kirby's adorable and so is much, much, much of the game's art and design. it's jaw dropping, even, how much this company squeezed out of the nes to produce many of the intricate texture tricks on screen. it also explains why it runs like shit, kirby lagging behind and getting his little pink ass beaten over and over by circumstances well out of your control. but it's also a very simple, easy game, so it's really no spilled milk to take a few cuts. you'll finish the game before you know it, and it'll have been a pleasant little journey.

i was talking with a friend the other day about progression systems in games--we reached a similar conclusion in that a game having a poor progression system is, well, worse than having none at all. i don't think i'm too zoomerpilled to always need some digital goodies to chase after, and i'm not against having something to work toward. but on that note... what in god's name are halo infinite's unlocks? color schemes? emblems? are you serious? we're locking being a purple and white spartan behind a paywall now? worse, the emblem customization has somehow regressed since the days of reach, players limited to only handfuls of combinations. why?

but okay, okay, fine, let's lock off colors and cartoon insignias. so i can work towards the specific stuff i want, right? if i want to be purple and white, i just save up enough exp to earn it? nope, lol, it's a linear progression system. you earn unlocks one ugly piece of armor at a time, the things you actually want stretched so far off into the horizon you could point straight up and see it on the other side of the halo ring. in halo reach, the grind felt rough, but you could at least outright save up for what you wanted and eventually deck out your spartan exactly how you wanted them to look. instead, this sort of backwards-ass system means players are just wearing whatever they've recently unlocked because they want you to know that they're level 69 every time they enter the spectator camera for t-bagging.

well, whatever. i can grind out some exp. i just need to play well, bag some kills, claim some flags, maybe take a double and triple kill here or there, yeah? nope. 343i certainly did take inspiration from reach in the case of its daily and weekly challenges, except they took it a step further and decided those would be the only way to actually progress. spend a game sitting pretty at the top of the leaderboards because you successfully kept yourself alive for most of the match, fending off enemies and working towards objectives, and you're rewarded with 0 exp because you didn't get 3 kills with the covenant nerf rifle or you didn't do 5 push ups or whatever horseshit 343i has in rotation. and i want to ask why this system exists, but why bother: it's designed so that player skill isn't rewarded and random happenstance is. you don't want your players feeling bad for not being good, after all, so let's punish absolutely everyone and keep the rewards nice and braindead.

let's go back to the original point. why is a bad progression system worse than no system at all? because with no system, you've got the game and nothing else. you dress up your guy the way you want, hop in with your friends, and play some damn halo. when you've got a bad system, you have a constant ugly reminder in your face that you're 100000 points away from unlocking a carpal tunnel wrist brace or hello kitty bandaids and all you gotta do is trim your nuts with the energy sword 7 times!!! horrible. i want to make my character look how i like, not sit here with the default goon set punished because i want to use more than two colors for my guy.

there's other annoying aspects to halo infinite's multiplayer, like how i can group up with friends and join a big team game only for the match to stick me in a squad with three stooges i don't even know. what the hell is up with that? why would you ever design a squad system like that? and the fucking ai voice, oh my god. it doesn't matter which shrill one you pick, they all sound like the sloppiest marvel movie seconds possible written by actual honest to god dunces. want to mute it? sure, but you have to mute the game announcer too in the same breath, and HE actually has useful information to tell you that isn't "OWWWWOE YOU GOTTTT THE LASER PISTOL SPARTAN! CAREFUL YOU DON'T SMOKE YOUR NUTS WITH THESE HHOHOHOHOWAAHAHHWA!"

jesus.

just about anything your cruel, wicked hands can make using funny, rudimentary drawing tools is available here tightened together with both a charming artstyle and ost (when it isn't complete dead silence, sfx included). apparently ghibli had a hand in this and it shows with the magical design of the game's city hub and its simple but cute cast of citizens. the dialogue they spit out's bone dry unfortunately, but i'm figuring this is more of a case of cleaned up we-don't-give-a-shit machine translation than it is the japanese dev's fault.

anyway you make hideous or cute or both rock-paper-scissor fighting pokemon and battle in of two arenas for four hours--i didn't venture past that much. and it's not as if the gameplay loop isn't funny, but it's less so when grinding is inevitable and the sameyness dulls your excitement. the voice actors sound about as excited as the story writer

but frankly for those four hours, i had a ton of fun. victor frankensteining red limbs and blue teeth and calling it "DENTIST" is fun, and seeing him and an among us melon clobber a bunny earns way too much a smile. it's just i could sense the writing wasn't going to get any better, the location wasn't going to change any time soon, the educated guessing games were running together, and a glitch crippled "DETER" the well dressed corn

https://imgur.com/a/DBdgBGk

thank fuck i didnt pay money for this. figured fallout 76 could be fun with friends given that for all the things fallout 4 got wrong, shooting wasn't one of them. but you and your pals pop out of a vault ready for an adventure and just end up punching low level bugs and wall-e's scurrying around that die in less than two hits for an hour or so until you both get bored of wandering around what doesn't look like a post apocalypse and get off to do something else. oh, we saw a couple of players too but couldn't do anything about it because of the game's babyproofing pacifist mode forced onto low level players. i gave the intro cutscene a shot and some npc dialogue but then i was reminded no one at bethesda knows how to write anything that doesn't sound like if every black isle studio employee collectively suffered brain eating diseases. my favorite part of the game was having a point shop and currency shoved in my face before i even found the new game button, and if not that then the fact that there's like 5 different types of bullshit to buy on the steam page