I love the art style, the interesting 3D version of a 2D game is so cool and they added this unique depth of field that makes the game feel like you are looking at it almost through a snow globe. The combat is nostalgic yet doesn't feel completely derivative. There are also a few genuinely interesting characters (Olberic and Primrose really stood out to me) and the voice acting is good across the board which was a genuine surprise. Boss fights are challenging and require good team composition and strategy though sometimes border on overly long and tedious instead of difficult but some people like super long boss fights so your mileage may vary.

The problem for me with Octopath Traveler is that every character has their own seemingly isolated questline with relatively small stakes. There is no overarching narrative forcing the characters to team up, rather they just choose to travel together for some reason. This might be perfectly fine for some people but to me it's a real crime to write a JRPG and not include interpersonal conflict and story arcs that challenge and develop teammates bonds with each other - This is what makes stories like FFVII and FFX so memorable and it's just not here at all in this game and I don't really understand why. The archetypes are all there, it had so much potential but I guess going with the modular chapter design where you can pick up any party members story at any time as you see fit made having an overarching plot and interpersonal character development difficult. As I'm sure you can tell, this juice was not worth the squeeze in my opinion and actually hamstrung what could have been an amazing classic JRPG.

There has long been a debate about whether or not video games are art. And while this question may seem offensive to some gamers, I do understand where it comes from. Does art have to say something? Does art have to make you feel something? It's hard to define exactly what art is, but I don't think games like the thirty-fifth iteration of Assassin's Creed or Call of Duty quite make the cut. To me, a lot of games are more akin to going bowling or taking a ride on a rollercoaster in that they are fun and even memorable at times, but serve more as an entertaining way to pass the time than a piece of art - and that's totally fine. Outer Wilds is a different story however - Outer Wilds, without question, is art and also one of the best games I've ever played.

Outer Wilds explores the transience of life on many wildly creative levels. In Outer Wilds you are stuck in a time loop in which every cycle ends in you or the entire universe dying. This theme of fleeting existence is nailed home further in the melancholy yet hopeful ending in which even after figuring out all the secrets of the system you are in, after dying hundreds of times, after learning everything the Nomai have to teach, and making the perilous journey to the eye of the universe you find out that the universe will end regardless - your hard work has only saved you from the dreaded time loop and this time, when you die you won't wake up at that all too familiar campfire. The upshot of this otherwise existential dread fueling finale being that you get to say goodbye to all the friends you've made along the way and later get to see life beginning anew albeit sans you. The thematic cherry on top is that Outer Wilds is designed in such a way that knowledge of the game is the only thing holding you back from completing it - so much like life, you can only truly experience this masterpiece once.

A beautiful idea paired with the perfect setting to explore that idea. This game however sadly feels like it doesn't quite know what it wants to be. Part typical indie walking sim, part horror, part adventure, part puzzle solver. Scanner Sombre dips it's toe into a number of genres never really committing to any of them so even with it's genius scanner mechanic it ends up feeling half baked. The plot is rather generic and uninspired and honestly does the game a disservice in my opinion. Sometimes less is more, and in this game I don't think we needed backstory, clearly we are deep down in a cave somewhere and are trying to get out - that's all the motivation I need.

This game does have one of those "oh wow" moments that will stay with me for a while. See after you escape the cave the camera slowly travels back through the path of your journey showing you not only how far you've come but also revealing this human snail trail of scanner data that creates this massive anthill-esque work of art that I found strangely beautiful. I'm going to choose to ignore that very last sequence which totally undermined the greatness that occurred right before it. Ultimately Scanner Sombre is worth a playthrough just for the fact that it tried something new and pulled it off relatively well, so give it a go if you are into trying out games with unique ideas.

Typically I pass on games like this because I find myself overwhelmed by the plethora of options available to me at any moment. With the sheer magnitude of substantial choices to make like what class to pick, what party to bring with you, whether to sneak around the enemies, outwit them, or face them head on, or how to handle the surprisingly large number of ways to solve main quest conflicts. I simply find myself in a state of analysis paralysis or choice overload. Basically I start feeling like my wife when I ask her what she wants to eat for dinner.

Because of this and the fact that it's essentially been in beta for the better part of a decade, I was reluctant to give it a shot. However, thanks to some heavy recommendations from friends and after seeing the backlash this game got from lesser developers for being... Idk too good or something. I felt obligated to give it a try and boy am I glad I did. This is probably the most pure feeling RPG I've played since Dragon Age Origins. And once you come to terms with the fact that rolls aren't always going to go your way, and not every conflict is going to unravel exactly as you planned, you are left with such a beautiful world with an endless chasm of depth and replay-ability. This game is not only a technical marvel but is also a true game FOR gamers. It isn't bloated with launch DLC and overpriced microtransactions, what you see is what you get. Larian Studios seems to be one of the few developers that is still making video games because they love video games, not just trying to squeeze as many dollars and cents as they can out of every project and because of these facts Baldur's Gate 3 should be celebrated.

I was like 3 years old when the original came out so I never got a chance to experience it when it first released. Because of this I will be judging this game not as a remake but as a new game because in my eyes, that's what it is. I understand this may be a little unfair so I will do my best to be aware of the context in which this game exists. System Shock was originally a DOS game and if you aren't past your prime yet and thus have no idea what DOS is think the Original Doom, Civilization, and Wolfenstein games. So in that context this remake is a wildly impressive step up in terms of quality. However judging based on 2023 standards this game just doesn't hold up when compared to some of the more advanced remakes that have come out in the past few years like Resident Evil 4, Final Fantasy 7, and Demon Souls for example.

Starting with the graphics, the visuals here have a style that I really enjoyed because it feels somewhat modern but clearly not shooting for realism. I'm an art style over realism guy so this aspect was fine to me. Realistically speaking though graphically we are looking at something in the neighborhood of 2007's Bioshock level (Note: I will be using Bioshock a lot as comparison because that is pretty close to what this game felt like for me). This was right in the middle of my formative years so maybe that's why I am so fond of that look. For a 2023 game though, the argument could be made the graphical fidelity leaves something to be desired.

As for the gameplay, this is the aspect of the game I found myself liking the least. System Shock plays (again) similar to Bioshock in that there isn't really a cover system and combat engagements are usually spent strafing side to side trying not to get shot while simultaneously shooting your target in hopes they die first, only in this game you don't have magic powers in your left hand that help dispatch of enemies more efficiently. This style of combat feels a little clunky and dated but is mostly fine. The problem here is that you take a lot of damage per hit and healing items are rarer than they feel like they should be. It almost seems like the game wants you to use the respawn mechanic when exploring and save your healing items only for when you are progressing or fighting a boss. This just didn't feel good to me as dying is always something I try to avoid at any cost in games. Because of this most of the game I found myself low on health and stressfully light on healing items. I will add that the game has seemingly robust difficulty options where you can adjust the difficulty of the world/missions, the combat, the puzzles, and the pretty lame cyberspace sections separately. I kept everything on 2 (normal) for my playthrough but in hindsight probably would have had a more enjoyable time setting combat to 1. Sadly I don't think you can change difficulty mid game though so I was pot committed at the point I decided I would want to change it.

The world design and lack of a leash I found to be quite refreshing and Shodan is a memorable antagonist. I love when a game lets you figure out the world at your own pace and doesn't have huge map markers telling you exactly where you need to go. In System Shock you have to figure it out yourself based on logic. This will sometimes be an audio log mentioning a way to get past a certain area and sometimes you will simply have explored everything in an area and thus decide it's time to move on and come back later when you have the proper key or item to progress. While this may be a tedious system of trial and error for some, I found it engaging and immersive. The only issue with this design is that it requires a lot of backtracking if you are actually going in blind and enemies respawn quite often so you will run into scenarios when you don't have the ammo to spare on respawning enemies but need to dispatch them in order to get to where you are trying to go. It's just another wrinkle in a game like this, isn't necessarily bad but at times you will feel like you are being punished for being inquisitive or not immediately figuring out what you need to do.

Ultimately I enjoyed the game, though it felt dated immediately. Part of me enjoyed that it felt like a classic game but another part wished they had updated it to be on par with the present day state of the art. I'd like to hear what went into the decision to remake a game in the 2020's, that originally came out in the early 90's, but only update it to roughly 2000's standards. I imagine they were worried that updating it too much would risk making it not feel like System Shock to a person who loved the original. I can see this argument, but as a person who never played the original it just felt like I was playing an old immersive sim akin to Bioshock... Which is one of my favorite games, but I imagine I wouldn't like it nearly as much if I played it for the first time today.

When this game was first released I just didn't like the look of it. Not exactly sure if it was the graphics or the world in general but it just didn't look interesting. However I added it to my backlog and figured I'd give it a chance eventually assuming it would be a pleasant surprise seeing as it has mostly glowing reviews. I must just be a fundamentally different type of person to most gamers because after finally playing this game I found it to be uninspired, bland, and a total waste of an interesting world.

I feel like what makes FF games so good is the character development, and not just that but interplay between characters. Seeing the bonds that form between party members as their faults and flaws begin to show instantly adheres you to characters. I felt this was an element that was totally lacking in this game. In my opinion FF12 totally failed it's characters in almost every way and with better writing there could have been some really good stuff here instead of carboard cutout characters and vague evil baddies who all wear similar helmets so it's hard to tell them apart.

We never really get to see what is driving any of the characters besides the initial information given at the start of the game. We hardly ever see any backstory as to how a character became who they are-- for example Fran's backstory choosing to leave her people is like 20+ hours into the game and is barely referenced before or after. How did she wind up with Balthier? We never find out. Everything is just surface level. I feel like this game is essentially a really interesting novel but where 9 out of every 10 pages has been torn out, but making sure to leave in all the main story beats. It's hollow, missing all the world building, character development, and backstory of everything important. So many questions unanswered.

This issue with characterization is made worse by the license system where you can assign any job to any character. This just makes the characters feel more like malleable putty with no personality. Characters like Auron from FFX for example are defined by their skillset, he's a man of few words, a walker not a talker, and he carries a massive sword and plays the big bruiser role. It all fits. This is elementary stuff man, I don't get how they dropped the ball so badly in this department.

Another thing is that no one except Balthier really has any personality, they are all just drab and uninspired. There is no optimistic happy go lucky character, there is no silent bad ass, no obnoxious overly confident character, no den mother figure, just a bunch of vaguely neutral characters who never seem to show much emotion or personality at all.

The combat is fine and fun to tinker around with at first, but once you get to a certain point you have essentially automated the gameplay. The decision to make a combat system where the end goal is automation is an odd one, because once achieved you don't even have to play the game, you just run from one mob to the next and watch them die. Excluding bosses I don't think I had to touch my controller more than a couple of times in the last 10 hours of gameplay when in combat... Fun, fun.

This is the first FF game that I have actively disliked and that was really disappointing to me. Had high hopes for this one.

A deeply intimate delve into the lives of a fictional family that is so well written and the world so meticulously built that they almost seem real. The finches are an eclectic bunch of which the majority lived very short lives. Rumored to be struck by a curse, most of the family met tragic if somewhat comedic ends usually at a very young age. We get to explore the whole family and their stories by investigating Edith's childhood home which is a beautifully designed creation functioning as the architectural equivalent of a family tree. See in the Finch household each family member gets their own room, and when a new Finch is born, the house is expanded upon building a new room on top of the existing house rather than recycling an older room of a departed older family member. This magic idea creates the feeling of travelling through time as we climb further up the house learning about each family member in chronological order.

Exploring the Finch house in the game reminded me of my teenage years when sometimes I would sneak into old abandoned houses and poke around, sometimes I would come across one that was left somewhat furnished. I would scan through their things and sometimes I would get the feeling that I was beginning to get to know who these people were, creating a story of their lives by looking through their belongings. What movies they owned, books they read, drawings, pictures, clothing, etc. Ignoring the morally questionable invasion of privacy, I felt that I gained a sort of personal connection with these unknown people through the objects in their rooms. I imagine a lot of people can relate if they have ever rummaged around in the attic of an old house or maybe had to clean out a storage locker of a deceased family member. This feeling of getting to know someone through their belongings is nailed perfectly by this game.

The story unveils itself through learning each family members interests and ultimately how they died. As you would expect, many of the family members stories are intertwined and thus as you learn about one family member you can usually glean some information of others. At the beginning there is an emotional disconnect as Edith has only heard about her older family members through possibly embellished stories. As we get closer to Edith's room however, we feel the emotional tension grow as we start learning about the fate of her immediate family. This all culminates in an ending that is truly sad yet hopeful, and is sure to pull a tear or two out of most peoples eyes. Digging a little deeper you can piece together that Edie, the great grand mother of our protagonist, and her infatuation with fantastical stories about the curse might be the root cause for a large number of the deaths in the family rather than anything actually supernatural. At the very least Edie uses the curse to explain away generally neglectful parenting and enjoys the popularity it has garnered the Finch family.

If you like a good walking sim every so often and value creative ideas and compelling stories then give this one a go. Judging it based on what it is, I'm not sure if I have played a better game in the genre.

The tone is clearly inspired by Fromsoft games as you are all but directly called the chosen undead and there are obvious Bloodborne aesthetics at play. While admittedly a bit derivative, I actually quite enjoyed the dark gothic art style and the hopeless aura that is floating around the games bleak world. Honestly though there's really not much to discuss here, The Last Faith relies on a tried and tested formula to provide a challenging and entertaining experience but doesn't really do anything to shake up the genre. If you are a fan of the plethora of Metroidvania Soulslikes akin to Hollow Knight, Blasphemous, Salt and Sanctuary, and many more then you will enjoy this game. If you are tired of this formula and want something new then you probably won't.

An awesome little surprise that wasn't on my radar at all and seemingly came out of nowhere. It makes me so happy to see another indie game that feels unique and tries something new and interesting break through and gain popularity. At first glance a game about fishing seems like it wouldn't hold my interest very long but the world is crafted beautifully, steeped in mystery, and has Lovecraftian cosmic horror coursing through it's veins.

The gameplay is comparable to games like Stardew Valley in the sense that at it's core it is a game about efficiency. You start fishing to earn money to reinvest in better fishing gear to earn even more money and on and on. This loop is nothing new as many games are built around this type of progression. However where Dredge establishes itself as a unique experience worthy of a try is that time is not the only thing you have to battle against. As the sun sets all the weird Lovecraftian elements rear their creepy heads. A thick mist fills the ocean and clouds your view, ghostly apparitions stalk you and cause you to lose your sanity, as your sanity begins to slip your chances of getting back to a port safely decreases substantially. There isn't just sea monsters out there trying to kill you, though there are plenty of those as well, there is also some unseen force out there that seems to be slowly sapping the sanity of you and the inhabitants of this world... And this threat is openly hostile and night.

"Why not just only go out during the day then?" you ask, well two things push you towards being out on the ocean at night. One is that your profit margins go up significantly at night as this is when odd mutated fish can be caught which for some reason sell for significantly more than regular fish (The people are really losing it I guess) and two is that traveling pretty much anywhere outside the safety of the central town takes longer than a day. The day night cycle here is quite short so any journey worth taking will usually require at least some night travel.

There are a number of different biomes all with different core threats to deal with and unique fish to catch which usually require specialized gear. The monster design here is pretty awesome, from big fast moving snake like monsters that chase you through tight valleys to a massive tentacled behemoth that will mercilessly attack you if you try grab all the goodies it is guarding. Feeling brave? Try taking your ship out beyond the bounds of the map, just be sure to bring a change of underwear.

ENDING SPOILER ALERT:
The ending(s) were pretty impressive as well. If you have been finding and reading the messages in bottles found scattered around the world and talking to a central NPC's often you will have at least some idea of what is going on in the story. However the twist at the end was really well executed. Reminded me of the film Shutter Island which is high praise for a little Indie game that no one had ever heard of until a few days ago.

Fromsoft seemingly never disappoints and remains one of the few companies that I blindly give money to on every new release. I imagine going from their typical interconnected yet somewhat linear world design of the souls series, bloodborne, and sekiro to a massive open world would be a difficult transition but Elden Ring pulls it off delivering a masterclass in world design. You never have to be told where to go, the world subtly pushes you in the right direction by drawing your attention to the important places with clever world design. Really can't say enough about the world, genuinely amazing.

This game isn't without it's faults though, I found some of the dungeon bosses to be a little recycled. For example some later game dungeon bosses will be just two of an earlier game dungeon boss or throw in some dogs or skeletons with an already used boss. This is forgivable due to the sheer number of these dungeons in the world but it is worth noting. The combat is largely the same as dark souls 3, but I am fine with that, if it ain't broke don't fix it right?

Honestly my biggest complaint about the game is that some of the bosses attack patterns seem to almost try to trick you by using everything you've learned from previous Fromsoft games against you. For example in most soulsborne games, when an enemy lifts their weapon in the air it typically means they are going to swing it at you so you should dodge. However in this game a number bosses have this almost comedically long wind up in their attack animation that is almost certainly programmed purposely to counter people who reflexively dodge. I found this cheap and annoying, almost like the game was punishing me for having good reflexes. instead I had to turn to pattern recognition and essentially become a video game playing robot who reacts to inputs like "he raised his left arm at a 30 degree angle with his right knee pointed outward, this means I have to wait 2.4 seconds then dodge". And I know that all the soulsborne games do this to some extent, but I personally prefer the fast paced reactionary combat of bloodborne to this where you are rewarded for aggression and good reflexes.

With those complaints out of the way, I will summarize by saying that this game is easily game of the year in my opinion and is one of the best open worlds of all time. The game is not quite a masterpiece, but is a damned good game worth every penny and was a joy to play... Except the Horah Loux fight... F that guy.