Was pretty hard swallowing the pill on how very NOT-good this game is especially after saving it for last on my hunting game run.

Game starts off quite fun and really interesting with how the world is setup as well as making you really feel the burden of all the restrictions set on you as a low rank prisoner and in turn the feeling of having that weight off your shoulders when you do get the necessary permissions to do more things or do old annoying things faster/easier.

The fun quickly fades when you realize it's easily the most unfinished hunting game in the entire genre and suffered so hard from never getting an expansion like pretty much every other series. The worst offender being that the story straight up cuts just as things finally started actually happening and this is after one of the worst fights I've ever done in my life.

That said, it's hard to hate on the game too much when it really did try to be one of the most experimental hunting games out there and sadly failed to deliver despite how promising it was. I really liked the customization and clothes options in the game a lot and how cool the dismemberment system was. The combat itself was fun for a bit but would've been 100x better if it actually came out on a system that allowed for an aiming-heavy game like this to be played without wanting to bash your skull in. The partner AI system is really cool too and so are some of the tracks in the game, especially the vocal ones.

I do hope the Studio TVT game thats a spiritual successor of this actually manages to come out and fix all the issues this one has.

MonHuns console-team wishes they had even a 1/1000th of the competence Team Omega Force has in actually innovating their franchises and breaking new ground with how extremely well they pulled off this open-world hunting game.

I still liked the first games story more, especially in the expansion but the characters are about on the same level in terms of being likable and very well written. But pretty much every other aspect is a gigantic improvement that it's actually hard to wrap my head around when I started. The new weaps and old weapon moveset changes, the complete transformation of the Mitama system into an extremely fun and open loadout system, the redesigning of the entire map to be open world, the new Demon Hand grappling system, and even the improved and more brutal dismemberment system. Everything's just perfect.

Also, the absolute happiness of seeing Hatsuho again is indescribable but Gwen is definitely best girl here. Extremely sad we'll never get a follow up though.

the epitome of every common id tech 4 complaint; a show-offy tech demo with not much to actually show

prey seems to be far more concerned with its novel-at-first gravity shifting, portal hopping and other gimmickry than it is with delivering a fun shooter. almost every weapon feels pretty weak, enemies are as generic as they come and the level design is frustratingly boring - especially when it teases its potential so irritatingly often

there's some really cool aesthetic direction here - sometimes. the sphere's strange fusions of human civilization and mechanical-organic hodgepodge future tech that's reminiscent of quake's strogg is REALLY FUCKING COOL. but it's actively sidelined and little more than something to glance at in passing during the actual levels - steel halls with constant gravity walks, enemies popping out of portals and the occasional vehicle sequence. it's lame!

tommy's kind of an annoying jackass for most of the story. he embodies "Fuck off I don't believe in that made up nonsense" and constantly whines about how his heritage is a bunch of superstitious gobbledygook... even while he's literally talking to his deceased grandfather in the afterlife. though i guess i can't really blame him for not giving a shit, because his supernatural ability amounts to little more than being able to walk through forcefields and push the buttons behind them (usually to turn said forcefields off)

oh and to never die - tommy's really good at keeping his soul alive via 10 second bursts of spiritual whack-a-mole. i guess that works out because it means none of the dull shooting ever needs to be gone through a second time, but i'd have gladly taken some guns that actually felt satisfying instead. out of his arsenal, which is primarily driven by different flavors of machine guns, the only weapon i found especially great was the leech gun. i guess the weird caustic paint-splattering shotgun is kinda neat too. the grenades look cool but are functionally reminiscent of quake 2's, which is not a compliment at all and i barely touched them because of it

narratively, things pick up substantially in the last four missions. considering there's 21 of them, that's not a fantastic ratio, but it ended on an interesting enough note for me to wish prey 2 wasn't cancelled. so that counts for something

still, i find it hard to believe that a sequel to this would've been nearly as good as arkane's 2017 release

hello, welcome to makura-soft, what do you want?

"EOP JOP EOP JOP EOP JOP"

uhh, do you want sakura no uta or something?

"MTL LOOOL GOOD LUCK COPE EOP JOP EOP"

"Yeah, I've been in love. Yeah, I've been in love... I've been in love, I mean.. that's what... yeah."
- The Hulk


This is one of these 10/10s where like, speaking as a game entirely, dunno if I'd give it a 10 but objectivity is for posers. I loved this shit for all its quirks and all, kind of like the rough headed dumbo boy at the core of this game. Game's got heart like our boy on his love quest as he grows into a young man from helping out the people in his town to prove he's a suitable boy for the girl of his dreams.

Real shit tho I would've gotten turbo filtered if I didn't fuckin use a guide so, shouts out GameFAQS.

Being young's about a lot of things y'know? Love being one of em, finding your happiness in the world and maturing into a headstrong individual in spite of all the unhappiness around you.

Also, lots and lots of hardships, especially when you're livin' in poverty like our lil guy up front. Shows up to town and just cause he's poor everyone thinks he's up to no good when he's just tryna make it. Accurate as fuck to the real world, but our main boy is idealistic in a frankly cynical world, going up and beyond to show his people that they deserve help, making bonds along the way with peeps of all walks of life.

The fact that all the Underground Residents are outsiders who are only allowed to be out at certain times despite keeping the entire infrastructure of the city going really hits home. Which is why doing the kisses is real sweet, like you’re indulging in someone else’s interest and showing them that it’s chill and people can actually like ‘em.

Game's got some heavy hittin' emotional beats too, I ended up kissing everyone (which was a cute lil way of showing the boy's solidarity with the people of his town) and for a lot of the important NPCs, their plots had lots of pretty resonant moments, shouts out to Leo and Zombie Mika especially. Bonding with the Girl's parents was cute too, also shouts out the Funny Bone City/Batayan's arc.

Other than that though, this game got vibes and chill moments for days, paying attention to everyone's schedules and catching them at different moments, bondin' over shit while you do their individual questlines. Discovering all the other weirdos living underground in squalor, reminded me of moments when I was younger having to figure out shit to do with my friends all while realizing we might've only had like 8 bucks between us, some real class solidarity goin on. Also a whole lotta real ass moments occurred like me setting my alarm an hour late and missing the bus multiple times which was a minor frustration but it totally made the goofy kid simulator even more realistic.

Totally cute talking with the Girl as the game went on, stargazing with her all while playing coy about how you gotta prove yourself to not be some dumb punk and actually a good guy, makes that ending sweet as fuck, pure lovey dovey cuteness. Would def make me cry on the right day.

Loved this lil game, all about having nothing in your life but the love in your heart as you keep goin' til you can finally find happiness.

Despite all of the love people seem to have for it, I didn't really fall for Dark Souls 3. To begin with, the Clownmaster Orgville fight was dissapointing, and not at all what I was expecting given the leadup in the Hallowed Bastion area. Pretty much none of the levels I explored--not even the Forest of Unkempt Fires--really had that DaS vibe that is so important. Demon Stalker was a fun boss, as was the Moss Valkyrie. And I guess filling the Essence Urn with the spirits of the Big Five was a satisfying goal--still, the final fight against Oversoul Snindermight just lacked something. I wished I was back in Lordran, fighting the first iteration of "cool old timey monster bosses," rather than this later take on it. Something was lost, a spark; the game is hollow and the characters fungible.

There is no game quite like KoDP, not even Six Ages. The spectacular achievement of this game is that there are 2 ways of being successful: memorising every "good" choice in every situation and treating it like a math problem (the objectively wrong way of playing the game), or by roleplaying as an Orlanthi, really understanding what their whole deal is and intuitively understanding what each situation calls for. You shouldn't exorcise a spirit, you should launch a legal claim against it. That sort of thing.

I think it's interesting how this game basically lets you figure out everything on your own. Usually in detective games it gives you a bunch of possible answers and you kind of have to solve it the way they want you to. In Obra Dinn, you can pretty much go anywhere you want and solve each death in any order. The only downside to this approach is that there are a few crew members who seemingly don't stand out at all and only appear in a few scenes. I pretty much had to guess who was who in that case, since there didn't seem to be any concrete way to discern what their names were. Finding out the identity of every other crew member fortunately isn't all that hard as long as you pay attention to the scenes, especially the early ones where you can see some of them doing their jobs. It helps that the artstyle allows for super detailed faces, so all of the characters are pretty easy to recognize even if you don't know their name.

It's kind of like sudoku, except instead of numbers it's people, and instead of columns and boxes, it's finding their cause of death. Actually that's not a very good analogy now that I think about it. Anyway, there's not much replay value for obvious reasons but the game is still pretty fun.