Druidam
354 Reviews liked by Druidam
Hollow Knight
2017
O jogo da minha vida
Unlimited SaGa
2002
Esse é o jogo mais lindo do mundo, preencheu minha alma, muito a frente do seu tempo
Steel Vampire
2018
Well it lives up to Dracula I guess. After all, it sucks.
Saya no Uta
2003
This review contains spoilers
I played this game all the way through together with a friend, and I was immediately interested because of how extremely bleak the scenario depicted here is. I am a huge fan of so-called "Feel Bad" media. Things that only focus on one thing, and one thing only, which is to make you feel as bad as possible. Good examples are LISA: The Painful (in my opinion), movies like Lilja 4-ever and Requiem for a Dream, and music like Swans' "Public Castration is a Good Idea". So for that reason I wanted to continue, because I wanted to feel this classic feel-bad sort of catharsis that I usually experience from the best of these films or games. And when I had played through the entire thing, I thought it was good, but not as good as I had expected. So I ended up giving it a 7.
That was before I experienced the two other endings. These two completely change everything to be completely honest. I never thought a piece of media would be able to make me feel such horror and joy combined at the same time. If I were to describe the story in one expression, it would be "horrifying beauty". This is probably the first review I have done that warrants a spoiler warning, so from now there be spoilers. I loved the final ending especially, the one where Fuminori and Saya win, because what that ending symbolized to me was the fact that despite the lovecraftian concept of a creature (Saya) whose entire purpose is to hijack the main species of a planet to essentially rule it, what the ending actually shows is that love trumps everything. Now, the planet did end up hijacked anyways, because this is Saya no Uta, and a completely happy ending would be sort of out of place, but Saya did that out of love for Fuminori, not because of her biological urges. She did it as a final gift to him, a way to slowly make the world feel beautiful and normal again. But at the same time, it is absolutely horrifying, because what this ending means is that the entire rest of the world's population will feel a similar agony to what Yoh experienced when she was converted by Saya. But it was this duality that made the ending feel so complete to me, probably leaning more to the beautiful side. Because Saya no Uta tells us that the world is a highly subjective place, where your world view can change everything. To someone who wants to eat something quickly, McDonald's may seem like a nice place to go, but to someone else, supporting McDonald's is to exploit people who are being worked to the bone there. That discussion is an insanely complex one that can be boiled down to a difference of opinion in my opinion. Saya no Uta takes a very extreme approach to this, but shows through this that no matter what world view you have, you can find joy and happiness, even if it happens on top of the suffering of someone else. Not really a message that one should take to heart in that extreme of a way in my opinion, but it's an interesting and beautiful thought that this game presents.
That was before I experienced the two other endings. These two completely change everything to be completely honest. I never thought a piece of media would be able to make me feel such horror and joy combined at the same time. If I were to describe the story in one expression, it would be "horrifying beauty". This is probably the first review I have done that warrants a spoiler warning, so from now there be spoilers. I loved the final ending especially, the one where Fuminori and Saya win, because what that ending symbolized to me was the fact that despite the lovecraftian concept of a creature (Saya) whose entire purpose is to hijack the main species of a planet to essentially rule it, what the ending actually shows is that love trumps everything. Now, the planet did end up hijacked anyways, because this is Saya no Uta, and a completely happy ending would be sort of out of place, but Saya did that out of love for Fuminori, not because of her biological urges. She did it as a final gift to him, a way to slowly make the world feel beautiful and normal again. But at the same time, it is absolutely horrifying, because what this ending means is that the entire rest of the world's population will feel a similar agony to what Yoh experienced when she was converted by Saya. But it was this duality that made the ending feel so complete to me, probably leaning more to the beautiful side. Because Saya no Uta tells us that the world is a highly subjective place, where your world view can change everything. To someone who wants to eat something quickly, McDonald's may seem like a nice place to go, but to someone else, supporting McDonald's is to exploit people who are being worked to the bone there. That discussion is an insanely complex one that can be boiled down to a difference of opinion in my opinion. Saya no Uta takes a very extreme approach to this, but shows through this that no matter what world view you have, you can find joy and happiness, even if it happens on top of the suffering of someone else. Not really a message that one should take to heart in that extreme of a way in my opinion, but it's an interesting and beautiful thought that this game presents.
Atelier Ryza’s small scaled world and short paced story are a refreshing touch and way to experience JRPGs. It’s a small game, but every single corner is gorgeous and beautifully detailed and decorated. Small but excellent, in the truest sense possible.
There is hardly a game that makes gathering ingredients as useful and meaningful as Atelier Ryza or the Atelier series in general. It’s this game’s essence and I enjoy how you can create anything from these ingredients: weapons, combat and healing items, tools and anything that’s essentially needed in a JRPG. That drives the motivation to explore its beautiful and interconnected world.
Its original soundtrack is a serene and atmospherical experience at any point of the game and with a free DLC, you’re able to listen to the series’ entire soundtrack and assign your favorite tracks to any area and any type of battle. The Japanese voice acting is flawlessly executed. However, it does not contain an English voice over.
Photo mode and accessibility are two additional plus points I want to mention.
In conclusion, thick thighs save lives.
There is hardly a game that makes gathering ingredients as useful and meaningful as Atelier Ryza or the Atelier series in general. It’s this game’s essence and I enjoy how you can create anything from these ingredients: weapons, combat and healing items, tools and anything that’s essentially needed in a JRPG. That drives the motivation to explore its beautiful and interconnected world.
Its original soundtrack is a serene and atmospherical experience at any point of the game and with a free DLC, you’re able to listen to the series’ entire soundtrack and assign your favorite tracks to any area and any type of battle. The Japanese voice acting is flawlessly executed. However, it does not contain an English voice over.
Photo mode and accessibility are two additional plus points I want to mention.
In conclusion, thick thighs save lives.
Resident Evil 6
2012
It's not the funniest 80-90s action movie I've played, but it does its work well enough in single player and coop alike. Could use more cheesy madcap bits in its story over long empty hallways downtimes, or just make the mercenary mode somehow the story campaign, but otherwise is an "okay" sequel to an "okay" sequel to RE4.
Timespinner
2018
Nada de inovador, porém visual e trilha sonora excelentes. Um jogo mediano mas me cativou demais
Timespinner
2018
The Good:
-Fantastic music
-Pretty pixel art
-Mostly well-written
The Ok:
-Doesn’t innovate at all
-Weirdly horny
The Bad:
-Not much, unless you dislike its short length
Conclusion: Timespinner isn’t really close to the best metroidvanias I’ve ever played, but it is still really solid. To start, the presentation is really great, especially the music. It’s almost weird how great the music is, like there are some seriously beautiful tracks here. The game also looks great, although some character models do look a little strange. Gameplay-wise it’s nothing new, although it is fun. The combat is pretty basic, but it gets the job done. The exploration is also nothing new, but it works. The plot is actually more in-depth than most other platformers, I mean it’s got a whole war between two groups, and the conflict is actually interesting. The characters are also interesting, although I do wish we could’ve known them a little better. One weird thing I noticed was that this is definitely the most horny 2D game I’ve ever played. That isn’t really a negative, but a few cutscenes caught me off guard. A good point of reference here is Symphony of the Night. If you played that game and liked it, I guarantee you’ll like this. The map system is the same, the menus are similar, some plot points are the same, even some of the room layouts are copies. Timespinner doesn’t really improve on SotN, but it does offer a less-dated version of pretty much a similar experience. Also, one last thing is that it definitely underutilized its time-stopping mechanic. It’s fun, but you could easily construct the game without it. In short, I did really enjoy this one. It doesn’t offer anything extraordinary (aside from the music), but this is still a clear recommendation to metroidvania fans.
-Fantastic music
-Pretty pixel art
-Mostly well-written
The Ok:
-Doesn’t innovate at all
-Weirdly horny
The Bad:
-Not much, unless you dislike its short length
Conclusion: Timespinner isn’t really close to the best metroidvanias I’ve ever played, but it is still really solid. To start, the presentation is really great, especially the music. It’s almost weird how great the music is, like there are some seriously beautiful tracks here. The game also looks great, although some character models do look a little strange. Gameplay-wise it’s nothing new, although it is fun. The combat is pretty basic, but it gets the job done. The exploration is also nothing new, but it works. The plot is actually more in-depth than most other platformers, I mean it’s got a whole war between two groups, and the conflict is actually interesting. The characters are also interesting, although I do wish we could’ve known them a little better. One weird thing I noticed was that this is definitely the most horny 2D game I’ve ever played. That isn’t really a negative, but a few cutscenes caught me off guard. A good point of reference here is Symphony of the Night. If you played that game and liked it, I guarantee you’ll like this. The map system is the same, the menus are similar, some plot points are the same, even some of the room layouts are copies. Timespinner doesn’t really improve on SotN, but it does offer a less-dated version of pretty much a similar experience. Also, one last thing is that it definitely underutilized its time-stopping mechanic. It’s fun, but you could easily construct the game without it. In short, I did really enjoy this one. It doesn’t offer anything extraordinary (aside from the music), but this is still a clear recommendation to metroidvania fans.
without exaggeration, probably one of the worst games I have ever played in my life. it is just so consistently terrible at pretty much everything it does. except being bad, of course, it does a great job at that.