A rhythm game specifically for musicians who play by ear, expecting you to hear a rhythm and/or melody and immediately repeat it back

It's very clearly a Fall Guys ripoff (the menus may as well be copy/pasted) with a little more WarioWare in the games, but I had a lovely time finally using my music degree for something 🎵🎶

Got 3rd overall the first time, then 2nd five matches in a row before finally winning.

Incredibly brief, yet padded with plenty of frustration. I've been helping my kids with a handful of licensed games recently, and Bluey's debut title unfortunately has more jank than Peppa Pig, PJ Masks, and Miraculous Ladybug all put together.

From a certain point of view, I respect the inclusion of 3D platforming elements that require precise jumps (hopping from rock to rock at the creek, or jumping towards the camera on the shelves in Bluey's room), but when my 3-year-old keeps passing me the controller because the game won't allow him to progress until he presses Y in a tiny pixel-perfect location, I start to wonder how much testing went into this.

The animations, VO, and setting obviously carry the experience, underneath what was licensed lies a bland and broken platformer containing 4 levels to replay and 5 hub world areas to explore. We had a much better time hunting for collectibles in the post-game (if you can even call it that) than we did in any scripted segments, but even then, some items seem to resist your attempts to collect them if you're the tiniest bit too close or too far.

The biggest issue we had is that the camera simply does not know what to do during co-op. The issue of how to handle distance between players is not unique to Bluey: The Videogame, but it's handled exceptionally poorly. In something like Gauntlet Legends, you can all run in different directions until the camera reaches a maximum zoom-out, leaving players to determine together which direction they'll travel in. In many Lego games, the screen will dynamically split, allowing two players to travel apart, then un-split the screen when they return together. But in Bluey, the camera picks one player seemingly at random to prioritize. It's not always P1, and it's not always whoever's closest to the middle of the screen, but the chosen player is granted agency, while any remaining players get auto-returned like a drone that's lost connection to the remote control. This becomes a huge problem when any obstacle lies between the returning character and the other player, as you cannot alter your course until you're within arm's length of your teammate. It's busted!

It's also got that frustrating audio thing that licensed games always seem to do, where the volume levels are all over the place, and when multiple characters speak at the same time, there's no reduction in gain, so the volume suddenly quadruples when the family shouts "Yeah!" together. WHY IS THIS SUCH A CONSISTENT ISSUE

Falling through clouds, untethered from new heights,
wind and brilliant song rush past my ears.
Oops - no paraglider yet, going down.

Falling again through a creature of ice;
sounds of Dragon Roost urge on joyful cheers.
Dungeons still missed and yet fun still abounds.

Falling fast now, island high in the clouds;
fire, ice, and lightning - three heads do appear;
arrows, eyeballs, one spring - I take his crown.

Falling one last time, falling, beneath
the ground.

A bearer sits in chains with branded face
marked as the Other - unbelonging.
Soon giants will clash, the earth shattering,
through time reforms into a more revered shape.

Complexity drawn from it's hiding place
by time again and by power dawning.
Scorched wings unfurl; bearer's strength gathering,
spread wide shows the true measure of its grace.

Voices and rivals maneuver fiercely
to flank, to best, and to be proven right;
angry and frustrated about the blight
that's ravaged this land which they hold dearly.

Despite best efforts to sway and dismiss,
bearer's power, his magic, still exists.

I love 2D Zelda so much and am very glad I finally got Citra to run this without my potato PC taking flight.

While this doesn't hit the highs of other 2D Zeldas for me, particularly in the dungeon area, the experience was wonderful. The painting gimmick is fantastic and very well done, and the item shop idea is a nice wrinkle in the Link to the Past formula. It was interesting to have the option of renting the items and the tension of having to rent them again if Link's dungeon delving went awry...until I realized that would never happen.

I don't play Zelda for the difficulty or anything, but Link Between Worlds has to be the easiest game in the franchise, and one of its core mechanics is based around the player dying, which just didn't mesh well with me. I only bought a few items to upgrade, and rented the rest because I did not die a single time in my entire playthrough. Again, I don't play these for the difficulty, but it did kind of bum me out that this mechanic was just not ever going to apply.

I do think, however, that at the same time this does qualify Link Between Worlds to be one of the most beginner friendly games in the franchise...however it also relies a bit on knowing the series to get the full experience out of it.

All in all though, this was a charming and fun game, and really scratched the 2D Zelda dungeon diving itch. The redone music is fantastic, and the dungeons fit their themes very well. I have to say, kicking that clown's ass was a pretty good time too.

A Play in Three Acts

ACT I

Setting: A Discord Server

Many People Over the Years: DC, you love Twin Peaks, you should play Alan Wake. It's inspired by Twin Peaks.

Me: Oh wow, sounds cool. I'll check it out. I liked Control but it didn't blow me away.

Many People: Just be aware that the gameplay/combat sucks.

Me: I don't care! How bad can it be? I love Twin Peaks! It has a diner in the opening segment! It's about a writer! How bad can it be?

ACT II

Setting: The First Several Hours of Alan Wake: Remastered

Me: Oh wow, I'm pretty sure my grandma can sprint longer than this guy. How did they go from Max Payne to this? Like...I know he's a writer but still..

Me: Doesn't matter! Hallucinations, fake Mrs. Tremond, a book mystery, a wife mystery! This is great! I'll just turn the game down to easy so I can get through the bad parts faster!

ACT III

Setting: Despair. A lone chair on stage while a disheveled man forces himself through a video game out of spite.

Me, quietly sobbing to my controller: please...make it stop. I never want to see a flashlight ever again.

The lights dim and go out leaving the stage in blackness.

Me, a low, trembling whisper: How did they go from Max Payne to this?

T H E E N D

Okay....finally. I am able to put thoughts on this after finishing, and yet I am to understand that I haven't actually finished - I need to hit NG+ and NG++ for that. I'll get to it at some point, I'm sure.

I really ended up enjoying this. The movement feels extremely awesome. Configuring my AC to look like a mid 1990s palette action figure complete with T-Rex decal and/or Solo Jazz color scheme is also awesome.

The OST is one of my absolute favorites in the FromSoft catalogue, especially the original version of Rough and Decent which mixes industrial techno and jazz and makes me want to get the fuck up and move.

The characters fighting for control, domination, liberation, and just understanding of Rubicon are also fantastic. I don't think the story quite lands as much as I'd like it to (some of the choices are incredibly grand and thought-provoking in theory, but ultimately end up on the "tell" rather than "show" spectrum of things, to use a cliché), but the VA work and just general personalities of all the characters are very memorable and touching.

Most of the combat is pretty fun and exciting. The art direction and visuals stand out, as well as the feedback from firing giant missiles or shoving a giant spike into enemies, and the frenetic pace conjures up a lot of adrenaline. Blasting shit and speeding around an arena was never more fun, and I felt completely in control of my AC at all times. That is definitely a triumph in itself.

I absolutely do not like the ACS system in its current state. It's an intriguing idea that is just not executed well, and most of my problems with the game stem from the quirks associated with the system. It throws off the balance of almost everything, and the game suffers as a result. The levels are incredibly easy, but bosses can be extremely tedious without a build focused on exploiting ACS. Yes, you can beat the entire game with nothing but punching. Yes, you can beat the entire game with just the intro AC. However, in my experience as a normal, average person, I experimented with some fun builds during the missions that were extremely easy, and then some of the bosses I just ran into a complete brick wall that I wasn't going to get over without swapping to an ACS build. Then I swapped to the build, and the boss died in 1-2 tries, and each win was about 3 minutes shorter than me trying to grind out fights with other weapons. The power of ACS exploitation is just that ridiculous. I think it would be much more meaningful to swap between different builds based on the scenario and bosses, but the current system means that a high impact build will always be the best, as the weapons that are good at building impact/ACS are also the weapons that get bonuses for damage while the opponent is stunned - there are no trade-offs.

This chasm between gameplay experiences holds Fires of Rubicon back from being truly amazing for me, as it's just hard for the game to get any footing when it constantly shuffles between push-over easy and punishingly frustrating. Everything else about Armored Core VI's presentation is phenomenal, but its wings have been clipped.

PAUSE BETWEEN NEW REVIEW AND OLD REVIEW BELOW


Record Scratch

Whoops. Pausing this review because I've gone back to the game after some encouragement. Enjoying it again and the Chapter 2/3 bosses I've fought have been MUCH more enjoyable than the Chapter 1 bosses.

Still not sure how I feel about the ACS system, as it feels like you either exploit it and dominate or skirt around it and struggle, but I'm having fun for now.

OLD REVIEW BELOW

Dropping this after beating Chapter 1 and feeling pretty bad about it, but that was about all I needed to realize this one just isn't for me.

The moment-to-moment gameplay bangs but the missions are extremely short and easy. Meanwhile, I did not have fun with any of the bosses I fought except for one that was basically a giant stage - that one was awesome - and I didn't mesh with the mission structure and its relevance on trying out new equipment.

The one thing I did absolutely enjoy were the arena fights. I honestly wish the bosses had been other AC pilots rather than big set-piece bosses.

Sorry, this Raven is going back to the nest.

Writing this up as I go into my final leg of Solo Nightmare, but I really was not expecting to like this game at all. However, I'd heard good things so I decided to try it.

For the first 20 minutes of the game, walking through "we have the Last of Us at home," I was sure I'd made a mistake. Then, I found a big-ass rock and was transported to a new world full of crazy things trying to kill me, and I was hooked.

It felt like a fascinating journey through a harsh alien planet. The worlds of Remnant II are amazing in both art design and lore. Seriously, each one of these worlds with the stories they tell could be their own game, and each one is infinitely better than the main story. The planets are full to the brim of secrets and things to discover, and Remnant II is one of the few games that truly makes most exploration absolutely worth it when it comes to the rewards.

Every secret has another ring, set of armor, an entirely new class, new weapon, etc., and it's all made meaningful through having just a massive amount of builds and ways to play the game. Some of these secrets are hidden pretty deep and can only be obtained through re-rolling worlds to get certain dungeons, or even re-rolling an entire campaign to get certain orders for the worlds. There's a ton to discover.

I think it does fall apart a bit when it comes to the RNG nature of finding things when you are looking for a specific item or placement, as it can require re-rolling many, many times, but overall I think the RNG part comes out actually on-top rather than a mark against the game. Which is rare, in my experience. The other issue is that the leveling system does actually somewhat encourage you to not level up your weapons to max, as the enemies will level up with you. That's a whole other can of worms, but suffice to say, I think it's a pretty big miss.

Still, I think these are relatively minor issues in the grand scheme of the game. The biggest knock would be the main quest and all of its c-tier MCU writing which seems so strangely divorced from the rest of the game's interests and storytelling. N'Erud has one of my favorite stories and world-building lore in any game, and yet that sits in the same game as one of the most generic and trope-ridden main quests I've seen.

I honestly just pretended the main quest does not exist, while roaming the isolating and harsh environments of the game's other worlds. Despite being marketed as a co-op game, Remnant II does evoke that broken world melancholy that souls is known for and that soulslikes often fail to capture. It's a beautiful game, and I was completely surprised by it.

I think a lot of people have that game from childhood. The one that we immersed ourselves in without really understanding it, stumbling around in the dark but still so enthralled that we weren’t ready to give up. We threw ourselves at the same things over and over again, weathering down the barrier between us and story, experience, and understanding, until only a sharp bond remained - one strong enough that after all this time, it still cleaves through years and cuts to the marrow of childhood fascination. That game for me is Baldur’s Gate.


Sitting in a sea of game materials - a pc game box designed like an ancient tome, a map of the sword coast, a manual that might as well have been written in a different language - I remember installing the game for the first time, and even that seemed like an epic adventure. It’s silly, but an installation that spanned over five discs and several hours was an event. I could not take my eyes away from the drawings on the screen while I sat and stared at the loading bar slowly journeying its way across the bottom of the screen.

I had always wanted to play Dungeons and Dragons, but there was no one to play with. My step-dad had told me stories of his campaigns, epic and funny stories of exploration and fighting grand battles. I remember one in particular was about a wizard who stopped an entire army in their tracks by stopping a catapult through simply holding up his hand and casting a spell. The boulder smashed against the wall of force that he had conjured, but to the opposing army, it just looked like this wizened old man smashed a boulder with the heel of his hand, so they fled. I wanted so badly to partake in stories like this, and Baldur’s Gate was my first chance.

With this wizard in my mind, I rolled up a Mage without understanding how the stats worked, and ventured forth from Candlekeep only to be killed almost instantly. I honestly can’t remember what I died to anymore, but I know that rather than being upset, I just kept making characters. I didn’t really understand the rules. I read the manual, but couldn’t quite figure out everything it was telling me, so I just put it aside and kept playing.

The Sword Coast had swallowed me up and I could not escape. Around every corner was a new adventure - an artist who just wanted to finish his final masterpiece, a troupe of silly monsters that offered me an autograph, a chance encounter with one of the heroes from a book series I loved, a cranky wizard in his tower, and more. I didn’t even care or know what was going on with the main story. I just kept playing because I wanted to experience more of the world and the characters within.

I had been offered freedom in a video game that I had not known at the time, and I think that freedom and richness still holds up today. It’s why I’ve kept playing these games now for over 25 years. Eventually, I did figure out the mechanics. I did learn the story beats. I did save the Sword Coast. There was no definitive moment, but rather just a gradual deepening of understanding over time, which I think is primarily what makes this series so special to me. My progress mirrored the protagonist. At level 1 leaving Candlekeep, they have no idea of what is going on. They are fragile and disoriented, but piece by piece they begin to understand and grow in strength, and by the end of it (and the saga at large) they are ready to take on any challenge thrown at them.

Baldur’s Gate was truly an amazing adventure for me, and remains that way after all this time. I think this is its biggest strength and triumph as a saga. It manages to weave together small vignettes of stories that are rich and interesting through a large overarching plot, allowing every moment to feel grounded and important while still servicing a grand narrative that leads from childishly fleeing in the night out of terror to challenging nations, powerful sorcerers, terrible dragons, and even gods themselves. Humanity and character expression remain the forefront of the writing in Baldur’s Gate regardless of the stakes, which makes these games timeless, and continues to make me fall in love all over again each time I play. I hear those first words, “Nestled atop the cliffs that rise from the Sword Coast, the citadel of Candlekeep," and I'm 10 years old again, ready to begin my adventure.

Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2 are my favorite games of all time, so when I saw the first trailer for Baldur’s Gate 3, I was beyond excited. I knew it was going to be a little different, as the story in the original games is pretty well wrapped up with nowhere to go narratively, but Black Isle had plans for a third entry (The Black Hound), so I figured things would be able to be worked out. I was also completely geeking out because I absolutely love Mind Flayers. They were terrifying in Baldur’s Gate 2, and there was a whole cut/unfinished subplot with a Mind Flayer colony in Athkatla that just brimmed with potential on how they could connect the dots here. One of my DND group’s favorite dungeons we ever ran was a giant library in the astral plane that had been taken over by a singular Mind Flayer that I tortured them with through manipulation, stealth, cunning, and pitting them against each other over 12 hours. By the end of it, they were deathly afraid of him and hated his guts. It was fantastic. I was really ready to love this game…and I tried so hard, but I just don’t.

Turns out, it was a bad idea to make the new 5th Edition game Baldur’s Gate 3. There is a fantastic skeleton here with interesting characters and fun locations, but as a huge fan of the early games, I can’t help but feel like it’s significantly held back by what Wizards of the Coast did to the Baldur’s Gate canon. BG3 isn’t a sequel to Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2 - it’s a sequel to the WotC canon of Baldur’s Gate, and it’s done very poorly. Some of the characters that appear are completely divorced from their characters in the originals, as if the person writing them had no idea of their motivations or any understanding of who these people are. I don’t know whether to blame that on Wizards for the terrible choices regarding canon, or to blame Larian for the awful characterization, but it drove me insane. I realize I might sound like a whiny old-head, but it is just such a strange choice to make a sequel based on a game when you can’t actually adhere to the plot of that game.

The legacy characters aren’t the only strange moments of Baldur’s Gate 3’s writing unfortunately, as it struggles to maintain a foundation between being grounded in the Forgotten Realms setting while wanting to tell a grandiose story. At the beginning of the game, I recruited three companions - one that was incredibly fearsome fighting Demons in the Blood War, another was such a powerful mage that he actually had an intimate relationship with the Goddess of Magic herself, and the last one was sent on a mission to retrieve an incredibly powerful and rare artifact from a race of other dimensional beings. They’re also level 1 and we’re fighting goblins. This type of narrative/world disconnect continues on throughout the rest of the game and I constantly felt out of place and just at odds with the game’s representation of the Forgotten Realms.

For a game that is effusively praised for player freedom - don’t get me wrong there is a ton of it - it does itself no favors with regards to pacing. In particular, Act 2 is paced in such a way that players easily can find themselves locked out of almost all the Act’s content if they simply explore the area, which is the exact opposite of how Act 1 encouraged gameplay. When Act 3 rolls around, BG3 again flips things around and gives a giant sandbox city to run around it, all the while dumping quests on you that beg to be solved with urgency. There isn’t inherently anything wrong in this approach, but because the pacing isn’t consistent across the game, it can be very overwhelming and disorienting.

This disorienting feeling carries over to companion quests and the rest system as well, as the game seems to discourage you from long resting too often, but in order to continue companion quests, long rests at camp are necessary. I actually missed an entire companion questline because I did not rest enough in Act 2, and it wasn’t until late game that I realized the game does actually have a cue to tell you to rest. Every time a party member complains about being tired, a new conversation or cutscene is available at camp. Otherwise, the resting mechanic makes a nice balance between the original games’ dungeon rest-a-thons, and the fear of running out of resources in combat.

Encounters and combat were something I personally was worried about, as I’m much more a fan of the Real Time with Pause system, but I actually think Larian did a great job implementing 5e into crpg format. Most of the time, combat feels engaging and quick due to the encounter and level design, and the environment takes a much bigger stage than it ever did in the older games. Later on, the encounters do seem to fall off regarding intentionality and then it can be frustrating when there are just too many enemies and allies for things to go quickly. In the later stages of the game, Larian also becomes obsessed with placing trap after trap, which just makes things tedious in this engine. Traps are a classic part of DND dungeon design, but throwing 6 of the same DC trap in a room does not make a good dungeon. Honestly, this is true for the game at large. Act 1 in all of its Early Access polished glory is wonderful in pacing, encounter design, world detail, and narrative beats, however the whole thing starts to fall apart as the game goes on and then all of the little, minor things that were overlooked as nitpicks start to become giant thorns.

While the combat system mostly does a good job, it does lack polish with basic functionality. There were so many times that I clicked to attack an enemy, was told “too far, can’t reach,” and then I moved my character manually in range and was able to attack. There were entire battles where certain enemies just stood still for their turn, wasting 10-20 seconds without doing anything. There were times in which I got stuck with one character fighting six by himself because the pathing for the other character broke while jumping, and they couldn’t join combat until forced because they were stuck in a different spot. There were many times where I was told I could not see the enemy, only to swivel the camera around to find that character has a perfect line of sight on the enemy, but just can’t attack because the game says no. After 50-plus hours, all of that began to wear me down, and the experience just felt clunky. Apart from those minor things, I also started to hit real bugs like companions talking to me about events that haven’t happened yet, doors not loading, people popping into cutscenes, among others.

It is highly ironic that Baldur’s Gate 3 has gotten so much praise from people pitting it against other AAA releases that were deemed broken, as if the game does not have its share of cracks and broken bits as well. Ultimately, there is a good game here that I’m sure will grow and be ironed out as a “Definitive Edition” arrives, but for me the entire experience was disappointing and lacking. Baldur’s Gate 3 nails the upfront presentation with cinematic style, but what lies beneath is mediocrity.

A vision I had in my sleep last night - as distinguished from a dream which is mere sorting and cataloguing of the day's events by the subconscious. This was a vision, fresh and clear as a mountain stream - the mind revealing itself to itself. In my vision, I was on the veranda of a vast estate, a palazzo of some fantastic proportion. There seemed to emanate from it a light from within - this gleaming radiant marble. I had known this place. I had in fact been born and raised there. This was my first return, a reunion with the deepest wellsprings of my being. Wandering about, I was happy that the house had been immaculately maintained. There had been added a number of additional rooms, but in a way it blended so seamlessly with the original construction, one would never detect any difference. Returning to the house's grand foyer, there came a knock at the door. My son was standing there. He was happy and care-free, clearly living a life of deep harmony and joy. We embraced - a warm and loving embrace, nothing withheld. We were in this moment one. My vision ended. I awoke with a tremendous of optimism and confidence in you and your future. That was my vision; it was of you. I'm so glad to have had this opportunity to share it with you. I wish you nothing but the very best, always.

There was a fish in the percolator.

Nice little surprise as a big Mega Man fan. I kept seeing people say this reminds them of Mega Man X, but I think it actually feels more like the Zero games in terms of gameplay and vibes. The music and gameplay (once you start unlocking stuff) are the highlights, but everything else starts to feel generic after a while. The levels aren't nearly as good as the games from which it draws inspiration, and it doesn't separate itself with a unique identity enough in regards to art design or the world itself. Still a fun time though, and a treat if you don't care about anything but gameplay.