Control is unique, abstract, different; I think everyone can come away from this game with those three things, but I can also see how the slow burn “mysterious” world-building and story could turn some people off.

Control’s story I think is its strongest element. The game throws you right into the story without any context, other than “Jesse has been brought to this hidden building and there’s a voice in her head telling her what to do, also she’s the new director”. You pretty quickly get into a slow feed of information as you progress through each mission, learning more and more about why she is at the FBC and what is going on within The Oldest House.

I absolutely loved the way the story was presented; it added to the atmosphere of The Oldest House being this weird, ever changing and literally shifting building. Picking up on Lore and character details through Research Logs was surprisingly engaging; I wasn’t expecting myself to read every bit of lore I came across, but due to the subtle nature of how the plot presented itself, it encouraged me to read it all.

Combat has you throwing random objects and using your OOP weapon to take down Hiss enemies, and for the most part, I really enjoyed it. I found the random enemy hoard encounters to be slightly annoying when having to backtrack, and the map was also sometimes a headache to read. It wasn’t anything that stopped me completely in my tracks though, combat still engaged me. Enemies drop materials and ability badges, but I didn’t find those to be good enough rewards to make combat worth going out of my way for. There’s also the skill tree, which would be a good enough motivator for combat, but I found it to be a little half baked. Sure I can increase my health, energy, and other attributes, but it didn’t feel like my combat was necessarily being rewarded and made more complex.

On a better note, Control has so much style. The graphic design and art direction interweave so perfectly and the lighting of The Oldest House and the brutalist architecture give a very eery vibe to the game.

The only thing I really feel like I’m missing coming out of this game is the social commentary. With how dense/full the story is, I was expecting myself to be able to come away with some commentary on workplace culture, or corrupt government agencies (which I’m leaning towards). But for now I really have nothing. Theres so much to dissect and honestly it would take me a while to piece some sort of theory together. Needless to say, Control is very close to a masterpiece in my eyes. It’s been a while since I’ve had a game completely hook me and have me thinking about playing it while doing other things throughout my day.

I completed this about two years ago, but wanted to write out my thoughts before I (finally) finish up psychonauts 2.

Psychonauts is unbelievably unique, especially during the time it came out. The writing is witty and smart; the story and the way the themes intertwine with the gameplay makes this stand out amongst double fine’s other projects. There are some sections of the game that are kind of a pain (looking at the theatre section and the meat circus and the platforming being really jank) but the highs really outweigh the lows, and I don’t throw that phrase around often. As an aside, I love the art style so much and I really think psychonauts 2 allowed it to shine outside of the very dated ps2/xbox graphics.

An interesting spinoff. Actually helped provide a lot of context and lore for the story, and resolved Alan’s arc even more. Mr. Scratch personifies the worst part of Alan while also being kinda hilarious at times. Loved the live action cutscene integration. They added its own visual flair to this game.

Also loved how much more fun the gunplay was. A wider variety of guns and enemy types really made this feel like an improvement upon the original’s gunplay.

Honestly a bummer this wasn’t included in the remaster but it’s whatever. Would love to see it physically at some point.

This might be in top 3 for guitar hero games. Loved that each character would get an alternate look and each had their own unique powers that made gameplay a bit more fun on the career side. Also loved the each character kind of had their own genre of rock? Some being alternative, some being classic, etc. Over the past year or so I’ve been steadily getting better at playing on expert, and last summer I had only learned how to play on hard difficulty. It’s been a long road but I’m so happy to have told childhood me that I would get to this point where I could use more than three fingers :p

Only up!: Alan Wake edition

Genuinely loved that these two dlcs took the physics engine they used and ran with it for different puzzles. Really felt like they wanted to implement more gameplay this time around. Good stuff!

Ps. Idk why but “Elevator? Why not. Next stop sanity” killed me

“It’s not a lake, it’s an ocean”

I’m not sure what to make of this line. On one hand, I think it has something to do with how darkness can take over anyone, even outside of the lake. But on the other hand I think this story has much more to do about Alan Wake and his problems with his wife and themes of domestic violence than anything. Towards the beginning of the game, Alan Wake is shown as being easily, angry and hostile towards Alice. The moment Alan storms off Alice is taken by the darkness, and so Alan is now on a journey to get her back. Alan’s writings throughout the story guiding him could be seen as a metaphor on how artists generally can express their feelings and get through a tough period in their life through art and expression. But I also see it as a journey to get back to the loving relationship Alan had with his wife Alice. Alan is trying to get over his own darkness trying to make sense of the darkness around him and eventually coming to terms with it by understanding what is going on. By the end of the story, Alan Wake essentially “sacrifices” himself so that Alice can live another day in the real world. I think this could be seen as Alan, realizing that he can’t repair his marriage, and that leaving Alice, but letting her live her life is the best way that he can allow her to heal.

Other than that, I think Thomas Zane In a diver suit was an interesting choice. I’m not really sure if there was some sort of metaphor to go along with that, but just a slight observation lol

This game wears its inspirations on its sleeve; The shining, Twilight zone, Silent Hill, and others were very obvious to me. That isn’t to say that the game doesn’t come into its own! The story has so many layers, and honestly is very impressive for a game that came out during the 360 era.

Gameplay wise, it is pretty simple, but the action pieces made for decent moment to moment gameplay. The unique use of flashlights and light based items felt very fresh, and still adhered to the themes of the story.

The problems I have with the game: Alan Wake at times sounds very wooden like he wasn’t even in the room talking to his costars when reading his lines. But other times (like heated moments between characters in the game), he sounds alright.

Wanted to refresh my thoughts on this game a few months after it released, and since Aonuma’s new thoughts on fan’s desires for a return to more linear Zelda.

This game is amazing. On a surface level, the abilities in this game are the thing that changes the gameplay up the most. Using Ultrahand, Fuse, and Recall to basically build whatever you want depending on the resources you have is extremely fun. These abilities also have multiple uses for the most part, such as ultra hand basically being a magnesis clone minus the “having to be metal” part. Ascend was such an amazing ability for traversal, and fusing weapons was so, so much fun looking back on it. Recall also allows for some really fun experimentation and allowed the team to create some interesting puzzles. I particularly loved when recall was used to get into the sky through the fallen blocks.

These gameplay additions alone help differentiate it from breath of the wild, but the addition of the sky and the depths, plus tons of new shrines make it feel fresh too. But the depths, other than being very, very atmospheric and the darkness legitimately making exploration more enjoyable imo, doesn’t really offer a ton other than loot. I enjoyed the Yiga Clan bases and the boss rematches, but a lot of it was roaming around until you found another cosmetic. A little disappointing, considering I found the depths to be very surprising since it wasn’t really talked about in the marketing for the game. The sky was kind of similar. I loved the shrines, but the sky was very limited. It was mostly loot and wasn’t nearly as big as I thought it would be. Regardless, I thought the addition of verticality to breath of the wild’s hyrule was much appreciated. Much of the feel of the game can be attributed to these two additions. I just expected there to be some settlements or villages in the sky much like skyloft from skyward sword.

Some of my problems with the game lie with the fact that we are in the same hyrule from before. There isn’t really much of a mystery or sense of exploration that I absolutely loved after booting up breath of the wild for the first time. My first 30 or so hours consisted of staying in the depths, as I found a brand new map much more interesting to explore than one we have already seen (or I have seen, for like 200 hours at this point). I’m not sure if the feeling of exploration and pure wonder I had when playing Breath of the Wild back in 2017 was because it was a new direction for Zelda, or if it was because I was just having a moment that really opened my eyes to what open world adventure games could do. I’m thinking the former. But regardless, I didn’t have the same feeling with Tears of the Kingdom.

Tears of the Kingdom still manages to be super fun though, despite my qualms. Looking back on it after a few months made me realize how much fun I actually had. The main story of the game still kinda sucks, writing wise, but that wasn’t the focus. It works for what they were going for, but in the next few games I would love for there to be an interesting story that isn’t just told loosely disconnected from gameplay.

The dungeons this time around are way better than Breath of the Wild’s main dungeons. Breath of the Wild’s felt to me like they could be “cheated”. There were several moments where I solved a puzzle by cheesing the game, which was probably on purpose. But I don’t necessarily enjoy that. I loved the shrines in this game where you had to get from point A to point B by building a raft or some sort of vehicle, but the game let you decide what to create to get to the end. The dungeons in BOTW just felt half baked, in comparison. Luckily, the dungeons in TOTK are a vast improvement; albeit still with some problems. You can still cheese them in a sense, since the dungeons still feel more open. But what I loved about the more linear 3D zelda dungeons was the sense that you had to figure out exactly where the devs wanted you to go and in what order you had to do something. Small keys, being locked in a room, something more akin to an escape room, is what I loved about older Zelda dungeons. Lots of Zelda dungeons in the past relied on one mechanic (or item) created for that dungeon, and all puzzle solving relied on that mechanic. TOTK and BOTW allow you to use your abilities and whatever weapons and items you have brought with you to your espousal which I think creates a bit of confusion. I don’t get the same satisfaction of having figured out a puzzle as I did with past Zelda’s. With so many options to complete a puzzle/dungeon, you just come out of it feeling like, “I guess I completed it correctly?” It’s like if I were playing a jeopardy game and the trivia question had multiple answers that I wasn’t aware of. It isn’t as satisfying to win when you know you could’ve won any other way. It doesn’t make me feel smart. I dunno, maybe I’m in the minority with this feeling, but I think that’s why I’m not so much a fan of the dungeons in this game. Linear dungeons allow for me to feel more satisfied by the end, and allows for the devs to create puzzles that are more complex and harder to figure out!

I think when people want “classic linear Zelda” back, the dungeons is what they want. Everything outside of the main dungeons in other 3d Zelda’s felt half baked (for the most part). I never had as much fun exploring hyrule in OOT or doing side quests than I did playing through the main story dungeons. I think if the next game wants to satisfy fans, it should keep the older dungeon design philosophy while also keeping what made BOTW’s world so rich and fun to explore.

Rant aside, tears of the kingdom fundamentally feels like a step up from breath of the wild. Something with the story I haven’t heard much of anyone talk about is the sense of mystery involving what happened to each of the locations you knew so well from BOTW. I loved talking to NPCs and trying to figure out what has happened since BOTW to make the world different. But re-using the same world will inevitably make the game feel less new.

Some side notes:
- Weapon fusing is gonna be sorely missed in the next game if that doesn’t come back imo. (Maybe just make it something you can do in a menu?)

- The Ui at times is an improvement and also a major flaw? I was shocked with how bad the “picking a material to throw or fuse to an arrow” menu was. It’s just a straight line that takes forever to scroll through.

- I can already sense a bit of fatigue around the only big rewarding thing from exploration being shrines.

- caves were a sick addition

- voice acting was better

- I really would enjoy an art style change for the next game (toon link??)

I know it doesn’t seem very novel anymore, but the game that created action commands in rpgs deserves a little bit of praise! This remake revitalizes and refreshes the original, being nearly the same but with some extra post game content that satisfied my itch for a harder adventure. The music in this game is absolutely amazing, and the 3d cutscenes were an awesome addition. It feels like the artepiazza team truly understands what made the original game so satisfying, and keeping a lot of the sound effects and special moves in tact from the original really added to the gameplay feel. Keeping a lot of the dialogue the same but retranslating some enemy names and such felt like the team really cared about the details.

I don’t think this game (the original) really gets enough credit for introducing such a simple but satisfying mechanic for an rpg, that being the action commands. Since then multiple Mario games have implimented it, but I think teaching young kids to time their button presses with an action right at impact actually unintentionally allows them to get better at action games (or even platformers). It also allows kids to mostly be able to enjoy an rpg without a lot of strategy involved. Having a lot of ur damage output be relied upon by ur ability to press a button at an exact window allows the actual item use and strategy take a backseat, which is normally a difficult aspect of rpgs of that time.

Another kind of overlooked aspect of this game is the story. Smithy and his band of weapon based enemies coming out of a factory after having plunged into the earth through a giant sword is very charming and I almost get a vibe that square was trying to tell children about how war (nuclear weapons, historical conflict, what have you) or technology, can be dangerous if we aren’t able to keep it at bay. Idk, maybe I’m just trying to read too much into a kids game and the whole weapon aspect is leftover from medieval-esque final fantasy rpg settings. Nevertheless, loved this adventure and the new place it took mario at the time.

Like idk about you but playing thru the first one and miles morales is some of the most joyful experiences ive had in gaming, esp playing it on ps5 two christmas’s ago. Maybe im biased with my love for spiderman, but this game comes out of the door swinging with the entire sandman sequence, and almost never stops. The characters feel fully realized in this game, wrapping up all three of the main character’s arcs in a really nicely paced and well balanced way that really shows they thought this through since the beginning.

Beating the main game only takes about 2-3 hours (if even that), but the true meat of this comes from the extra content and replayability.

The challenge modes fucking rock. Gamer is back from Game & Wario, and is still really fun. The “elevator” challenges are back, and having every minigame mixed together with different control methods adds a ton of challenge. Cruise controls and wario interrupts are both probably my favorites out of these. Cruise controls allows you to speed up or slow down the gameplay by tilting the 3ds, and allows the gameplay to really go as smooth as you want it to. Wario interrupts is basically like if the blooper item could be used on ur 3ds interrupting normal gameplay, but with various other tweaks, which adds a really nice amount of difficulty. I personally also really love kat and Ana’s mode “Splitscreen” which cuts down the time inbetween minigames and just goes back to back with minigames alternating from top to bottom. It really makes it a constant rush of gameplay and is really refreshing.

Also of course I have to acknowledge classic Pyoro being back which is such a nice timesink. The arcade minigames are such a nice cherry on top and the little gimmick games like the alarm clocks and he weird toilet paper credits game really make this game feel cohesively “Wario” and is something they really didn’t need to do but they did it anyway.