Initially it feels like a rather easy, retro inspired horror shooter. In the first episode nothing poses a threat even on cero miedo, and the bosses are mostly sponges. Plus, you'll hardly be using the scythes, pistols, once you gain access to new weapons. It's fun to move around and kill stuff, but most of the time it can't kill you back.

But once it reaches the second episode it starts to get the ball rolling. Though still simple to breeze through, the horror elements escalate little by little, the atmosphere becomes more oppressive and you feel drawn to go deeper into the levels. By the third act, the feel of the game is way more hostile than you'd have expected, and I found the levels themselves: the darkness, jumpscaring enemies, surprise encounters... a bigger challenge than just the enemy fights, which is actually a rather fun feeling. Reminds me of bloodborne, where you also have the tools to destroy anything the game presents you, but despite that, sometimes you're still hesitant to advance.

Started it a year ago, in Japanese, in order to practice and improve my vocabulary and reading comprehension. It's a useful game because there's both single and dual language transcripts out there that make it easy to look up kanji you can't read, or sentences you don't understand; and the fact that JP language isn't region locked (this not true of TGAA as it needs an external patch).

Both scripts don't differ that much in information, though there's some differences in tone (Japanese version tries to be more serious, even if it still has jokes) and setting (character's names, countries of origin, foods...). In this regard, it's a good tool for learning. And it's also interesting seeing the localization differences, jokes that can't be translated... The only setback being the game itself, which I found subpar.

1-1 is super easy and obvious, fair enough being the tutorial. Only afterwards you have the same structure, but longer. 1-2, originally designed as the tutorial, also holds your hand all the time. It introduces investigations, which boil down to clicking on everything, talking with people and presenting everything in your inventory. With it you gain evidence for the next trial. I've often seen the distinction that ace attorney isn't a VN because of this, but it's so railroaded that it's almost as mindless as pressing 'next' when reading. Once you pick up all the pieces of evidence, the day will conclude and trial will start. Pressing witnesses and using evidence is just as shallow as investigations. And often, as is the case with 1-2, the case isn't won by this but by an asspull by some other character.

By 1-3 it starts being more fluid. You're not told the perpetrator outright, and situations have a bit more mystery behind them. Unfortunately it's also when it starts feeling formulaic due to the game repeating the same clichés. It's like you're replaying the same trial(s) no matter the case. Always the witnesses which you catch lying and contradicting. The judge being ready to dismiss the case and declare your client guilty until suddenly you manage to make an assessment that turns the tables (which are then turned back again, and once again you're in trouble). The cartoon villain breakdowns from the culprits, and the fact that you can identify them long before because the game tries to hint subtlety at them but just makes it obvious. Plus, their name is something like "Mr. Urder Killpeople". Each case and trial tries to make the stakes higher but only manages to desensitize you to these scenarios and make them routine.

Another part of the formula is crazy twists and sudden discoveries, often far-fetched and requiring even more suspension of disbelief than the base game already does with its world (attorneys having to investigate in cases but not really given much leeway to do so; the fact that even if you prove Will is innocent, he will go to jail unless you can name the perpetrator...). Plot-wise a lot of these cases withhold information from you for the sake of stretching the mystery, with areas unlocking only when it's relevant or cases like 1-4 or 1-5, where even your own clients won't tell you basic information about the case until after a certain point. This bundled with photographs that are blurry, ones where the identity of the person isn't clear... it's just underwhelming how the game plays the same cards every time. So in the end even more 'developed' cases like 1-4 and 1-5 are the same as the first ones, just with an even more convoluted plot and beating around the bush.

Fans sometimes acknowledge the ridiculousness of some plots, and also that it's just as much about the mysteries as it's about the characters, but I found that aspect just as badly executed. One-dimensional, generic personalities akin to a shounen anime: your rival gets presented as a terrible guy but turns out, just misunderstood. Also you are childhood friends. Also you end up working together in the name of justice.

It's not actually deep development to have him 'turn' good between chapters, or retroactively show "he actually didn't do all those bad things, it was actually another bad guy" It just shows the biggest pitfalls of this game when it comes to characters: 1. white-and-black morality: good characters do no wrong and bad characters are capable of any crime; 2. making up character development as it goes along especially by flashbacks: oh, actually phoenix wanted to be a lawyer because of miles, oh miles was a good kid until adopted by A Bad Guy™, oh Mia is your mentor and very important to you, but there's no weight to her death because development also comes later.

Phoenix himself barely has an arc, and I really don't wanna boot up the next game just to see him be a rookie lawyer again, struggling in the tutorial case. Other capcom games, which are not character driven, like RE or DMC present more changes in characters between games.

Anyway, if someone has actually read all of this word salad and agrees with some stuff, I'd recommend Disco Elysium.

The witness is a game full of puzzles. Really. Your reward for finishing a set of puzzles is another set. That's your answer to all the "oh I wonder what this door I've unlocked leads to". And when you're done with an area, you repeat the same process elsewhere.

It's good for a game to be to the point, but if your game is nothing but puzzles, it's a bad thing when they all suck. Mostly a mixture between a labyrinth puzzle in a kid's menu and those magazines for old people with crosswords, sudokus... There's an exorbitant amount of puzzles that are just "draw how the line should go in this screen" in sets of ten, which just screams "CREATIVELY BANKRUPT". Then the few zones where there's some other method to solving the puzzles, like looking at shadows, it becomes as gimmicky: with the game beating it over your head the same puzzle dozens of times in a row.

"But I thought the witness was this beautiful mystery game set in a strange island and..." No. (Maybe you're thinking of Myst) This island is a glorified setpiece, practically inert, with a few easter eggs where you can draw lines on very obvious parts of the landscape, and a few perspective tricks in some areas. Despite its ambigious scope and what the atmosphere might initially lead you to believe, this game has no real message, nor does the scenery or the audio logs you find scattered around.

It's certainly not that a game needs a deep message to be good, but for a guy that considers this and his other game "the only good videogames ever", it's pretty funny how it fucks up very basic stuff like exploration. As stated above, there's no real immersion nor incentive to explore once you've realized there's no underlying substance in this game. No, worse. There's cases where you might find an elaborate puzzle with a mechanic you haven't seen yet, and until you find how that works, by finding the are that type of puzzle belongs to, you're not likely progressing there.

The game is so bad though, it even makes walking around the lavish scenery feel like a chore after the first hour. There's a sprint button, but only if you keep it pressed. Surprisingly they didn't add a toggle in game where you are either going somewhere or drawing with your mouse. There's also a boat for 'fast travel' that you can unlock, but it's also shit don't get me started.

Some puzzle mechanics as I said above might not click with you, because there's no explanation for them. You rely on finding simple versions first, and/or trial and error. For a game where you have to figure things out, it makes sense. But so much remains obtuse because of the horrible way the game has of relying information with its insinuations. In its own way it works, because if just told you what rules were in a screen when drawing a pattern, the game would be even more trivial. But it's kinda sad the only challenge is through cloaking a ruleset.

This is also why the pacing is horrible. Stuck? Go try another or keep trying this. Much like a sliding puzzle where the only way to get the answer is when you have it in front of you and not by letting it rest in your head. It's not only that it's bad, but that many other titles do well what this can't.

Better puzzle games like Baba is You is you will have you thinking about the different things you could be doing even after closing it, and there's an even greater sense of reward in its puzzles, as well as way more variation and depth.

Outer Wilds also has puzzles where you have to position yourself with the sun. And the sun is not just a dot in the sky but part of the world. A world you explore, where you can interact with your surroundings and they are part of the puzzle as well. It's filled with even more breathtaking zones and a great history behind all the stuff you find.

Obra Dinn embraces the monotonous and gives you little information as well, but very quickly fills you with intrigue and you're pushing yourself to keep playing and playing the same logic checks.

The Witness is a lot of work poured into a very vivid, glorified tech demo, because all it does is show you how they weren't capable to do anything interesting with it except as padding for the puzzles. Take out all of those, put them back to back and what you have is a glorified lockscreen-like puzzle game for mobile that would probably be free with adds on GooglePlay.

The foundations for its combat are pretty solid. But it's annoying that Witch Time trivializes so many encounters, and you can't disable until you beat the whole game on normal to unlock hard, then beat hard to unlock NSIC. Halfway through your playthrough you feel like the game is giving you a crutch that makes it so that you don't even have to bother putting in the effort to do doge offsets or try to time your parries.

Plus, all chapters constantly have lackluster segments inbetween the enemy encounters. Annoying 'platforming' sections, escort missions, and nonstop cutscenes with arbitrary QTEs thrown in them, even during boss fights, which bring down the quality of the levels considerably. But worse are the bike and rocket levels where it's just one excessively long autoscrolling shooter. I wouldn't mind the game trying different stuff if it was actually enjoyable, but all it does is deter you from the good parts of Bayonetta. Want to play again after unlocking hard mode? Enjoy the replaying the space harrier shit. The other problem with level design is that besides exploration for items, most secret levels are just: "backtrack to the previous segment of the map".

The boss fights feel very limiting, with the exception of Jeanne (and maybe Balder but fuck his level) being the only fun boss. The rest have a very fixed pacing of you waiting in some platform or something, for the giant enemy to do an attack so you can counter/dodge then attack for a short time while it's stunned. The final boss being another example of this, also with an instakill move that may catch you by surprise the first time but, afterwards just be an annoying waste of time that keeps breaking the pace of the fight.

There's a few different weapons and they are fun, but have very few signature moves and end up with a very similar move pool. Unlocking the sai-fung requires more grinding than it should, same for fighting Rodin, and in general there's just a few moves you buy in the store and a pair of accessories that are obviously better than the rest, and buying or crafting items feels counterproductive since the game will just punish you if you use them.

I really enjoy the action, but it's a game that feels like it's trying to stop you from playing every 5 minutes.

Bayo 2 improves a lot of lackluster aspects that 1 had: the gimmick levels are actually fun; not held up with as many QTEs; instead of standing around during most giant bossfights, you fight them flying now. Your arsenal is fun & diverse instead of being clogged by reskins and downgrades, and you have panther within from the start for more fluidity.

You can also start on hard from the beginning, useful since the game is also twice as trivial as the first one. Umbran Climax (just like Witch Time) is a "press this to get free attacks" button. It makes torture attacks obsolete (a waste of magic) and the enemies being designed around this mechanic means they are much more prone to blocking and less susceptible to regular fighting, encouraging spamming UC as much as possible. Just compare fighting Grace and Glory in bayonetta 1 and 2. I don't think it's very fun; it's just a button mashing mode where any attack has WW and hyper armor and there's no need to focus on combos, positioning...

It seems more shallow, easier in general. I had a harder time playing 1 on normal than 2 in hard, and I didn't even die once because the game showers you with heals. It's much more smooth as an experience but it feels part of it was also removing any challenge in order to go through the game steadily. However, I see myself replaying it one day without many gripes, unlike with 1.

while it tries to play as a mixture of melee combat and bullet hell, the swordfighting is dull, always the same "combo" of pressing the button four times in a row, or using a charged attack. it's bland but it's also slow: most enemies will start blocking your attacks if hit enough, and will gain invulnerability when knocked down. should be noted that any flashy attacks are animations that play after hitting the enemy enough with your normal attacks. good for an action game that the stuff you can watch is better than what you can perform in-game. anyway, most of the windows for hitting foes come from parrying them, and while most games manage to make parries a satisfying mechanic, the only challenge here comes from some attack animations being clunky, and that the fights are long and drawn-out, so it's more of a test of patience to parry the same 5 chain attack so that you can retaliate.

in short, it's a better idea to use your charged shot most of the time, instead of chasing down an AI that will sometimes run away indefinitely if you keep chasing it after hitting it for a while, because it's trying to do a projectile attack but it can't have you being aggressive. this just shows how the pacing of fights in this game is never up to you, and is only intended to be played with a specific approach. even when it leans into the bullet hell segments, bosses will often be invulnerable during them, and instead have you shoot the bullets that they fire to block them, essentially yet another "wait through all these attacks until you can damage the boss again". it also seems to me that the more the fights lean into projectile dodging aspect, the shittier they are. the line fight is another test of patience not in a good way; fighting against the burst is just running after them 90% of the time...

all in all i find the shooting is also mediocre, and shares many of the faults of melee combat because they are more problems of the game itself, combat is dry, for a game centered around boss fights, half of the rooster is extremely forgettable and rarely adds something that makes it feel different, and you often have to wait your turn in the fight which goes on for longer than it should.

gore, 2d sprites and an overall direction inspired by older games don't salvage mediocre gameplay. all levels, corridors, arenas end up looking the same, there's too many weapons considering you won't use half of them, and the enemies are bland, sparsely placed and if they shoot projectiles won't really move or go after you. only in arenas there is some semblance of fun. if you want to be a good doom clone you need to consider the many nuances that make it work and not just mimic it superficially, while also lacking and identity of your own. it's too derivative to the point where everything can be traced back elsewhere. and sure doom, blood, quake... are old games, but those looking for more of that experience are better off playing custom WADs than a game that just does the same but worse.