Yeah, this review is dedicated
To all the haters that told me my 1050 could never run this game
To all the people that lived with 3090s running the game on ultra
telling me to upgrade my graphics card when I'm just tryin to play this game and have some fun
And all my fellas in the GPU struggle yknow what I'm sayin?

This game is super great and ridiculously awesome. This is what kids must've felt when they played Ocarina of Time on the n64, how kids felt when they first listened to The Marshall Mathers LP or when people saw the Godfather for the first time in theatres or when comic readers graced their eyes with Watchmen. Nothing will be the same and none of this is an exaggeration. The open world is filled with high-quality dungeons like the original souls games and they totally managed to overcome my biggest fear of going open world and they kept their good level design. Secrets go into huge areas and the areas are linked to questlines and they have bosses and stuff. I knew there would be repeated bosses and mini-dungeons, but the ones we got weren't terrible. I did every single one I came across and although they were repeated design-wise and some bosses, some of them had unique elements to them where you wouldn't be sure what to expect. Some fun puzzles and bosses there. Many new additions to the souls formula: the biggest being obviously the open world, but with it comes the horse and jumping. I think level designers might've held a party after they said the horsey could double jump because there's so much fun stuff hidden everywhere behind a little bit of horse platforming. Also, another cool addition is the boss's tendency to hold their attacks back and feint. As much as I love dark souls 1 and 2, a lot of bosses fall into the trope of having a very telegraphed attack so you can roll behind and chip away at their health from behind but now every single boss is a Mordhau master. They go in for an attack- and then hold their sword here. Every single fiber of your souls veteran being is telling you to roll. NOW!!! THE SWORD IS UP!! ROLL!!!!! and you do. And the boss is still holding his sword up. What do I do? roll again? oh god!!!! you keep rolling. You spam roll because you think the attack will come immediately after the windup. But the boss is baiting you and you fell for it- dead! it, like sekiro, makes you VERY closely watch what the boss is doing. Only dodging at the last possible second makes the game a lot more tense and with the crazy heavy combos, shields are basically worthless unless you've put all your points in stamina. Boss design is really tough and I honestly think it's some amazing bosses, but I don't feel as strongly positive about any particular boss as I do with some particular bosses in Sekiro or Dark Souls 3. I'm sure my opinion will change with subsequent playthroughs but that's just how I feel, the bosses are mostly great but I don't think any of them reach the height of Isshin, Ornstein & Smough, Gael, or Freide.

Now onto my two negative points: the PC performance and the final boss.

The pc performance was fine on day 1: after that, they had a patch that decimated my framerate. Like I could not play. You don't know how I felt after waiting for so long, preordering, counting down the days for a year, and waiting through the delay that I just had to sit there and look at the game on my desktop. But at least they promptly fixed it and it worked for me from then but many people faced issues even with high-tier processors so I think the point is justified to be here.

Yep, this is one to be remembered by and is the next huge step in revitalizing open world games. BOTW started it, stumbled a little, but Elden ring took that concept and ironed it out. It would be cool to see games like far cry and assassin's creed take this approach. And despite the rocky PC port and the final boss being a letdown, this game is amazing and fully lived up to my sky-high expectations.



The next segment contains light spoilers for Elden ring and devil may cry 3, I will go into detail about my distaste for the final boss.





The final boss is the only true blemish on the game itself. Have any of you elksters played devil may cry 3? if you have, then you've fought Arkham for a second time. And you know how amazing the buildup and the story and music and everything is but the fight itself is so undeniably unfun and boring. You have to redo his first phase every single time- which worked for sekiro's final boss but it doesn't work here due to how fast you can dispatch enemies in sekiro with knowledge of their moves and when to parry. But here, you have to output enough damage every time. There's no posture bar to break. But the first phase isn't the bad part: the second part. Here, run at the enemy, slash at their stomach until they teleport away. Now dodge these lasers. Keep going for another 15 minutes. Absolutely horrendous boss design and I was honestly appalled at this because of how amazing the series' previous final bosses were made. Some of the best of all time! Gael from dark souls 3 and Sword Saint Isshin from Sekiro are tied for #2 best boss of all time for me (true elksters know the number 1[It's the final boss from metal gear solid 3 if you're just joining the elk army today]) yet this is one of my least favourite bosses of the franchise, and let's be real at it's lowest it has some doozies. Sorry to leave the review on a sour note but it's one of the best games of all time and an easy GOTY unless Gotham Knights blows the industry to kingdom fuck. Which let's be real it might. Anyways stay safe fellas have a good day. I dunno what my next review or game will be but I'm getting strong feelings of revisiting a classic from the ps3 era, maybe lego batman 1 or 2. Fun fact I almost got the platinum trophy for lego batman 2, the only one remaining was to finish a level in co-op but since I had one controller I never did that one. Would've been my first platinum, but I guess spiderman ps4 is my first platinum now which sorta feels like getting some supermodel to 2nd base and running away to lose your virginity to a hooker. Doesn't matter that much tho the game's still fun. Alright, cya guys later.

Like a mix between Max Payne and Hitman Blood Money, with a little sprinkle of the PS1 spider-man game. Max Payne's inspiration is the most obvious: shoot dodging in new york as a vigilante just goin and killing bad guys. Blood money is the ingredient with the apartment, upgrades, weapons, hit list, and stuff like human shielding and flashy accident kills. And the final perfect ingredient is the spider-man ps1. That game was a cool game where other characters crossed over willy nilly and it felt like a comic book. Frank narrates and it's written in yellow comic narration bubbles, with some familiar faces visiting you on your journey. It feels like a part of the marvel universe but not to the point where the world feels small.

These are all coincidences, right? totally? WRONG! Max Payne narration is in this game. You can dual-wield ingrams. Coincidence? at this point, if you're calling coincidence you're either a dumbass, a stupid person, or both. Hitman blood money choir is in this game's soundtrack. Not only that, you pop out of a casket with a machine gun killing all the funeralgoers. Coincidence again? Absolutely not!

And there's a secret other inspiration I never told you about. What if I described to you.. you airdrop into a jungle filled with soviets trying to shoot a nuclear weapon guarded by a tough tall Russian man with blond hair who gets set on fire and continues to chase you and you escape the place on a plane with your newfound buddy? You'd say that's obviously metal gear solid 3 snake eater. You'd be right, but you'd also be right if you said it was one level of the punisher.

So why am I giving this game such a high score if it just copies off the best games ever? That's easy: number 1, it rules. It's awesome. number 2: It came out before blood money. And if there's even a one percent chance that this game in any way influenced or inspired the greatest videogame ever made then we need to treat this game as royalty.

Now the games own merits: The interrogation system is genuinely fantastic and im shocked how new superhero games especially batman have not used the system. I obviously used the fan patch that restored the extremely gory and violent torture minigames and it was great. The only problem about it is you lose points for killing a guy in the torture minigame. Probably put in there to penalize you for failing it and going too far. But even if you get the information out of him and THEN kill him in the torture minigame it still loses points. But if you pull him back into shield and quick kill him you get points. It's kind of a sucky oversight.

The level variation is extremely awesome. Crackhouses, chop shops, zoos, mgs3 jungles, towers, jails, you name it. But the last 2 or 3 levels get kinda ridiculous with the number of armored enemies they throw at u. Those guys reward a slow playstyle with the rifle where you go for headshots and it's not really fun.

Anyways it's super awesome and a great surprise. And make sure to download the uncensored patch otherwise what's the god dam point?

"Same things make us laugh, make us cry."

Video games are hard to make interesting and tense stories for. Because at any given moment in a hyper-serious game I could make the growling angry depressed protagonist spin in a circle 40 times and crouch up and down before 360 no scoping a zombie in the balls. But when the game balances out the silliness of the genre with funny jokes and good laughs, you feel like you are on a fun journey and not a Harry Potter fanfiction where Ron is suicidal and Hagrid does cocaine. But I don't want to discredit the story by saying it only works because there are funny moments in the sidequests to balance it out: the actual story is full of good twists, unforgettable moments, and super fun action set pieces. The writing and cutscenes are so good that I didn't even realize that one cutscene went on for 20 minutes. I was just so into it! At some points, I didn't even want to do any of the various extremely funny and memorable side quests or the addicting minigames. (emphasis on 'at some points.' 10 hours of my playtime was spent at the disco.) I think this is like the only piece of media that had two separate plot twists that made me like, physically open my mouth in disbelief. I've established this already but I'm not a big story guy but this is one of my exceptions. Actually insane.

But no game is just the story .... let's not forget the combat. Two characters, 8 styles, different weapons, heat actions, grabs, upgrades, combos.. there's a lot of depth to it but it was unfortunately useless because Majima has a style where he uses a bat, and it's so ridiculously overpowered that I was just wailing on all these crazy bosses with this same Nightwing-injustice-gods-among-us ass combo and winning. Kiryu was a bit more balanced but all 3 of his styles are just different speeds of punch whereas majima has punching, breakdancing, and baseball bat. Still fun though, and to make up for not having a bat Kiryu can use his heavy style to pick up objects like street signs and couches to destroy anyone. And I really loved the heat actions and how some can be so specific. If you grab a guy on the edge of a bridge or a boat, you can just straight up throw him off. And if you're surrounded, you can spin the dude around hitting others on the way. The bosses are also pretty sick, the combat on 1v1s feels visceral and the bosses have sick intros that make me hyped to fight. One particular repeated fight will remain in my memory as one of the best rivals and one of the coolest antagonists ever.

overall, this game does everything very well. My only complaint was how some enemies have guns and I don't really like fighting against those and I feel they're overpowered. In one room, a guy had a shotgun. I ran to him and knocked him out, took his shotgun, and cleared the room in like 6 seconds. Got a quadruple kill. I guess it's realistic sure but come on! Why can't I just take that with me and maybe buy some more ammo? the final boss is tough but he's still human. Shotgun to the face and he's done for. Another complaint is there are 4 escort missions. I hate these.
Yakuza 0 dares to ask the question, "What if persona 5 was good?" it takes that game, hires writers that weren't Disney sitcom veterans, and tasks them with making stories that rise above high school melodrama. Making the minigames fun and allowing you do to more than one activity before you are forced to continue the story. It follows no formula, creating an unpredictable progression where you don't know exactly what's going to be the loop repeated for the next 100 hours. And finally, it makes the combat fun. Why is yakuza so great? everything! I've finished the story and have 45 hours on the game, but I feel like i've just begun. So many side quests and minigames left for me. I want to keep coming back for more!!!!!!!

You can feel the game try to emulate RE4 and RE7 (two of my favorites in the series) but can't really do either of their strengths well.

RE4's action and mostly linear levels were offset by the ways you could approach combat and how creative the enemy variety and level setups were. You had to reposition, aim at knees or hands or heads depending on the scenario. There were not many choices and optional routes because the combat was all the choice. Your inventory being big was OK because crafting materials like herbs took up space in your inventory and you had to manage all that by combining and rearranging. RE7's survival horror and different routes meant that ammo was scarce and you would almost always constantly be barely clinging on to life. Because of limited inventory space, you would always have to choose. "I have some chem fluid. Do I use it to make health or more ammo? If I have more health, I will be safer. But if I have more ammo, I will be able to defend myself." You also had to backtrack around the house and surrounding areas so much that you would get accustomed to it and the enemies that were there. You could choose to clear it now and use up your bullets or dodge them for now and get rid of them later, at the risk of later being a worse time for you (like if you had no bullets or health at the time.) Exploration was also rewarded because the keys needed for progression were hidden everywhere. You go explore this room and find an unassuming object that you will put in the box. When stuck on a puzzle, you think "remember that random object from 2 hours ago? I wonder if I can somehow use that to solve the puzzle." Both of these games were fantastic in their own way, and they couldn't be more different. I was skeptical when I heard it was like a mixture of the two.

As an RE7 survival horror game, it fails because you are constantly given ammo and crafting supplies and weapons and inventory space and practically everything you need. I never ran out. Key items not only took no inventory space but were also basically always right around the corner. If not, they are just given to you on the linear path you take. There's this illusion of exploration but what really is happening is you get chased by the enemy into this room where you find the key and Ethan says "I wonder if I can use this statue head to open that statue head hole key at the coordinates 37.6460, -115.7507." Theres no way you could fail to find the statue and wander around the vast castle, looking for a key or something to progress. No, you get the item. There is ONE time in the final area where you have to backtrack to create the key but that's about it. In fact, that final map (factory) is the only good one in this game. Multiple floors, backtracking, different keys, unique rooms, and it may be surface level but at least these enemies need specific shots to the weak point. But other than that, you need a key, you'll find one in the room right next door. The puzzles are dead simple. But that's how it was in RE4. And it worked for that game. Why? As I said, the combat was super interesting. How's this game's combat? eh...

The pistols you get are reliable. The shotguns are pretty good. The reload animations are satisfying. You get cool weapons for exploring optional areas. All the weapons are good. So what's the problem? The enemies and the enemy variety! Village moved from zombies and mold people to werewolves to try something new but these are just hairy zombies. There's nothing interesting you can do with the combat. You can't shoot a TNT wielding Ganado's hand and detonate the bomb killing the crowd around him. You can't shoot the kneecap of a dude and then suplex him. Just shoot them wherever until they die. The AI is so braindead and the enemies are so weak that you could just shotgun and stun them so you could move on. Near the end, the enemies started getting armored but of course, they have big, glowing weak points on their chests. And since you can run and gun and Ethan just doesn't seem to get tired, they're not a threat either.

So, it fails at making you fight for your life in survival horror. It has no interesting puzzles and it's as linear as a non-bendy straw. There are no choices and the only reward for exploration are optional treasures. The combat isn't challenging or deep, the enemy variety is extremely lacking and the bosses are spongy and repetitive. You can play the game on autopilot. How about the story?

It's pretty good! I like the setup of saving your baby and the 4 lords have cool personalities and I liked it. And Ethan is the best protagonist since RE4 Leon. Such a great character.

it's better than smash but that's not saying much... as a high intellectual gamer (some have called me the roger Ebert and daniel day-lewis of gaming) I find this childish baby nonsense to be an idiotic waste of time. This game makes no attempt to explain how Spongebob is breathing outside the loud house, or how cat dog urinates. One of the stages is made of metal but toph is unable to bend the metal of the stage, so what's the point of having the stage be made of metal?

a complete pile of garbage and pathetic look into the downward spiral of the ""Videogame."" If you are above the age of 4, don't bother ... and if you are and you still play this spaghetti coded, soulless, cashgrab, gamecel, scientologist, soybridging, lumbersexual, seattle indie beta-male, drakelike, carbon monoxide infused omega trash tier excuse of a videogame, don't bother calling yourself a gamer.

[This is from the elk vault, a fully finished review that i never posted. Written back in february. I thought better release it before the leakers get it, u know what im saying? pls enjoy.]

I’ve given this game so many chances. When i was playing hollow knight i was thinking “damn its so good when i play a critically acclaimed game and it lives up to the hype.” Well why don’t I go back in time and dunk myself in a pool of cat bones for jinxing it so hard? I have been playing this game since 2019. I started when I was in high school and now it’s been so long that it’s become creepy for me to play this. Nothing in this game was cut, they threw all the shit they wanted in there with no regard for anything. With every second that goes by I dislike the game more. Which sucks for the game because it's 100 billion hours long. The game overall just feels like it’s only working because all the parts are stuck together with sticky tack and rubber bands. Your character controls soooo shittily. So crap. The way you maneuver around is so unnatural and weird and bad. It feels like I’m controlling a car in the shape of an anime boy with 3 kilograms of hair. Some parts you can only progress by using the detective vision to see which of the 3 little steps you have to press x on to jump. Or rather activate the jump cutscene and to teleport you onto the next platform. There is nothing in this game that feels smooth or natural except the turn based combat, which is pretty fun and stylish but oh my god it gets so old. I’m sick of it. The same song every time and usually in dungeons you fight a pool of like 4 or 5 enemies total. Once u figure out their weaknesses you use the same moves with the same animations on the same dudes and u stun em and u ask for their money or do the big all out attack animation again.

“Oh elk u hate turn based combat”

No I don’t, assface… Chrono trigger is fun. Like a dragon is fun. This is a cool system with some cool stuff I admit. But the enemies u fight r lame. The dungeons are boring too. They try to do a little baby stealth thing and tell u to ohh maybe sneak around but the stealth is soooooo dogcrap-diabetes tier that you can stand in front of a guy and he won't see you. You hide on a corner and wait for him to pass and go. If you wanna get rid of him you gotta fight 4 of these guys you already fought. You hit em with the attack they’re weak to, wait 35 minutes for the outro animation where ann does a strip show for the camera and u can continue with the game. Gameplay? MOSTLY BAD.

Story? Don’t get me started. This is anime. And not good anime like 1 punch man. This is crap anime like that stuff YOU watch. (sorry elksters I don’t mean to insinuate that you have bad taste in anime. I'm sorry! -editorial) I legit was considering fully dropping the game by the beach cutscene. And they still keep the -san, -chan, whatever stuff in the english dub. So they're saying hey john chan do you want to go eat at that restaurant? And it's weird cause it's in english but they've got the chan stuff. Whatever. U know what? I don’t care. I just remembered how much I don’t care about the story. It’s bad and that’s all you need to know. I just want to go home. So i’m gonna write a couple dozen more paragraphs on why I hate every one of the characters and you can like the review and we can leave, okay? Does that sound good to you? Good. That’s good. Hang in there pal.


Ryuji. My buddy. My homie. You’re alright. You’re safe from my wrath. You were the only one I could stand. Morgana. Shut the fuck up and stop being so mean to Ryuji. Stop following me into the bathroom. You’re not a cat, you're a dude that looks like a cat. It’s creepy. Ann. You’re also sort of chill but your voice is annoying. Stop inviting me to your modeling things. Yusuke. You’re kind of funny but I wouldn’t want to be friends with you in real life. You’re an anime stereotype. If you were a real person I would request a restraining order. You’re like the Pierce Hawthorne of the group. No offense. Pierce was my favourite. Well, actually Troy is my favourite but Ryuji is Troy. Kawakami. Get the fuck out of my dm’s before I demolish you. Creepy bitch. Grown ass woman hitting me up at night calling me master. Restraining order on this chick too. Reporter chick, same as above. Mishima. Same as above but just the ‘get out of my dms’ part. Maybe not a restraining order, maybe I’d just block his number and avoid him at school. Makoto. Anyone ever told you it’s not cool to come to a group of friends and say “let me join you or else I'm telling the teacher you’re excluding me” ? and then you come in and be mean to Ryuji. If we’re letting you in, I know you won’t stop being a total nerd loser but at least don’t be mean to Ryuji. Futaba. Wahhh my mom my mom wahhh get over it and get over it NOW. I don’t care, stop crying about it and go take a shower. Shut up about being a gamer and push your glasses up; they look like they're about to fall. And stop being mean to Ryuji. Iwai. Hiiii how are you hahahahhaha gosh Iwai you’re so cool. Can you tell me what THIS gun does? Oh my goshhhh you’re so freaking smart hahahhaa loll. Haru. You are fine. I hope you have a wonderful and fulfilling life. Good luck on those plants. But you are rich and I’m still the one buying all the guns and shit for the phantom thieves. It’s like Clark Kent buying the justice league a space station on a daily bugle reporter budget with Bruce Wayne right there. Akechi, why do you talk like that? Your voice is weird. You talk like one of those “boyfriend comforts you after a nightmare” ASMR audios. Not that I would know.

The music is great at least and the hud stuff is unique and cool. I love the subway system. The whole first palace was really fun and actually pretty hype. It’s a unique setup having to go to school and balance life and secret dream dungeon stuff, even if it was really shittily done. I hope a competent developer takes over that idea and we get, like, a shazam game where you have to go to school and at any time during any cutscene or whatever you can press a button to say shazam and turn into captain marvel and get arrested and game over. Wouldn’t that be sick?

What else? Oh whatever, I’m done. This game sucks, the story sucks, and you have one friend who you can stand while random older chicks spam your dms all the time while you’re trying to do pull ups in the attic. Well, I guess it is pretty accurate to my high school experience in that way.

If you're impatient I'm just gonna sum it up in this convenient haiku

same formula again
braindead stealth AI, cant see you
the world is pretty

Now as for my true elksters? go ahead and read below.


Assassin's Creed: Tsushima's two biggest strengths are the insanely well-designed world and the great ending. Both of these are done so well that if not for those things it would be seen as another Days Gone or whatever that werewolf game was, order 1738 or something. Because it's literally assassin's creed. Open world, climb tower, free outpost, find collectibles, tailing missions, go here kill that, sneak here, climb that, dcuo machinima cutscenes. Every mission is the same and it sort of feels like red dead redemption 2 how restrictive it is. The combat tried to be different from AC by adding some different sword stances and enemy weapons, with each stance countering a different weapon. In the beginning, it's fine, with fewer enemies and you don't have all the stances so some guys still pose a threat. But by the end, you can take care of most enemies with a couple of swings of your sword if you're in the right stance. Break their posture EZ and kill when they're stunned for half a decade. How did they balance this easiness? add more enemies!! now, because there's no lock on- the game attacks the enemy closest to you. So if you're in the shield stance and attacking a shield guy, but a spear guy comes up close on your left, the game thinks that you want to attack spear guy and your guy drops everything and jumps 9 nautical kilometers to the left to lunge at this guy with the wrong stance, you get parried, shot with a fire arrow and you are killed. Now onto the next point... the stealth is undeniably inarguably objectively factually and truly GARBAGE!!!!! Do you know how stupid and terrible it is? If you stand on a table the enemy cannot see you. I was playing on normal mode. Also quick side tangent... I swear the Batman Arkham games ruined stealth forever. Don't get me wrong, every single Arkham game is goated. God tier. But I think it may be to stealth games what Half-Life and Halo were to FPS games. Great games on their own, but started a trend of other games copying them, failing, and making everything boring and sucky. So now every FPS game is slow and story-based like half-life but forgets that half-life had no cutscenes at all and you could just walk away if you wanted. In Halo, you could only carry two weapons but there was a large variety of different weapons with lasers and explosives and different stuff and not 9 variants of an assault rifle or whatever. Arkham games had the stealth be walking up behind an enemy and using a prompt to knock them out, and you can't carry their bodies. This was OK because the bodies were a fear tactic first of all- you can't ghost batman rooms. (for those non-stealthers joining us today ghosting means moving through an area without touching any guards or getting spotted.) And second, walking up behind them was the tough part. But seriously in this one forced stealth segment, I walked through this castle and all the enemies were standing alone looking off the mountain practically wearing "STAB ME" capes. It's a nothing sandwich of stealth. I'm making an official decree - if your stealth game doesn't allow you to move bodies, it is not a stealth game. Unless it's Batman. CASE CLOSED!!!!! Now for the plot... I got some stuff to say and I'm going to get a little philosophical so please take an IQ test before reading forward unless you are confident in your intelligence. Reader discretion is advised. Ok... So this games whole schtick is Honor vs Evil. At the beginning of the game, Jin starts off as a super cool, honorable, and awesome samurai. Is never mean, always cool and kind. No sneaking, sticking to his code. Early on he is taught by his uncle (best character in the game, ez) Shimura to be kind even to your enemies, give everyone respect and dignity. This is definitely not historically accurate but it’s an awesome trope, the honorable warrior. The conflict isn’t actually about the Mongols invading; they are just the spark for the real conflict of the game which is Jin slowly becoming evil out of necessity as the Mongols use cheap tactics to gain an advantage. This is a cool idea for a story even if I don't like the idea of the message that the only way to defeat a cheater is stooping to their level but who cares. It’s a cool story but it doesn’t have any harmony with the gameplay. Sure the stealth is easier than the combat, but I didn’t like the stealth at all so I just played combat for everything. Aside from the forced stealth segments which were stupid, I was 100% honorable. I know this game’s whole theme is about Jin’s downfall, but explaining it as Jin started sneaking instead of fighting is strange, because I didn’t sneak and anyone who played like me will feel like there is a split between the story and the gameplay. The best thing I could think of was a splinter cell double agent style honor meter. But even then that would ruin the whole theme. I dunno, but what they did right here didn’t work for me. Feels like cutscene stupidity.

Finally, after all that hate I wanna talk about the two good parts of the game. HOLY MOLY GUACAMOLE!!!!! THE OPEN WORLD!!!! It’s genuinely breathtakingly beautiful. I don’t know if this is blasphemous to god or whatever but I think sucker punch outdid god on Tsushima's nature. So much variation and so much fun stuff tucked away in there. It’s so omega Giga god tier. I don’t know how else to put it. Like bro imagine this open world on halo infinite. Would’ve demolished the world with its amazingness. But what do I know, I’m only the most important and significant game reviewer on Backloggd.

And the next thing that the game did amazingly was the ending. Your ending has got to be shaq level to get me to care about it if I didn’t care about the story so far. But man. There are spoilers following this, just warning you.













I’m so glad the ending focused on the best parts of the game. Jin and Shimura, the 1v1 duel system, the beautiful scenery, and the classic conflict of honor vs evil. I got the ending where I killed him. I thought I was dishonorable for Tsushima’s sake enough, and even though the island will lose its Jito I owed it to Shimura as my uncledad to let him go out with style and honor. The ending made me think of the ending of metal gear rising, and again anything that reminds me of metal gear rising is awesome.

I woke up one morning after a dream. A dream of a perfect zombie game. A huge map with cities to explore, construction to build your own bases, surgery mechanics like metal gear solid 3, and total freedom to survive in the apocalypse in whatever way you want. But most importantly I wanted people and characters that you could invite to your group, having to make tough decisions and have arguments with them like who gets how much food or who needs medicine the most. That very day, I was looking for a game like this and zomboid fit the bill pretty much to the letter, excepting my last wish for the NPC friends. It's a zombie survival game that's been in early access for almost 10 years. These words should be like sandpaper to my brain. But I played 12 hours of this bad boy in 2 days and I am impressed. The sheer depth of every mechanic and how it doesn't feel like you can't do what you would do in a zombie apocalypse. You can pretty much do anything you can think of. Collect rainwater, but you have to heat it up to clean it. You could use the oven but one day the lines are gonna get shut off. Same with the sink. One day canned food will run out, so you better take the time you have to learn to fish or set up a farm. A huge chunk of my playthrough felt more like stardew valley, so when I went into town for more supplies and I saw a zombie I was like oh right. So it feels like you can safely get away from zombies with proper planning. But the zombies aren't a joke. If you make a SINGLE mistake then you're pretty much dead. Saw a fancy car I wanted. Didn't check my corners and boom, zombie. I panicked and broke the glass window of the car and got in. Deep wound, glass stuck in there. I had to hotwire it, and drive away from the horde of zombies while doing hand surgery on myself in real-time. This shit was so intense I think I lost a few years off my life from stress. I'll see you guys in heaven at 77. But anyway, you don't know shit about these zombies. You don't know how they work. Sure, you can customize them in sandbox mode but you don't know if they're drawn to corpses of other zombies or if they can smell the blood on your shirt. The game won't tell you, but if you're paranoid or cautious you can get rid of zombie corpses and wash your clothes and self to get rid of the blood. It reminds me of the early days of the walking dead when they didn't know how the bites worked or if the walkers were still conscious and could come back once the whole thing blew over in a week or two. I dunno about you guys but I like not knowing things. This game is just pure awesome.

But there is a flaw. Yeah, it's early access and it's still not done. There's just one aspect I really need from this game and that's the human NPC update. If you check the developer's Twitter updates you can see they are working on it and just like everything else in the game it's insanely detailed and ambitious. But unlike an ambitious promise from a game like no man's sky, I totally trust this team that each NPC will have deep memories of relatives going back to their grandparents and can tell you about the time their stepdad fell into the lake while fishing. These guys. That's the one thing that's missing and the part of a zombie apocalypse that I think is one of the most important. Because if you have nobody with you, then you are just struggling every day to keep living so you can survive tomorrow. I'd honestly get sorta bored just not even being able to chill at all. I like that this game has books and CDs and VHSes so our character can pass the time. But I'm adding that extra half-star when this game gets the NPC update.

"The Dynamics of Design, Verisimilitude, and Anachronism in the Video Game 'Hollow Knight': A critical examination of Cacophony and Sanctimony in Achieving Narrative Dynamism."

ABSTRACT
Hollow knight is a badass game. It didn’t just pull me out of my gaming slump, it pulled me by the collar and threw me onto the subway tracks. But the subway tracks were abandoned so I explored the tunnels and it turns out there’s a whole area down here behind a hidden wall I only found by shooting a fireball at a bee and hitting behind it. This is all metaphorical. The research methodology used in this study is a qualitative analysis of the selected media forms, including critical textual analysis and thematic analysis.

Lost your attention? Sorry I’ll stop doing the fancy word essay gimmick. I know you’re not here for that. Let's be real; I’m the realest reviewer on backloggd. That’s why you always come to me. That’s why you read my reviews. That’s why every time I meet a fan in public and they ask me for my autograph, they also tell me I am the reviewer they wait for until they play a game. It’s been 6 years since Hollow Knight came out and unfortunately I’ve been keeping my fans waiting for way too long. But worry no longer, Elksters. You can finally stop telling people that you haven’t played hollow knight because you’re waiting for the Elkmane review. It’s here. And I permit you to play it. Go ahead! If you haven’t already. But you probably haven’t, cause you all listened to me when I said don’t play games I haven’t tested and approved, right? You know why I do what I do? I taste test these games and warn of poison. You elksters are the kings and queens and rulers and I am the poison tester jester. You haven’t played it yet? Good! But I hope you finish it soon because I’m gonna go in depth and there's gonna be some spoilers.

So … it’s been a while since I've done a proper ass review. Hm. I guess we can start with how every good thing in the universe starts.

A lot of people ask me… stupid fucking questions. A lot of people think that … what I say in a review. Or what I talk about in a review. That I actually… do in real life. Or that I believe in it. Or if I say that… I wish that fangirl bug you rescue and bring to Dirtmouth had a more indepth romance path… I actually want them to do it, or that I believe in it. Well shit. If you believe that… then I’ll kill you. You know why? Because I freaking love the gameplay! I love the gameplay!

The gameplay is very nice. It’s 2D and you can move around and attack and stuff. Yada yada. But every action game is made or broken with its healing system. That's why Dark Souls is the GOAT and Skyrim sucks dicks. What do I think of hollow knight’s healing system? I think it’s good. It’s a little forgiving, especially with certain charms equipped like the shape of Unn and quick soul or whatever it’s called but it’s fine because some bosses can be very unforgiving. The whole battle can be trying to not get hit until you stagger or get them to do the one move you need so you have enough time to get off 1 heart of healing. It’s a super cool system that is also balanced by the magic system which draws off the same soul. I do think there's a problem with the extra soul canisters taking a second to reload and go into your main, usable soul canister. There’s also a second of input delay after you finish healing so it’s hard to pull off last millisecond jumps. But that’s probably all about balance. If they took it out it would probably be unbalanced. Who knows.

The nail combat is also great. It feels nice and some charms can make your nail faster or longer. But overall it’s basic. Nothing wrong with it I guess. It’s like urinating. It’s simple and you get used to it so you never realize how practical and easy to pick up and use it is. There’s a parry system that sometimes makes me feel super cool. I also got into some areas early by hitting the nail downward on an object and getting height. Nail arts though. Those kinda feel tacked on and I barely used them. But the real appeal of the combat isn’t really mastering parry timing or some shit. It’s no sekiro. You don’t really need physical reaction time mastery much. You just need to know the enemies and their moves and how to move in the air. And the more upgrades you get the easier the combat gets, but man the enemies get harder too don’t they? Some of the top tier bosses are so hard and you literally die within seconds. Then you keep practicing and doing it over and over til you know all the moves and how to dodge em so it's just a matter of doing the right dodges at the right time and hitting when they’re open. So much variation and so many different moves for these dudes it’s very fun and sometimes catches me off guard in new areas seeing new enemies.

I’m always on my guard while exploring but at the same time exploring can be a relaxing time cause you can get soul and heal up. Doin some cool traversal. The platforming aint bad for the most part considering platforming is the worst part of any game it’s in. Except the white castle place I could reasonably do any of the platforming without issue. Jumping and dashing and super dashing and shit. Made even funner by hitting your sword downwards. There were some creative platforming areas, like hitting the long metal worms to stay afloat etc. I loved how there was never a time in the game when I was lost because I could just go in one direction absentmindedly and just explore shit cause there's always gonna be something in that direction. And then as you keep getting more and more shit like more jumps and stuff in normal metroidvania fashion but there's so much cool stuff that u find by backtracking.


Now, I wanna take a quick detour to discuss something. The song Music Box by Eminem on relapse is a beautiful track. And yet, oxymoronically, the lyrics are gruesome and describe various murders and cannibalistic acts as well as name-dropping JonBenét Ramsey. Yet it’s hauntingly beautiful. It invokes a sense of familiarity, of love, of nostalgia, and it can clearly be seen within the eerie yet comforting chorus. If I may; it goes a little something like this; “when the lights are off, i see the girls asleep, I hear my music box playing a song for me, though we’re worlds apart, you mean the world to me, so when you call i will answer” Punctuated repeatedly with Marshall repeating the title of the song over the chorus at haphazard intervals. Look closely at the imagery presented within the verse. “Lights are off, girls asleep” Evokes thoughts of seeing your daughter and/or wife asleep, late at night. Which could be seen in that way or, geniusly, perhaps through the eyes of a serial killer. And it follows with “music box i hear it calling me” A music box could be a sentimental or melancholy gift. Often associated with love and family. This song’s genius use of contrast helps so well with the horror atmosphere. And it follows; “though we’re worlds apart, you mean the world to me” fully going in on the love aspect. Everyone’s had a long distance relationship and everyone knows how it feels to want to hug the person you love so much but the best you can do is send a gif with a cartoon bear that says “SENDING VIRTUAL HUG” which isn’t nearly as nice for either party. “So when you call I will answer” and he finishes out the chorus by reminding his long distance girlfriend that he will accept the discord call instantly whenever she calls. But another interpretation could be that the music box and the girl calling are two opposing forces: if we look at it through an eminemian lens, the music box could be metaphysically symbolizing the music industry. The girls could symbolize the 38 daughters that guy has. So much meaning, symbolism, interpretation, and thought packed into one single tiny little chorus on a bonus track most will miss. Why? Because he’s the greatest musical artist of all time. Pusha T’s up there too but Eminem is awesomer IMO.


Now, how can we apply this lens to Hollow Knight? We cannot. Thank you for reading.









BIBLIOGRAPHY:


Wikimedia Foundation. (2023, March 10). Eminem. Wikipedia, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eminem

I thought this was a meme game but no. Take Deus Ex and hitman and those stock market assassination side quests from GTA 5 and throw some postal 2 in there. But where hitman makes you feel like a slow and methodical killer hiding in plain sight, in this one i feel more like John Wick if john wick had holes in calves that shot out gunk that boosted him upward. Super fast time to kill, you die easily. But the levels are short and targets are automatically highlighted so repeat attempts shouldn't be too frustrating. This game is so crazy. The art style looks ugly at a glance but everything is so painstakingly grotesque and it all works together so well that it actually looks great and it fits with the theme, a garbage world where there is literally no hope, even the doors and walls feel oppressing. Also love the worldbuilding and little details, like one of the SMGs becoming popular because of its use in some anime and the speed glands replacing all your organs with "lightweight commercial variants" thus the speed boost and armor loss. The augmentation system is awesome and some of the implants are super cool. There was this grappendix (grappling hook appendix) that CHANGED THE GAME and made some parts pretty easy, but to be fair it's extremely expensive and I got lucky with some of my organ and fish investments in the stock market. I shouldn't be able to say these things about a videogame. This game shouldn't exist. But I'm glad it exists because it singlehandedly restored my hope for the future of video games. If more like this is made then our medium is secured. Now all I need is a VR version so I can set the world record for longest consecutive hours spent vomiting

and how cool is it the two best games of 2021 are about hitmen?