Cross_Section
2024
I adore Harold Halibut for its thoughtful story and earnest characters, but holy moly was I ready for it to be done by the 10-hour mark. And the thing is, I don't really know how you compress the semi-puzzler, mostly-walking-around gameplay without compromising the story. I'm not a game designer, after all. But still, just a lot of traveling to places, doing a conversation/menial task, going to other places, and repeating ad nausem until it's time to go to sleep. Much like real life, I suppose.
2020
DOOM 64 is a good reminder of why the boomer shooter genre continues to be a thing. There's something just so enthralling about speeding around primitive 3D levels (selling them short here, there's actually a lot of depth in how they're all arranged to provide the most visual and gameplay depth using a shoestring amount of resources) mowing down animated sprites. As someone who has only played the OG, 3, and 2016, this one presents as a solid in-between for the first two.
By and large, I think this game is an improvement over Zero Dawn... except for the part that I'd imagine matters most to a lot of players. It feels like Guerrilla focused on adding new ways to play instead of further refining the existing gameplay, and doesn't really do a great job of introducing the player to all these new ways of fighting. Just tosses you a bunch of weirdly-balanced toys and says "have at it!" Still, the story and characters are what I care about the most, and it delivered.
An admittedly clever twist does not (at least by itself) a fun JRPG make. There's also the issue that First Departure doesn't really do that much with the Star Trek influences and instead relegates the player to mostly just going through the motions of your usual save-the-world fantasy land JRPG narrative/gameplay.
I was not ready for the sublime writing quality here. Sure, it's Don't Nod, they excel at writing interpersonal relationships and conflict, but I never really expected them to apply it to their first big semi-fantasy RPG with such easy aplomb. The gameplay is basically a GOW2018-alike, and it at least suits the narrative well. For my part, I found the hybrid-ghost combat to be more enthralling than what GOW gave us, though still a bit tedious in general. Going to be hard to top this melancholic masterpiece for a while yet.
2021
A bit too simple, too cumbersome, too repetitive, too basic a setting and story. But it IS technically a NES game, and the first of the series, so none of the above is particularly surprising.
That it took over a decade for me to finally square away some time to play TLOU1 is a crime. Also unfortunate is that I was spoiled on ~80% of the major plot points in the interim. But that doesn't really take away from the fact that I had a GREAT time with the gameplay, which I could only describe as "what if Uncharted but Drake was more fragile yet somehow even more of a murder demon?" Overall, the presentation here was immaculate and I can't wait to play Part 2 when it releases on PC.
First off, if you're a Expanse fan, then this game is a no-brainer. It's a story that easily matches up to the quality of the show, plus you get to play as Drummer, who is possibly one of the best characters in the franchise anyway. Still, it's a Telltale game, and if you're annoyed by the 'illusion of choice' aspect inherent to the dev, Expanse will also annoy you (though the life/death of certain characters does re-contextualize Drummer's character arc a bit). Either way, a banger time.
2018
Well, I definitely thought I'd like this one more. The writing of Kratos and Atreus is rock-solid, but almost everything else about the game grinds my gears. The random level gating on certain activities and quests, the horrendously-aged color coding on gear, the side characters who are at best exposition machines, the lack of easy fast travel... It's definitely a case of a bunch of annoyances that would be just that on their own, but together are just too much to ignore.
2012
Woe be upon FF7's localization. There are so many big, emotional moments in this game that are muddled or outright made laughable because of it (not helped by the crude 3D character models either), which is a shame because FF7 is so cool otherwise. Midgar and the other locations have wonderfully weird 90s vibes. Combat is fun to break with the OP items and materia. Not to mention the music... I really do understand this JRPG's staying power now (though the many, many minigames were mostly lame).
2023
Brisk and irreverent; my two favorite qualities in a game. And the swordfighting... let's just say that when the going got tough, I didn't lower the difficulty (as I typically am wont to do in games) but instead reconsidered my strategy and took stock of my environment. It's really fun and dynamic.
2019
I liked the vibes of the story but unfortunately, I've never been one for growing plants in games. Weird, I know.
2012
The story and characters are just crushingly basic in this one, which overshadows the passable gameplay.
I think I'm outside the age range for this game.
2016
I'm surprised I gave this game as much of a shot as I did, consider how lukewarm I was on the first game. The best I can say about 2 is how visually diverse it is, but the gameplay didn't really grab me.