sairam71
Note: Given the universal acclaim of this game and my rating, I did a bit of research and it was clear that the big difference is what I came in expecting from this game is very different than what I got. However for those that loved it, they wanted something different from the zelda formula and they got it.... I wanted more of the same. Before this game I only played twilight princess and have not played any other zelda games. So I was not sick of any formula. I just wanted more of the same and an open world version of twilight princess. I was looking for an adventure game with good story, dungeoning, combat, and some puzzles, what I got was a open world puzzle game. Lets dive in! I did spend 60h in this game completing all the 120 dungeons and the 12 main story quests. I don't think I would play a 3 star game for 60h in the future but this one is an exception given its universal acclaim. I really wanted to educate myself before reviewing it.
🎮 Platform: Switch OLED
⌚ Time to finish - 62.5h (All shrines and main quests)
🏆Game completion - 25% - How disappointing is this? I am in the minority here because I am one of those completion types. And honestly it was one of the reason why I sunk 60h into completing all the shrines in this game. The game was fine enough for me to keep going and finish the goal I set out of completing all 120 shrines. I know nintendo is not about completions and achievements. But when you realize after 60h the game gives you a 25% completion and the rest of the 75% is locked under gathering boring 900 korok seeds, its disappointing. Again... I understand this is not Nintendo's focus but it doesn't mean I am not disappointed.
🌄Graphics – I know people LOVE this game's graphics. For me it was a hit or a miss. What I loved are the weapon and armor models. Really nice! In handheld mode it was great! However, when i started playing it on a much larger screen, 24inch docked monitor, the weird shadow shading was very hard for me to look at. My analytical mind simply could not get over the fact that the shadow/shading on a persons body is not affected by light sources around them. Overtime I got use to it but it did not blow me away. But if I only played it handheld I can see the hype.
🌦 Atmosphere/Music – The game uses very minimal instruments and sound. Often is just a piano + wind. This was definitely nice and immersive as you walk through hyrule. However.... because I was moving mainly from one average dungeon to another average dungeon, I.E. not really into this game, I don't really get into it. I just wanted to get from point a to b quickly and finish this game. In contrast, it reminded me of how in death stranding I had a similar feeling of walking alone in the wilderness, however I loved it there, because I loved what i was doing there.
I also liked some town and seeing the simple people busily going about their lives. The towns felt alive and real.
📚 Main Story / Characters – Main story is fine, but it was a lot less meaty than I remember the twilight princess game. I expected a less meaty story to some of our AAA open world titles, but honestly I was expecting a lot more than this. I just came out of paper mario before this and this story pretty much was exactly the same. The 4 people you rescue in this game are basically the star people you rescue in Paper Mario. They all give you some power to use. The main story was fine.
The main story has a very interesting mechanism, dungeons you can manipulate to reach new areas. Some are pretty easy some are not. Overall when I was moving at a good pace it was fine, but sometimes my brain could not wrap my head around the harder dungeons, and how they get manipulated. It was fine... but guess what!!! MORE PUZZLES!!!!!!!! :( There is not a single traditional dungeon in this game.
🤺 Combat – basically Boring, hack and slash. Lets break down combat into open world, shrines, bosses.
Open world: Most often I avoided them... the time sunk into fighting them is not rewarding. Seriously are these mobs kiting me and extending the fight and then after all that drop a 5 damage weapon!? I've even had situations where mobs kite me.... looks so smart... and then they fall off the cliff. 🤦‍♀️
Shrine: Boring. Apart from the highest level guardian. But once you figure out the pattern they are easy.
Bosses: unmemorable. Basically land and air phases. However, the lightning boss is absolutely bonkers hard compared to the rest of the game. He pretty much one shots you, and makes you drop the weapon. I am not sure who thought this was a good idea. Dropping all your weapons for simply swinging at an enemy removes player agency in a game and you now in the middle of a boss battle have to go run around and pick up weapons!!! Worst designed boss I played in a long time.
This is a perfect time to talk about my least favorite and inconsistent, half-baked mechanism in this whole game. DURABILITY! I spent so much time managing which weapons I dropped and kept. Yey, this is now an inventory management mini game as well! Most cool weapons I had zero attachment to because they just break after a few hits. However.... my armor where I take a ton of damage never breaks. Bows break at what feels like the same rate as swords. What are these made of paper??? Anyway, there is a reason item system has some very established rules in games. Going crazy like this and being inconsistent in durability completely took me away from the game. If you are going to have weapons that look cool, people want to collect them. If they break a huge part of the game becomes uninteresting.
🧠Side Activities / Exploration – This breaks down into 3, Side quests, shrines, korok seeds.
Side quests are mainly fetch quests, did a few got bored. Shrines ... where do I start.... the combat shrines are boring, the rest are puzzles. It started off interesting but when I realized there are 90+ puzzle shrines, I started to loose interest. Did I come to hyrule to solve 90 puzzles that have no relationship to the story??? Last is korok seeds. I did all korok seeds in central plain and for those people that don't want to leave hyrle and LOVE this game I can see the appeal. For me it was nothing more than annoying collecting time sink.
Cooking: I mainly used the recipes for elemental resistances, and for extra hearts. It was helpful but nothing I wanted to spend experimenting my time in. What I really needed were simple recipes and I had no reason to experiment.
Horses: Cool but since you can't B line with them... I used them very rarely except as a novelty.
Temperature management: Another annoyance. Switching armor, making potions. I did find it cool that i can use my flamesword for 1 temperature point! Apart from that, this was super annoying and really breaks down the immersion. Look at that cool place over there... is that 1 cold or 2 cold resistance..or will I burn which is different from overheating...
🚗 Movement/Physics – Good. I never found anything of an issue except perfect parry and dodge. Because combat was so boring, I really tried to spice it up by killing only with perfect dodges etc. Unfortunately I could never get the timing right. Maybe I suck, but I tried over and over again. I could not consistently reproduce it. So it wasn't worth my time anymore, when i can just hack it in 2 swings.
📣 Voice acting – Fine. I know Link is normally not present in zelda games but in this one he is COMPETELY not present. They should have just removed his model and it would have had the same effect. Harsh I know. The best voice acting is in the link memories and the story cut scenes.
🥇 Best thing about the game - The exploration and the one continuous feel as you walk through the world. However, pretty much every AAA title does this now.
đź‘Ž Worst thing about the game - Its a puzzle game when i wanted an dungeon adventure game. Weapon durability!
đź’ˇFinal Thoughts:
I hope my reasons for this score make sense to people. Ultimately I wanted something else. I cannot see why more people aren't talking about the issues I see with this game. Where are all the people that see this game the way I do? If you are looking for a puzzle game play with open world play this game, if you are looking for an open world adventure game look elsewhere. Outside the main story quests you won't get it. I had the DLC and had 0 desire to touch it after finish the main game. I should have waited before I bought it. :-/ Overall what drove me is my own goal oriented nature than the game driving me to keep coming back.
🎮 Platform: Switch OLED
⌚ Time to finish - 62.5h (All shrines and main quests)
🏆Game completion - 25% - How disappointing is this? I am in the minority here because I am one of those completion types. And honestly it was one of the reason why I sunk 60h into completing all the shrines in this game. The game was fine enough for me to keep going and finish the goal I set out of completing all 120 shrines. I know nintendo is not about completions and achievements. But when you realize after 60h the game gives you a 25% completion and the rest of the 75% is locked under gathering boring 900 korok seeds, its disappointing. Again... I understand this is not Nintendo's focus but it doesn't mean I am not disappointed.
🌄Graphics – I know people LOVE this game's graphics. For me it was a hit or a miss. What I loved are the weapon and armor models. Really nice! In handheld mode it was great! However, when i started playing it on a much larger screen, 24inch docked monitor, the weird shadow shading was very hard for me to look at. My analytical mind simply could not get over the fact that the shadow/shading on a persons body is not affected by light sources around them. Overtime I got use to it but it did not blow me away. But if I only played it handheld I can see the hype.
🌦 Atmosphere/Music – The game uses very minimal instruments and sound. Often is just a piano + wind. This was definitely nice and immersive as you walk through hyrule. However.... because I was moving mainly from one average dungeon to another average dungeon, I.E. not really into this game, I don't really get into it. I just wanted to get from point a to b quickly and finish this game. In contrast, it reminded me of how in death stranding I had a similar feeling of walking alone in the wilderness, however I loved it there, because I loved what i was doing there.
I also liked some town and seeing the simple people busily going about their lives. The towns felt alive and real.
📚 Main Story / Characters – Main story is fine, but it was a lot less meaty than I remember the twilight princess game. I expected a less meaty story to some of our AAA open world titles, but honestly I was expecting a lot more than this. I just came out of paper mario before this and this story pretty much was exactly the same. The 4 people you rescue in this game are basically the star people you rescue in Paper Mario. They all give you some power to use. The main story was fine.
The main story has a very interesting mechanism, dungeons you can manipulate to reach new areas. Some are pretty easy some are not. Overall when I was moving at a good pace it was fine, but sometimes my brain could not wrap my head around the harder dungeons, and how they get manipulated. It was fine... but guess what!!! MORE PUZZLES!!!!!!!! :( There is not a single traditional dungeon in this game.
🤺 Combat – basically Boring, hack and slash. Lets break down combat into open world, shrines, bosses.
Open world: Most often I avoided them... the time sunk into fighting them is not rewarding. Seriously are these mobs kiting me and extending the fight and then after all that drop a 5 damage weapon!? I've even had situations where mobs kite me.... looks so smart... and then they fall off the cliff. 🤦‍♀️
Shrine: Boring. Apart from the highest level guardian. But once you figure out the pattern they are easy.
Bosses: unmemorable. Basically land and air phases. However, the lightning boss is absolutely bonkers hard compared to the rest of the game. He pretty much one shots you, and makes you drop the weapon. I am not sure who thought this was a good idea. Dropping all your weapons for simply swinging at an enemy removes player agency in a game and you now in the middle of a boss battle have to go run around and pick up weapons!!! Worst designed boss I played in a long time.
This is a perfect time to talk about my least favorite and inconsistent, half-baked mechanism in this whole game. DURABILITY! I spent so much time managing which weapons I dropped and kept. Yey, this is now an inventory management mini game as well! Most cool weapons I had zero attachment to because they just break after a few hits. However.... my armor where I take a ton of damage never breaks. Bows break at what feels like the same rate as swords. What are these made of paper??? Anyway, there is a reason item system has some very established rules in games. Going crazy like this and being inconsistent in durability completely took me away from the game. If you are going to have weapons that look cool, people want to collect them. If they break a huge part of the game becomes uninteresting.
🧠Side Activities / Exploration – This breaks down into 3, Side quests, shrines, korok seeds.
Side quests are mainly fetch quests, did a few got bored. Shrines ... where do I start.... the combat shrines are boring, the rest are puzzles. It started off interesting but when I realized there are 90+ puzzle shrines, I started to loose interest. Did I come to hyrule to solve 90 puzzles that have no relationship to the story??? Last is korok seeds. I did all korok seeds in central plain and for those people that don't want to leave hyrle and LOVE this game I can see the appeal. For me it was nothing more than annoying collecting time sink.
Cooking: I mainly used the recipes for elemental resistances, and for extra hearts. It was helpful but nothing I wanted to spend experimenting my time in. What I really needed were simple recipes and I had no reason to experiment.
Horses: Cool but since you can't B line with them... I used them very rarely except as a novelty.
Temperature management: Another annoyance. Switching armor, making potions. I did find it cool that i can use my flamesword for 1 temperature point! Apart from that, this was super annoying and really breaks down the immersion. Look at that cool place over there... is that 1 cold or 2 cold resistance..or will I burn which is different from overheating...
🚗 Movement/Physics – Good. I never found anything of an issue except perfect parry and dodge. Because combat was so boring, I really tried to spice it up by killing only with perfect dodges etc. Unfortunately I could never get the timing right. Maybe I suck, but I tried over and over again. I could not consistently reproduce it. So it wasn't worth my time anymore, when i can just hack it in 2 swings.
📣 Voice acting – Fine. I know Link is normally not present in zelda games but in this one he is COMPETELY not present. They should have just removed his model and it would have had the same effect. Harsh I know. The best voice acting is in the link memories and the story cut scenes.
🥇 Best thing about the game - The exploration and the one continuous feel as you walk through the world. However, pretty much every AAA title does this now.
đź‘Ž Worst thing about the game - Its a puzzle game when i wanted an dungeon adventure game. Weapon durability!
đź’ˇFinal Thoughts:
I hope my reasons for this score make sense to people. Ultimately I wanted something else. I cannot see why more people aren't talking about the issues I see with this game. Where are all the people that see this game the way I do? If you are looking for a puzzle game play with open world play this game, if you are looking for an open world adventure game look elsewhere. Outside the main story quests you won't get it. I had the DLC and had 0 desire to touch it after finish the main game. I should have waited before I bought it. :-/ Overall what drove me is my own goal oriented nature than the game driving me to keep coming back.
2021
🎮 Platform: PC
⌚ Time to finish - 12h (75% completion)
🏆Trophy completion - 75% - all base game and no kaycee mod trophies were completed. This is a card game and act 1 is heavily random, so some of your trophies may take a while to get thanks to RNJesus. However, I did not mind and went for it.
🤬Difficulty - The game starts of very difficult, and I would say act 1 is still the most difficult. I slept through act 2. Mostly slept through act 3. I have experience with at least 200-300 hours of hearthstone, so that helps a lot here. Act1 - is midrange deck, act 2 is aggro deck, act 3 is ramp deck. Generally i find the game too hard or too easy. It never gets the difficulty right. For example... you can get a bunch of 1 cost 3/1 cards in act 2 and after easily....and you only need +5 damage on opponent to win. If you have some experience in card games you know how OP this is.
🌄Graphics – Its fine.... nothing to write home about. Sometimes it was overly dark... I don't know why. It doesn't add anything. Their creepy vibe was already in full effect without this extra frustration.
I am not going to say more but they try to do interesting things and change things up... however I feel they change it up too much! I get why they do it but things change all the time. Sometimes even boards change fight to fight and you keep having to adjust and learn. I guess overall I did not mind this as it forced me to not auto pilot the game.
🌦 Atmosphere/Music – Loved it. As with the whole game Act1 does it the best... then each act subsequently has less of it.
📚 Main Story / Characters – Not going to say anything to ruin it. But I liked the unique way the story is told. It reminded me of this one 90s movie that everyone was obsessed about. B******** (you know what I am talking about if you played the game :))
However, if you are looking for any sort of closure or clarity... well there is none of that. Its all just theories and sometimes far-fetched internet theories. Some of them are pretty cool.... apparently the internet has deciphered some polish note hidden in game clues, that explain the actual story of the game... I did not like this that the actual story is never told. What they do tell you is interesting but leaves more questions than answers. Very frustrating.
🤺 Combat – This is a card game. Are you familiar with Hearthstone, Magic, etc? Then you know exactly what to do. However, the most interesting parts of this game is the boss card battles, who bring super unique mechanics, and the slay the spire like game play. I guess the best way to describe this game is its a mix of slay the spire + hearthstone + escape room game. Its all very interesting..... up until the point where you hit the issue every card game has.... RNJesus and Counter decks, bad draws.
Overall the AI you play against feels smart, and never overly cheap.
🧠Side Activities / Exploration – Worth doing! Explore everything!!!!! don't rush it. Press every button, go to every spot, try every card. DO EVERYTHING! there are so many mechanics in this game and exploration is rewarding. You often get something to help you if you are struggling.
🚗 Movement/Physics – Apart from unnecessarily dark walkways its fine.
📣 Voice acting – actual gameplay have no voice cutscenes do. It’s fine.
🥇 Best thing about the game - A mix of interesting card game elements and mechanics. A unique way of telling the story. Boss battles are the best. I wish i had a boss battle mode.
đź‘Ž Worst thing about the game - No real clarity on the greater story. I feel like we see one act in a large story. Possible string of bad RNG can F your runs. Act 1 is the biggest offender rest aren't bad.
đź’ˇFinal Thoughts:
Definitely play it. It starts off strong a 4-4.5, ends as a 3.5. The boss battles are the best. I wish I could just play the bosses in a gauntlet so I can really experience their unique mechanisms. I also gave Kaycee mod a shot, which focuses mainly on act1 and playing it interesting and hard ways. However, I soon was reminded why I stopped play hearthstone, slay the spire, and more. There is so much RNG in card games that many runs are dead on arrival. And its just a grind. No thanks!
⌚ Time to finish - 12h (75% completion)
🏆Trophy completion - 75% - all base game and no kaycee mod trophies were completed. This is a card game and act 1 is heavily random, so some of your trophies may take a while to get thanks to RNJesus. However, I did not mind and went for it.
🤬Difficulty - The game starts of very difficult, and I would say act 1 is still the most difficult. I slept through act 2. Mostly slept through act 3. I have experience with at least 200-300 hours of hearthstone, so that helps a lot here. Act1 - is midrange deck, act 2 is aggro deck, act 3 is ramp deck. Generally i find the game too hard or too easy. It never gets the difficulty right. For example... you can get a bunch of 1 cost 3/1 cards in act 2 and after easily....and you only need +5 damage on opponent to win. If you have some experience in card games you know how OP this is.
🌄Graphics – Its fine.... nothing to write home about. Sometimes it was overly dark... I don't know why. It doesn't add anything. Their creepy vibe was already in full effect without this extra frustration.
I am not going to say more but they try to do interesting things and change things up... however I feel they change it up too much! I get why they do it but things change all the time. Sometimes even boards change fight to fight and you keep having to adjust and learn. I guess overall I did not mind this as it forced me to not auto pilot the game.
🌦 Atmosphere/Music – Loved it. As with the whole game Act1 does it the best... then each act subsequently has less of it.
📚 Main Story / Characters – Not going to say anything to ruin it. But I liked the unique way the story is told. It reminded me of this one 90s movie that everyone was obsessed about. B******** (you know what I am talking about if you played the game :))
However, if you are looking for any sort of closure or clarity... well there is none of that. Its all just theories and sometimes far-fetched internet theories. Some of them are pretty cool.... apparently the internet has deciphered some polish note hidden in game clues, that explain the actual story of the game... I did not like this that the actual story is never told. What they do tell you is interesting but leaves more questions than answers. Very frustrating.
🤺 Combat – This is a card game. Are you familiar with Hearthstone, Magic, etc? Then you know exactly what to do. However, the most interesting parts of this game is the boss card battles, who bring super unique mechanics, and the slay the spire like game play. I guess the best way to describe this game is its a mix of slay the spire + hearthstone + escape room game. Its all very interesting..... up until the point where you hit the issue every card game has.... RNJesus and Counter decks, bad draws.
Overall the AI you play against feels smart, and never overly cheap.
🧠Side Activities / Exploration – Worth doing! Explore everything!!!!! don't rush it. Press every button, go to every spot, try every card. DO EVERYTHING! there are so many mechanics in this game and exploration is rewarding. You often get something to help you if you are struggling.
🚗 Movement/Physics – Apart from unnecessarily dark walkways its fine.
📣 Voice acting – actual gameplay have no voice cutscenes do. It’s fine.
🥇 Best thing about the game - A mix of interesting card game elements and mechanics. A unique way of telling the story. Boss battles are the best. I wish i had a boss battle mode.
đź‘Ž Worst thing about the game - No real clarity on the greater story. I feel like we see one act in a large story. Possible string of bad RNG can F your runs. Act 1 is the biggest offender rest aren't bad.
đź’ˇFinal Thoughts:
Definitely play it. It starts off strong a 4-4.5, ends as a 3.5. The boss battles are the best. I wish I could just play the bosses in a gauntlet so I can really experience their unique mechanisms. I also gave Kaycee mod a shot, which focuses mainly on act1 and playing it interesting and hard ways. However, I soon was reminded why I stopped play hearthstone, slay the spire, and more. There is so much RNG in card games that many runs are dead on arrival. And its just a grind. No thanks!
2016
🎮 Platform: Xbox
⌚ Time to finish - 3.5h (100% completion)
🏆Trophy completion - 100% - There are a few missable trophies. There is NO CHAPTER SELECT! Lame... so please use a guide. Trophies are easy, they add a little to the game. So overall I say get it.
🌄Graphics – I maybe in the minority as I see reviews with GOREGOUS graphics. I found them to be bland and unappealing. The low pixel models with some strange shadowing overlaid was weird. It was almost a mix of a low res 3d game, with the Death's door style of shading and look. But somewhere in between. I didn't like it. BTW I love how death's door looks.
🌦 Atmosphere/Music – This is the best part of the game. You can get lost in the forest listening to the sound track. Its fitting to set the mood, and often put me in a reflective mood as i was walking through the forest chatting with Delilah.
📚 Main Story / Characters – This game is interesting as you never really see anyone. You only hear their voices. You begin the game wondering what's going to happen between the 2 main characters, but as you go through the game I found them less and less interesting. They focus on the world around them and less and less about exploring each others state of mind. They hint and dance around their relationship, so much that after a few times of it, I realized the story was never going to go where I want to it to.
This was likely a deliberate choice by the game desingers but just because its different doesn't make it enjoyable. Do we eat ice cream and find out they left the sugar and say wow.. they suprised me. It has no sugar... this is the best ice cream ever!
I have a similar feeling here... stories need to have an emotional investment and stopping short of it fully exploring it leaves a lot to be desired.
🤺 Combat – None
🧠Side Activities / Exploration – I would sometimes walk around just to listen to the music, but after a bit the exploration is not rewarding. Same trees and terrain.... and just going to random corners doesn't yield anything interesting. All the interesting places you visit are part of the main story. However..... its VERY easy to get lost in this game. So don't go out of your way to explore, going for objective to objective, you will get lost.
🚗 Movement/Physics – Fine. However this is one of those game that uses unnecessary camera swings. For example, when you hop down, do you really need to look so far down... that your face is almost going to kiss your crotch and then swing back up!? I hate when games do this....
📣 Voice acting – Great! Delilah has a very fitting smooth voice.
🥇 Best thing about the game - None
đź‘Ž Worst thing about the game - Easy to get lost
đź’ˇFinal Thoughts:
I can see why people love this game. However, I needed more connection, character development between the main characters to reach where people are reaching with this game. They tease it but also fill the game with random things that distract from it. I see what they are going for, but it did not have that impact on me. Maybe i just need a punch in your face story like last of us. I did not mind the actual ending (i expected it)... HOWEVER, they squandered a HUGE opportunity in the final location you visit to bring some emotional depth to this story and have more character development.
Overall I was left with a huge void and wanting more after finishing this game.
⌚ Time to finish - 3.5h (100% completion)
🏆Trophy completion - 100% - There are a few missable trophies. There is NO CHAPTER SELECT! Lame... so please use a guide. Trophies are easy, they add a little to the game. So overall I say get it.
🌄Graphics – I maybe in the minority as I see reviews with GOREGOUS graphics. I found them to be bland and unappealing. The low pixel models with some strange shadowing overlaid was weird. It was almost a mix of a low res 3d game, with the Death's door style of shading and look. But somewhere in between. I didn't like it. BTW I love how death's door looks.
🌦 Atmosphere/Music – This is the best part of the game. You can get lost in the forest listening to the sound track. Its fitting to set the mood, and often put me in a reflective mood as i was walking through the forest chatting with Delilah.
📚 Main Story / Characters – This game is interesting as you never really see anyone. You only hear their voices. You begin the game wondering what's going to happen between the 2 main characters, but as you go through the game I found them less and less interesting. They focus on the world around them and less and less about exploring each others state of mind. They hint and dance around their relationship, so much that after a few times of it, I realized the story was never going to go where I want to it to.
This was likely a deliberate choice by the game desingers but just because its different doesn't make it enjoyable. Do we eat ice cream and find out they left the sugar and say wow.. they suprised me. It has no sugar... this is the best ice cream ever!
I have a similar feeling here... stories need to have an emotional investment and stopping short of it fully exploring it leaves a lot to be desired.
🤺 Combat – None
🧠Side Activities / Exploration – I would sometimes walk around just to listen to the music, but after a bit the exploration is not rewarding. Same trees and terrain.... and just going to random corners doesn't yield anything interesting. All the interesting places you visit are part of the main story. However..... its VERY easy to get lost in this game. So don't go out of your way to explore, going for objective to objective, you will get lost.
🚗 Movement/Physics – Fine. However this is one of those game that uses unnecessary camera swings. For example, when you hop down, do you really need to look so far down... that your face is almost going to kiss your crotch and then swing back up!? I hate when games do this....
📣 Voice acting – Great! Delilah has a very fitting smooth voice.
🥇 Best thing about the game - None
đź‘Ž Worst thing about the game - Easy to get lost
đź’ˇFinal Thoughts:
I can see why people love this game. However, I needed more connection, character development between the main characters to reach where people are reaching with this game. They tease it but also fill the game with random things that distract from it. I see what they are going for, but it did not have that impact on me. Maybe i just need a punch in your face story like last of us. I did not mind the actual ending (i expected it)... HOWEVER, they squandered a HUGE opportunity in the final location you visit to bring some emotional depth to this story and have more character development.
Overall I was left with a huge void and wanting more after finishing this game.
2013
This game is unbearable and boring as F. Its pretty interesting how I can give it 1 star while people think this is the best thing ever. I don't want to waste anytime writing anymore or waste any brain cells on this game. I gave it a fair shot and made it half way through act 3 and I just could not take it anymore. The music was nice as is the animation....there is just a bunch of random chat and text that scrolls by. I had 0 investment in it... i don't know what the point of this game is... is it a commentary on society? If so do i really need a game to tell me that our medical insurance is a rip off? I tried to push through because its an easy trophy... however i cannot take 8-10 hours of this just for an easy plat.
If you like reading a lot of random things (kind of like in some animes random shit just happens, and people say and do random things, that don't connect and you just accept it....) play this game. If you like traditional story telling... stay far away. In contrast i loved Limbo, little nightmares, etc.... i was expecting more of the same here based on what i read going in....
If you like reading a lot of random things (kind of like in some animes random shit just happens, and people say and do random things, that don't connect and you just accept it....) play this game. If you like traditional story telling... stay far away. In contrast i loved Limbo, little nightmares, etc.... i was expecting more of the same here based on what i read going in....
2017
Going to keep this review short and sweet. I got stuck after chapter 2 and had to use a guide at many spots.
🎮 Platform: Xbox
⌚ Time to finish - 2.5h (100% completion)
🏆Trophy completion - 100% - the time trophy was the hardest but i got it after my 3rd attempt. :/ rest are pretty easy if you follow a guide. If you don't you will probably never get the 500 moves trophy. I think its worth trying to 100%.
🤬Difficulty - its a puzzle game and its hard. The premise of the game is that you are re-arranging, zooming, in and out of pictures to create patterns, roads, walkways etc for this character on screen to move. Its all very confusing and trial and error based for me, since there are little to no hints what to do apart from the screen flashing when you try to do things you can't or little hints of what area is interactable, I always found it very hard to know what to do. Sometimes clues are hidden behind multiple layers of pictures. With enough blind clicking you will exhaust combinations and just find your way. Not really a fun way to play a puzzle game. :(
đź’ˇFinal Thoughts:
This game has some unique puzzle elements I have never seen. Its interesting to see for example how a railroad can be both a ladder or a train track based on perspective. The game has many things like this and it uses these to help you solve the puzzles. Its so cool someone has the creative mindset to see the world in so many facets. Really impressive!
However, I don't have a keen eye for this and so I constantly got stuck. It works more in theory than practice. I wish the game started of slow and increasing built on these concepts. Let you get comfortable with it. At least let you feel like you were able to get half way through the game before getting stuck. It starts with a tiny tutorial and goes all out. Its too bad because its unique and i don't want to discourage this indie dev. In fact, I hope they come out with a gorogoa 2 where they really take their time exploring this cool mechanic. Let us get comfortable with it.
Overall try it because its unique but if you miss it you are ok. If you are a huge fan of puzzle games ( i am very selective) this you cannot miss.
🎮 Platform: Xbox
⌚ Time to finish - 2.5h (100% completion)
🏆Trophy completion - 100% - the time trophy was the hardest but i got it after my 3rd attempt. :/ rest are pretty easy if you follow a guide. If you don't you will probably never get the 500 moves trophy. I think its worth trying to 100%.
🤬Difficulty - its a puzzle game and its hard. The premise of the game is that you are re-arranging, zooming, in and out of pictures to create patterns, roads, walkways etc for this character on screen to move. Its all very confusing and trial and error based for me, since there are little to no hints what to do apart from the screen flashing when you try to do things you can't or little hints of what area is interactable, I always found it very hard to know what to do. Sometimes clues are hidden behind multiple layers of pictures. With enough blind clicking you will exhaust combinations and just find your way. Not really a fun way to play a puzzle game. :(
đź’ˇFinal Thoughts:
This game has some unique puzzle elements I have never seen. Its interesting to see for example how a railroad can be both a ladder or a train track based on perspective. The game has many things like this and it uses these to help you solve the puzzles. Its so cool someone has the creative mindset to see the world in so many facets. Really impressive!
However, I don't have a keen eye for this and so I constantly got stuck. It works more in theory than practice. I wish the game started of slow and increasing built on these concepts. Let you get comfortable with it. At least let you feel like you were able to get half way through the game before getting stuck. It starts with a tiny tutorial and goes all out. Its too bad because its unique and i don't want to discourage this indie dev. In fact, I hope they come out with a gorogoa 2 where they really take their time exploring this cool mechanic. Let us get comfortable with it.
Overall try it because its unique but if you miss it you are ok. If you are a huge fan of puzzle games ( i am very selective) this you cannot miss.
2021
🎮 Platform: Xbox
⌚ Time to finish - 21h (82% completion)
🏆Trophy completion - 82% - Going in i often research whether i want to complete a game or not. I know there are TONS of figments in this game to collect and some are very obscure. I heard they added a mode post game to help you collect these figments easier and marketing hype had me believe, for someone who doesnt like collect a thon trophies, this would be easy. So during the game i went out of my way to collect whatever I can since I figured post game cleanup will be easy. Boy was I sorely disappointed when i realized the tool they promised doesnt work well and I would have to probably watch walkthrough vidoes of at least 50+ regions and collect the missing figments. Their tool did NOT help especially in gigantic levels. I am very disappointed that I will not be plat this game, with over 75%-80% items collected. Sure its better than having nothing but its still disappointing because I thought it would be easier. Some of these figments are not visible because you have to jump into sub-areas of a level. Bottom line is, unless you love collecting forget this plat. I do not want to spend another 20h with a walkthrough video finding my missing figments some of which you cannot access during gameplay.
🤬Difficulty - Easy game. Nothing stood out as hard including combat or platforming.
🌄Graphics – really nice. However what stands out is their creativity. I have never seen levels like this before. They definitely keep with the psychonauts 1 theme of trippy levels and trippy imagination. Although I would say I think Psychonauts 1 is a slightly better game because its the first time i saw this trippy mind bending level design. Here it is an extension of that but I can’t help wonder, if they did that with ps2 tech… what could they have done with ps5/xbox tech? Either way super creative level design.
🌦 Atmosphere/Music – Loved it. I enjoyed the music, and also felt very immersed in the levels. Some levels were a visual and creative feast.
📚 Main Story / Characters – Bleh….. Way too many characters to keep track of, way to many places, way to many “excuses” to get into people’s heads just to build out some fun levels. I guess unless you are really into this world, you will probably find the story fine. I appreciated the focus of psychonauts 1 story. This just had way too much going on.
🤺 Combat – This was fine in psychonauts 1, but you are doing the same thing in 2 and there is 0 enemy variety. I don’t think i saw a different enemy from hour 1 of the game to hour 21. Cmon guys… very disappointing combat. Its the weakest aspect of this game.
🧠Side Activities / Exploration – Not worth it. Adds nothing to the game, and you can read all my frustration in the intro about my experience trying to plat this game. Very disappointing.
🚗 Movement/Physics – No issues and important for a platformer. I used all my abilities to their best. I enjoyed all the platforming and though I don’t remember anything super different about platforming, i do remember how creative the levels were. Platforming itself is your usual psychonauts tools.
📣 Voice acting – Excellent! The quirkiness and funiness of 1 is still here.
🥇 Best thing about the game - Creative level design
đź‘Ž Worst thing about the game - Combat, collect-a-thon trophies
đź’ˇFinal Thoughts:
If you are a fan of 1, this just extends that formula into a much bigger game. The platforming, level design, writing, all are here. You won’t be disappointed. The levels are super creative but I still think psychonauts 1 is more memorable and a better game. Its mainly because it was done first in 1. Play this great game but I do feel it's a little over hyped. I do suggest playing 1 first though for context and background of characters.
⌚ Time to finish - 21h (82% completion)
🏆Trophy completion - 82% - Going in i often research whether i want to complete a game or not. I know there are TONS of figments in this game to collect and some are very obscure. I heard they added a mode post game to help you collect these figments easier and marketing hype had me believe, for someone who doesnt like collect a thon trophies, this would be easy. So during the game i went out of my way to collect whatever I can since I figured post game cleanup will be easy. Boy was I sorely disappointed when i realized the tool they promised doesnt work well and I would have to probably watch walkthrough vidoes of at least 50+ regions and collect the missing figments. Their tool did NOT help especially in gigantic levels. I am very disappointed that I will not be plat this game, with over 75%-80% items collected. Sure its better than having nothing but its still disappointing because I thought it would be easier. Some of these figments are not visible because you have to jump into sub-areas of a level. Bottom line is, unless you love collecting forget this plat. I do not want to spend another 20h with a walkthrough video finding my missing figments some of which you cannot access during gameplay.
🤬Difficulty - Easy game. Nothing stood out as hard including combat or platforming.
🌄Graphics – really nice. However what stands out is their creativity. I have never seen levels like this before. They definitely keep with the psychonauts 1 theme of trippy levels and trippy imagination. Although I would say I think Psychonauts 1 is a slightly better game because its the first time i saw this trippy mind bending level design. Here it is an extension of that but I can’t help wonder, if they did that with ps2 tech… what could they have done with ps5/xbox tech? Either way super creative level design.
🌦 Atmosphere/Music – Loved it. I enjoyed the music, and also felt very immersed in the levels. Some levels were a visual and creative feast.
📚 Main Story / Characters – Bleh….. Way too many characters to keep track of, way to many places, way to many “excuses” to get into people’s heads just to build out some fun levels. I guess unless you are really into this world, you will probably find the story fine. I appreciated the focus of psychonauts 1 story. This just had way too much going on.
🤺 Combat – This was fine in psychonauts 1, but you are doing the same thing in 2 and there is 0 enemy variety. I don’t think i saw a different enemy from hour 1 of the game to hour 21. Cmon guys… very disappointing combat. Its the weakest aspect of this game.
🧠Side Activities / Exploration – Not worth it. Adds nothing to the game, and you can read all my frustration in the intro about my experience trying to plat this game. Very disappointing.
🚗 Movement/Physics – No issues and important for a platformer. I used all my abilities to their best. I enjoyed all the platforming and though I don’t remember anything super different about platforming, i do remember how creative the levels were. Platforming itself is your usual psychonauts tools.
📣 Voice acting – Excellent! The quirkiness and funiness of 1 is still here.
🥇 Best thing about the game - Creative level design
đź‘Ž Worst thing about the game - Combat, collect-a-thon trophies
đź’ˇFinal Thoughts:
If you are a fan of 1, this just extends that formula into a much bigger game. The platforming, level design, writing, all are here. You won’t be disappointed. The levels are super creative but I still think psychonauts 1 is more memorable and a better game. Its mainly because it was done first in 1. Play this great game but I do feel it's a little over hyped. I do suggest playing 1 first though for context and background of characters.
2017
🎮 Platform: Switch
⌚ Time to finish - 62h (100% completion)
🏆Trophy completion - 100% - I completed everything in this game except for buying half a dozen costumes that cost money. I didn’t want to grind more money though one day I may do it just for fun. I figured out a very efficient coin farm so it won’t be too hard, after 62h I need a break. Game does not count this as 100% anyway unless you are super hardcore and have your own definition. So I completed everything: all 999 moons, all red coins, all music tracks, all checkpoint captures, all souvenirs, all post, post-post game levels.
🤬Difficulty -The beauty of this game is how it layers difficulty of all types on a single experience and gives you varying amount of help depending on what you need. Do you need just a little help? Go buy the 50c 6hp mushroom, do you need to just try again? It's ok… we will save your progress so you don’t have to recollect the 2nd star/moon, do you need major help? Turn on assistance mode. Are you frigging bad ass speed runner? No problem we will let you triple cappy jump and reach places no one thought possible. Mind blowing!
So there is no simple answer to this question. If you just do bare minimum it's an easy game. If you are like me and go for 999 moons with no help, then i would break it down as:
55% moons - easy
35% - medium
8% - hard
2% - absolutely down right frustrating and added about 6 hours of play time just to get a handful of moons. I had to use all sorts of tricks to get these. The most frustrating ones were anything to do with Jaxi, volleyball, jump rope, frog jump level, and some koopa races. However I did them as I love a good challenge.
🌄Graphics – Amazing. Astonishing…. How did they get a switch game to look like this? Vibrant colors, it rivals some of the most beautiful ps5 games. I wish every switch game looked like this. The bowser castle and the dragon are absolutely breathtaking. I stared at it for a while wondering how they did this.
🌦 Atmosphere/Music – Amazing music, love the charm of mario and his troop. I was fully engrossed in the world and platforming.
📚 Main Story / Characters – Typical mario story. I always find it funny. It's the same story over and over again but I never get sick of it. I loved every character in this game but the MVP is cappy. It's amazing what he brings to the game and in capable hands like speedrunners, wow….. I fully explored cappy’s capabilities trying to get koopa races done. I got much better at movement, cappy jumps and more. They are just so fun…. I am wondering how I can go back to a world without cappy. He will be permanently missed. Crappy single handedly reinvents this formula.
🤺 Combat – Simple combat but fun. Cappy brings some very interesting boss take down mechanics. I liked it overall.
🧠Side Activities / Exploration – As mentioned earlier, exploration is fun in this game mainly because cappy and how he allows you to move in advanced levels is awesome. I was spending the whole game trying to master it and I am still only ok at it. The best part of the game is the main story levels. The side activities and exploration do get repetitive. How many times can I chase the bunny? How many times can I slam the ground for a star. But it's ok, they are a break from some of the much harder moons. Like koopa races, timed trials, and more. I enjoyed collecting all the moons. The game is long….
🚗 Movement/Physics – The levels are all great though I would say SM:Galaxy was much more creative with its use of gravity and size. As I said a few times by now, movement is one of the most fun aspects of this game. I always had to stop and think how to approach a level and try a few times on some of the medium ones.
📣 Voice acting – typical mario stuff!
🥇 Best thing about the game - How mario moves with practice, the levels and platforming, the visuals.
👎 Worst thing about the game - Down right broken moons. Fix this god… so frustrating.
đź’ˇFinal Thoughts:
Absolutely a must play and amazing game. I had a 15 year hiatus from gaming so the last mario game i played was galaxy. I still remember to this day some of its levels and how they bend gravity, and size. Here I did not feel it was as creative so I docked 0.5 points. But this is an amazing game and everyone should play it and get as many moons as you can. Get to as close to 100% as you can. I know everyone may not be like me with the 10% frustrating stuff. But do yourself a favor and do as much as you can of this game you find fun. How do they maintain this level for 30 years of making mario!?!? Kudos!
⌚ Time to finish - 62h (100% completion)
🏆Trophy completion - 100% - I completed everything in this game except for buying half a dozen costumes that cost money. I didn’t want to grind more money though one day I may do it just for fun. I figured out a very efficient coin farm so it won’t be too hard, after 62h I need a break. Game does not count this as 100% anyway unless you are super hardcore and have your own definition. So I completed everything: all 999 moons, all red coins, all music tracks, all checkpoint captures, all souvenirs, all post, post-post game levels.
🤬Difficulty -The beauty of this game is how it layers difficulty of all types on a single experience and gives you varying amount of help depending on what you need. Do you need just a little help? Go buy the 50c 6hp mushroom, do you need to just try again? It's ok… we will save your progress so you don’t have to recollect the 2nd star/moon, do you need major help? Turn on assistance mode. Are you frigging bad ass speed runner? No problem we will let you triple cappy jump and reach places no one thought possible. Mind blowing!
So there is no simple answer to this question. If you just do bare minimum it's an easy game. If you are like me and go for 999 moons with no help, then i would break it down as:
55% moons - easy
35% - medium
8% - hard
2% - absolutely down right frustrating and added about 6 hours of play time just to get a handful of moons. I had to use all sorts of tricks to get these. The most frustrating ones were anything to do with Jaxi, volleyball, jump rope, frog jump level, and some koopa races. However I did them as I love a good challenge.
🌄Graphics – Amazing. Astonishing…. How did they get a switch game to look like this? Vibrant colors, it rivals some of the most beautiful ps5 games. I wish every switch game looked like this. The bowser castle and the dragon are absolutely breathtaking. I stared at it for a while wondering how they did this.
🌦 Atmosphere/Music – Amazing music, love the charm of mario and his troop. I was fully engrossed in the world and platforming.
📚 Main Story / Characters – Typical mario story. I always find it funny. It's the same story over and over again but I never get sick of it. I loved every character in this game but the MVP is cappy. It's amazing what he brings to the game and in capable hands like speedrunners, wow….. I fully explored cappy’s capabilities trying to get koopa races done. I got much better at movement, cappy jumps and more. They are just so fun…. I am wondering how I can go back to a world without cappy. He will be permanently missed. Crappy single handedly reinvents this formula.
🤺 Combat – Simple combat but fun. Cappy brings some very interesting boss take down mechanics. I liked it overall.
🧠Side Activities / Exploration – As mentioned earlier, exploration is fun in this game mainly because cappy and how he allows you to move in advanced levels is awesome. I was spending the whole game trying to master it and I am still only ok at it. The best part of the game is the main story levels. The side activities and exploration do get repetitive. How many times can I chase the bunny? How many times can I slam the ground for a star. But it's ok, they are a break from some of the much harder moons. Like koopa races, timed trials, and more. I enjoyed collecting all the moons. The game is long….
🚗 Movement/Physics – The levels are all great though I would say SM:Galaxy was much more creative with its use of gravity and size. As I said a few times by now, movement is one of the most fun aspects of this game. I always had to stop and think how to approach a level and try a few times on some of the medium ones.
📣 Voice acting – typical mario stuff!
🥇 Best thing about the game - How mario moves with practice, the levels and platforming, the visuals.
👎 Worst thing about the game - Down right broken moons. Fix this god… so frustrating.
đź’ˇFinal Thoughts:
Absolutely a must play and amazing game. I had a 15 year hiatus from gaming so the last mario game i played was galaxy. I still remember to this day some of its levels and how they bend gravity, and size. Here I did not feel it was as creative so I docked 0.5 points. But this is an amazing game and everyone should play it and get as many moons as you can. Get to as close to 100% as you can. I know everyone may not be like me with the 10% frustrating stuff. But do yourself a favor and do as much as you can of this game you find fun. How do they maintain this level for 30 years of making mario!?!? Kudos!
2000
🎮 Platform: Emulation
⌚ Time to finish - 24h (used a guide and explored a bit for badges)
🏆Trophy completion - 60% - Retroachivements list. I just did the story ones and a few side trophies.
🤬Difficulty - easy, if you don't get the proper badges early prepare to die a lot. If you get the badges I was really stun locking everything and it became pretty repetitive after a certain point. There were stretches of battles i took 0 damage.
🌄Graphics – pretty bad. It hasn't aged well at all. I found a texture pack and it made it so much more pleasant. please use it!
🌦 Atmosphere/Music – 2001 MIDI music. Not up to par with music I come to expect from Mario but its fine.
📚 Main Story / Characters – The story has the typical Mario charm. Silly characters, silly bowser, same story as every mario game. Go collect something, meet a few friends, wack silly bowser and save peach. Story was nothing remarkable however, I liked a lot of the companions you get. They have interesting powers, that you use in the overworld and in dungeons. I had a badge that allowed me to switch characters without a penalty so i was constantly using all of them to mop the floor with everything. Get that badge!
🤺 Combat – The combat starts of really great in the beginning, you are engaged in the entire combat process. You select a ability, press/spam the right sequences to make sure you do the best damage, on enemies attack you can try to defend. This works about 40% of the time. Some enemies telegraph and can easily defend, most enemies don't so most of the time i will just defend for the sake of it, but the game doesn't want you to be able to defend everything. I don't know why, even when i defend it only shaves of 1 damage. So just make it easy guys! As you discover and get new badges combat evolves, and keeps things interesting. however at about chapter 4, it gets repetitive when you have your favorite badges, except once in a while you rotate them around. The game does thrown in variety of enemies and often you have to stop for a second and think about your approach, however with my build where I can make everything zzz, i didn't have to worry too much. After about chapter 7 i started skipping most battles, in chapter 8 i did my best to skip EVERY battle except boss.
🧠Side Activities / Exploration – I used a guide because i kept getting stuck. Its in that era of games where there is little to no clue where to go and going the wrong way will get you back to square 1. THere are a fair share of these and for me who gets lost easily in games they are NOT fun. There are some very tricky levels in the forest, mirror rooms in a castle, and more. These have to be done in the right order, or else you can get lost for a long time. I think my play time easily would have been 30h without a guide. I also used the guide to find power ups and badges which was fun and made the game approachable. So I definitely suggest some amount of exploration and badge collection so you can be viable in this game. If you do none you will have severely underpowered characters and abilities. Good luck getting through the game with that.
🚗 Movement/Physics – super slow!!!!!! because I was on an emulator i just sped it up when it was getting slow at 2x.
📣 Voice acting – none!
🥇 Best thing about the game - Engaging turn based combat, boss battles were fun!
đź‘Ž Worst thing about the game - getting lost
đź’ˇFinal Thoughts:
Overall its a fine game and I am glad to have tried something unique. It was not a compelling enough experience for me to want to rush out and try the thousand year door. But i know that game is soooo well regarded, so I will research more. But if its more of the same then I will skip it. I wish this game was half the length and it gets repetitive quickly. Chapters can be long especially if you are lost. I enjoyed the last bowser battle the most as its probably the only battle I died and had to restart from checkpoint. Honestly this because i didnt stock up on health shrooms, if you do you just brute force through it. I enjoyed doing it with no mushrooms. The game can thrust you into boss battles unprepared if you aren't paying attention. Look for save block and health block and you know there is a big battle comingup.
I say at least play a couple chapters to experience the unique combat but if you stop enjoying at around ch4, it doesn't get better. Play if you are curious and want to experience something different.
----- Combat Tips (don't read if you don't want spoilers and answers that will help you breeze the game) -----
So how do you stun lock everything/take minimal to no damage?
1) Start the battle off with a spin badge that stuns enemies when you spin into them
2) if you have 3 enemies, use the badge to make one of the enemies sleep when mario jumps on it
3) if you have more than 3 use koopers ability to put eveyone to zzzz
4) in boss battles you can use boo to hide on enemies turn taking 0 damage
You get the idea
⌚ Time to finish - 24h (used a guide and explored a bit for badges)
🏆Trophy completion - 60% - Retroachivements list. I just did the story ones and a few side trophies.
🤬Difficulty - easy, if you don't get the proper badges early prepare to die a lot. If you get the badges I was really stun locking everything and it became pretty repetitive after a certain point. There were stretches of battles i took 0 damage.
🌄Graphics – pretty bad. It hasn't aged well at all. I found a texture pack and it made it so much more pleasant. please use it!
🌦 Atmosphere/Music – 2001 MIDI music. Not up to par with music I come to expect from Mario but its fine.
📚 Main Story / Characters – The story has the typical Mario charm. Silly characters, silly bowser, same story as every mario game. Go collect something, meet a few friends, wack silly bowser and save peach. Story was nothing remarkable however, I liked a lot of the companions you get. They have interesting powers, that you use in the overworld and in dungeons. I had a badge that allowed me to switch characters without a penalty so i was constantly using all of them to mop the floor with everything. Get that badge!
🤺 Combat – The combat starts of really great in the beginning, you are engaged in the entire combat process. You select a ability, press/spam the right sequences to make sure you do the best damage, on enemies attack you can try to defend. This works about 40% of the time. Some enemies telegraph and can easily defend, most enemies don't so most of the time i will just defend for the sake of it, but the game doesn't want you to be able to defend everything. I don't know why, even when i defend it only shaves of 1 damage. So just make it easy guys! As you discover and get new badges combat evolves, and keeps things interesting. however at about chapter 4, it gets repetitive when you have your favorite badges, except once in a while you rotate them around. The game does thrown in variety of enemies and often you have to stop for a second and think about your approach, however with my build where I can make everything zzz, i didn't have to worry too much. After about chapter 7 i started skipping most battles, in chapter 8 i did my best to skip EVERY battle except boss.
🧠Side Activities / Exploration – I used a guide because i kept getting stuck. Its in that era of games where there is little to no clue where to go and going the wrong way will get you back to square 1. THere are a fair share of these and for me who gets lost easily in games they are NOT fun. There are some very tricky levels in the forest, mirror rooms in a castle, and more. These have to be done in the right order, or else you can get lost for a long time. I think my play time easily would have been 30h without a guide. I also used the guide to find power ups and badges which was fun and made the game approachable. So I definitely suggest some amount of exploration and badge collection so you can be viable in this game. If you do none you will have severely underpowered characters and abilities. Good luck getting through the game with that.
🚗 Movement/Physics – super slow!!!!!! because I was on an emulator i just sped it up when it was getting slow at 2x.
📣 Voice acting – none!
🥇 Best thing about the game - Engaging turn based combat, boss battles were fun!
đź‘Ž Worst thing about the game - getting lost
đź’ˇFinal Thoughts:
Overall its a fine game and I am glad to have tried something unique. It was not a compelling enough experience for me to want to rush out and try the thousand year door. But i know that game is soooo well regarded, so I will research more. But if its more of the same then I will skip it. I wish this game was half the length and it gets repetitive quickly. Chapters can be long especially if you are lost. I enjoyed the last bowser battle the most as its probably the only battle I died and had to restart from checkpoint. Honestly this because i didnt stock up on health shrooms, if you do you just brute force through it. I enjoyed doing it with no mushrooms. The game can thrust you into boss battles unprepared if you aren't paying attention. Look for save block and health block and you know there is a big battle comingup.
I say at least play a couple chapters to experience the unique combat but if you stop enjoying at around ch4, it doesn't get better. Play if you are curious and want to experience something different.
----- Combat Tips (don't read if you don't want spoilers and answers that will help you breeze the game) -----
So how do you stun lock everything/take minimal to no damage?
1) Start the battle off with a spin badge that stuns enemies when you spin into them
2) if you have 3 enemies, use the badge to make one of the enemies sleep when mario jumps on it
3) if you have more than 3 use koopers ability to put eveyone to zzzz
4) in boss battles you can use boo to hide on enemies turn taking 0 damage
You get the idea
Note: Not writing my usual thorough reviews because I abandoned the game.
Status: Abandoned
Played: 3.5 hrs
Platform: Switch
I played about 3 hours of this game and what I saw as fine and interesting. I loved the music and the mechanic of moving to the beat which i never saw anywhere else. Initially the combat has a bit of learning curve you are severely limited in what you do and will die all the time. In addition you need to reprogram your hack and slash habits to study and understand enemy patterns and move. This was really cool and slowly an hour in and some tips from veteran players i started clearing levels. It felt great because I got visibly better at something.
I cleared about 15 screens or so, and then everytime i died everything respawned. I understand its rouge-lite so they will come back and I can avoid them. Ultimately I don't know what the goal of this game is, maybe you are suppose to find the goal as you go on? I heard something about defeating 4 bosses, and then you taken on the final boss? Or is it to clear all the levels, if so they respawn so it seems pointless. Anyway because I had no clear goal or aim setup front, I did not have the motivation to tackle the harder stages even if i figured out the combat.
I have too many games in backlog and in general have very little patience for games that don't make some basic goals clear. For example in death's door, Yoku island, there are subtle goals but the goals are still clear. Here I am not exactly sure when this game will end and what I have to do to get it to end. This maybe a me problem.
Overall its worth trying, and if you enjoy finding a path in uncertainty through exploration you will have no issues. I personally need a little bit more goal setting.
Status: Abandoned
Played: 3.5 hrs
Platform: Switch
I played about 3 hours of this game and what I saw as fine and interesting. I loved the music and the mechanic of moving to the beat which i never saw anywhere else. Initially the combat has a bit of learning curve you are severely limited in what you do and will die all the time. In addition you need to reprogram your hack and slash habits to study and understand enemy patterns and move. This was really cool and slowly an hour in and some tips from veteran players i started clearing levels. It felt great because I got visibly better at something.
I cleared about 15 screens or so, and then everytime i died everything respawned. I understand its rouge-lite so they will come back and I can avoid them. Ultimately I don't know what the goal of this game is, maybe you are suppose to find the goal as you go on? I heard something about defeating 4 bosses, and then you taken on the final boss? Or is it to clear all the levels, if so they respawn so it seems pointless. Anyway because I had no clear goal or aim setup front, I did not have the motivation to tackle the harder stages even if i figured out the combat.
I have too many games in backlog and in general have very little patience for games that don't make some basic goals clear. For example in death's door, Yoku island, there are subtle goals but the goals are still clear. Here I am not exactly sure when this game will end and what I have to do to get it to end. This maybe a me problem.
Overall its worth trying, and if you enjoy finding a path in uncertainty through exploration you will have no issues. I personally need a little bit more goal setting.
🎮 Platform: Geforce Now
⌚ Time to finish - 8h
🏆Trophy completion - 100% - easy but I didn't feel it did anything to the story. She graffitis everywhere and in places she shouldn't be graffitiying not only because its socially wrong but also because she is going on an investigation mission... and graffitis their desk.
🤬Difficulty - easy
🌄Graphics – Up to par.
🌦 Atmosphere/Music – Awesome sound track still.
📚 Main Story / Characters – This story tries to explore the background between Chloe and Rachel, a character we hear about in LiS 1 but never see. Unfortunately because of its choose your own adventure nature and the story telling is not as good as LOS 1, they never make a statement about what is really going on with them because they want you to decide... so you kinda are left hanging about what the story tellers are trying to tell you. But wasn't the point of this game to tell us whats going on between the 2? Sometimes there are super touching scenes, other times they look like they went back to being friends.
The story also suffers from lack of focus. They explore so many things, rachel's relationship, rachel's dad, drug dealers, Rachel's mom, wanting to escape their life without a real motive set, and more. Well the issue here is that you are playing as CHLOE! And most of the time she is doing things on behalf of Rachel, and literally feels like a super nosy friend, and they find random ways to take Rachel out of the picture, or Rachel asks Chloe to do things like break into her Dad the DA's office for her... huh? There are more like this but I won't spoil the story. When i played this game I was thinking this suffers from some of the same issues as LiS:TC and it became clear to me why... they are both developed by Deck9 and LIS was not. DonTnoD did a much better job.
Had they just focused on Chloe and Rachel's relationship and told the story through Chloe's eyes and feelings and their evolution it would have been better. But I felt they just tried to jam the typical hero problem solves story.
🤺 Combat – None
🧠Side Activities / Exploration – Easy, but not interesting.
🚗 Movement/Physics – fine
📣 Voice acting – Excellent!
🥇 Best thing about the game - Some very touching scenes and story telling bits but unfortunately mixed with mediocore story.
đź‘Ž Worst thing about the game - Nothing stands out except how the characters walk. Geez they couldn't fix that? It looks like their hips are dislocated or something strange...
đź’ˇFinal Thoughts:
Skip it if you want to unless you are a true fan. Passable story and story telling with some very touching moments and music thrown in to keep you going.
⌚ Time to finish - 8h
🏆Trophy completion - 100% - easy but I didn't feel it did anything to the story. She graffitis everywhere and in places she shouldn't be graffitiying not only because its socially wrong but also because she is going on an investigation mission... and graffitis their desk.
🤬Difficulty - easy
🌄Graphics – Up to par.
🌦 Atmosphere/Music – Awesome sound track still.
📚 Main Story / Characters – This story tries to explore the background between Chloe and Rachel, a character we hear about in LiS 1 but never see. Unfortunately because of its choose your own adventure nature and the story telling is not as good as LOS 1, they never make a statement about what is really going on with them because they want you to decide... so you kinda are left hanging about what the story tellers are trying to tell you. But wasn't the point of this game to tell us whats going on between the 2? Sometimes there are super touching scenes, other times they look like they went back to being friends.
The story also suffers from lack of focus. They explore so many things, rachel's relationship, rachel's dad, drug dealers, Rachel's mom, wanting to escape their life without a real motive set, and more. Well the issue here is that you are playing as CHLOE! And most of the time she is doing things on behalf of Rachel, and literally feels like a super nosy friend, and they find random ways to take Rachel out of the picture, or Rachel asks Chloe to do things like break into her Dad the DA's office for her... huh? There are more like this but I won't spoil the story. When i played this game I was thinking this suffers from some of the same issues as LiS:TC and it became clear to me why... they are both developed by Deck9 and LIS was not. DonTnoD did a much better job.
Had they just focused on Chloe and Rachel's relationship and told the story through Chloe's eyes and feelings and their evolution it would have been better. But I felt they just tried to jam the typical hero problem solves story.
🤺 Combat – None
🧠Side Activities / Exploration – Easy, but not interesting.
🚗 Movement/Physics – fine
📣 Voice acting – Excellent!
🥇 Best thing about the game - Some very touching scenes and story telling bits but unfortunately mixed with mediocore story.
đź‘Ž Worst thing about the game - Nothing stands out except how the characters walk. Geez they couldn't fix that? It looks like their hips are dislocated or something strange...
đź’ˇFinal Thoughts:
Skip it if you want to unless you are a true fan. Passable story and story telling with some very touching moments and music thrown in to keep you going.
2015
🎮 Platform: PS5
⌚ Time to finish - 9h
🏆Trophy completion - 100% - easy and definitely worth completing. I overall enjoyed them and felt it helped me immerse myself in the game. Not a must as no story beats in it.
🤬Difficulty - easy
🌄Graphics – Up to par.
🌦 Atmosphere/Music – Life is strange is known for its music and atmosphere. This has amazing songs which I added to my outside of game listening! I definitely felt like I was Max and very much invested in her story and friends.
📚 Main Story / Characters – I liked all the characters however her friend, Chole, was pretty annoying in the beginning. Very cliche bad girl attitude. Also there is something very strange with the dialog, they misuse the word "hella" and english slangs in strange ways. It gets a lot better 2nd half when the story gets going and they aren't trying to character build with slang phrases.
The main story was really fun. Max's time reverse power is used in interesting ways not only to solve puzzles but also as a interesting device to move story forward. It explores issues around what happens when she reverses time and her motivations for it. Time travel stories are a dime a dozen and most aren't done right. This one gets it right and its super engaging. I really enjoyed my experience with this game! The story is very touching and I really was invested in what is going on in the screen.
🤺 Combat – None
🧠Side Activities / Exploration – Easy, worth it. Get 100%.
🚗 Movement/Physics – Great. For some reason I did not feel she moves slowly like Alex in LiS:TC. But thats because I was lot more immersed in this story.
📣 Voice acting – Excellent!
🥇 Best thing about the game - Time travel story done well and engaging story telling and narration. The last 2-3 chapters are just a blast.
đź‘Ž Worst thing about the game - Some puzzles are just so obscure. There was a puzzle where you have a board of clues... there are so many combinations and somehow you are suppose to hook up the right 3 items to move story forward, multiple times. this was frustrating. Also in some places, it asks you for door codes that you saw a chapter or 2 ago on a random paper. This was annoying since I could not pull up those notes, I had no choice but to look it up. Get through these parts fast and don't linger on it.
đź’ˇFinal Thoughts:
Excellent game and not to be missed. Its my fav of Life is strange series though I haven't played 2, which is generally regarded as ok game. I think this is way better than TC. The story and story telling was fun as were the characters and Max's special power. Must play.
⌚ Time to finish - 9h
🏆Trophy completion - 100% - easy and definitely worth completing. I overall enjoyed them and felt it helped me immerse myself in the game. Not a must as no story beats in it.
🤬Difficulty - easy
🌄Graphics – Up to par.
🌦 Atmosphere/Music – Life is strange is known for its music and atmosphere. This has amazing songs which I added to my outside of game listening! I definitely felt like I was Max and very much invested in her story and friends.
📚 Main Story / Characters – I liked all the characters however her friend, Chole, was pretty annoying in the beginning. Very cliche bad girl attitude. Also there is something very strange with the dialog, they misuse the word "hella" and english slangs in strange ways. It gets a lot better 2nd half when the story gets going and they aren't trying to character build with slang phrases.
The main story was really fun. Max's time reverse power is used in interesting ways not only to solve puzzles but also as a interesting device to move story forward. It explores issues around what happens when she reverses time and her motivations for it. Time travel stories are a dime a dozen and most aren't done right. This one gets it right and its super engaging. I really enjoyed my experience with this game! The story is very touching and I really was invested in what is going on in the screen.
🤺 Combat – None
🧠Side Activities / Exploration – Easy, worth it. Get 100%.
🚗 Movement/Physics – Great. For some reason I did not feel she moves slowly like Alex in LiS:TC. But thats because I was lot more immersed in this story.
📣 Voice acting – Excellent!
🥇 Best thing about the game - Time travel story done well and engaging story telling and narration. The last 2-3 chapters are just a blast.
đź‘Ž Worst thing about the game - Some puzzles are just so obscure. There was a puzzle where you have a board of clues... there are so many combinations and somehow you are suppose to hook up the right 3 items to move story forward, multiple times. this was frustrating. Also in some places, it asks you for door codes that you saw a chapter or 2 ago on a random paper. This was annoying since I could not pull up those notes, I had no choice but to look it up. Get through these parts fast and don't linger on it.
đź’ˇFinal Thoughts:
Excellent game and not to be missed. Its my fav of Life is strange series though I haven't played 2, which is generally regarded as ok game. I think this is way better than TC. The story and story telling was fun as were the characters and Max's special power. Must play.
🎮 Platform: PS5
⌚ Time to finish - 9h
🏆Trophy completion - 100% - Easy trophy, offers some additional info but didn't add much. I wish it added more to the story.
🤬Difficulty - easy
🌄Graphics – Good but definitely not optimized. You have a game like horizon at 60fps and then you have this game which is super choppy on pan. Its very jarring at 30fps and feels more like 10fps. At 60fps it feels like 30 fps. Anyway game is beautiful engine needs work.
🌦 Atmosphere/Music – Great. Visuals and music add alot. I wanted to visit this mountain town.
📚 Main Story / Characters – The story is cliche. The interactions among the characters are cliche. There were enough characters and i routinely got confused with those characters that got less screen time. This is because the cliched interactions didn't leave an impression of the characters and their names when they were introduced. This entire game is about character interactions and overall I felt it was run of the mill and was just going through the motions with occasional wow moment. Don't get me wrong there are definitely twists and wow moments, but you have to wait an hour or 2 till the end of the episode to get there, the rest of it is routine. I liked them overall but nothing out of the ordinary. For example (not spoiler) you play larp for almost an entire episode! Sure its meant for relationship building, but I already Role played in Life is strange 2, and in wavelengths, do I really need to do it a 3rd time? I did not care much for most of the characters so I did not feel like it was fun building relationships with them, it felt more about pressing buttons. This is a shame because there are so few characters and the potential is there! But again they are cliche so hard to care for them.
🤺 Combat – None
🧠Side Activities / Exploration – Not much to explore. Trophy allows you to explore some but overall exploration didn't add much.
🚗 Movement/Physics – SLOW! Can she move faster please!!!
📣 Voice acting – Excellent. Facial expressions are awesome.
🥇 Best thing about the game - MUSIC!! Wish there was more. It explores emotions, since I am already a little "woke" i got it. But It always helps people to go through stories that are about emotional intelligence.
đź‘Ž Worst thing about the game - Nothing. Its a fine game.
đź’ˇFinal Thoughts:
Did I use the word cliche enough? Life is strange 1 is the best of the series. I had high hopes for this game. Her power is cool but not that interesting. What you do in the game is not too interesting. You get to know all the characters but no one really that deep. The ending is wrapped up in a very cliche style. Things that happen to main character are not explored deeply. She ends up being a therapist for other people, when probably she should be the one getting support. Sure this can be seen has her being strong, but we don't get to explore her mental state. Maybe I am spoiled by games like Last of us 1/2/Drake/life is strange 1 etc.
⌚ Time to finish - 9h
🏆Trophy completion - 100% - Easy trophy, offers some additional info but didn't add much. I wish it added more to the story.
🤬Difficulty - easy
🌄Graphics – Good but definitely not optimized. You have a game like horizon at 60fps and then you have this game which is super choppy on pan. Its very jarring at 30fps and feels more like 10fps. At 60fps it feels like 30 fps. Anyway game is beautiful engine needs work.
🌦 Atmosphere/Music – Great. Visuals and music add alot. I wanted to visit this mountain town.
📚 Main Story / Characters – The story is cliche. The interactions among the characters are cliche. There were enough characters and i routinely got confused with those characters that got less screen time. This is because the cliched interactions didn't leave an impression of the characters and their names when they were introduced. This entire game is about character interactions and overall I felt it was run of the mill and was just going through the motions with occasional wow moment. Don't get me wrong there are definitely twists and wow moments, but you have to wait an hour or 2 till the end of the episode to get there, the rest of it is routine. I liked them overall but nothing out of the ordinary. For example (not spoiler) you play larp for almost an entire episode! Sure its meant for relationship building, but I already Role played in Life is strange 2, and in wavelengths, do I really need to do it a 3rd time? I did not care much for most of the characters so I did not feel like it was fun building relationships with them, it felt more about pressing buttons. This is a shame because there are so few characters and the potential is there! But again they are cliche so hard to care for them.
🤺 Combat – None
🧠Side Activities / Exploration – Not much to explore. Trophy allows you to explore some but overall exploration didn't add much.
🚗 Movement/Physics – SLOW! Can she move faster please!!!
📣 Voice acting – Excellent. Facial expressions are awesome.
🥇 Best thing about the game - MUSIC!! Wish there was more. It explores emotions, since I am already a little "woke" i got it. But It always helps people to go through stories that are about emotional intelligence.
đź‘Ž Worst thing about the game - Nothing. Its a fine game.
đź’ˇFinal Thoughts:
Did I use the word cliche enough? Life is strange 1 is the best of the series. I had high hopes for this game. Her power is cool but not that interesting. What you do in the game is not too interesting. You get to know all the characters but no one really that deep. The ending is wrapped up in a very cliche style. Things that happen to main character are not explored deeply. She ends up being a therapist for other people, when probably she should be the one getting support. Sure this can be seen has her being strong, but we don't get to explore her mental state. Maybe I am spoiled by games like Last of us 1/2/Drake/life is strange 1 etc.
🎮 Platform: PC - (Bug on GFNow so I could not play it there :( )
⌚ Time to finish - 11h
🏆Trophy completion - did not bother. The activities are already repetitive, and coming off AC2 its EVEN more repetetive.
🤬Difficulty - easy
🌄Graphics – Very nice and still holds up.
🌦 Atmosphere/Music – Nice.
📚 Main Story / Characters – I hated everything here. The story was boring, all the characters in AC2 i found interesting had no character development. The decision that is made at the end of AC2 was made to sound so mindblowing but its completely trivialized here. Ezio was way more boring here. Characters i wanted to see of more were missing.
🤺 Combat – Boring. More of ac2...
🧠Side Activities / Exploration – Boring. My most fav thing about ac2 the villa upgrade they took it a damn step too far. Now you are an entrepreneur opening tons of shops all over the place. Was hard to track, and made me not want to participate. They took one of my fav things away and unnecessarily changed it.
🚗 Movement/Physics – Same as AC2
📣 Voice acting – Good but step down from ac2. They took out Ezio's expositions on death. WHY!? those were cool to hear.
🥇 Best thing about the game - Nothing
đź‘Ž Worst thing about the game - They took everything away that was fun and I enjoyed about ac2. All the stealth missions were badly designed and full of bugs. For a stealth game this is atrocious. I hated those finnicky missions especially the mission where you chase people and play in the roman play (not spoiler)
đź’ˇFinal Thoughts:
Disappointing game. I had high hopes for this as this is suppose to be one of the best ac games. I liked AC2 enough to try this and they took away everything I liked in AC2 and changed it for the sake of doing something different. Sometimes we just want more of the same! So net is they took away everything I enjoyed in ac2, and left all the repetitive bits. Removed some of my fav mechanisms, and characters. So disappointing. Well good news is that I don't have to hit any AC games after this and therefore reduce my backlog and focus on other games. :)
⌚ Time to finish - 11h
🏆Trophy completion - did not bother. The activities are already repetitive, and coming off AC2 its EVEN more repetetive.
🤬Difficulty - easy
🌄Graphics – Very nice and still holds up.
🌦 Atmosphere/Music – Nice.
📚 Main Story / Characters – I hated everything here. The story was boring, all the characters in AC2 i found interesting had no character development. The decision that is made at the end of AC2 was made to sound so mindblowing but its completely trivialized here. Ezio was way more boring here. Characters i wanted to see of more were missing.
🤺 Combat – Boring. More of ac2...
🧠Side Activities / Exploration – Boring. My most fav thing about ac2 the villa upgrade they took it a damn step too far. Now you are an entrepreneur opening tons of shops all over the place. Was hard to track, and made me not want to participate. They took one of my fav things away and unnecessarily changed it.
🚗 Movement/Physics – Same as AC2
📣 Voice acting – Good but step down from ac2. They took out Ezio's expositions on death. WHY!? those were cool to hear.
🥇 Best thing about the game - Nothing
đź‘Ž Worst thing about the game - They took everything away that was fun and I enjoyed about ac2. All the stealth missions were badly designed and full of bugs. For a stealth game this is atrocious. I hated those finnicky missions especially the mission where you chase people and play in the roman play (not spoiler)
đź’ˇFinal Thoughts:
Disappointing game. I had high hopes for this as this is suppose to be one of the best ac games. I liked AC2 enough to try this and they took away everything I liked in AC2 and changed it for the sake of doing something different. Sometimes we just want more of the same! So net is they took away everything I enjoyed in ac2, and left all the repetitive bits. Removed some of my fav mechanisms, and characters. So disappointing. Well good news is that I don't have to hit any AC games after this and therefore reduce my backlog and focus on other games. :)
2009
🎮 Platform: Geforce NOW - PC - Ran amazing. I was in most optimal wired + <20ms ping.
⌚ Time to finish - 15.5h Story
🏆Trophy completion - did not bother. The activities are already repetitive going through the 15h story I had 0 motivation for trophies.
🤬Difficulty - easy
🌄Graphics – Very nice and still holds up. I did have GFN 3080 tier which is the best. I believe since I got it recently I believe graphics were remastered since original release.
🌦 Atmosphere/Music – Nice. The music was great and reminded me of my trop to Italy a decade ago. A nostalgic feeling. :)
📚 Main Story / Characters – I liked ALL the characters in this game and there were a few of them. They make all the interactions meaningful. I really like Ezio. He is fun. I overall liked the story, though nothing ground breaking it was fun and adventurous.
🤺 Combat – Boring. Way better than 1, but still boring. I found myself just parry and 1 shotting everyone over and over and over again. ugh.
🧠Side Activities / Exploration – Movement is much more improved over 1, but still you run up randomly on walls, camera still swings when you didn't want it to. Side activities are repetitive and boring. The best side activity was upgrading your villa and making a shit ton of money! that was the best. :)
🚗 Movement/Physics – manageable but has issues. Can be frustrating because he randomly climbs up a wall, doesn't grab what he should.
📣 Voice acting – Excellent.
🥇 Best thing about the game - Just a fun sense to Ezio personality and voice acting. I really liked the voice acting of Ezio its awesome with his italian accent. Upgrading your villa.
đź‘Ž Worst thing about the game - The game play itself. After half way point its repetitive.
đź’ˇFinal Thoughts:
If this is the best game in the Creed series I am surprised how so many games after this were released and still milking the $$. I played brotherhood but after that thankfully i feel I do not need to touch this series again. This game is a fine game but after the half way mark its repetitive and gets boring. The story is what keeps it going. The integrated DLC really drags the game and doesn't add anything. The fundamental issue with this game is that the activities in the game are just boring over time.
1) Combat - how much can you hold parry and kill over and over again?
2) Follow - How many times can you follow people in clunky stealth mechanics?
3) pickpocket - really?
4) Climb towers - the cracks of parcour start to show.
Modern games iterated on this so I appreciate this for being a fine game and really improving on the unplayable AC 1. This did spawn a lot of games but I think maybe Prince of Persia deserves that credit and not this game.
⌚ Time to finish - 15.5h Story
🏆Trophy completion - did not bother. The activities are already repetitive going through the 15h story I had 0 motivation for trophies.
🤬Difficulty - easy
🌄Graphics – Very nice and still holds up. I did have GFN 3080 tier which is the best. I believe since I got it recently I believe graphics were remastered since original release.
🌦 Atmosphere/Music – Nice. The music was great and reminded me of my trop to Italy a decade ago. A nostalgic feeling. :)
📚 Main Story / Characters – I liked ALL the characters in this game and there were a few of them. They make all the interactions meaningful. I really like Ezio. He is fun. I overall liked the story, though nothing ground breaking it was fun and adventurous.
🤺 Combat – Boring. Way better than 1, but still boring. I found myself just parry and 1 shotting everyone over and over and over again. ugh.
🧠Side Activities / Exploration – Movement is much more improved over 1, but still you run up randomly on walls, camera still swings when you didn't want it to. Side activities are repetitive and boring. The best side activity was upgrading your villa and making a shit ton of money! that was the best. :)
🚗 Movement/Physics – manageable but has issues. Can be frustrating because he randomly climbs up a wall, doesn't grab what he should.
📣 Voice acting – Excellent.
🥇 Best thing about the game - Just a fun sense to Ezio personality and voice acting. I really liked the voice acting of Ezio its awesome with his italian accent. Upgrading your villa.
đź‘Ž Worst thing about the game - The game play itself. After half way point its repetitive.
đź’ˇFinal Thoughts:
If this is the best game in the Creed series I am surprised how so many games after this were released and still milking the $$. I played brotherhood but after that thankfully i feel I do not need to touch this series again. This game is a fine game but after the half way mark its repetitive and gets boring. The story is what keeps it going. The integrated DLC really drags the game and doesn't add anything. The fundamental issue with this game is that the activities in the game are just boring over time.
1) Combat - how much can you hold parry and kill over and over again?
2) Follow - How many times can you follow people in clunky stealth mechanics?
3) pickpocket - really?
4) Climb towers - the cracks of parcour start to show.
Modern games iterated on this so I appreciate this for being a fine game and really improving on the unplayable AC 1. This did spawn a lot of games but I think maybe Prince of Persia deserves that credit and not this game.
🎮 Platform: PS5
⌚ Time to finish - 7.5h Story (9.5 with trophy clean up. I missed one collectible and had to replay story up to that. C'mon chapter select....). I also looked up most solutions since i HATED the puzzles in this game.
🏆Trophy completion - 100% - Really enjoyed collecting the lore stones and hearing the stories. I love norse mythology and this was stories from their mythology.
🤬Difficulty - its not a difficult game but the puzzles are tedious.
🌄Graphics – Very nice. Rivals AAA games. In general i like vibrant colors in games and this doesn't have that. But its very fitting.
🌦 Atmosphere/Music – AMAZING! This has some of the best sound design of any game i played. You Really feel like you are in the character's shoes and get a glimpes into her mental disorder. Its really well done. It reminded me of a better version of alan wake sound design.
📚 Main Story / Characters – I really liked all the main characters. They are complex. Senua is great. I really felt for every character in the game even if they were the "Bad" guy. There are only a few and they are very nuanced. There are things they tell you and things that are inferred. It made me feel for characters like top oscar nominated movies usually do.
🤺 Combat – Challenging and engaging and not too many brawls. I am not sure why so much negative criticism for combat. I actually liked it.
🧠Side Activities / Exploration – I hated the puzzles in this game. They are all environmental puzzles and boils down to finding objects on the world, and look at them with a certain angle. I hated it. I looked up answers to most of them because it was really taking away from the game, and things were getting to a dead halt. Lorestones were great!
🚗 Movement/Physics – Great. Camera sometimes gets in the way during combat... which was annoying.
📣 Voice acting – Excellent. Some of the best if not the best in any game i played.
🥇 Best thing about the game - Story telling, sound design, characters. Everything about the story is 5/5 from the start to end. Its gripping. It will stick with you for a long time.
đź‘Ž Worst thing about the game - puzzles. I hated the puzzles here (1/5) as much as I loved the story. No chapter select for trophy hunters. This one level where everything is pitch dark seriously....
đź’ˇFinal Thoughts:
Amazing game. If you find that you are getting stuck with puzzles, do yourself a favor and look it up. Do not let the puzzles get in the way of enjoying the game. I started looking up solutions after the 4th chapter and the game went to a 5/5 from a 3/5 experience. The story flows and it feels like i am in senua's head. I wish I could give this a 5/5 but i cannot because of the shitty puzzles.
I wish they picked somethign else between the story beats. Even more combat would have been better. Story and story telling was amazing, gameplay especially puzzles left alot to be desired.
I missed one lorestone and had to replay about 4 chapters. Honestly i thought this would be bad but it went by fast, and also because I knew the ending, I had alot more understanding about some of the motivation of characters in the beginning. You can only know this after you watch the ending.
Amazing game. play it!
⌚ Time to finish - 7.5h Story (9.5 with trophy clean up. I missed one collectible and had to replay story up to that. C'mon chapter select....). I also looked up most solutions since i HATED the puzzles in this game.
🏆Trophy completion - 100% - Really enjoyed collecting the lore stones and hearing the stories. I love norse mythology and this was stories from their mythology.
🤬Difficulty - its not a difficult game but the puzzles are tedious.
🌄Graphics – Very nice. Rivals AAA games. In general i like vibrant colors in games and this doesn't have that. But its very fitting.
🌦 Atmosphere/Music – AMAZING! This has some of the best sound design of any game i played. You Really feel like you are in the character's shoes and get a glimpes into her mental disorder. Its really well done. It reminded me of a better version of alan wake sound design.
📚 Main Story / Characters – I really liked all the main characters. They are complex. Senua is great. I really felt for every character in the game even if they were the "Bad" guy. There are only a few and they are very nuanced. There are things they tell you and things that are inferred. It made me feel for characters like top oscar nominated movies usually do.
🤺 Combat – Challenging and engaging and not too many brawls. I am not sure why so much negative criticism for combat. I actually liked it.
🧠Side Activities / Exploration – I hated the puzzles in this game. They are all environmental puzzles and boils down to finding objects on the world, and look at them with a certain angle. I hated it. I looked up answers to most of them because it was really taking away from the game, and things were getting to a dead halt. Lorestones were great!
🚗 Movement/Physics – Great. Camera sometimes gets in the way during combat... which was annoying.
📣 Voice acting – Excellent. Some of the best if not the best in any game i played.
🥇 Best thing about the game - Story telling, sound design, characters. Everything about the story is 5/5 from the start to end. Its gripping. It will stick with you for a long time.
đź‘Ž Worst thing about the game - puzzles. I hated the puzzles here (1/5) as much as I loved the story. No chapter select for trophy hunters. This one level where everything is pitch dark seriously....
đź’ˇFinal Thoughts:
Amazing game. If you find that you are getting stuck with puzzles, do yourself a favor and look it up. Do not let the puzzles get in the way of enjoying the game. I started looking up solutions after the 4th chapter and the game went to a 5/5 from a 3/5 experience. The story flows and it feels like i am in senua's head. I wish I could give this a 5/5 but i cannot because of the shitty puzzles.
I wish they picked somethign else between the story beats. Even more combat would have been better. Story and story telling was amazing, gameplay especially puzzles left alot to be desired.
I missed one lorestone and had to replay about 4 chapters. Honestly i thought this would be bad but it went by fast, and also because I knew the ending, I had alot more understanding about some of the motivation of characters in the beginning. You can only know this after you watch the ending.
Amazing game. play it!