First 2023 completion to kickstart another year of 'reviews' that are mostly irrelevant rambles! How fitting that it should be a game that I have very little to say about, with a few general statements to make instead :)

This game was pretty fun, nothing to write home about if I'm being honest. Some cute dialogue and neat characters, couple things took me by surprised which was nice, I do appreciate when the formula is played with if only a little. Overall a chill time, doubt I'll remember it for long but sometimes it's nice to just spend an evening with something like this.

Admittedly I was hoping my first would be more significant like Xenoblade 2 but that game is taking me so long lmao. Decided to switch up my pfp as well! (Definitely wasn't copying Nancyfly..) - I love Jill but I was ready for change and a new year makes for a good excuse, felt only fitting to rep my 2022 GOTY 😌

Hope you all had wonderful holiday seasons and go on to enjoy 2023 to the fullest. I've made it a mission to play more JRPGs this year so you might get some more time between my rants... Maybe I'll finally write that FFVIIR review if the DQ XI one overtakes Shadow as my most liked :p [Nancy can't stop me from replaying it again if I say it's for that huehue]

I've got a lot on the burner but I'm open to suggestions for any must-play JRPGs (or whatever) so please feel free to drop your favourites and guilt me into playing something new! ❤️

Some of the BGM was a bit lacking but the wit and charm of the series continues to go strong. A powerful conclusion to one of the most gripping trilogies in all of gaming. The credits song was also a nice surprise.

I don't have that much else too say about this and I typically ramble a while. So the following are some notes from my Dragon Quest XI review :)

Dragon Quest XI is a phenomenal game. It stands firm as one of the greatest JRPGs I’ve personally ever experienced, and I expect is among the greatest titles within the genre of all time.
I have a lot to say about this title so for those of you who may not want to read 158 hours’ worth of thoughts, I’ll summarise it briefly here: The gameplay, polish and presentation of Dragon Quest XI is off the charts. Everything works and looks exactly as it should, there are basically no instances where you’ll find yourself against impossible odds or hit a wall of “bullshit”, it just works. It’s also incredibly accessible to players of all preferences and skill-levels, this game was made to be enjoyed by anyone and in my honest opinion, it succeeds. So, let’s get into it a little deeper.

And to borrow from the blog post of a brilliant mind:
Thanks for reading
- Frog Detective x

Use brings about wear, tear, and rust... So use Costly Punch :p

Man, as a huge fan of Final Fantasy VII and the remake in particular, I went into this with such deep skepticism. I already know the gist of the plot thanks to VII, and my love for the world and characters was amplified well beyond my expectations in VIIR, so it was important to me not to overhype this in my head for fear of sitting down to learn that it's "just a PSP spin-off and it shows"... Now, this isn't all to say that that isn't true per se, but I am so happy with how this turned out.

I’ve tried putting my thoughts down properly a few times now but they all turn into directionless rambles or I spend way too long praising the VAs for VII Remake, so this can be a short(er) one with possible expansion later.


I'm sure you can tell by now I'm a bit of a Final Fantasy simp. I haven't played too many of the games, but the ones I have all live in a very special part of my heart and can do no wrong, (even the ones that are bullshit and I hate them) - So of course this is coming from a place of bias. I do try to be fair, but also Tifa is wearing a cowgirl hat, it's hard enough thinking of anything beyond “I love it, this game is adorable, where is VII Rebirth? I am going to cry”

I really enjoyed this game, much more than I expected to. The combat proved to be simple but effective, with the DMW slot thingy making for an interesting way to make every fight different rather than the confusing mess I was worried it might be. The story is obviously restricted by the prequel-status, and the villains aren’t the most original ever written, but that doesn’t stop it from being an emotional journey at all. Also, being as easy-to-please as I am, even just spending short amounts of time in locations from Gaia that we haven’t seen yet in the remake had me giddily announcing to my gf that “!!! We’re in Junon!” and “Ayo! It’s Costa Del Sol!” with excitement that couldn’t be fazed by her cluelessness as to what I was talking about.

Zack himself is a great protagonist, I do feel as though his puppy-like dialogue and delivery from the early game leaks out into the later game a bit more than it should, but this was never enough to ruin a serious or sincere scene. Seeing pre-VII Cloud and Aerith in particular was really cool. I loved that a lot. Tifa obviously is great as well, if used a little less than I was expecting. Oh yeah and even Yuffie got some time to shine, her “questline” was cute.

Speaking of… At first I thought that 300 optional side missions was outrageous, nay, disgusting! How dare they populate this beloved game with a 70/30 split of mid copy/paste levels to the actual game. But then I started doing them, and I literally could not stop. They’re all the same maps and you can beat pretty much all of them using only 2 attacks over and over but my god they’re addictive. I beat them all, including the super mega ‘fuck you’ boss that has 10 million hp, I had fun :)
As I write this I’ve got the combat AFK downstairs, I’ve become so addicted that I burned through right up to the platinum and now all I’m waiting on is maxing the % for a couple of the DMW things, making my biggest complaint at the current time the reliance on RNG for a trophy. I’ve played the entire game, all 300 missions and then NG+ up to mid-chapter 9 and I still have 3 characters on the DMW board with 90%, 80% and fucking 10% to their names… I’ve gotten each of them so many times, how are they so low !?

Anyway ramble Jake is creeping back in so I’m gunna call it here lol. This was a surprisingly great time and only reinforced my love for the franchise and the VII-verse in particular. Definitely worth playing if only as a buffer between Remake and Rebirth. (Just maybe don’t bother with all 300 missions)

P.S. It's not that long either! It only took me around 30 hours to beat including doing 150+ missions, with another 6 hours to do the remaining missions. You could beat this in 20 hours with relative ease I bet.

Update: Finally got the DMW trophy after about 3 hours of letting it run with buffed odds, jeez. Platinum #89

Man, this game really doesn't play fair..

This review will likely be structured as a multi-layer shit sandwich, which honestly is kind of appropriate for my feelings toward the game. For every few good things, there is at least one.. not good.. Kinda.. Let me explain.

The first thing I took note of when playing for the first time was a much needed and welcome change from the previous 2 games, in the form of the upgraded Menus and UIs, particularly the former. The menus in Bayo 1/2 weren't all that much to look at and in 1 especially felt kinda awkward to use, 3's aren't the most user-friendly thing in the world either to be fair but they're a step up and more importantly they look much better. I actually used the skill trees and crafted items, and the Gates of Hell store page was so much more interesting than the previous games simply for having idle animations of characters on screen. It's the little things sometimes.

The second thing I noticed were the changes to combat. I'm hardly a combo expert and I suck at these games, but Bayonetta's moveset and combos are changed quite a lot which was an exciting surprise. Furthermore, when using her default weapons, if you stop a combo midway (or just attack once) Bayonetta does a little dance-transition from her position following the attack, back to her fighting stance. There's no reason for this to happen but I love it so much letsgo! There are a decent number of weapons that can be acquired during the game (most through the story - no more missing the fun ones!) and these all have their own combos as well. They're a little hit or miss, but when they hit they feel amazing. (And when they miss it's most likely bc they just don't fit my playstyle, which is okay :p)

Finally the usage of demons in combat is mostly pretty awesome, at times you feel a bit dependent on them maybe and some of them are a bitch to use, but I liked the mechanic a lot overall.
Honestly I think my biggest letdown with Bayonetta's combat is that the torture attacks have been downscaled, and now just sort of happen on their own. I'm all for cutting down on QTEs and button mashing, but the game still has plenty of the latter and the torture attacks are simply less fun when they're not close-up with my direct engagement -- perhaps an option to toggle this on/off or even trigger it or not depending on the prompt would've been nice, oh well.

To sprinkle just a tiny bit more shit in here real quick, the repeated voicelines gripe I had with 2 is back, and while it's not as bad bc the combos and stuff are more varied, there is quite literally 1 spoken line for when you check your objective marker, and she says it every single time you check it. There's also only a single line spoken when you're idle for more than a minute or so, which is a real shame bc the first time I was like "oh hey nice I like when games remind me I'm playing them" but by the fourth time I was like "omg I just took a sip of my tea stfu" (it's not that bad but I'm easily distracted and I talk online while playing a lot lol)

Bringing this back to the positives, one of the other new things that I was pleased with is that traversal has been given a bit of love and now varies depending on your equipped weapons. Off the back of this, while I still prefer Bayo 2's hairstyle, the customisation options in 3 (while fairly limited and don't look phenomenal) were a nice touch.

Okay I'm rambling too much already so I'm gunna run through my thoughts on the story pretty swiftly: I personally enjoyed it. It's not what I expected from this entry and it's not necessarily what I would've wanted either, but it was easy to follow for the most part and by the end I was left with minimal questions so I really can't complain. It's not like 2's story was exactly the next best-seller either, but this is an action series :p
That said, the new enemy types and their designs got old pretty fast, kinda disappointed by the lack of variety there, in the colour palette more than anything.

[FYI, this section is about mechanics/sections that are new for this title]
One of the most conflicting things for me in this game were the parts that happened partway through the levels, normally near the end, and were really cool to watch or on paper, but simply were not very fun to play in my opinion. The Kaiju fights varied from each other in more cases which really helped for this point not to pull my opinion down further, but my god some of them just do not land for me. As someone who flies through the game with fast combat and agile evades, slowing down to a crawl and throwing heavy punches just killed the pacing and really took me out of it. Not to mention some of them are kinda like platforming but the controls are either a little stiff or not really explained bc you're thrown right into it... Idk I like the idea of them but I kinda wish they were just cutscenes honestly.

On the flip side, the Jeanne side missions were nowhere near as bad as they could've been. I daresay I enjoyed them even. I've played games in that style before and I think if it was longer it'd definitely need work, but for what it is I liked it. Jeanne is neat and I was never disappointed to see one of those levels appear.

Now, with that said... It's time to address the most divisive parts of this game.

Viola. I'm sorry folks I tried so damn hard to like her and I just don't. I don't dislike her, she just doesn't resonate with me at all idk. Punk is very much not for me and her whole vibe sorta comes across as like, DmC Dante mixed with Enzo or some shit lol. I get what they were trying and at times it's endearing but more often for me I just wanted her parts to be over. It really didn't help that her combat style is a huge step down from Bayo's imo. DMCV showed us that you can have 3 totally split MCs with their own styles that are all fun in their own way, and it feels like Bayonetta 3 took a leaf out of that book, but dropped it on their way home. V's summoned demons fighting for him is an interesting approach and I'm not even sure how but it kinda works, most likely because you still control the attacks themselves. Viola's fighting style is just, not that idk. It felt like every fight went better if I just held ZL or whatever and kept back as best I could. A real shame tbh.

[Minor Spoilers ahead re: interpersonal relationships, nothing game-ruining I promise, this controversy is so fucking dumb]

Bayonetta, Jeanne, A Man. Ohhh my God Bayonetta fans need to calm their tits so hard. I have now played all 3 games in the series within a couple of months, all with the distinct impression that Bayo and Jeanne were a canon couple bc the fanbase treats it that way. Not once did I ever get the impression they were fucking! They're literally just two hot girl bosses who care for each other deeply. It never came across as romantic to me I'm sorry. Abso-fucking-lutely they're both bisexual, perhaps even pansexual, who knows, but they never once shared a moment that made me believe they were interested in each other romantically.

The internet shit it's ass out so hard when they so much as heard fourth-hand that Bayonetta and a male character might be 'involved' in this game. "B-but Jeanne!!", "Stop straight-washing bi icons" -- It was utterly ridiculous. For starters, people with sexualities befitting of both their own and other genders are allowed to be in "straight" relationships, they're not betraying the cause and treating it as such is an insult. There's a reason it isn't black and white so why is there a stigma around those in the middle taking "the wrong side"? Ridiculous. Anyway. The reveals between Bayo and this male character didn't feel all that shocking to me, if anything they were closer to cliche. Which yeah I get is why everyone's fuming because they got a "generic standard" romance rather than an explicitly LGBTQIA+ one, but my god it genuinely sounded to me before playing that Bayo 2 was full of lesbian sex and Bayo/Jeanne got married and lived together swapping spit for 10 years, only for Bayo 3 to then pluck her up like a claw machine and put her next to a man instead. Honestly it's so annoying I'm wasting half my review ranting about it. I understand being upset that your ship wasn't fulfilled, but if I'm being blunt the ship felt kinda forced anyway. Idk man, the fanbase really ran away with that one and then threw a tantrum when they were told they'd gone the wrong way. I would've loved a lesbian girlboss couple as well, but what we got still worked and y'all are doing the game a disservice by clouding those scenes with a thick layer of hate.

Ultimately, I can say with confidence that Bayonetta 3 is a fantastic action game. Sure it breaks the pattern and starts pretty slow, some of it's level designs are a bit lacking, and not all of the playable sections are that fun- but when it goes, it goes hard, and it feels great.
Also the climax is badass and there is so much dancing omg I am physically incapable of knocking points off oops so sad (It's the 2nd best of the 3 imo)

As per this was much longer than intended, thanks to those who read it all - I'd be Interested to know how much of this I'm in the minority for tbh.
If anyone has a good reason that something I didn't like is actually great please tell me, I wanna love it more :)

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

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! :)

Gurl, no...

This game came as a really pleasant surprise to me as an unexpected birthday gift (I won't say who from in case they'd prefer I don't, but massive thank you again!)
It was received as a random recommendation that I immediately recognised as something I'd meant to look into years ago, but forgotten about - needless to say I hopped on it pretty quickly.

I didn't have any particular expectations per se, but I was pretty confident that I'd like it, and am happy to say that the surprises didn't stop once I booted it. I've only played a handful of Wolf RPG and RPG Maker horror games but the ones I've liked have hit a real sweet spot for me and it's become a niche that I'm increasingly eager to dip back into.

Mad Father - despite being quite a bit older than some others I've played - uses some really interesting techniques that I haven't seen all that much of to emphasise the horror element, without relying on loud bangs or grotesque monsters. It wasn't exactly groundbreaking or anything, but there were a number of little things that on my first encounter had my eyes light up a lil with a "woa nice!" - The first hour or so especially was just a joy to play through.

The story itself is pretty good, nothing to write home about but memorable, and for 95% of the the game it sticks to the narrative really well which is appreciated. There's also voice acting but only for certain lines or shrieks which did a much better job at elevating the eeriness than expected. The music was also great, and the art is pretty, just an all round a solid game honestly. Biggest gripe with it would unfortunately be the True Ending. I get what they were doing but idk, it's not what I wanted :(

In conclusion, if you're into indie horror RPG maker games this is well worth checking out, and thank you again to my friend for gifting it, twas an excellent choice! :)

Starts out as Animal Crossing and turns into Getting Over It with Bennet Foddy, with BOTW style climbing stamina...

Perhaps I'm just impatient / totally directionless but I tried my damnedest to explore every new path/area until I looped back on myself and I still found myself being short on feathers when they mattered most. I got them in the end by sheer luck / saving coins in an area I had to cheese my way into early and buying one to get there legitimately with, but for a good 20 mins or so I was just running around old areas looking for something useful or climbing up any way I could to gain some height only to hit a dead-end when I thought I was doing well :(

It's really not a bad game, and I know the whole point is to follow the trails yourself but I do wish it had just a smidge more guiding, or the option at least. I'm convinced I found 2 items I didn't use and another 2 things that looked interactable but I couldn't use with anything I had on me .-. God knows how much I missed.

That said though, the vibes are (mostly) very chill, and the music is delightful. If you're even slightly more capable than I at hiking and/or indie games I'm sure this is a lovely lil time for you :p

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

When I saw that Ragnarok was nominated for just about everything at the Game Awards I sorta rolled my eyes and thought "pfsh, of course it is". Now that I've completed it myself... Yeah, of course it is.

This game isn't perfect by any stretch, the combat gets a bit repetitive, there are too many optional bosses/trials/collectible whatnots, and while I've seen a lot of people praise it for being a duology instead of dragging out to a trilogy (which I agree with 100%), it still ironically drags its own runtime out with side content just a bit more than it needs to in my opinion. There's already so much game, I don't need you to ask me to travel all 9 realms looking for flowers/lizards/stags/whatever else at multiple stages throughout the game as an excuse to go back to areas I've spent 5 hours in already. I appreciate that I can access new areas within the realms now and that's great, but there's no need for an entire tab of "1 of 15" and "4 of 10" ...etc when the game is rich with fantastic content and incentive to explore without it.

That aside, the characters and the story are superb, absolutely top marks. People call this a movie game as a negative a lot, which I really don't understand because it's not a movie game in that it's lacking in game and instead just shows you the story.. It's a movie game because it feels like you're playing a movie, the direction, the tension, the whole thing is a journey that you're being taken on, yes, but that you're still in control of just as much as any other game. If the credits role and I feel like I've just finished watching The Lord of the Rings or some shit, how is that a bad thing??? I beat monsters to a pulp for 40 hours and felt fulfilled at the end, like what happened, mattered - damn what a terrible game ( -_・)?

God of War Ragnarok improves upon everything that it's predecessor does, and yeah it shares some of the same flaws but for what it's worth, I think it's blatantly unreasonable to expect them to have made a better sequel than this. Bravo, Santa Monica Studio.

Very difficult game to rate, or review to be honest.. If you don't know, this game is very much just exploring a house, reading old notes/letters and listening to voice journals telling stories related to things you find. If that sounds boring to you, I get it, trust me. But idk, it feels so personal.

The voice actor does a great job at really making it feel like a true account of real events, hell it may well be and I'd believe it in a heartbeat. It's fascinating how just hearing someone's story and exploring their personal effects can be so captivating, regardless of whether you know them or if they even exist...

A lot of love and care went into making this game and it shows, it's hard not to appreciate that. The one single gripe I take with it is that I don't share the tastes of Sam and so any time I found a casette tape to play I'd have to turn it off bc I hate punk music lol. Skipping the credits for the same reason was kinda sad too, but it's not really fair to criticise an indie game for not falling into the cliche of having indie folk music :p

I've rambled as usual, if you're interested even a little, give it a try. I wasn't expecting to care as much as I did, it might surprise you too :)
Thanks for reading!

As the final entry in Season 1 of the anthology, The Devil in Me makes for an interesting time to implement new mechanics like a simple inventory system, some light climb/crouch prompts and even a couple of puzzles. None of these add any more to the game than they take away in my opinion, with most of them - puzzles especially - just dragging the already slow pace in those sections to a crawl, but it's nice to see Supermassive trying new things to keep the series fresh. Hopefully this was a test drive that future entries will improve upon.

That aside, this game definitely suffers from a pretty slow start post-prologue, and personally I didn't find any of the cast particularly interesting until after reaching the hotel, which is around the time it picks up anyway, small shame there.

I played this game on lethal, following the footsteps of my lovely gf and her thirst for seeing as many brutal deaths as possible :p Not gunna lie some of the minigame sections are pretty hard and I lost a character to failing one so that was fun! The premise and the deaths are pretty great, they could've maybe done a little more with some things but I wasn't disappointed at all with the experience that I got.

I'm not the first to say it but it really does hold true: It's not the best of the season, but it's probably the scariest. Some really great slasher/thriller scenes and stellar atmosphere throughout. Definitely recommend sticking through the slow build and occasional dip to get play for yourself :)

By far the best Dead Rising game in my opinion, and quite possibly the most fun zombie game I've ever played.

The infamous deadlines are much more generous than the first games, with a 7 day deadline lasting so long that I beat the game with 2+ days to spare, even while saving every survivor I found (23/25 total), killing every psycho, and spending hours just pissing about.

The amount of zombies on screen is super fun, and the map is a lot more accommodating to faster transportation than the previous games as well, getting around takes a lot less time in general but it doesn't feel too big nor too small.

I never got to play this back on release because I haven't owned an Xbox since the 360 and it's a real shame it hasn't come to PS, but I'm glad I was able to finally play through it on PC. If it ever does come to PS I may even grab it again honestly, great way to kill time.

This game is perfect for playing while watching something on your offscreen as well, I got through most of it in a long weekend while binging TWD in an attempt to catch up before it ends and can honestly say that it was not only addictive the whole time but it was engaging enough that I'd always pause the show to watch the game's cutscenes, which I didn't really expect to care about.

The weapon selection and combinations are at their best in this game also, honestly can't recommend it enough if you wanna just kill zombies. I haven't played 4 yet but having seen the trailers I expect this is the best the series has to offer.

In conclusion, really enjoyed my time with this, only complaints at all are to do with the audio mixing which I think was a me-problem anyway. I s'pose there's a problem with assets popping-in too but frankly idc about that.
If you haven't played this and you have the means to- give it a try :)