Played on RPCS3 at 4k 60fps, so no performance issues on my end.

The gameplay's better than Drakengard 1, for sure. The lock-on is more competent, but because of the increased size and movement of enemies, and the way they're mixed and match, you'll probably have a harder time seeing. There's the addition of a perfect-block, and certain encounters basically force it to be mandatory (which is good). A regular block drains your stamina-meter which is also used for "special" attacks. Bosses won't sit still for your combos without doing stunning them with perfect-blocks, and perfect-blocks instantly put an end to the ridiculous poise and defense-buffs possessed enemies get. Normal combat escalates quite a bit in difficulty, which was surprising as there are no difficulty-settings in Drakengard 3. The side-missions unlocked in branch D all but necessitate the infinite blood outfit (which in turn gives you infinite use of the game's powered up mode which speeds you up, slows everyone down, and increases your attack quite a bit).

There's a bit of platforming, and a tiny learning-curve of trial-and-erroring which ledges can be grabbed and thinking to do a special attack in midair to extend a jump slightly. There are jumps you cannot make otherwise.

The weapon system returns, but getting them is quite easy this time. Instead of having to hit arbitrary and cryptic sub-mission goals, they're in chests lying around in missions, given for side-missions, or bought in the store. The game makes it easy to track down chests as it shows which chests have been grabbed already in order of appearance, so you can replay specific verses to pick up something if you miss it. Upgrading weapons is a monstrous chore though. Instead of it just being based on kill count, it requires an unnaturally high amount of gold. Both to buy them, and to buy all the upgrade materials you need. You will be grinding for a long time if you want this done.

Dragon combat, I'd say, is a downgrade. Instead of the flight-simish combat of Drakengard 1, you're either in basic rail-shooter stages or in simplistic action stages where most attacks are guided by a generous lock-on.

The story, once again for a Taro game, reveals itself as secretly interesting if you can stick it out. The first branch was rather miserable to me as it was just antisocial anime-dialogue getting spewed by a bunch of stupid people for hours. It made me appreciate the dull medieval fantasy storytelling of the first game in hindsight. Eventually, you find out a weird robot can manifest hypothetical branches where things turn out differently, and this robot basically trial-and-errors you into branch D so you can actually succeed with your goal. This kinda meta-storytelling renders every ending equally valid in a way other "open to interpretation" stories don't by highlighting the divergences so literally. This robot also steps out of its meta observational role to help you directly in branch D, which fits with NieR's tradition of self-sacrifice to make the ending happen.

I did want to go over the rhythm section that closes off Branch D. It's weird to compare it to the similar section that ended Drakengard 1. It's "easier" as far as the patterns go, but it's grueling as far as its length and timing those inputs. I thought it was pretty fun, but I like rhythm games a lot. YMMV

I don't think it gets interesting enough to justify the curious, but that's from the perspective of someone who played Drakengard 1 and both NieR games. This game would be wild to someone who hadn't seen a narrative like it before, but I can't really judge it from that perspective now.

2/5

Everything wrong (or right) with Dragon's Dogma 2:

Fashion's Dogma is dead: Under-armor is completely gone (both the chest and legs slot) and so are the gloves. Instead, all you get are a slim number of accessories that you can wear in tandem with your helmet. The cloaks are also unusually large, but their ineffectiveness makes them the most interchangeable slot. The excuse we got was that there would be more armors to choose from, so did we? Hardly, the original game had 68 chest pieces for instance, while this one has 90. But when you include the under-armor, you have 124 pieces to choose from. Now let's include the 70 glove pieces, that's 194 chest options. See what I mean? This game has 68 pieces of the leg armor and the original had 79, when you include under-armor, you have 111. Helmets are comparable in quantity, there's 88 in the original and and 82 here, 97 if you include accessories. Clearly, armor choice is a massive downgrade this time around and it's unjustifiable.

Vocations are disappointing: They just had to restrict this system as well. Is it really okay to only have ten unlockable skills, (plus one mastery skill), when we can't even use two weapons anymore? Especially with so many skills returning, it's a real shame they couldn't come up with more. You only get to unlock 5 augments per class as well; down from six, most of which are useless. Like dealing 5% more damage when hitting a target's vitals or reducing the time it takes to revive a Pawn by 1 second. Not to mention, the game won't even tell you what the values are (that applies to rings as well). The archer is especially affected, since four of the skills require their respective arrow types when they used to require none. You can no longer equip arrows to use on any skill anymore, nor are there status inflicting skills like Invasive Arrow. Mages used to be able to aim their spells and pinpoint a location on the ground, now it's forcibly automatic. When it comes to new classes, trickster makes a jarring addition to the roster because they can't deal any damage. Why isn't this a pawn class? You're going to be much more effective at dealing damage than any pawn. Wayfarer is much worse than the comparable assassin and should have been an opportunity to combine weapons. Instead, you have the ability to switch between two or three vocations, but you only get three ability slots and worse stats. At least the Mystic Spearhand was incredibly unique and fun to play, it's really the only worthwhile addition. I've also got to point out that all the hybrid vocations involve magic, the thief got nothing to mix with.

The gameplay is excellent: Existing skills have been given additional flair and the physics engine will ensure that you can launch your foes straight into the stratosphere. It's very satisfying and fun, especially thanks to the improved AI. Enemies are much more aggressive, have better tracking, quickly gap close, can stunlock you to death, and will chase you to the ends of the earth. They can be genuinely terrifying and you will need your pawns to survive. Going solo is no longer a viable option, especially when most of the classes don't have a basic dodge. Maybe every single hit shouldn't stagger you though, you can only mitigate knockdowns. Most important of all, they fixed leveling stats. They're tied exclusively to your vocation, so there's no overlap. The max level is no longer 200 as well, now it's 999; which would have been cool if there were high level monsters.

The world is epic! Exploration is hollow: It's massive and sprawling, you'll really feel like you're on some sort of grand adventure; but it's landscapes are realistic to a fault; detrimental to the real meat of the game. For instance, every single dungeon is cave and only a handful of them are going to take you a significant amount of time to explore. You're not going to find anything like Bluemoon Tower, the Catacombs, or Watergod's Altar. Puzzles are gone, levers are gone, anything that could have made the locations district is largely missing. You can even see it in their names: "Strange Corridor", "Hidden Cavern", "Forgotten Tunnel" to name a few. Once more, they're not so rewarding either. There are chests absolutely everywhere, but more often than not, you're going to find a wakestone shard or an item you can already buy at the region's blacksmith. There are duplicates of several weapons and armors as well, why? Notable exceptions exist, but they're few and far between. If there were more armor slots to play with, this wouldn't have been a problem. Maybe focus on filling the world with quality content instead of simply making it large, Skyrim was 12 years ago. To make matters worse, enemy variety is about the same as the first game, just spread across a greater distance. If you were hoping for new additions, all you really get are variants of existing ones, slimes, and one-off bosses. Considering an encounter happens about every 15 seconds, it can get pretty exhausting.

Travelling could have been great: The addition of oxcarts is a welcome one, it's so nice to have more options beyond walking and ferrystones. However, the cart moves so slowly that I'm always opting to "doze off", which usually involves an enemy encounter along the way. Problem is, oxcarts are very destructible; I don't even think it's viable to take them without the time skip, because there are so many enemy encounters along the way. The addition of camping is great because you don't have to walk back to an inn whenever night arises. I do think their spread is too generous though, you'll have an easy time finding one when the need arises. Riftstones are everywhere too, so losing a pawn is hardly detrimental. What really bothers me are the portcrystals. Why are there only two naturally occurring ones in the entire game? Here are the places that should have one but don't: Melve, Bakbattahl, Rest Town, Sacred Arbor, Volcanic Island Camp. It's ridiculous, not to mention the non-existence of an eternal ferrystone, which was probably an excuse to fill up chests. Oh, and there's a portcrystal DLC, maybe that's why Bakbattahl doesn't have one.

Questing is better, but the quests aren't good: Quests are no longer tied to stages in the story, so you don't have to worry about automatically failing them. Timed quests will explicitly tell you in the UI, but I'd appreciate having a day counter. Failure was touted as a possibility, but it's not really something to worry about. They're usually started by encounters (you'll run into an NPC or they'll walk up to you) making them feel like a natural occurrence in the world. I appreciate how cryptic they can be, but sometimes the descriptors are unhelpful and you'll have to rely on a pawn's knowledge. Where they falter is in interest, because there aren't any exciting locations to unlock or exclusive rewards. I couldn't tell you a single memorable one, they all felt like a chore.

The plot is dreadful: The main story might just be the laziest I've ever seen in an RPG. It's even more of an afterthought than the first game. All that intrigue and buildup about the false sovran (which is really just a bunch of half-baked stealth missions) is squandered because of some Godsway MacGuffin. Which I thought was just the beginning of the story, turns out it's actually the half-way point. Your search for answers leads you to Bakbattahl, but the actual region is irrelevant to the plot. You'll head to an alter that raises from the sea, but it isn't a dungeon, just a cave with an elevator... Once you reach Moonglint Tower, it's just an elevator again. They seriously couldn't put a single fucking dungeon in this game to save their lives. Once you reach the top, bootleg Jafar accidentally summons the wrong dragon and it ends about the same way as the first game. Only this time, the post-game sucks bigtime. We're talking time limits, zero saves, three main quests, an obsession with the color red, and no dungeons. But don't worry, it's all doable in under 4 hours and the ending is just a hint at future DLC.

I have a very hard time accepting that this was Itsuno's true vision for Dragon's Dogma because it's worse than Dark Arisen. Not only does it fail to adequately improve on the original's shortcomings, in many ways it has doubled down on them. Meanwhile, its best aspects have been stripped away. Yet again, there's a great system buried beneath a pile of trash, only this time they took more pages from Ubisoft instead of lighting the book on fire. It's emblematic of everything wrong with modern gaming and this massive open world trend needs to stop already.

One of the best games I've played, personally reminded me of Dark Souls. Not because of the combat or the difficulty, but because of the atmosphere and the way Xanadu Next delivers its story (it's via items you actively have to seek out while exploring). Thankfully, it remains still very good.

Special mention to the final dungeon which is one of the best I've played. 10/10, would get lost in again

FOR STEAM DECK USERS: Make sure to set one of your trackpads to a mouse. This will make menuing MUCH easier, while still keeping the combat somewhat comfortable to use.

Cleared on Hard, finished all side-quests. Finished it a while ago, but it's still stuck in my craw, so I feel like writing a review. I'm not going to spoil anything directly but I'm definitely giving impressions of the whole game, so if you're particularly sensitive to spoilers maybe dip now.

This was obviously lovely in a lot of ways, but I think this is where I get off the Trails train for a while. Trails has never been big on stakes, but the lack of lethality to anything in Zero and Azure is just devastating. There's no weight to this anymore. The big scary villains aren't scary because I know no one's ever ever going to die.

It's especially weird because Zero gets most of its resonance from paying off an extremely dark character thread set up in 3rd. You'd think they'd realize it's good to have some edge every now and then in a massive fantasy epic. But if there was any edge left in Zero then it's completely gone in Azure; this is one of the most bloodless stories ostensibly about revolution I've ever seen. The new emphasis on light dating sim mechanics means we also don't get a strong core romance like in Sky. I didn't get to see any of the meager sparks between Elie and Lloyd pay off because I didn't buy her enough stuffed animals to put in her room, whoops.

It's a shame because the character writing is as lovely as ever. I finally upped the difficulty to Hard for this one and I should've done it sooner, it feels amazing and the bosses are super-chunky and fun to unravel. The music and art and setting texture are as gorgeous as always. But at this point Trails is a romance where nobody fucks and a war epic where nobody dies. I've lost my patience for that for the moment.

I'm really surprised how negative the reviews are for this here because I had a great time with this. I'll chalk it up to the game being admittedly a little janky, but not to the extent, IMO, being described here.

I also think the pedigree of the game makes it seem like it's going to inherently be a "speedy" platformer when it's maybe not. Like there's definitely the capacity to go fast here, and it was built with that in mind, but in a lot of cases you're poking around looking for stuff or doing little tasks for NPCs or whatever, and the movement mechanics have a little bit of a learning curve that has to be overcome before you can really move quickly, so maybe some people are feeling like they got bait-and-switched? But once you have your head wrapped around and are flying thru using the full bag of tricks it's a ton of fun.

I will say that after a couple days of sustained play I began to find the aesthetic and music in the game kind of grating and the sequence in the last boss where you're riding up the ramp has a whirling camera that makes the correct inputs unclear and lead to a frustrating number of failures. Putting all that aside, this is a short sweet game with movement mechanics satisfying enough that I know I'll come back and have some fun blasting through now and again and that's I was looking for.

Tevi is a great metroidvania in its own right, with strong level design and great combat. But the game's much greater focus on story did not do it any favors. Every boss and ability is locked behind plot progression, which resulted in a very linear experience, with little-to-no sequence breaking, and unrewarding backtracking. Worst of all, it wasn't even worth it as the story is so thoroughly unengaging it's unreal, tanking the game's pacing with copious amounts of infodumps.

It's pretty tough to follow up an act as phenomenal as Rabi-Ribi, but Tevi sure did try.

The first Talos Principle is still one of my favourite games of all time, which is why I was very excited for the announcement of a sequel. The puzzle elements of the first installment were difficult, and therefore so satisfying to solve. The philosophical elements were also well-presented, but they were not my main reason for loving the game.

The Talos Principle II is a great sequel to the first, in that it introduces an insane amount of new puzzle mechanics. I was incredibly excited to see how they would all combine, to create puzzles just as mind-melting as TP1 and its DLC.

Every region introduces at least 1 new main mechanic, and every one of the 8 puzzles in the region shows off the unique applications for that mechanic. Gradually, the game builds up your arsenal, and does so quite well if you follow along with the story and numbering of the puzzles. However, the scale of the main puzzles remained quite small for some reason, making them easy to solve (at least to me).

The gold puzzles were more of a challenge for sure, which are only unlocked after completing every normal puzzle available. But there are only 12 of them, and even in these puzzles it felt like the mechanics were never really combined very well. Why not create some puzzles that use all mechanics? Or throw some curveballs into the mix by showing off some hidden qualities of items, like the DLC of the first game did? Frankly, I was left a bit dissatisfied, since there was really only 1 puzzle I had to think about for more than 15 minutes. Hopefully the developers will bring out some new content in the future that utilises much more of the awesome item capabilities than the base game does.

Now to move on to the story: I think the developers missed the mark a bit on the story of TP2. What made the first game so magical, was the mystical and tranquil wonderment of its world, coupled with atmospheric visuals and music. The visuals are definitely still there in TP2, but it feels like the developers wanted to shove some epic in there, even though this is not why most of the audience became a fan of the first game. In TP, you were allowed to explore and read philosophy however much you wanted. If you were just there for the puzzles, nothing would hold you back. However, in TP2, you're constantly bombarded with cutscenes, forced conversations and a lot of background babbling that I frankly wasn't really that interested in. Had I been given the choice to approach the story in my own way, I would have found it a lot more interesting. In addition, a lot of the calm magic of the first game felt lost to the grandeur of TP2, both visually and auditorily. Megastructures, datastreams, never before seen physics...I would have preferred a more introspective approach than the science fiction of TP2.

Next to this, Damjan Mravunac did a fantastic job on the OST once again, as it was very well fit to the atmosphere and story of the game. I will still listen to the OST of TP more than TP2, because it feels less bombastic and heroic, but I liked it nonetheless.

Lastly, I thought the ending I got was just exceptional. It tied the knot of the story, and had some of the best visuals I have ever seen in a videogame.

Overall, my enjoyment of TP2 was never really hampered by the developmental approach. Having said so, I highly recommend people to check out TP first. Especially its DLC, called Road to Gehenna, is an awesome treat for puzzle fans! If you liked the first game, I am sure you will like the second as well, even if you don't care much for the conversations the game has to offer. After all, you are still able to skip anything that doesn't interest you.

Talos 1 is perhaps my favorite puzzle game of all time. The rich, primarily implicit storytelling interspersed with fascinatingly elegant puzzle design gave me something I've been looking for in art for a long time, and have yet to find elsewhere. I've been following this game's development process since it was first unveiled in May of this year. It seemed shocking to me that they actually met the 2023 launch date, and approaching release I became very excited that this could be a new addition to my list of favorites. Unfortunately, I fear it may have been slightly undercooked for my liking.

Nearly every aspect of this game is a significant step down from the first game. Not necessarily bad, but this game proposes fundamental alterations rather than small revisions to a system that was extremely well thought out, with some jank execution in previous installments. The stars, for example, are completely neutered from the incredibly unique outside the box thinking they previously required of the player and are now reduced to menial scavenger hunts once you become accustomed to the gameplay loop. Can you find the sprite? Can you find the incredibly conspicuous switches scattered around the map? Can you find the connector we hid and then find the dashed lines crossing the sky?

The puzzles aren't much better, if I'm being honest. The best puzzles in the game are unilaterally hidden behind the gold doors at the end of the game. In other words, they require sitting through 120 puzzles that are tantamount to tutorials for different gameplay objects interacting before the player is actually tasked to use critical thought to come up with a unique solution -- something that should be expected of every puzzle game from the very beginning. Even if you disagree with me that the game over-tutorializes and refuses to let the players think for themselves, it's impossible to deny how utterly easy the late game of TTP2 is compared to the late game of TTP1 or any of Road to Gehenna.

In some discussions with other friends who are also Talosheads, I heard the phrase "bringing Talos to the masses" stated at one point. I definitely get what they meant -- Talos 2 has a lot of AAA cultural benchmarks that appeal to people who think the puzzle genre might not be for them -- but I really don't think anything about the first game is necessarily unapproachable. The game certainly does challenge the player, yes, but Talos 1 is extremely easy to comprehend given its limited kit of tools. There are 6 gameplay elements, and given how quickly it exhausts the basic tech one needs to know to solve late game puzzles, it has to rely on amping up the difficulty much earlier, and in a way that feels extremely natural. The second game does not do this. Every world is fundamentally a tutorial for the Object Of The Week and the caveats it proposes for other items. It introduces a new object per world so as soon as you finish the first 10 puzzles that feature it, it's gone. The game then requires you to recall everything you learned about the object in question at the very end of the game (FOR ONE PUZZLE) for completionist credit in a way that I find rather disconcerting and stilted.

The puzzles aren't doing much for me, but I'm at least able to take some joy out of the plot, even when it's completely baffling and stupid. One of those aforementioned cultural AAA benchmarks that I find most present throughout the game is the quippy Whedonisms and banter with characters. I do enjoy some of the characters, Byron and Alcatraz especially, for their realistic depictions of various political extremes in a way that does not come off as remotely hamfisted or meanspirited. And I especially enjoy Thecla for the fact that she is an incredibly meanspirited representation of dogmatic religious zealots. The rest I can kind of take or leave. The primary twist and ending are fucking dumb, I'm so sorry. I completely lost interest when all we were doing was talking about Miranda, Cornelius, and Athena. They are non-characters as far as I'm concerned, despite the fact that I find Athena's depiction in TTP1 to be really inspiring and life-affirming (she might be my favorite protagonist in media, period). It's just trying too hard to be meaningful and explain to me why it is meaningful, when the first game had the formula figured out and was able to handpick other readings to convey ultimately the same message about self-actualization and what it means to be a human in a way that feels much, much less forced.

I think that's ultimately my problem with this game. It tries to take far too many liberties that damage a perfectly functional system, while also rehashing many of the same ideas from the first game in a way that feels ultimately kind of non-transformative and extremely bloated, not just in scope of plot and the ideas it conveys, but also in the amount of content one must trudge through to reach anything worthwhile.

Here’s a boss fight video I have recorded for this review. It doesn’t necessarily support my thoughts, but in case you want to watch it, here you go: https://youtu.be/ALLPMFvZ0Mo?si=0BJtAlatypNdsbwH

Also, spoiler warning. I’m gonna namedrop every important boss and local so consider reading this after you are done with the game.

What I expected from the demo playthrough was that this game was just gonna be a typical Souls game with a deflection mechanic. What I got in the end with the 30+ hours of journey is that this game is…. still a typical souls game, but with the combination of the best aspects of the modern post-DeS/pre-ER FROM games. Of course, there are some downfalls driven from that scope, but I won’t sugarcoat that my experience with this game was almost close to my first playthrough of Bloodborne. If this game came out in 2015, it would have been my identity to praise this game till death. Of course, this won’t be my game of life, because at this point in my gaming journey, I’m more interested in games that aren’t really souls-like, but there was a spark of joy to have for a long-time fan of the formula.

Lies of P’s thematical structure is similar to BB at first glance. There’s a dying city, there’s also a problem with outbreak of monstrosities, celestial beings behind the veil, yadayda… you know the drill. But once you dive into the game, you can see that the game is trying to convey a different thing while maintaining the value of the traditional Souls game.

In the older Myazaki’s Souls games. There’s a sense that the world in that game is an elaborated place instead of just being a pretty background. When we go back to Demon’s Souls, you might remember that you have to open the giant gate in the castle area, pick up the key and use it to open the doors in the asylum area and activate the mining elevator in the mine area, all for the one purpose: opening the shortcut or the next passage. Even though they are just a little detail, you wouldn’t disagree that this little detail in interactions make each level feel distinguished and elaborated. While this environmental detail is what FROM still excels at, you can’t deny that modern FROM games aren’t really good at delivering that premise as they look more dungeon-y than a thematically accurate place. This aspect got worse after Dark Souls 3 and we all know that Elden Ring introduced soulless manufactured mini-dungeons, which kinda ruined the game as a whole even with the inclusion of Legacy Dungeons.

Compared to this, Lies of P is full of elaborated environmental details and interactions that convey the game feel. For example, one thing you will realize soon is that this game took place around the pseudo-Belle-Époque era. To elaborate it, the game actually introduces levels themed around such as a gigantic factory manufacturing dolls, a gigantic market arcade, and a world expo with grandiose exhibitions. And those levels are, instead of being too dungeon-y, structured like an actual place for that purpose. You have to lower the pipe hanging on the crane to make a shortcut in the factory. You can ride the tram that was shown at the beginning to open a way to the expo. The arcade area is full of little shops that function as ambushes, lootable places, and backdoor shortcuts. In this aspect, Lies of P holds the torch as the best non-FROM souls-like that gave a shit about environments. If I have to nitpick, there are some obstacles that made me question “Why can’t I just jump over this”, but honestly the stronger part is so strong that I kinda forgot about it.

We are still talking about the world-building so I can add more about the thing I liked about Lies of P’s way of distinguishing itself from other FROM Souls games.
Firstly, I think the members of Hotel Krat are much more likable and sympathetic than any FROM’s hub dwellers. In FROM Souls games, after the 4 similar entries, you kinda see the boring patterns of the NPC placements. A calm and cryptic maiden figure that levels you up, A cynical-ass depressed soldier, A bulky blacksmith, and some boring merchants here and there. And you know some of them will go off and die in a ditch at some point. Bloodborne did kinda experimental things with survivors in the chapel, but they didn’t do stuff like that after BB which is pretty weird. While Lies of P still has that cryptic maiden figure, the other NPCs are full of distinguishable characteristics. A nerd girl who is very enthusiastic about gears, A CEO of the puppet industry who has a depressing backstory even with the hilarious facade, a swindler treasure hunter who tries so hard to be known as a real one, and a hotel counter robot that secretly loves the hotel owner. You may say these characters are almost like caricatures, but I personally think some amount of campiness can work as a good contrast in the consistently depressing scenario. Also, the motivations of those characters are well-established compared to FROM game NPCs which require two parts of Vaatividya videos to understand the full context.

Secondly, I think the collectables in this game are pretty neat. Unlike Souls games, there are varied types of collectables to get the lores and trivia behind the world. Message notes, guide tour books, newspapers, advertisement posters, and all that. While there are some Resident Evil documents moments that made me think “There’s no way that people would write this thing before dying lmao”, the varied way of describing the worldbuilding establishes that this world is a place where people actually lived, not a glorified dungeon after dungeon. There were some cute moments too, like the notes from Black Rabbit brotherhood. The message cylinders are probably my favorite addition to this formula since it is thematically accurate and I just like doing the treasure hunt while looking at the visual clues. This game’s strong suit is the environment department, so it works wonderfully when I just can guess the location right away with a blurred picture in the clue. There are also vinyl records to collect which can be played in the hotel lobby. Here’s a thing you should know: this is not the same as the Nier Automata’s jukebox where you can play the in-game themes again. This plays an actual original song just for this sole function! And all the vinyl record music is wonderfully composed fitting to the narrative of certain characters or the general mood so it actually had an intrinsic value for me even if it doesn’t benefit the gameplay department at all. It’s not a lie that I was happier to find records more so than the weapons.

Speaking of weapons, I think Lies of P has probably the best weapon customization in all the souls-likes I’ve played. (I’m only talking about the weapons here. If we are talking about player toolsets as a whole, there are many games that did better than this.) One of the biggest gripes I had with Souls games, in general, is that experimenting with other weapons requires an entire stat rollback or a complete re-upgrade for that new weapon just to make it useful. And even then you are limited to given weapons moves which are pretty basic most of the time. In a way, all the Souls games “build progression” can be boiled down to [Get the base weapon] - [Stick to that weapon till you find a better weapon with the same stat requirements] - [Change it to that new weapon and fully upgrade it] - [Stick to it till the end]. Even with the stat rollback functions, people rarely want to change the gears ignoring the floods of “other options” in their inventory, because trying out other weapons optimally is such busy work to do in the initial playthrough. In an ideal world, we should be able to get the Armored Core treatment where you can pull out every weapon from a cargo, but that won’t happen in the Souls game structure because they need to drip-feed the reward to fill the exploration aspect, like the hidden weapons or upgrade materials.

Lies of P took the middle ground by making the weapon parts combinable. Blades are completely separate from your stat requirement and you can upgrade these parts with moonstones. Handles on the other hand require your stat requirement, but it doesn’t determine the overall power of the weapon and it changes the moveset instead. By combining these two, you can experiment with the builds freely, as your stat requirement or the lack of upgrade materials doesn’t halt you from trying out the weapon customization. For example, you want to try out the drill-like lance which fits your stat requirement. but you may think it is obnoxious to upgrade it from the +1. Then you can just go to the Stargazer, switch the blade to the fully upgraded one, and there you have it! It may have a different speed or attack range, but you still can use the drill lance. By the end of the game, I used 5 or 6 weapons throughout the game without reallocating the stats even once. People say Souls games thrive on build variety, and Lies of P shows how to upgrade the formula to meet that expectations.

If we dig deeper into the combat side, we can find even more interesting changes to the formula. While it is basic, the fable arts and charge attacks are neat additions to the combat system. In a way, this is not a new thing as these things have become standardized since Bloodborne, but these combat options have much more clear purpose in this combat loop - the groggy attack. Unlike the traditional souls games where your basic maneuver leads you to the small victories (enemy stagger) and then big victories(enemy death) in a linear fashion, Lies of P makes you “earn” the small victory by requiring you to do a high skill action: dealing damage with fable arts or charge attacks while the enemy healthbar is glowing white. This mechanic provides two interesting things in your gameplay. Since your fable arts consume the meter and charge attack requires a long start-up time, you have to be more knowledgeable about enemy patterns or your positioning to actually punish, and sometimes you have to make hard decisions as the white bar won’t stay longer. Because some enemies just don’t give you a lot of breathing ground, you have to think about hit trading or ignoring the white bar for now and waiting for the next one.
This interesting dynamics also can be seen from the guard mechanic. Lies of P’s twist on the BB’s regain system is that players can regenerate the lost health by hitting the enemies, but only after you guard the damage. The raw damage will just go straight to the health bar and you won’t get anything after that. However, once you manage to nail down the perfect parry with the guard button, it gives a groggy damage to the enemies and you can also regenerate the lost health a bit, just like when you hit the enemies. But the perfect parry’s frame window is much shorter than Sekiro or Wo Long, so there’s definitely a high-skill ceiling aspect to master this.
This little dynamism makes the game much more than strict whip punishes even if the game is framed as a reactive side on the whole action game spectrum. Also, with this combat framework, the enemies are just fantastically designed. Fitting to the narrative, most of the enemies are malfunctioning dolls or erratic zombies. So most attacks have non-conventional timing with all the twitching joints and irregular steps. Because of this aspect, you can’t just comfortably parry or I-frame dodge every attack from the get-go. You have to consider the enemy attack distance, tracking angle, and your position in the environment to make yourself safe. This is something that lacked in Sekiro where you could comfortably deflect everything (Well, except for some main bosses, mind you!) while being stationary to the point that it feels like a rhythmical Punchout.

The bosses are great examples that elaborate the importance of positioning. The second main boss Scrapped Watchman has insane amount of patterns for an early game boss. It starts out as a simple parry/i-frame dodge test, but then the boss quickly introduces lightning effects on the ground which makes you adjust your movements more thoughtfully. Probably my favorite bosses would be Archbishop and The Swamp Monster. Visually they both look grotesque and cool, there’s a fun aspect of finding a good spot to deflect the attack while maintaining the distance, and also there were some satisfying moments where you have to pull off the groggy attack while the gigantic monstrosity is sweeping around the arena erratically.

Bosses are the highlights of this game, but where the game exceptionally excels at is how they handle the normal enemies. I heard that the director’s favorite Souls game is Dark Souls 2 from some rumors around here, but it surely shows his taste in some areas with an extreme amount of ambushes, traps, enemy compositions, and just a sheer amount of enemy numbers after the mid-game levels. I reviewed in Thymesia that souls-like games really need to grow balls to introduce multiple hazards at once, but they did it with this game. Also, there are just TONS of different mini-bosses. Each of them has borderline-boss-tier move lists hidden in their sleeves, and there is a bunch of new type of elites in one area. And these enemies appear only two or three times in the whole game? This uniqueness makes the area much more memorable than it should be. There’s a swamp level near the end of the game where all the abandoned dolls are gathered and crushed, and there was a unique scary-looking scrapped monkey mini-boss which scared the shit out of me. It has a fun moveset, but also it really elevated the mood of that freakish environment. Considering that most games just try to reuse the elite enemies over and over once it was introduced, I kinda liked the approach here, where it uses the unique enemy sparingly to make the area more special.

However, there are some dirty tricks the game abuses to the point that it kinda soured my enjoyment a bit -which is also the reason why I couldn’t give this game the perfect score-. Even though the game respects your positioning, there are some baffling enemy patterns that are just designed to “hit” you. If you have read all of my other reviews, you know what I’m talking about. It’s the god damn automatic movement assist from the enemy's side. If you ever felt like this game is a bit “floaty”, it’s because of this. Some of the patterns just ignore the context of that animation and slide them to the front so that the attack swing collides with the player. The Eldest of Black Rabbit Brotherhood shows a clear example -even though conceptually, the fight is good-. There’s a vertical strike attack combo which gives you massive damage if you get hit. Looking at the animation, it looks like he is swinging the blade in the same position as the legs are locked in one place, so you think it is safe to distance from him a bit and then prepare your next move by charging up the heavy attack, healing, or grinding your weapons… something like that. But then he slides way further than you anticipated so you get smacked by the chunk of iron, and then stun-locked to death. This dirty trick can be worse if it is combined with red attacks which require you to do a perfect parry or do a manual positioning to negate the damage. If you have completed the game, there’s no denying that Laxasia’s first phase is the perfect example of the great test of spacing, finding the punish window, and parrying. But then the second phase shows up and it forces you to parry the red attack from the sky above and the attack distance is absurdly large and fast that you are forced to remember the exact TIME to parry that attack. Considering that most red attacks so far had some window to play safe, this one felt absurdly forced. At this point, the automatic gap closer became a normal thing in action games built with Unreal Engine (I’m looking at you, En Garde, Sifu, Thymesia, and all that janky shit I played) but I wish this game didn’t abuse this trick at all, because when it didn’t rely on it, it worked wonderfully.

There are more nitpicks to add to this critique, like why are there so many gigantic two-phase bosses, why the puppet king’s first phase is much more interesting than the second phase but then the devs decided to nerf the first phase, why aren’t there many boss weapon upgrade materials in the mid-late game, and why the game didn’t have the interconnectivity of Dark Souls 1 even though there are many oppourtunities with the structures of levels, but even excluding that, there are more reasons to love this game, and it is very cultural one. It might be a cringe reason, but it’s because it’s a Korean game.

You see, I didn’t expect a lot from my home country’s industry. The whole industry here has earned titles like “the gotcha factory of the East”, and “the place where MMORPGs are born and die” and there’s no way I can deny that. It’s a cynical landscape where people’s enjoyment about videogames is heavily concentrated in irl transactions, number crunching and gamblings in disguise. This aspect extends to the indie scene except for some glowing exceptions like Unsouled. But then there’s this game, released by the company built from the web card game in the old days. I was expecting a soul-less clone, a husk of a game with money-grabbing scheme but this actually turned out to be a good game. It also understood the merits of the original Souls games, but it also paved its own ways to twist the source material(Pinocchio) in their unique taste and addressed many issues the original Souls games had. It’s a beautiful holistic combination.
And looking around the forum or communities, even with some mild criticism here and there, it’s quite a scenery to see this game getting big praise from everywhere. Even though I didn’t participate in the development at all, it made me feel happy in some sense. Maybe that subjective thought is the reason why it clouds my “fair and reasonable” eyes to read this game, but what I can’t lie about is that I really really adored this game in the end.

CN for Void Stranger: Sexual harassment

A lush and witty sokobon-hybrid that stumbles over making sense of its mutli-genre style brakes. The way the tile swap game slowly shifts in and out of a Zelda-like dunegeon crawler to a La Mulana action-riddler is really breathtaking and exciting, but I ended up feeling way less about this as it came to a close. Where Zeroranger effortlessly lines up its sparse narrative with the stressful emotional player-arc of trying to 1cc a shmup, Void Stranger boasts a generic mélange of "don't give up" vibes that fails to celebrate its own strengths or its genre heritage. The constant micro genre-shifts really are delightful, but they walk too far away from the core frustration-to-lightbulb-moment cycle of this kind of puzzle game. I like the grunt work and guess-and-check solutions this game makes a player deal with, but after a certain point I really do not need to descend the tower twice per reattempt of the final sequence. I thought the problem with this game would be having too much text, but besides the dull swing at a System Erasure cinematic universe, the story is perfectly tender and understated despite all the women being naked for the entire last third. What I'd really like to see from System Erasure in the future is a bit more follow-through on the clear central design idea and an understanding of where to put the period on the game. Void Stranger is a blast and really so so so exciting to pull apart but it's far too gray in-between the text behemoth of La Mulana and their own debut arcade joyride.