Man this really blows! (Not really)

Really mixed feelings on this game if I'm being honest. It's split into a few different routes that mostly converge to tell a complete story, following Jill and Parker as they arrive on the Queen Zenobia cruise ship, Chris and Jessica as they conduct their own investigation and two guys I refuse to acknowledge as anything but 'the Morons' contributing to the plot in a way that's far more significant than their behaviour would have them deserve.

Jill's sections of the campaign I actually really enjoyed, especially early on. The ship is no Spencer Mansion, but the area designs and overall atmosphere of it where exactly what I want out of a ship-based Resident Evil game. Most of the off-ship areas suffer from being kind of bland for the most part, but given the way the story is told and the order it's told in I'm not too upset by these extra levels.

Chris' route was also pretty interesting I thought, and the overall plot of the game - while nothing absolutely mindblowing - kept me engaged or curious for most of the runtime, and had me casting a suspicious eye on some of the many new characters, which is always fun in any sort of mystery media.
(Worth noting too that while the mass of new characters was offputting at first in the usual 'why should I care' sense, I did find myself liking them at least well enough by the end. It'll be a shame if we don't see these folks again but I'm hoping that Revelations 2 brings them back if nothing else.)

The Morons are easily, far and away, the worst part of the game. Their gameplay sections are honestly not that bad considering they play quite similarly to the surprisingly fun multiplayer Raid mode; seeing you fight off enemies while running through an area normally just to find a key piece of information, that wouldn't make sense to be found by the other 2 teams. But my god are they annoying. I don't know who wrote these guys but the one you play as says about 30 variations of "this blows" despite only being in the game for maybe 2 of the 26 chapters, with a total screentime of maybe 20 minutes. His companion, meanwhile, is a comically over the top geeky dweeb, and I'm really pissed that he actually made me laugh that 1(one) time because the VA for him sold a line so well.

That aside, this game actually really surprised me. For some reason for years now I've expected it to be kinda mid - maybe even bad - but despite my current score of a (high) 3.5 I do think it's a genuinely good entry in the series. My biggest complaint aside from the Morons honestly is just the bosses. Half the boss rooms have a weapons box in the arena which seemed really weird until it became clear that they're huge bullet sponges and it's sometimes necessary to bring out old guns from reserve or swap damage buffs around when you run out of ammo.

I'm not sure if/when I'll do a second playthrough because the trophy list is awful, but if I do or even just by the time I beat all the Raid stages it's possible this may climb to a low 4.

Thanks for reading this quick word vomit of my overall thoughts, hope you're all having a wonderful week 🙏

Oh yeah, that's how it's done.. 😌

Admittedly, I may have gone into Bayonetta 2 with some high expectations. I enjoyed a lot of things about 1 but above all it felt dated, and was clearly an ambitious first entry into a new IP, it was bound to have it's flaws. I'd heard from just about everywhere that 2 improved upon pretty much everything, so I went in wanting and hoping for just that. And that is exactly what I got!

The combat feels way better in this, and having the combos appear on the loading screen (though shortlived) was a much appreciated way to remind/show me some ways to mix things up between levels. I dropped Bayo 1 down to easy automatic about a quarter of the way through bc I wasn't enjoying the combat - Happy to say that I completed all of Bayo 2 on normal with very minimal roadblocks along the way. It felt fair and balanced, and that's my shit.

The colour palette is also hugely improved, with this game having buckets more pizzazz than it's predecessor, which fell victim to the murky brown trend of it's time. Everything just looks better, a fantastic decision from the devs. While we're on the subject I'd like to say that short hair Bayo absolutely clears and I will not be accepting counter-arguments. Top tier protagonist design.

I also had a much easier time following the story in this one, which I'm sure some may see as a negative but one of my biggest setbacks for 1 was that it always felt like there was lore I wasn't privy to right at the centre of everything going on, so being able to understand what I was doing in the story definitely made for a better experience for me personally.

I'm having to try to think of my biggest issues with the game, but the only things that really stand out are that Jeanne was not quite as present as I'd expected her to be. This is only really on me for randomly assuming this game would have a more 'dynamic duo' vibe to it but yeah, was a little disappointing how little she was involved.

Only other thing is that the voice lines used when completing combos and especially for perfect dodges play far too often. I get that that's because I'm doing the things but sometimes you have to dodge a lot and I would've preferred not to hear "so close. Is that all you've got? Almost!" a thousand times while doing it :p
(there was one level too where someone else was fighting with me and they kept saying "wonderful" like every 5 second during their attacks lol)

One final thing to note is somehow - please don't ask me how - my dumbass managed to miss the LP needed to get the swords early in the game, so I played the whole game without them and then realised during the credits when it let me use them that I probably would've had even more fun with those so... Don't miss the swords I guess lol

Ultimately, I had a really great time with Bayonetta 2. Very glad that I finally bit the financial bullet to give the series a proper chance.
I did buy 3 during a black friday sale, but knowing what little I do about the story and the controversy I'll be going into that one with cautious optimism. Honestly though if 2 is the peak I'll be satisfied :)

Thanks for reading y'all, I'm hoping to get through 3 before the year is out but we'll see -- Samurai Maiden is creeping up so if that keeps me busy until Crisis Core and then CC holds me until January I'm afraid everything else is fucked :p

Enjoyed this quite a lot and the combat wasn't nearly as bad as many people made out, but the overuse of a certain bullet sponge enemy late in the game made for a really disappointing final chapter for me.

Hoping any future DLCs or installments build upon what's good (Karen Fukuhara) and fine tune some of the bad (stop spamming the same 3 jumpscares and reusing 1 enemy type that takes way too long to kill)

Thanks for reading, wishing y'all well. I haven't reviewed the last few completions for a few reasons, most painfully Octopath 2 I was hoping to platinum before reviewing but the super-mega-fuck-you secret boss is kicking my ass and I'm struggling to feel any desire to try it. Loved most of the game though.

May throw a few short words out for my main men Toad and Alan, we'll see. Advance Wars I'll review the double pack when I play 2. Hope to see you all there 🙏

Man, I really hope more of this series gets localised, especially future releases.

This game is so all over the place in it's vibe but it is exactly the sort of shit that I get really into for no clear reason. Some of it is unintentionally hilarious, and a lot of the actually dark/touching scenes are near ruined by their presentation (or just happening immediately after something utterly ridiculous) but the whole thing was fascinating and genuinely entertaining.

Really cool seeing how things changed over the 6 days in-game, and revisiting places/meeting back up with people is a cool concept. In a way the game being such a mess served well to keep me in a constant state of never knowing what was around the corner, befitting of a disaster situation but not at all in a way that was appropriate for a lot of its moments.

I recall ages ago someone recommended that I play this drunk with friends but honestly binging the whole thing (both endings and platinum with a guide) in a single, 15ish hour run made for exactly the kind of time I was hoping for 😌
Ultimately, I can't really recommend this game to anyone unless you're already captivated by the idea of going around an area during a crisis trying to help people and shit but I can promise anyone who is tempted that it is not just 12+ hours of calling out and helping people trapped under rubble. Game is honestly like the fkn domino meme with how unexpected some of the things that happen are lol.

Overall I'm actually really glad I gave this a chance, I don't even remember how it got on my radar to begin with but the thought of playing it hasn't left my mind for a few years now, so this is a great relief and a huge win :) Hopefully 5 isn't too far away, I'd be happy paying for that one when it drops lol

Anyway thanks for reading y'all, if anyone knows of any games/series even remotely similar to this please let me know! I've got a feeling Shenmue might fit the boot but idk, looks more just slow and boring but could be wrong. Til next time <3

P.S. Been on a roll this month and haven't reviewed the past few games, not sure if I will. tl;dr Dead Rising 2 and 1 are both clunky and survivors are hellish. 2 is a clear improvement but nostalgia and the addictive gameplay loop makes them both fun (3 is best tho) -- Kena was super cute and the collectibles weren't as bad as expected but the combat really brings it down for me, I suck fs but it just didn't need to be that hard/awkward for a game that sold itself on being adorable (bc it is)

I remember trying the free demo for Bayonetta way back in 2009 on my friend's Xbox 360 and, being dogshit at these types of combo-driven hack-n-slash games, struggled with the tutorial alone and left it at that... Fool ;-;

Playing this recently (and more importantly, playing this after DMCV) it definitely feels dated tbh. Which is about as much as I'd expected really, but makes it hard to score any higher because the longer I spent playing it, the more I wanted to get back to the not-playing. Not because it wasn't fun, by any stretch, I just preferred the everything else so much more.

Unfortunately for me, I'm still ass at hack-n-slash games, so I tried my hand at playing this on normal and I wasn't exactly struggling, it just felt like I went down too fast and everything else too slow, so I dropped it to easy in order to move things along a bit. Immediately after, I was having a much better time, feeling cool and less like my time was being wasted. But as I played on it was almost too far on the other end of the scale. My hand was being held so much that it felt like I only had to mash buttons and even bosses would fall in no time at all. To think there's an even easier setting as well!
Another issue I had was that because Easy automatically finishes combos for you, I kept trying to replicate what I was doing on Normal, only for the game to use a different attack pattern that I guess was more appropriate? Just felt like I had a bit less control, in a negative way as well as a positive one.
This is hardly the game's fault, but it's a shame I wasn't able to find a difficulty that was both challenging and fun, hopefully the sequels improve on that.

Aside from the combat, the levels themselves were just, so 2009... On-rails bike levels, an entire level where you're piloting a missile and shooting identical waves of enemies for near 5 minutes, god I really hope they ditch or tone those down as well lol. The set pieces were fantastic I will say, but so much of the game felt drawn out or prolongued and when the levels are only 5-15 mins each anyway they shouldn't really feel like they're dragging. The worst case of this was the final boss, which ends with a far-too-long sequence of just maneuvering something for what must have been 20-30 seconds of avoiding obstacles. The climax was so awesome why drag it out so long!? D':

With that said, Bayonetta is undeniably deserving of its status and following because the characters are just so goddamn lovable. Bayo herself carried the game with ease and the overall campy tone worked perfectly to keep me interested and wanting more from a plot that was honestly just.. I don't even know lol it wasn't exactly confusing but at the same time it felt like there were pieces of information missing that everyone knew but me. I'm gunna have to watch a smarter person explain all the shit I missed, but at the same time credit to the game for making me care regardless of what was going on.

In conclusion, Bayonetta is a PS3 game, and it's got all the rust and clunk to prove it. But nothing can take away from just how charismatic it is. I can confidently say that even though I barely followed the plot and I'm only giving it 4/5 stars, I am absolutely excited to play the 2nd one :)

The Order: 1886 has all the makings of a good game, and may well have been a great one, but somewhere along the way ambitions were the downfall of opportunity. The graphics are great, the gunplay is tight and the voice acting is superb. Even the cast and setting are well done, there's really no reason it should've been treated as an insult to gamers due to it's linearity and high price tag - I'm not saying the latter was justified, but the backlash was stronger than deserved in my opinion.

The game isn't necessarily too short, it's moreso that it's story was clearly intended to continue and as such the ending is somewhat abrupt and leaves unanswered questions.

I'm not sure why this was done, especially given the circumstances of the devs and the game's release window, but I can't help but wonder if this could've followed a path similar to the likes of The Evil Within; Wherein the first game is, okay, but the sequel builds on it and improves into something more highly regarded. It's a shame this isn't something we'll get to find out.

Okay okay I won't lie, I breezed through this as an easy platinum and payed far less attention to the characters and the dialogue than I should've, but even doing that I grew to like the world and it's inhabitants, which I suppose says a lot for just how much charm the game has.

The gameplay loop and mechanics themselves aren't really anything special, and there was a severe lack of Kero Kero Bonito throughout 99% of the game, but playing the final hour or so without skipping it and watching TV on the side made me realise that maybe I should've played it properly from the start...

I feel pretty confident my score could have been a 4 or more if I'd properly immersed myself instead of treating it like a side project that took longer than I wanted so uh, more fool me I guess lol.

This is an easy breezy collectathon with a quirky aesthetic, yes. But maaaybe don't be like me and pretend that that's all it is until it's final moments.

Hopefully there's a sequel and I can play that more appropriately

I should preface this review by saying that I was pretty hype for this game. After the epic reveal with big-name features and really enjoying the demo a while back, I had pretty high hopes that Hellsinger would provide banger after banger, and its soundtrack may finally be one to rival Metal Gear Rising's in terms of me listening to it casually. Unfortunately, I have to say that this was not the case :(

I'll start with the music because let's be honest, that's the selling point. Of about 15 main tracks (some of which are remixes/alt versions of the same one) I would say that only 3 are ones I really got into, with an additional maybe 2 that I enjoyed but wouldn't put on myself. This was pretty disappointing for me tbh, I don't know how much input the featured vocalists had on the songs themselves, but I was really hoping that I wouldn't almost exclusively like the tracks with singers I already like on them. But alas, the two best songs easily are the ones featuring Serj Takian and Alissa White-Gluz (imo of course) The song with Randy Blythe was pretty good too, but I'd rather just listen to Lamb of God anyway so.. yeah.

Furthermore, the game uses a pretty classic rhythm game mechanic whereby your performance affects the soundtrack. The vocals will only kick in once your multiplier is high enough, meaning if you're on a difficult stage, can't find the last enemy or are just moving between arenas, it can be really easy to lose the vocals altogether for a while. This isn't all that bad per se, but it does reveal later on that the instrumentals for some of the tracks are pretty.. standard. There's most likely a pretty good reason for this, and don't get me wrong it's still a badass backing even witout the lyrics but idk, it definitely got kinda boring on the longer/harder levels, particularly when I picked a pretty bad loadout that just didn't work for me and spent only 40% of the level with the vocal track.

My expected reason for the above ties in nicely to my biggest gripe with this game overall: Every level uses the same tempo. All of them. This is super restrictive i feel because it means even once you have all the weapons (although you can only equip 4 at a time and 2 are locked, so I just used the same ones for half the game) every level still plays almost exactly the same. On one level I kept having to stop to find the beat because it felt like the song was more befitting of a faster tempo, but the game still wanted me to use the usual one, it was odd. I wasn't expecting them to mix things up too much or anything but idk, it would have been nice to at least have it fluctuate across songs or even during certain parts of songs. The way it is now just makes the whole thing feel like a steady metronome and it loses a lot of it's badass kick. Especially when some weapons force you to skip a beat while waiting for an animation or whatever, so you end up quite literally just waiting for half a bar, every bar, every level...

This is worsened by my next complaint - The levels are way too long. I know they're only 15-30 mins each, but the songs used for them are 4-6 mins on average and it really shows. You can already tell when a track is looping for the 3rd or 4th time, even with the audio mixing being as good as it is, you can't really hide when you're hearing the same verse or chorus for the 100th time. The levels are broken up into a series of arenas you move between, and enemy respawns within those arenas just need to calm down. Even playing through a level on easy you'll kill 10 when you get there and then wait while 5 more spawn, then 8 more, then 6 more, then 8 more, then 5 more... The amount of times I'd run so many laps I just ended up waiting near the exit to spawn-kill was ridiculous. Honestly the game is so fun when it's fun but it spends half its runtime doing things to make it feel like you're waiting, it's so strange.

Similarly to this, the boss fights are awful. If you played the demo and you fought the boss at the end of that level, well I'm sorry to report that the exact same boss is used for every level bar the final one. The arenas are different and the attack patterns change, but it's always the same design. They also use the same boss music for it each time, with slight variations on each level (tho honestly I didn't even notice this until I checked the tracklist in the menu after) - and to make them even more boring, the boss just has way too much health. You can already only attack on beat, why does it need to take so long that getting perfectly timed headshots still feels like it takes forever. And we're not done yet, when the boss changes position it transforms into a non-physical form, meaning it's invulnerable and you literally just have to stand and wait for it to reappear, which in some cases took up to like 15 seconds of just doing nothing. I'm not sure whose idea this was, but it was a bad one.

Thankfully the penultimate level was really fun, the track, the arenas and enemy types all worked well together and overall I'd say that it went as hard as I was hoping the whole thing would. The final boss was also a lot better than the regular one and of course it's theme feat. Serj made for a pretty hype finale. The story in the game is pretty whatever, it seems like they set up two conflicting pieces of sequel-bait immediately after one another so fuck knows what the future plan is, but as it is this is a pretty fun time. I know I complained a lot but anyone that reads my reviews regularly knows I tend to start with a rough idea and very quickly just ramble about whatever comes to mind lol. I was disappointed I didn't love this game, but I definitely still enjoyed it, hopefully if they do another they mix up the gameplay a little more is all.
Perhaps the game is just better suited to throw on for a level every now and then rather than playing it through like a normal game, idk!

Thanks for reading, sorry it went on so long! :)

B.J. Blazkowicz is the greatest war hero of all time. o7

Seriously though I was expecting this game to be just mindlessly running round killing nazis for kicks and that'd be that. The plot existing just enough to string together a series of levels. But no, the story and characters were surprisingly engaging, and what I'd intended to be a game I play on the side ended up being a game that I played and enjoyed like any other. Sure it's got a lot of silly shit in it, but hey, so long as nazis are getting fucked over I'll allow it >:)

I had a lot of fun with this and I'm interested to see where things go from here. My only regret was neglecting the perk challenges until the last third of the game :(

Bring on the next one!

Neon White hits that perfect sweet spot for me where the gameplay is simple and easy to learn but feels super rewarding when you get it down and start mastering the levels.

For the first 8 chapters I was replaying every level to get the gifts, getting mostly Ace ranks with enough Golds to keep me modest. This was taking a while, so for 9 thru 12 I forced myself to just play the levels once each and honestly the difficulty/length spike was so intense I barely even saved any time for doing so lol.

Love the art style, 90% of the levels are really fun to play, the social stuff wasn't amazing but it made for good downtime, the characters were mostly interesting (/hot) so that's nice as well. Story was better than expected, nothing to write home about but I appreciated it.

Ultimately just a great time overall, I can easily see myself dipping in to get the last gifts/Ace ranks/second ending some time

Easily the best of the anthology in my opinion. The usual slow start in the early chapters being prep for a military operation in enemy territory does a great job of not actually feeling like a slow start, and between the rising tension over the initial threat vs the new threat/s that reveal themselves, the game is always throwing curveballs at you to make sure you never feel safe.

The underground setting works perfectly for this style of tense thriller/horror, and the main cast being marines is not only a great way to allow some really cool scenes that are believable and make sense (due to equipment/training..etc) but also enhances the fear of the big bad because if these guys are scared, then I'm fucked.

The larger reveals near the end were just the right amount of horror movie crazy without leading into ridiculous or wacky territory, and the way the story unfolds is superb. Not only do you never feel safe, but every time you think you know what's happening, well maybe you don't know quite as well as you thought huh, punk.

Really happy I got back on this series. I'm not sure if I could say this is as good as The Quarry, if only because that game's cast and runtime allowed for more of the good stuff I like, but this isn't far behind at all for me.

Definitely recommend, if you only play one game from the anthology, make it this one.

Please refer to @Nancyfly's review for a more detailed review, our thoughts are largely the same.
Nancy's Review

Only key difference: I had the added benefit of being able to open my inventory but 99% of the time it was only to discard loot and replace it with higher value loot ... This game works really hard to live up to its Looter Shooter genre by just drowning you in dogshit. Level 40 enemies dropping weapons worth 10% of the shit you found in a dirt pile on the way there, very cool.