ConeCvltist
2003
The best way to describe Devil May Cry 2 is "aggressively mediocre."
I knew about this game's reputation long before I got to it, which is why I took so long to eventually get around to playing it, but I had the HD Collection and I figured it was high time I play it, just for shits and giggles, see if it's really that bad. However, when Mission 1 started and I was messing around with the controls and saw that Stinger animation, I already knew just how the rest of the game was going to pan out. If you want the definitive DMC 2 experience, just play until that god awful Infested Chopper boss fight and exit, because it stops being funny after that point.
For a game with a 6 month development time held together with duct tape and spit, it's a miracle the game even functions, but that's the most charitable thing you could say about it. The enemy AI is brain dead, the guns are so powerful that they will single-handedly carry you throughout the entire game, and the plot is just a series of random events and non-sequiturs that happen while Dante performs his best Two-Face impression. Nothing is overtly broken or outlandishly terrible, but it rarely ever ascends past the stunning highs of "Okay, I guess". I eventually gave up around Mission 14 when I just got too annoyed and bored to bother finishing it.
But above all else, Devil May Cry 2 is a testament to Hideaki Itsuno's ability to find the best qualities in even the worst games. Dante's moveset is very free-flowing, since he not only starts off with Air Hike, there's now a dedicated dodge button that functions as a wallrun/dodge roll, which would later be implemented as the Trickster Style in DMC 3. There's also the Majin Devil Trigger, which acts like a prototype to the Sin Devil Trigger in DMC 5, as well as minor things, such as Rebellion being introduced in this entry or the first instance of a playable Trish.
In a way, I'm glad it exists, since Devil May Cry 3 wouldn't have been as great as it was without the failure of DMC 2, but outside of its historical context within the series, DMC 2 is not worth your time in the slightest.
I knew about this game's reputation long before I got to it, which is why I took so long to eventually get around to playing it, but I had the HD Collection and I figured it was high time I play it, just for shits and giggles, see if it's really that bad. However, when Mission 1 started and I was messing around with the controls and saw that Stinger animation, I already knew just how the rest of the game was going to pan out. If you want the definitive DMC 2 experience, just play until that god awful Infested Chopper boss fight and exit, because it stops being funny after that point.
For a game with a 6 month development time held together with duct tape and spit, it's a miracle the game even functions, but that's the most charitable thing you could say about it. The enemy AI is brain dead, the guns are so powerful that they will single-handedly carry you throughout the entire game, and the plot is just a series of random events and non-sequiturs that happen while Dante performs his best Two-Face impression. Nothing is overtly broken or outlandishly terrible, but it rarely ever ascends past the stunning highs of "Okay, I guess". I eventually gave up around Mission 14 when I just got too annoyed and bored to bother finishing it.
But above all else, Devil May Cry 2 is a testament to Hideaki Itsuno's ability to find the best qualities in even the worst games. Dante's moveset is very free-flowing, since he not only starts off with Air Hike, there's now a dedicated dodge button that functions as a wallrun/dodge roll, which would later be implemented as the Trickster Style in DMC 3. There's also the Majin Devil Trigger, which acts like a prototype to the Sin Devil Trigger in DMC 5, as well as minor things, such as Rebellion being introduced in this entry or the first instance of a playable Trish.
In a way, I'm glad it exists, since Devil May Cry 3 wouldn't have been as great as it was without the failure of DMC 2, but outside of its historical context within the series, DMC 2 is not worth your time in the slightest.
2018
(Full disclaimer: this game is untranslated and I bumbled through it using nothing but guesswork and Google Translate. It can be found here: https://neroringa.wixsite.com/moriawase-c/blank-2)
Pithorox Gear is an interesting game to say the least. A bullet hell/action RPG is a pretty neat combination of genres you don't see a lot. The main mechanic revolves around time manipulation: pressing 'A' will either slow down time (if you're near an enemy), or speed it up and give you invulnerability & increased maneuverability (if you activate it at a distance.) Vital use of this mechanic is key to surviving the harder combat encounters you'll encounter from the mid-game onward, as the screen will be filled with more projectiles and numbers than you can shake a stick at. There's also unlockable weapons that affect both your normal projectiles, your melee attack, and how you interact with the environment, which alongside the Sphere Grid-esque leveling system gives a surprising amount of customization. Every mechanic falls into place perfectly with each other, and it feels very cohesive and focused.
There are some niggles here as well however: the game can stutter a bit when things get a little too busy, and while it starts strong, Pithorox Gear becomes a real slog near the last act as enemy HP and damage values shoot through the roof (even when your level reaches the triple digits), alongside some baffling design decisions, like the dungeon that makes you rely on RNG for enemies to drop items vital to progression, or the fact healing items can only be bought if you go out of your way to do an unrelated sidequest.
The story, from what little I gathered, is a little all over the place. There's talks of an apocalyptic event, religious imagery, magitek, and even references to Dante's Inferno, before ending on a rather bittersweet note. It seemed fine enough, even if I was reading it through shoddy online translations, but the gameplay more than made up for the fact I had no clue what was going on.
I feel if this had a translation, it would've been as big as the other acclaimed games in the RPG Maker community. It seems like there's a lot to like here, even with the language barrier, and the general aesthetic of the UI and the environments give it a lot of charm and character. In the unlikely chance this ever gets a translation, I would definitely recommend this for a tight, well-constructed 8 hours of fun.
Pithorox Gear is an interesting game to say the least. A bullet hell/action RPG is a pretty neat combination of genres you don't see a lot. The main mechanic revolves around time manipulation: pressing 'A' will either slow down time (if you're near an enemy), or speed it up and give you invulnerability & increased maneuverability (if you activate it at a distance.) Vital use of this mechanic is key to surviving the harder combat encounters you'll encounter from the mid-game onward, as the screen will be filled with more projectiles and numbers than you can shake a stick at. There's also unlockable weapons that affect both your normal projectiles, your melee attack, and how you interact with the environment, which alongside the Sphere Grid-esque leveling system gives a surprising amount of customization. Every mechanic falls into place perfectly with each other, and it feels very cohesive and focused.
There are some niggles here as well however: the game can stutter a bit when things get a little too busy, and while it starts strong, Pithorox Gear becomes a real slog near the last act as enemy HP and damage values shoot through the roof (even when your level reaches the triple digits), alongside some baffling design decisions, like the dungeon that makes you rely on RNG for enemies to drop items vital to progression, or the fact healing items can only be bought if you go out of your way to do an unrelated sidequest.
The story, from what little I gathered, is a little all over the place. There's talks of an apocalyptic event, religious imagery, magitek, and even references to Dante's Inferno, before ending on a rather bittersweet note. It seemed fine enough, even if I was reading it through shoddy online translations, but the gameplay more than made up for the fact I had no clue what was going on.
I feel if this had a translation, it would've been as big as the other acclaimed games in the RPG Maker community. It seems like there's a lot to like here, even with the language barrier, and the general aesthetic of the UI and the environments give it a lot of charm and character. In the unlikely chance this ever gets a translation, I would definitely recommend this for a tight, well-constructed 8 hours of fun.
Morimiya Middle School Shooting is an arcade-style top-down shooter made in the RPG Maker MV engine. The plot plays out like a bizarre Japanese version of Hatred: A violent, misanthropic middle school student with a death wish arms herself with as many guns as she can take into her local middle school with the express purpose of killing as many as she can before getting arrested.
The standard game play loop is comparable to a rouge-like version of the original Postal. You have 5 minutes per run, and you have to rack up kills before either the time limit runs out or you get caught/killed. You get graded on the number of people killed/wounded on a 5 star scale, and depending on your score, you gain points to spend on permanent upgrades like new weapons and permanent perks.
The game is technically impressive, turning the standard RPG Maker engine into a admittedly decent top-down shooter, and it has a surprising amount of depth to the moment-by-moment game play. You have a base 50% accuracy and you have to go into an aim mode to raise it, at the cost of your movement speed. Running and gunning is a surefire way to get yourself caught, as it makes your aim absolutely atrocious. While most of the students are defenseless, the rare hero or two can catch you off guard and very quickly take you down if you get cornered. Teachers also roam the halls, the females alerting others of your presence and the males running to pin you down and end your run. Despite first impressions, the game is not the mindless "cathartic" murderfest I was expecting. There is a certain level of strategy and planning involved in each run, and from a certain point of view, it could even deconstruct the murder fantasy of its own premise, seeing as the murder fantasy is very quickly ended if you get too careless.
Let's address the elephant in the room though: It's a game about children murdering children. Even though the limited graphics and frankly cheesy sound design take the edge off somewhat, this is a pretty alienating premise for the vast majority of people (even the original Postal drew the line at child murder!) Plausible deniability isn't even a factor either, seeing as the game was developed by a guro artist, so the violence is definitely meant to get someone's rocks off. It's an abhorrent production all around, and the only reason to play it over other arcade shooters is if you're morbidly curious or if it's your kink.
The standard game play loop is comparable to a rouge-like version of the original Postal. You have 5 minutes per run, and you have to rack up kills before either the time limit runs out or you get caught/killed. You get graded on the number of people killed/wounded on a 5 star scale, and depending on your score, you gain points to spend on permanent upgrades like new weapons and permanent perks.
The game is technically impressive, turning the standard RPG Maker engine into a admittedly decent top-down shooter, and it has a surprising amount of depth to the moment-by-moment game play. You have a base 50% accuracy and you have to go into an aim mode to raise it, at the cost of your movement speed. Running and gunning is a surefire way to get yourself caught, as it makes your aim absolutely atrocious. While most of the students are defenseless, the rare hero or two can catch you off guard and very quickly take you down if you get cornered. Teachers also roam the halls, the females alerting others of your presence and the males running to pin you down and end your run. Despite first impressions, the game is not the mindless "cathartic" murderfest I was expecting. There is a certain level of strategy and planning involved in each run, and from a certain point of view, it could even deconstruct the murder fantasy of its own premise, seeing as the murder fantasy is very quickly ended if you get too careless.
Let's address the elephant in the room though: It's a game about children murdering children. Even though the limited graphics and frankly cheesy sound design take the edge off somewhat, this is a pretty alienating premise for the vast majority of people (even the original Postal drew the line at child murder!) Plausible deniability isn't even a factor either, seeing as the game was developed by a guro artist, so the violence is definitely meant to get someone's rocks off. It's an abhorrent production all around, and the only reason to play it over other arcade shooters is if you're morbidly curious or if it's your kink.
Silent Hill: Downpour is the worst kind of bad game: A game of missed potential.
As the last mainline entry in the Silent Hill series as of the time of writing, Vatra games certainly tried (and in some cases, succeeded) in trying to shake up the formula. The town itself is more open-ended in terms of level design, encouraging exploration that the series has been missing since the original Silent Hill, and this more open-ended design, alongside the addition of optional side quests gives the town a real purpose, aside from connecting one area to another. The limited inventory system actually gives weapons some purpose as both self-defense tools and puzzle solving items, with the environment having a surprising amount of interactivity, from picking up environmental decoration as weapons, to breaking padlocks & boarded-up doors, to shimmying down tight corridors around the town. The atmosphere is impeccable at times, with the weather system and the small touches that show a real level of care went into the game (I love how the traditional Silent Hill radio static is replaced in this entry with garbled police scanner audio, or the scene where a monster shows up on a security monitor in the background for a second before disappearing, all without any attention called to it). The Otherworld is the most visually interesting of the series, even counting the original Team Silent games, and it can be truly breathtaking at times. The plot (at first glance at least) is the first original story line in a non-Team Silent Silent Hill game so far, with a decent premise and delineable themes about revenge and loss.
Unfortunately, the positives end there. Even post-patch, the game is a technical nightmare. Textures pop in constantly and take seconds to fully load, making everything a blurry mess when entering a new area. The frame rate is atrocious, struggling to hit 30FPS at the best of times. I had the game seize up multiple times when entering new areas, and even had a full-blown system crash at one point. I notably couldn't even finish a side quest because playing the game on Normal means a necessary side quest item doesn't even spawn! The monster design, a usual standout in even the worse Silent Hill games is incredibly lackluster, and I struggle to think of a point at which I was actually scared while playing (and no, those jump scares don't count Downpour.) The side quests are only sometimes interesting, at times mostly being fetch quests and busywork to pad out the runtime. Hell, at the point of no return, you lose all your inventory items during the final area, meaning all those side quest items are useless in the end. The Otherworld is barely used to its full potential, only used for chase sequences featuring a Photoshop motion blur effect. The characterization of Silent Hill as a benevolent force that uses nightmare creatures as some kind of self-help therapy session is also at odds with the original hostile, sadistic nature of the towns in previous games. The biggest sin however is the ending, in which depending on your decisions (including pointless moral choices and an unexplained monster sparing mechanic), the main character's backstory can completely change, making all that symbolism and theming utterly pointless depending on your choices, which is a mortal sin for a psychological horror game.
It's a real shame this is where the series stopped for now, because beyond the flaws, this is the best non-Team Silent game. If Vatra Games didn't go under after release, I would've loved to see them improve on this formula, because the good in Downpour could've been great if they had a chance to polish and refine what they had. But we have to work with what we got, and what we got is nothing but "what if's" and "could have been's".
As the last mainline entry in the Silent Hill series as of the time of writing, Vatra games certainly tried (and in some cases, succeeded) in trying to shake up the formula. The town itself is more open-ended in terms of level design, encouraging exploration that the series has been missing since the original Silent Hill, and this more open-ended design, alongside the addition of optional side quests gives the town a real purpose, aside from connecting one area to another. The limited inventory system actually gives weapons some purpose as both self-defense tools and puzzle solving items, with the environment having a surprising amount of interactivity, from picking up environmental decoration as weapons, to breaking padlocks & boarded-up doors, to shimmying down tight corridors around the town. The atmosphere is impeccable at times, with the weather system and the small touches that show a real level of care went into the game (I love how the traditional Silent Hill radio static is replaced in this entry with garbled police scanner audio, or the scene where a monster shows up on a security monitor in the background for a second before disappearing, all without any attention called to it). The Otherworld is the most visually interesting of the series, even counting the original Team Silent games, and it can be truly breathtaking at times. The plot (at first glance at least) is the first original story line in a non-Team Silent Silent Hill game so far, with a decent premise and delineable themes about revenge and loss.
Unfortunately, the positives end there. Even post-patch, the game is a technical nightmare. Textures pop in constantly and take seconds to fully load, making everything a blurry mess when entering a new area. The frame rate is atrocious, struggling to hit 30FPS at the best of times. I had the game seize up multiple times when entering new areas, and even had a full-blown system crash at one point. I notably couldn't even finish a side quest because playing the game on Normal means a necessary side quest item doesn't even spawn! The monster design, a usual standout in even the worse Silent Hill games is incredibly lackluster, and I struggle to think of a point at which I was actually scared while playing (and no, those jump scares don't count Downpour.) The side quests are only sometimes interesting, at times mostly being fetch quests and busywork to pad out the runtime. Hell, at the point of no return, you lose all your inventory items during the final area, meaning all those side quest items are useless in the end. The Otherworld is barely used to its full potential, only used for chase sequences featuring a Photoshop motion blur effect. The characterization of Silent Hill as a benevolent force that uses nightmare creatures as some kind of self-help therapy session is also at odds with the original hostile, sadistic nature of the towns in previous games. The biggest sin however is the ending, in which depending on your decisions (including pointless moral choices and an unexplained monster sparing mechanic), the main character's backstory can completely change, making all that symbolism and theming utterly pointless depending on your choices, which is a mortal sin for a psychological horror game.
It's a real shame this is where the series stopped for now, because beyond the flaws, this is the best non-Team Silent game. If Vatra Games didn't go under after release, I would've loved to see them improve on this formula, because the good in Downpour could've been great if they had a chance to polish and refine what they had. But we have to work with what we got, and what we got is nothing but "what if's" and "could have been's".