sosleepyboy
2018
A pretty bland plain game but is more often than not unintentionally hilarious to play with a buddy late at night.
Incredibly fun and unique gameplay with great charm; accompanied with a fantastic standout soundtrack.
2003
Like many third entries in well acclaimed franchises, Silent Hill 3 runs the risk of being overshadowed by its predecessors.
Silent Hill 1 introduces the titular abandoned town with its unique visual style and memorable shocking first time moments.
Silent Hill 2 is a new form of shocking by flipping those preconceptions around on what we thought we understood about Silent Hill.
Silent Hill 3 is an iterative refinement, being both a direct sequel to the first game and taking elements from the second game. In many ways the third entry does surpass the previous titles. It’s one of the best looking PS2 games I’ve ever seen, content is denser in terms of section to section, arguably the set pieces and sound design are the most impressive to this point. And of course the best new element of the game is the protagonist Heather/ Cheryl Mason, she is easily the highlight of the entire journey.
Its shortcomings are definitely more towards its weak attempts to expand combat, it’s midpoint in the sewers and first half of the office seems a bit lost. And yeah the narrative itself is a lot of retreading but under the new context and perspective of Heather I don’t find this as much of an issue as others.
Silent Hill 3 is an excellent game and I definitely would put it on par with its older siblings.
Silent Hill 1 introduces the titular abandoned town with its unique visual style and memorable shocking first time moments.
Silent Hill 2 is a new form of shocking by flipping those preconceptions around on what we thought we understood about Silent Hill.
Silent Hill 3 is an iterative refinement, being both a direct sequel to the first game and taking elements from the second game. In many ways the third entry does surpass the previous titles. It’s one of the best looking PS2 games I’ve ever seen, content is denser in terms of section to section, arguably the set pieces and sound design are the most impressive to this point. And of course the best new element of the game is the protagonist Heather/ Cheryl Mason, she is easily the highlight of the entire journey.
Its shortcomings are definitely more towards its weak attempts to expand combat, it’s midpoint in the sewers and first half of the office seems a bit lost. And yeah the narrative itself is a lot of retreading but under the new context and perspective of Heather I don’t find this as much of an issue as others.
Silent Hill 3 is an excellent game and I definitely would put it on par with its older siblings.
2001
Silent Hill 2 evokes a feeling that I almost just can't comprehend. Both entries in the series so far have rattled my brain senseless for the past month.
Silent Hill 2 is a subversive sequel by nature in its level design, characters and world. It's not particularly a conventional sequel, the game works as a stand alone product; which I think is pretty great.
PROS:
• The narrative is easily the biggest step up in quality, much darker and asks us as the player to be a more active spectator in reading the subtext.
• The soundtrack and sound design are killer, adds so much to the experience.
• The pacing from section to section is a lot better as it has a clearer path of where to head and explore, nowhere near as monotonous as Silent Hill 1.
• The horror elements and atmosphere is thick as ever, truly horrifying.
CONS:
• I thought the nightmare areas weren't nearly as effective as Silent Hill 1's more industrial rusted bloodstained imagery.
• Enemy variety is a little lacking??? Still absolutely love the mannequins they are superb.
• Combat itself is fine and works for what its going for, its more so the abundance of ammo and health items that you obtain throughout the second half that bothers me. It just makes the option of choice in weaponry feel pointless when you can practically kill every enemy in the game with the pistol and not worry about ammo.
Overall this game fucking rocks, a step up as a sequel in many regards but allows the first game to not be obsolete as it stands tall as its own separate entry.
Soundtrack is going to be on repeat for the next few weeks. Anyway till Silent Hill 3, bye.
Silent Hill 2 is a subversive sequel by nature in its level design, characters and world. It's not particularly a conventional sequel, the game works as a stand alone product; which I think is pretty great.
PROS:
• The narrative is easily the biggest step up in quality, much darker and asks us as the player to be a more active spectator in reading the subtext.
• The soundtrack and sound design are killer, adds so much to the experience.
• The pacing from section to section is a lot better as it has a clearer path of where to head and explore, nowhere near as monotonous as Silent Hill 1.
• The horror elements and atmosphere is thick as ever, truly horrifying.
CONS:
• I thought the nightmare areas weren't nearly as effective as Silent Hill 1's more industrial rusted bloodstained imagery.
• Enemy variety is a little lacking??? Still absolutely love the mannequins they are superb.
• Combat itself is fine and works for what its going for, its more so the abundance of ammo and health items that you obtain throughout the second half that bothers me. It just makes the option of choice in weaponry feel pointless when you can practically kill every enemy in the game with the pistol and not worry about ammo.
Overall this game fucking rocks, a step up as a sequel in many regards but allows the first game to not be obsolete as it stands tall as its own separate entry.
Soundtrack is going to be on repeat for the next few weeks. Anyway till Silent Hill 3, bye.
1999
Flawed story but the journey there was incredible.
2017
Hollow Knight is just that good
Insane to me how long I've been putting this game off in the backlog. Fallen in love with the game, the lore, the community and what's to come next from Team Cherry.
I just want to play more.
Insane to me how long I've been putting this game off in the backlog. Fallen in love with the game, the lore, the community and what's to come next from Team Cherry.
I just want to play more.
Spyro 3 is a great time stacked high in gimmicks upon gimmicks.
Arguably more messy than the second one. It's interesting seeing Insomniac deciding to experiment with some additional playable characters in their final outing with the dragon. It's a shame they all aren't particularly fun to play as.
Definitely my least favourite to 100%, on the final world I was skipping dialogue and rushing through levels to finish them faster lol.
Arguably more messy than the second one. It's interesting seeing Insomniac deciding to experiment with some additional playable characters in their final outing with the dragon. It's a shame they all aren't particularly fun to play as.
Definitely my least favourite to 100%, on the final world I was skipping dialogue and rushing through levels to finish them faster lol.
Spyro 2 addresses the simplicity of the first outing but at the cost of losing the original's charm.
It's main concern was to add more to do in each world and judging by the development time being 1 year instead of 2 years with Spyro 1, I can see why the pacing is so off and a lot of the levels just feel like ideas they threw at the wall to see if they would stick.
This isn't to say this game doesn't work as a sequel, far from it, I think the new additions are great, civilisations make the levels feel more like worlds, minigames make for more variety and the soundtrack is fantastic It really has stuck with me more than the first game's soundtrack ever did.
However, I'm mixed on my thoughts with these additions. I quite enjoyed the mystical ethereal mood Spyro 1 has, the new wacky characters in each world just wasn't my thing. (Based off the Remake verison now looked into comparsions between the og and remake). I also think the minigames whilst nice, most are just not that engaging, lack any challenge even for kids and some are buggy as fuck.
It's main concern was to add more to do in each world and judging by the development time being 1 year instead of 2 years with Spyro 1, I can see why the pacing is so off and a lot of the levels just feel like ideas they threw at the wall to see if they would stick.
This isn't to say this game doesn't work as a sequel, far from it, I think the new additions are great, civilisations make the levels feel more like worlds, minigames make for more variety and the soundtrack is fantastic It really has stuck with me more than the first game's soundtrack ever did.
However, I'm mixed on my thoughts with these additions. I quite enjoyed the mystical ethereal mood Spyro 1 has, the new wacky characters in each world just wasn't my thing. (Based off the Remake verison now looked into comparsions between the og and remake). I also think the minigames whilst nice, most are just not that engaging, lack any challenge even for kids and some are buggy as fuck.
1998
Spyro 1 is great at being a collectathon platformer with very minimal mechanics that makes for a light autumn breeze to relax and play.
I totally get why people just enjoy playing Spyro even if it isn't really challenging you all too much.
Although its definitely rough around the edges in creating satisfying climaxes with boss battles and completion rewards. It's simple gameplay formula I repeated for about 5/6 hours never overstayed its welcome and I enjoyed my time with it.
I totally get why people just enjoy playing Spyro even if it isn't really challenging you all too much.
Although its definitely rough around the edges in creating satisfying climaxes with boss battles and completion rewards. It's simple gameplay formula I repeated for about 5/6 hours never overstayed its welcome and I enjoyed my time with it.
2011
Dead Space 2 successfully pulls off a bombastic spectacle than its predecessor's more slow level chapter design.
The camera perspective plays a huge role in accomplishing a genius one-take effect as you move from chapter to chapter. Without even realising, I beat this game in the span of two sessions mostly because I just forgot about how long I was playing for, fully immersed into this nightmarish love-craftian world.
I'd put both Dead Space 1 & 2 on very similar levels of quality with a preference on the first because I absolutely love the pacing, story, atmosphere, creativity, the list goes on. The two games have their own strengths, Dead Space 2 has better survival gameplay & combat, its horror is more disturbing than scary, the story is cheesy; losing a lot of the mystery from the first game but still works as a great follow-up.
Love this game, it rocks.
The camera perspective plays a huge role in accomplishing a genius one-take effect as you move from chapter to chapter. Without even realising, I beat this game in the span of two sessions mostly because I just forgot about how long I was playing for, fully immersed into this nightmarish love-craftian world.
I'd put both Dead Space 1 & 2 on very similar levels of quality with a preference on the first because I absolutely love the pacing, story, atmosphere, creativity, the list goes on. The two games have their own strengths, Dead Space 2 has better survival gameplay & combat, its horror is more disturbing than scary, the story is cheesy; losing a lot of the mystery from the first game but still works as a great follow-up.
Love this game, it rocks.
This Review is based of 3 months of on and off play sessions with all 152 shrines completed and one ganondorf defeated.
Tears of the Kingdom (TOTK) is being renounced as the 'best game of the year' by the millions, placed on the same acclaim as its older brother Breath of the Wild, some would even state this game has made Breath of the Wild (BOTW) "unplayable" or look like "a tech demo by comparison". How true is this? I'm not sure but here are my rambling thoughts on where I view this game with the rest of the series.
After beating the game I'm left utterly conflicted with where I stand on TOTK and BOTW as entries to the 3D Zelda collection. TOTK as a sequel is more focused on adding new ideas than refining the faults of BOTW.
PROS:
• OBJECTIVES: It's progression system is a massive improvement, finding shrines aren't your only side objective since the sky and the depths give a greater variety of keeping you engaged; discovering the world to find better items and upgrades.
• WEAPON DURABILITY: Everyone's favourite thing to nag on about, if you hate it here I don't know what to tell you. There was not a single moment in my time did I ever run out of weapons because the game constantly throws powerful items at you to fuse your shitty weapons with and because of it your getting to see a shit ton of cool weapon combinations that keeps combat feeling fun if a little repetitive. (still fun though)
• SHRINES: Way more challenging and fun to find and I also wanted to go to every last one because the puzzles are a lot more about showing you the capabilities of your new abilities than giving you a dull puzzle in BOTW where there was only one solution to solving them. speaking of...
• THE ABILITES: At first they feel like downgrades (still miss stasis) but as you progress these abilities flow a lot better together in shrines and make you think a lot more with the more tougher puzzles.
• TRAVERSAL: Way better, you're getting to places quicker with ascend and ultrahand vehicles and its a lot less dull than climbing a rock just so you can hang-glide (whilst still giving you the option to play like BOTW if you so choose.
• THE SKY ISLANDS: the most fresh content in the game and the tutorial island is fantastic at setting up the game.
•THE FINALE: great execution even if it feels too similar to BOTW's finale. Ganondorf fight is the best in the game, the most fun and challenging. The soundtrack in that last hour of the game is fantastic and the final action piece although just as piss easy as BOTW, it feels grand and I had goosebumps all over me lolllll.
CONS (oh boy)
•THE SKY ISLANDS: huh again you say? Yep. Easiest the most disappointing aspect of this game is how much Nintendo focussed and marketed towards the sky islands being the new biggest addition to the game and wow does that tutorial not make it any better by leaving me and many other players blue balled into believing the sky islands were going to be a great chunk of the game because man they are my favourite areas of the game AND THERES BARELY ANYTHING UP THERE. When its good, god its good but man there really is not enough content up there, hoping for a dlc to add more of it.
• THE DEPTHS: In contrast, the area Nintendo stayed away from showing any of till the game launched was the depths. I think the depths stink. Bland, repetitive, way too baron, way too much climbing and getting lost, nothing really down there other than a cool yiga chan side quest, its just dull and it feels like there wasn't any real thought put into it. You can practically miss the entire of the depths in till late game when it actually forces you to go down there.
• THE STORY: Thinks its epic in scale when its actually super lame. There's some stand out moments particularly with Zelda's arc. This aspect is something I really wished would be great after BOTW stripped down a lot of the layers that make a good zelda story. Major story beats just don't work, feel forced, forced emotions from characters I haven't built any attachment too. Zelda stories work off their simplicity and implications that make them more interesting the further you read into them. This game just tells you everything in the most boring ways possible.
• THE SCRIPT: Most characters are very one note, dialogue is god awful, spoon feeding the player the same piece of information over and over like I'm baby. The game treats you like an idiot, the game worked for me so well in those first 30/40 hours where I knew very little but as I watched more of the geoglyphs, god this story is so ass.
• THE DUNGEONS: Still not a great, hell I would say most divine beasts were more interesting than the six dungeons (more like four), very repetitive with incredibly easy puzzles and get to the marker objectives.
• REPITITION: The game is twice as big as before, so it was eventual that I would feel some burnout in comparison to the 90 so hours I spent on BOTW. With such a big world comes the consequence of not having enough stuff to fill each area so there a lot of objectives that are reused constantly.
• SIDE QUESTS: Speaking of, searching for odd ball items like get 50 tireless toad just so u can get a shitty reward is not a side quest. Once I knew I had done every form of a side quest, I stopped caring about them, I stopped caring about koroks, I stopped caring about president hudson fanboy, I stopped caring for lightroots.
Conclusion, Tears of the Kingdom is a overall a good sequel to Breath of the Wild. It fixes a lot of the major mechanics and pace complaints but gets too cocky in its size both exploration and narratively. The world is more alive than ever but at a cost of feeling of using the same world and regions it can feel at times been here done that. The story is more involving and wants to come off as one of the more emotional plots but lacks the trust of the audience's maturity and most story beats have swapped out to give this unnatural approach of the story messing with the continuity of Breath of the Wild.
Tears of the Kingdom has its merits but its made me reconsider what I love about Zelda as a series. TOTK and BOTW are two separate entries that I really enjoyed playing but aren't games I see myself going back to anytime soon for their tedious long outdrawn content that doesn't resonate the same emotional immersive experiences I got from the more linear approaches of the older titles. That being said after more some more thinking I now geniuelly consider Breath of the Wild to be the better game because of its impact at the time, its core value of exploration feels more focused than TOTK's attempting to be alot of stuff at once.
Bigger doesn't mean better in this case....
Tears of the Kingdom (TOTK) is being renounced as the 'best game of the year' by the millions, placed on the same acclaim as its older brother Breath of the Wild, some would even state this game has made Breath of the Wild (BOTW) "unplayable" or look like "a tech demo by comparison". How true is this? I'm not sure but here are my rambling thoughts on where I view this game with the rest of the series.
After beating the game I'm left utterly conflicted with where I stand on TOTK and BOTW as entries to the 3D Zelda collection. TOTK as a sequel is more focused on adding new ideas than refining the faults of BOTW.
PROS:
• OBJECTIVES: It's progression system is a massive improvement, finding shrines aren't your only side objective since the sky and the depths give a greater variety of keeping you engaged; discovering the world to find better items and upgrades.
• WEAPON DURABILITY: Everyone's favourite thing to nag on about, if you hate it here I don't know what to tell you. There was not a single moment in my time did I ever run out of weapons because the game constantly throws powerful items at you to fuse your shitty weapons with and because of it your getting to see a shit ton of cool weapon combinations that keeps combat feeling fun if a little repetitive. (still fun though)
• SHRINES: Way more challenging and fun to find and I also wanted to go to every last one because the puzzles are a lot more about showing you the capabilities of your new abilities than giving you a dull puzzle in BOTW where there was only one solution to solving them. speaking of...
• THE ABILITES: At first they feel like downgrades (still miss stasis) but as you progress these abilities flow a lot better together in shrines and make you think a lot more with the more tougher puzzles.
• TRAVERSAL: Way better, you're getting to places quicker with ascend and ultrahand vehicles and its a lot less dull than climbing a rock just so you can hang-glide (whilst still giving you the option to play like BOTW if you so choose.
• THE SKY ISLANDS: the most fresh content in the game and the tutorial island is fantastic at setting up the game.
•THE FINALE: great execution even if it feels too similar to BOTW's finale. Ganondorf fight is the best in the game, the most fun and challenging. The soundtrack in that last hour of the game is fantastic and the final action piece although just as piss easy as BOTW, it feels grand and I had goosebumps all over me lolllll.
CONS (oh boy)
•THE SKY ISLANDS: huh again you say? Yep. Easiest the most disappointing aspect of this game is how much Nintendo focussed and marketed towards the sky islands being the new biggest addition to the game and wow does that tutorial not make it any better by leaving me and many other players blue balled into believing the sky islands were going to be a great chunk of the game because man they are my favourite areas of the game AND THERES BARELY ANYTHING UP THERE. When its good, god its good but man there really is not enough content up there, hoping for a dlc to add more of it.
• THE DEPTHS: In contrast, the area Nintendo stayed away from showing any of till the game launched was the depths. I think the depths stink. Bland, repetitive, way too baron, way too much climbing and getting lost, nothing really down there other than a cool yiga chan side quest, its just dull and it feels like there wasn't any real thought put into it. You can practically miss the entire of the depths in till late game when it actually forces you to go down there.
• THE STORY: Thinks its epic in scale when its actually super lame. There's some stand out moments particularly with Zelda's arc. This aspect is something I really wished would be great after BOTW stripped down a lot of the layers that make a good zelda story. Major story beats just don't work, feel forced, forced emotions from characters I haven't built any attachment too. Zelda stories work off their simplicity and implications that make them more interesting the further you read into them. This game just tells you everything in the most boring ways possible.
• THE SCRIPT: Most characters are very one note, dialogue is god awful, spoon feeding the player the same piece of information over and over like I'm baby. The game treats you like an idiot, the game worked for me so well in those first 30/40 hours where I knew very little but as I watched more of the geoglyphs, god this story is so ass.
• THE DUNGEONS: Still not a great, hell I would say most divine beasts were more interesting than the six dungeons (more like four), very repetitive with incredibly easy puzzles and get to the marker objectives.
• REPITITION: The game is twice as big as before, so it was eventual that I would feel some burnout in comparison to the 90 so hours I spent on BOTW. With such a big world comes the consequence of not having enough stuff to fill each area so there a lot of objectives that are reused constantly.
• SIDE QUESTS: Speaking of, searching for odd ball items like get 50 tireless toad just so u can get a shitty reward is not a side quest. Once I knew I had done every form of a side quest, I stopped caring about them, I stopped caring about koroks, I stopped caring about president hudson fanboy, I stopped caring for lightroots.
Conclusion, Tears of the Kingdom is a overall a good sequel to Breath of the Wild. It fixes a lot of the major mechanics and pace complaints but gets too cocky in its size both exploration and narratively. The world is more alive than ever but at a cost of feeling of using the same world and regions it can feel at times been here done that. The story is more involving and wants to come off as one of the more emotional plots but lacks the trust of the audience's maturity and most story beats have swapped out to give this unnatural approach of the story messing with the continuity of Breath of the Wild.
Tears of the Kingdom has its merits but its made me reconsider what I love about Zelda as a series. TOTK and BOTW are two separate entries that I really enjoyed playing but aren't games I see myself going back to anytime soon for their tedious long outdrawn content that doesn't resonate the same emotional immersive experiences I got from the more linear approaches of the older titles. That being said after more some more thinking I now geniuelly consider Breath of the Wild to be the better game because of its impact at the time, its core value of exploration feels more focused than TOTK's attempting to be alot of stuff at once.
Bigger doesn't mean better in this case....
I have a weird relationship with this game. This was my first Mario and Luigi game I ever played and its also the last I finished in the original trilogy. Originally played through an R4 card my dad had given me to as a gift, I stumbled upon the same card years later after already modding my 3DS XL and finding my save file still there from 2008.
Even with my rose tinted nostalgia glasses on, this still is a solid entry but is the clear weakest in the series for a lot of people including myself.
PROS
• Music is excellent as always
• Battle system is much more impactful and intuitive
• Great setting! even if the plot is a bunch of pants.
CONS
• Bros attacks practically break the game with no bp meter.
• The villain is whatever
• Suitcase guy is fucking annoying
• Baby peach is so bad too holy fuck
• Baby mechanic is fine, they more just take over previous button roles from superstar saga.
Even with my rose tinted nostalgia glasses on, this still is a solid entry but is the clear weakest in the series for a lot of people including myself.
PROS
• Music is excellent as always
• Battle system is much more impactful and intuitive
• Great setting! even if the plot is a bunch of pants.
CONS
• Bros attacks practically break the game with no bp meter.
• The villain is whatever
• Suitcase guy is fucking annoying
• Baby peach is so bad too holy fuck
• Baby mechanic is fine, they more just take over previous button roles from superstar saga.
2011
Played this in a hotel lobby in France. The staff had hooked it up on a tv near the reception desk whilst my parents argued about the holiday, most likely leading to their eventual divorce.
Life was good.
Life was good.