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.

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.

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.

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.

Style is nice. It's the only positive thing I can say. Seems like every other aspect came second to selling this visually.

Terrible combat: janky hitboxes and aiming, the same 3 types of enemies all over, in the same kind of repetitive auto-generated dungeons, and horrible build variety, if you can even call it that. All the weapons work the same, melee attacks, just different speed. And the game pre-selects one for you in each run; sometimes you can find another and switch it. Spells and cards don't make a difference in your build either, so after a few dungeons you're basically repeating the same run every time which is laughable for a roguelite. Unlocking "new weapons" doesn't actually do that, it just adds some modifiers to the weapons that you find, like poison or crits, which also makes no fucking difference. You just end up with a bigger pool of possibilities that all play the same.

With combat and exploration being as horrible as it is, you'd expect the cult sim and management to be engaging, but it's also terrible. Despite being a cult simulator, you'll be the one doing everything at first, not only because you lack the upgrades for your followers to do stuff, but also because the AI is so bugged, NPCs stop doing work or change activities out of nowhere. After cleaning shit for a few hours you'll unlock enough stuff for tasks to be automated, at which point there's nothing for you to do there anymore.

You can find blueprints for new stuff on your explorations, but they're all for the 'decoration' section that serves no purpose, not only that, but you'll have wished that the chest had something useful for your run instead, like health or an upgrade for something. The actual useful buildings you need to unlock by waiting and waiting until your followers produce enough faith to unlock another but it all becomes unnecessary halfway through when you're almost done with the dungeons but still haven't unlocked half the buildings. It's very stupid for a game so short to have stuff is walled behind waiting longer than it takes.

Almost all the decorations you set up have no effect on anything and can't be interacted with, nor is there any real incentive to build them. Rather, they take up valuable space for houses, buildings, shrines... so in the end it's not even fun to decorate the base knowing you're just gonna run to the same 5 spots where you'll collect stuff before heading out again.

Unlocking some areas is tied to RNG when exploring stuff, meaning maybe you have to revisit the mediocre dungeons in order to find new NPCs. But repeating stuff over and over is a key aspect of this game, and not in a good way. It desperately needs QoL improvements, it's a waste of time talking to your followers each day, you constantly need to make food yourself, moving multiple farming plots is the worst...

There's no weight in the relationships between your cultists, and no depth to them that would make you invested when talking to them, gifting them things... You can customize any cultist and give them any appearance, and they have no personality. The quests they give are few and bland: they'll keep asking you to make them eat poop (???), gather materials, build something... and other stuff you do already without quest incentives. But the rewards aren't really worth anything either. And then they die.

But it's not only a mix of roguelite slasher where the combat is horrible and city sim that's as lifeless and grindy as possible. It's also a bug-riddled mess, from small stuff to various ways of getting soft-locked:

You may kill a boss and have the bullet attacks not stop when its death animation plays, killing you and making you unable to progress. You may have unlocked the offering shrine before having the alter up to level 3, also blocking you from unlocking more buildings. You may find invisible enemies. You may have cultists giving you a quest and it failing automatically upon accepting it. You can have enemies sometimes knocked outside the map. Cultists will not eat when hungry or work when there's tasks to be done; some may even die of hunger. There's too many to list.

To an extent, that's okay, all games have bugs. If you click on the roadmap you'll get is a popup saying: "free updates will be coming soon". That's the extent, which is not really a roadmap though. So in short they had the pre-purchase / day 1 dlc more thought-out than actual updates and fixes to a game that has released as broken as it has.

In short, it's a mix of different types of games, none of them done well. It's like playing animal crossing, and hades, and binding of isaac, and frostpunk... if they all sucked really hard. Plus, it's broken.

It's a wonderful mixture of board like action where you can stare at the map for minutes while reflecting on the best course of action (something that can mean the difference between a perfect victory or a disastrous defeat in a single turn); with roguelike elements that also don't punish you too much for dipping out of a run when it goes south, and allow you to continue with a bit more progress each time.

Even when missions go really wrong it's still a thrill to try and to overcome the odds, after all the most satisfying part of this game is finding a breakthrough after pondering for a while. I found myself resetting less and less the more I understood how the game worked.

This is how I'd like more investigation games to be, instead of the ace attorney / daganronpa / zero time kinda stuff with ridiculous twists and characters spelling out stuff for you. This game feels like you are the one putting the pieces together, not just clicking on some piece of evidence and letting the main character spell out a contrived plot for the murder, which will then be followed by more unexpected and unbelievable shenanigans that you will also masterfully see through as the most logical thing to deduce, like a Columbo episode.

Also unlike the aforementioned titles, there's not that many other games that have this same kind of feel and approach, which is unfortunate but also makes it stand out more.

It's okay. I feel the best thing it has going is the gimmick of playing as a cat that makes me overlook many of the faults of the game. Otherwise it's just a standard causal exploration game that you beat in a few hours with barely any replayability.

But there's a lot of charm in the mechanics relating to the cat, scratching random doors and floors, rubbing against people and things, throwing stuff off tables and shelves... all the mannerisms of a cat are well portrayed and remind me of things our cat at home does. It manages to add another layer which sets it above all these other games that try so hard to be the next "Journey-like walking sim masterpiece".

Atmosphere is good whether it be the cyberpunk cities or the 'horror' segments, but some areas are really short and in all of them you feel like they had to drop stuff, and you're left with only half the things to explore. There's hardly any sense of closure upon leaving a chapter and the ending kinda half-assedly tries to tie everything in. The story is over sooner than you expect.

There's nothing special about the gameplay, it's generally easy to breeze through but there's some clunkiness in platforming and the level design sometimes has you running into dead ends. But for a game about moving like a cat it also it's disappointing in retrospect that most of the experience is "press A to go to that platform". The defluxor was interesting but dropped halfway through. Again, this game feels like it has a bunch of stuff they had to cut, but maybe it's also because it's so short.

If you don't 100% some area you can restart that chapter from scratch anytime and get it. But it can be a lot of backtracking for just a single memory, because while it keeps the memory, it also undoes any progress in that zone that you don't repeat. So for stuff like the slums where you return later in the story, I had to do a few things I already did the first time around but didn't want to do when repeating the whole chapter. The rewards for getting all of the stuff didn't feel worth it for me.

The autosave is also pretty bad, it saves whenever you do certain actions that advance the story but not all that are necessary may trigger an autosave, or certain item pickups which are not essential to the story don't either, but autosaving is the only way of saving in this game, so you may have to run around a bit after for a story trigger to save sidequest progress.

I liked it, but there's no reason to replay it, and I don't think I will be looking forward to their next game without a cat. All the mechanics are half baked and it was kinda buggy on release as well.

Yet the cat gimmick is nice and rare and makes it worth playing through once. Half of my enjoyment from this game was telling my gf "look I'm a cat" and then doing some cat stuff.

It's the natsuyasumi formula adapted to the shin-chan setting, which fits surprisingly well. There's an overarching story but it's often given the backseat in favor of the mundane, day to day activities. Most of the "goals" resolve by themselves and there's only a couple 'missable' events in the same way you can miss to catch a certain bug or fish.

I found it a great game to pick up 30 minutes a day (more or less the time to finish an in-game day) throughout the summer, took me about 12 hours to finish with most stuff 100%.

There's some grinding if you want to complete all of the 'goals' since you have to replay a rock / papers / scissors minigame like... 50 times? However, you are free to spend your time in any way you want and there's plenty of other minigames and fun activities to do.

Every day there's something new to do or some new area to explore. Sometimes it's overwhelming how many conversations there are, places you can go to. Time management is probably the hardest thing here: every time you switch areas the day advances a little and sometimes there won't be enough in a day to do everything you wanted.

The atmosphere is the best thing about this game, using the same fixed-camera style as the playstation games was the right choice, it carries just the same feel. Fishing next to another character, sitting in a bench, catching fireflies at night... even just going around enjoying the scenery and sounds is fun. Plus, there's a dedicated button for showing your butt. In general all of the shin-chan stuff feels natural to the game and not just for a quick cashgrab.

Only complaints are with the post-game and that some camera angles can be misleading as to where stuff begins and ends.

Started a new game to play the DLC and got newfound love for everything in it. Though neither plane nor regular levels have as many projectiles as a shump or bullet hell game, the very fluid artstyle works in favor giving the sensation of just as much chaos with less elements. Everything on the screen is full of life and gorgeous to look at, but deadly if you get distracted by it. The DLC also adds features that apply to the base game as well, and the new character, weapons, skills... are very fun to use and replay levels.