it's fine. like with all bethesda they can't iterate in a satisfying way - something has to be lost, something has to be made worse, or simplified or flattened.

the thousands of worlds promise is boring, it's basically the same procgen shit from no man's sky. the hand-placed stuff is a bit more interesting.

the levelling system is a hybrid of fallout and elder scrolls but a lot of things that you kinda need are locked behind buying a skill so it takes forever to feel like you have a functioning character.

melee also feels underwhelming. i started as a ronin and regreetted it as stealth sucks and there's no way to upgrade melee weapons, only ranged - a genuine step back from fallout 4.

the upgrade system also feels worse than fo4. you can't use everything around as mats like in fo4, just very specific items that..well, you need to engage with the shitty procgen content for.

the worldbuilding and lore were alright. nothing terribly original or mindblowing. the colony wars sounded more interesting, and the cultural differences between the two major governments are neat. the house of va'ruun sounds cool but you basically get nothing from them aside from uncommon enemies and a couple quests involving them.

i did all the questlines that weren't the pirates or the main quests. they give you some good stuff - the rangers give you a free ship, which is the most useful reward unless you want an apartment.

there's also a lot of poorly explained mechanics. i didnt understand how shipbuilding works for the longest time because it doesn't explain licenses or how to figure out how many landing struts you need etc etc etc

it isnt bad but it isnt amazing. it's not a must-play unless you're a big bethesdahead or a fan of massive procgen stuff

I reached the second-to-last boss and tapped out due to multiple things about it that pissed me off.

I found the beginning of the game to be frustrating. Once I had all three weapons unlocked and their respective traversal mechanics set I found myself enjoying it more.

There were still a lot of things I hated or found irritating - like its obsession with locking you in rooms to fight waves of enemies. Or how the first three main story bosses are bizarrely inconsistent in difficulty - the skellieman in the sand area I found annoying, the three phase fight in another area I loathed every second of, and then the rapier lady was a complete joke.

I also got annoyed at having 32/33 cherubs and not having any idea which one it was and I had zero desire to run through a checklist to figure out which one.

The final boss I fought I thought was just dreadful. An unskippable dialogue sequence every time you fight him followed by a first phase that might as well not exist for how boring and unchallenging it is. Another long, unskippable dialogue sequence followed by a boss fight that is so unlike the rest of the game's difficulty and pacing that you barely have time to punish or react to anything. He becomes incredibly tanky and outputs so much damage that it feels like a slog - and worse because if you fuck up and die it's back to phase 1.

If he did slightly less damage, had slightly less health, and more importantly, didn't waste my goddamn time with unskippable bullshit I might have pushed thru to the end but I ultimately decided 15 hours was good enough and I'd gotten my fill.

edit: also why can I only choose between "bar" and "numbers" for damage feedback but not both at the same time???

Great aesthetics and music tho. Probably my favorite part.

Sometimes I want a fast food kinda open world game, and Spider-Man lucks out by having incredibly fun traversal and a good story.

The biggest weakness of the game is its overreliance on Ubisoft-tier collectible trash. I liked the backpacks, I liked most of the science stations, hell I even didn't mind the pigeon hunt or their take on the Ubi tower.

But once Taskmaster showed up and vomited really dull drone, bomb, and stealth challenges onto the map and I realzied I'd have to dredge thru those to fight him again... when they added a third and fourth set of bases... when they added dozens more crimes... I gave up on the idea of collectibles.

The combat is a fine spin on the Arkham formula but you only have a dodge to rely on instead of counters. The various gadgets are all pretty useful in one way or another.

The boss fights are all decidedly "eh". There's no real interesting mechanics or spin on things, you just web em up or stun em with a throwable. I will give it props for daring to have a Rhino boss fight that isn't "make him run into a wall lmao".

Some of the weaker missions were the much discussed and maligned MJ and Miles missions. They aren't terrible but they aren't good either. The second-to-last MJ level where you can call in Spidey to take out enemies in your path was the most interesting and fun because , y'know, they actually had neat marriage of story and mechanics as opposed to "do the thing the game requires or go back a checkpoint".

The story was pretty good. The Peter/Otto relationship was well crafted. I liked that Mr Negative was the baddie for most of it as I always appreciate when they use some newer or lesser known guys (tho looking at his wiki article the game version is waaaaaay more interesting and pathos-infused). And one of the final scenes got me choked up

I'm down for the sequel tho I'm not getting it anywhere close to launch as 20 hours was more than enough times in the spidey-mines for me

In a year jam-packed with kamige - Resident Evil 4 Remake, Baldur's Gate 3 to name a couple - I think this one took the GOTY trophy for me.

A decade after the last entry in the series, a decade mostly spent refining, expanding, and sometimes narrowing the Souls formula, FROM proves they haven't lost their touch with big ol' robot game.

One major point that should be made if you're thinking about playing it but havent is that it has a similar progression to Nier, specifically that you play the game once, play the same story with a few changes and a different endgame again, and then a third time with a lot of changes. The story is not complete beating it once, there will be a lot of hanging threads that are only resolved in future playthroughs.

The time invested isn't that bad either - the 41 hour count I have is for all 3 playthrus + fucking around with paints and decals + grinding missions for some of the collectables I couldn't easily find. The first playthru was at the 24 hour mark, and I was sub-40 at the final mission of the final playthru.

They trimmed down part variety - tons of bipedal legs, a handful of reverse joints, a couple tetrapods, and a couple tank treads - but everything feels more useful and like it has a purpose. Some of the weapons get redundant (there is virtually no reason to use any of the shotguns that isn't the Zimmerman) but they actually made melee good. But you can't dual wield melee (tho I get it, it would 100% trivialize the game).

It also might have the worst falloff of difficulty in any FROM game. For a while you'll be switching your build a lot to match the mission. And then you'll hit on a combination that's basically perfect and it'll take you till the finale of NG++. This then goes away if you want to do the S-Rank grind but not everyone will.

The score isn't my favorite in the series - I think Verdict Day still holds a very special place in my heart - but the muted synths have a very nice analog/Carpenter-esque feel that I adore. The final boss themes for routes A & B are great, 'Contact With You' might be one of my favorite AC tracks ever now, and a certain endgame boss theme has the Hoshino-san vocals everyone loves.

I found the story engaging - albeit I had it pegged at the end of chapter 1 and was basically being proven right again and again. I think the "true"/final ending was a bit underwhelming but I think I'd need some lore writeups to understand it. "Liberator of Rubicon" was probably my favorite of the the three endings just for all the great climaxes and the final boss.

AC6 also has what might be my favorite gimmick fight in a FROM game and it clears just for the sound design alone.

Speaking of bosses they're all decently challenging at first but again - hit that build right and they can barely do anything. The infamous Balteus I nearly managed to chain-stagger into a one-cycle kill.

This is the main problem I have with the game: the FCS stagger system kind of removes a lot of thought from builds and prioritizes going as unga as possible. You don't need tactics when you can stun most bosses instantly.

My final verdict is pilebunker go boom and make the robots fly real good

I was a little skeptical of this but decided to give it a shot anyway. I ended up enjoying it a lot.

It has some problems. The translation is very awkward, as with every Chinese developed game I've played (but I guess not every company can afford a Dylan Cheung). The music is serviceable but lacking personality (in a fucking Blazblue game!!!! gimme Daisuke's vision!!!!). The Blazblue parts seem glued onto a different cyberpunk game. The original characters speak in Chinese dialects but the Blazblue characters seem to be using recycled clips from the fighting games so they're in Japanese.

What I do like? A lot of cool synergies in combat, neat enemy and boss designs, each character feels mechanically distinct and fun (except Ragna, he feels pretty bad imo).

Even then there's some problems. Some of the bosses are ass - specifically the Floating Eye. He commits the cardinal sin of wasting your time for 95% of the boss fight by being invincible while you wait for enemies to spawn to kill to wait for enemies to spawn to wait for him to come down and let you take a 1/3rd of his health off.

There also isn't a lot of Blazblue in the bosses. It's just Arakune as a possible midboss or Susanoo as the final boss.

The levels have a real problem with randomization too. I swear my last three or four runs started with the area that gives you that unfun Eye boss. You also see the same rooms quite often but the gameplay is fun enough to ignore that.

the style of the game - art and its moody story - help carry it but i found certain elements of the gameplay to just suuuck.

the gameplay loop is simple: enter a stage, find the enemy encounters. these encounters are a short series of waves. you have a melee attack, a dodge, a jump, and three specials that empty a special meter - a harpoon toss, a buff to your attacks, or if it's full you summon your wolf companion to instakill enemies. enemies are stunned when you empty their health bar and you must have all enemies in a wave stunned to kill them.

the other loops are boss fights. there are godbeasts, which you fight on the back of your wolf. then there's the vampires on the council you're looking to kill.

the godbeasts are uniformly miserable to fight. i gave up on the game during one of these fights - a giant owl that flies around and you can only really hit him when he swoops dwon to attack but his attack's hitbox is huge and lingers far too long so you either end up trading or not hitting him at all. you can't jump or dodge or do literally anything on the wolf aside from run and attack.

the vampire boss fights are fine. they follow the same wave structure as the normal fights, tho confusingly they have two healthbars at once. i can't explain this further because its just fuckin weird idk.

with the low cost of entry i'd say to give it a shot, you may vibe with it more than i did

the gameplay is a bit middling but it is fun to combine skills from the various guardians to do combo.

the unlocks were weirdly spaced, i had everything perk and ability-wise done before the last four or five chapters, and most of the costumes were in those last four or five chapters.

the writing is the highlight here. the comedy works well, the emotional beats hit well. even the obligatory gag about the original comic design being silly works because it was more than just "lmao didnt it suck before??"

i did have a few odd bugs (on steam deck) - drax's combat barks would randomly be 5x the volume of anything else, it couldn't pick up the left stick in gameplay (but could in menu) and i had to reset a checkpoint. my team got stuck in a monster closet and wouldn't spawn outside, had to reset.

this game bombing is sad because if they'd ironed out the combat (maybe made the other guardians playable?) a followup woulda been rad

As a lower budget stab at the Bethesda subgnere of RPG, it ain't bad.

However, it's immensely flawed.

The writing isn't consistent. The corporations veer between typical evil and staggering, belief-shattering incompetence. A character is introduced before the final dungeon and then the next time you meet them, the game acts as tho there's been this long-running rivalry.

The companions are overall fine but again the writing is inconsistent. Some have a recruitment and second personal quest. Others have two personal quests. Some have personal quests. One just has a recruitment quest.

The vicar's personal quest had an incredibly flaccid ending & it's just like,,, all this work for that?

The combat is...there. The shooting works and feels fine. Melee lmao.

Perks suck, flaws too. There's no real reason to skip a flaw because the negative effects are just -1 in three stats that don't matter overall. Perks are only boosts to a stat or skill or very rarely something interesting. One perk grants 25% HP back each kill - this is broken. It deletes the challenge in 99% of the game. Another perk causes an explosion when you get a headshot kill. Not useful.

The holo-disguise is a neat idea but it doesn't bother using it much until the end where you use it like 4 times in a row.

The ending rushes things a lot and then adds an extra twist that...doesn't mean or do anything aside from adding a sequel hook.

But i enjoyed the 13ish hours it took to beat (the 16h time is from reloading a save after fucking up really bad and having to redo progress). It's probably the most stable Obsidian game I've played and that's kinda admirable idk

Whatever deal with the devil Capcom's made to pump out amazing games? I hope it never ends. Like everyone else I thought a remake was pointless but damn was I wrong.

My only complaints are
A) Salazar was a shitty boss
B) fuck that last room in the Island with the Iron Maiden and the timed door eat a dick level designers

I've tried several times to play SotN but I've always bounced off pretty early on - round abouts the first Alucard boss. This time it clicked and I realized this game is basically baby mode until the inverted castle.

There's a lot to love - the hammy voice acting (anyone who says its bad doesn't know what they're talking about tbqh), the great Michiru Yamane score, the aesthetics... The bosses are all pretty mid however. They're all easily facetanked and the Death boss fight might be the most bitch he's ever been. Garamoth was the only exception - until I went back to the Reverse Entrance and picked up the beryl circlet & was functionally invincible.

Some of the upgrades felt pointless - wolf especially, I don't think he's ever used outside of two or three puzzles; others feel like they come too late to matter (poison mist); and the familiars all felt pretty interchangable aside from the fairy.

Since it's the first of the IGAvania style there are some flaws that get ironed out in later entries - the leveling feels a bit wonkier, the weapon selection is pretty nothing in comparison (almost all the actual weapons that aren't single-use are swords, there's a couple knuckle dusters and some nunchaku but that's it)

The ending is so fucking good it honestly feels like the later games in the series cheapen it but thank god they're all pretty good lmao

I greatly enjoyed this. When my only real negatives are "I wish it was a bit less obvious about referencing its inspirations" and "the combat might be worse than Silent Hill 2's"...yeah it's good.

The apocalyptic atmosphere of certain scenes and the dreamlike storytelling add up to a great feel. Some of the little character moments made me sad for basically nameless androids. You'll basically always get me when you have a fella propped up against the wall dying telling you not to worry, they'll be up and at em soon.

The radio was a fun mechanic when it came up. Tying it to safe codes is a brilliant idea that feels more rewarding. I also missed the file that tells you the right frequencies for the safes too so it felt doubly rewarding when I found the right frequency - especially with the sword safe.

There's a lot to unpack with the narrative (and how its told) but I especially like the Monogatari-style text flashes of "This Space Intentionally Left Blank" and the occasional "TRAUMA COMPARTMENTALIZED" which are such good bits of world-building and atmosphere combining.

After playing thru RE2make, 3make, and Village before this I was surprised how much more punishing this one felt in comparison. Supplies felt more scarce, enemies felt like they did more damage, and worst of all the cutscenes weren't skippable so death was truly a horrifying concept.

7 shifting focus to hillbilly horror ala Hills Have Eyes, found footage, and adding a spicy bit of SAW murder traps is a fun shakeup. The plot about evil mold and shit is silly but idk it's Resident Evil. There's fun character moments and the stuff with Jack chasing thru the early game is panic-inducing most of the time. The fact the scene where he cuts your foot off and you reattach is missable is wild too.

I didn't like that there's a single coin you can't get if you don't turn around at the start of the first found footage segment. Fuck off with that man.

I also did the Chris DLC, Not A Hero. The quasi-Metroidvania setup is fun but a few things like the underbaked regenerator enemies and a lackluster final boss sucked.

You can definitely tell RE4make was weighing heavy on Capcom's mind. The rural European village setting, a recurring merchant character who upgrades your stable of guns, the three-way inventory split between gameplay items, key items, and treasure (some combinable at that), Mercenaries Mode... only thing missing is wacky melee moves.

The game is split between the titular village and what are essentially four dungeons, each with their own unique atmosphere and gameplay gimmicks (you could probably write a thinkpiece on how each one is a different horror game subgenre).

There's some mild sameness to the main bosses and the final boss wasn't that interesting or fun (lacked a lot of "they're hurt" tells I thought).

I has a weird feeling of being overloaded with supplies in the early game only for the midgame onwards to be very stingy.

The difficulty also wasn't bad. I mostly died a lot to one part in the reservoir that wasn't clear and the final boss.

Overall quite fun. Probably going to continue my RE trek when the next ones on my list are on sale...