Приємний десерт після основної гри у вигляді роуглайту. Спочатку ніби трохи важко, все ще таке невідоме, якісь нові противники, не знаєш що робити, а годинничок то тікає (з часом кожне проходження стає все важчим, тож бажано планувати всі свої дії наперед). А потім, коли вже вивчив локації, назбирав грошей та прокачав персонажів, то гра перетворюється у цікавий тайм менеджмент, де нам треба по черзі врятувати 5 людей з місячної бази, котра з кожним проходженням потрохи змінюється, так ще й способи порятунку мають бути різними.

Один з головних ексклюзивів віти, якщо не самий головний. Гра та її дизайн доволі унікальні, атмосфера дуже незвична. Головний гімік цієї гри - ми можемо міняти гравітацію для нашої героїні та вона буде падати у вказаному напрямку. Весь геймплей базується на основі саме цієї механіки, та розробникам добре вдалось утримати мою зацікавленість аж до кінця гри завдяки різноманітному використанню цих здібностей головної героїні. Відкритий світ доволі немаленький, але при цьому гра дуже добре йшла на моїй віті.

For all the survival horror that I've dabbled with over the past few years, this is the title that made me the most cognizant of the "survival" aspect. It’s this elaborate balancing act of juggling every limited resource at your disposal: ammo for bosses and enemies, kerosene to burn necessary corpses after downing zombies to secure routes, health items as fail safes, ink ribbons to save when deemed necessary, and most importantly, inventory space to minimize backtracking with the bare minimum (knowing what you’re likely to use up as you progress so you have enough room to forage). What’s key to all of this is that it’s often worthwhile not downing zombies at all to not only conserve ammo, but also prevent the possibility of a more dangerous Crimson Head when kerosene is not only limited but requires further planning for refueling and additional inventory slots (lighter + flask). It’s punishing, but in the best way possible; damage and death become instruments of observation to properly plan out backtracking and understanding exactly what goes where. Perhaps my favorite example of this in action was abusing the various doors in a room connecting the shed corridor with a safe room; by quickly going in and out of the entrances, I could not only reset a Hunter’s awareness and spawn, but also place myself in a position where I could immediately run at the Hunter to proc an attack and slip past every time. It certainly helps, regardless, that there’s plenty of leeway for careful experimentation, thanks to all of the scattered health items about the mansion (granted, often requiring careful planning to optimize grounded herbs in rooms and keeping enough inventory space open for trips). It’s also fairly firm at setting its boundaries by telegraphing enemy placement far in advance with rattling doors/windows to signify enemy shifts, background moaning when a zombie is present in the room, and even environmental noises like crunching fallen glass to make up for the lack of vision with fixed camera angles.

That doesn’t mean, however, that the horror has been neglected. If anything, I found this game far more unsettling beyond sudden surprises. It’s not so much the fear of the unexpected, but rather, the lingering fear of waiting for the other shoe to drop while you’re expecting the unexpected. They're scripted events, sure, but they're well disguised thanks to every room often acting as its own isolated microcosm without the presence of the protagonist (not to mention that it's pretty easy to get caught up in the middle of things and forget about each individual room, which makes it all the more viscerally shocking) and there's still a feeling of player control with careful planning and routing. This fits perfectly alongside its core philosophy of risk versus reward, the existential dread of having to backtrack through several zombie infested corridors when you realize you forgot an inventory key and having to constantly and deliberately throw yourself into tight situations just to save another trip across the map. It’s what makes this such an ideal speedrunning game: not necessarily because of satisfying movement or combat, but because Resident Evil is really a game about time management. Every second wasted tromping through another passageway is time that could contribute to a zombie reviving as a Crimson Head or another second spent replaying if you’re not willing to use that extra ink ribbon. The primal fear arising from guaranteed safety as a fleeting resource lends perfectly to the need for optimization; in that sense, pressuring players into constantly checking the map to avoid confrontations and getting lost goes hand in hand with spending as little time as possible, for nothing is more terrifying than having to rewind the simulations in your head for another go.

I can’t help but feel that every detail of this game was thought down to the bone, even the original tank control scheme. That’s right, I’m actually defending tank controls for once in my life… how the turns have tabled. Dodging enemies can seem tougher, but most are conveniently placed near corners and more open areas to give you the room necessary to dodge with a backstep/quick burst to the side if you’re willing to wait and bait committal attacks. More importantly, using tank controls lets you maintain your direction and momentum while running through different camera angles of a room. With alternate controls, you most likely have to hold down the joystick to maintain velocity and upon a new camera angle, will have to quickly retap to keep the intended direction with each new angle. This becomes paramount in tighter chase sequences, where even slight moments of stagnation can lead to damage/death, as well as one timed puzzle where I had to press a button and then quickly run through several fixed angles to get into position to push a statue. In addition, I found it rather difficult to reliably walk (as opposed to running full-time) with alternate controls over tank controls, which can absolutely backfire during an end-game sequence where running for a prolonged period can trigger an explosion during nitro delivery. Therefore, the circumstances created by the environment not only are doable with tank controls, but in fact necessitate the usage of such controls.

Everything just comes together as this tightly designed package. Puzzles have fairly evident tells and can be figured out with careful observation of the surroundings while facilitating the inventory scramble that plays so heavily to the game’s survival elements. The lore never feels overbearing or excessive, and does a great job weaving in hints for crafting approaches and figuring out exactly what has to be accomplished. There’s never an explicit timer on screen outside of the final ending segment, yet the game is great at creating circumstances where you’re forced to make decisions on the fly from environmental stressors and considering the mansion not just on a per room basis, but as a sum of its parts. I genuinely don’t think I have any gripes; it was more than happy to beat me down, but understanding its parameters to scale up against its challenges was an incredibly fulfilling experience. I’d damn well say that REmake is the most focused and cohesive survival horror experience I’ve ever played. Not just a perfect remake, but perhaps a practically perfect game.

Metals clash, and sparks fly. The rhythmic sounds of blades colliding put you in a hypnotic trance. Clink. Clink. Pause. Clink clink. It's euphoric. Sekiro has by far the most satisfying combat in gaming. From genichiro to owl father, each boss is like it's own song in a rhythm game, like piano tiles on steroids. Each moveset like an improvised line in jazz, the boss attacks like the sax, and you're the accompanying bass. One fuck up though, and your entire flow is ruined. It's game over in an instant.

Sekiro is hard. It's probably the hardest game I've ever played. But it's only hard in the beginning. If you're mentally prepared to suffer for just a few hours, I promise you, when you get out the other side and really learn how to play the game, and engage with it's mechanics, it makes you feel like an unstoppable cyborg ninja killing machine.

Well, beating this on my birthday sure was a nice surprise! Especially since this was a pretty great game overall. It was my Secret Santa game in fact, which was something me and my discord fellas participated in. I'll link the list I did for that here.

Any who, yeah this was really good. I beat Prime 1 last year for the first time and thought it was awesome. So I was excited to see how 2 fared and I was not disappointed. I do think 1 was better overall as 2 has higher highs in some parts of the game and lower lows but it's still really good even compared to 1.

When it comes to straight up improvements, there's a couple things 2 did extremely well compared to 1. Loading times are all faster, it takes like half the time for you to get to a new area now. Scans now go from red or blue to green when scanned and are much easier to see if they've been scanned or not. The scanning especially being a lot better than 1's would definitely make me miss it when I replay that eventually lol.

Obviously the game's big mechanic is the dark and light worlds and honestly, I thought it was awesome. I've heard some people say they found it tedious, and I never really had an issue with it. I thought it added a cool spin on Prime's gameplay and made you think. It could make the game difficult somewhat, especially when fighting some of those dark world bosses but I liked that.

Speaking of the bosses, they're very interesting in this one. Overall, I'd say they were an improvement from 1 tho there were a couple that were a pain in the ass. Spider Guardian obviously being the main culprit for most people. I didn't hate it but man was it frustrating trying to figure out what to do while fighting it cuz that one can be brutal. A lot of the bosses were actually pretty tough, they were certainly more complex than 1's bosses. Those last few tho, the 2nd Dark Samus fight...Quadraxis and the whole set of final bosses were easily the best in the game and better than all of Prime 1's bosses. At first I was a little disappointed with the boss roster in 2 but after fighting the endgame ones, overall I do think 2 has better bosses than 1.

Now the biggest thing I think that's holding this game back from being better than 1, is its world. Prime 1 was basically Super Metroid in 3D. You had a very interconnected world to explore that was more into showing not telling. Prime 2 is more similar to Fusion with its bigger focus on storytelling and more linear world. The game is definitely not quite as linear or focused on story as Fusion, but it definitely feels like it took inspiration from it. The world is broken up into 3 main areas to explore and 1 overworld type area you go back and forth from. Rather than exploring at your own pace like Prime 1, it feels more like you're guided around slightly as you have to go back to the hub to unlock each new area. Eventually the areas do have elevators that connect to other areas but even with that the world isn't as tightly designed as 1's I feel. The area's are all cool, especially Sanctuary Fortress...that one is awesome, however I feel there weren't as many "aha" moments whenever I saw areas connect like in 1. I also feel like the game wasn't as atmospheric as 1 was, at least not the atmosphere I dig as much. Still, the world does interconnect by the end, I just think compared to 1 it just aint as good.

As for other miscellaneous things, the OST is pretty solid tho I do think its a downgrade compared to 1. I love how the classic item room theme is back, that's sick. I enjoyed the connections the game made to 1 near the beginning. Dark Samus was awesome to see in this game finally and it seems like it comes back in 3 so that'll be cool. Pirate commanders suck ass and were easily the worst enemy in the game. They're basically Chozo Ghosts from 1, except instead of locking the doors only some of the time, they lock them every time they appear and they're tanky as fuck which Chozo ghosts weren't. Weird change tbh and was just tedious every time they popped up. Navigating menus in this game feels clunkier than 1, they tried to make it all cool but it feels like it takes longer to find a certain file if you wanna read it again. It was interesting to see the screw attack in this game and while I warmed up to it by the end of the game, I still can't help it felt a little lame compared to how it was in prior games. Also again, one of the best parts of the game was just getting collectables and seeing what puzzles you have to do to get/find them. That was still really fun to do in this game, especially with the Dark/Light gimmick. I did get every item, which is of course a Metroid staple, and got a good chunk of the scans so I'm satisfied.

Overall, this was very good despite some issues I had. I do like Prime 1 more but this was definitely a worthy sequel I feel. Thank you @QuentTheSlayer for having me play this as my Secret Santa game, had a jolly good time! Next is gonna be the original Klonoa. A nice short game will do me good methinks.