Flameyboy928
Ocarina of Time was my entry into the Zelda franchise way back in 2012 when I first got my copy of this game. I believe I have completed it 3 times and started countless other playthroughs that have been abandoned along the way. Despite how many times I have played it, this is still one of the Zelda games I looked most forward to playing again as not only does it hold a special place in my heart, it is regarded as one of the greatest games of all time.
Obviously this is the 3ds remake, not the N64 classic. I was debating playing the OG version through the switch as I had never played that version before but the 3ds version is so much more polished and all around more fun to play.
To start off, Ocarina of Time carries on the trend started by Link's awakening and puts way more effort into the narrative. While the story is the same as most others, Ocarina of Time excels due to its environmental storytelling. The main quest is the same as always, Ganon wants the Triforce so Link has to go beat some dungeons and then save Zelda. Ocarina keeps this but makes the world around it feel so lived in. Each NPC has unique dialogue and will tell you more about the area you are in, The first instance of the different races across the land of Hyrule with the Gorons, Zora's and Gerudo's and a decent amount of side quests to allow you to explore the whole map.
One thing I don't think Ocarina of Time gets enough credit for is how dark it is. Obviously it is overshadowed by its harrowing younger brother, Majora's Mask, but Ocarina is by no means a bright and happy game. Ranging from how after the time jump Hyrule Town is completely destroyed and full of ReDeads, People who get lost in the Lost Woods turn into Stalfos, the whole concept of the shadow temple which I will talk about later. Its no Majora, but hardly a laugh riot.
Ocarina's gimmick involves the time jump mechanic. It works in a similar way to the dark world in Alttp where the majority of the games content is found there. Once young link gets the three spiritual stones and obtains the master sword, he is awoken 7 years later to find Hyrule in ruin. The time jump gives Link a whole new arsenal of items, new characters and large differences to main locations. It never feels stale, as Nintendo managed to use the same map locations and make them feel completely different after the time jump.
Where of course Ocarina shines is in its dungeons. I briefly wanted to talk about each one as I have a lot of thoughts about them. First off the three child dungeons which are: Inside the Deku Tree, Dodongo's Cavern and Inside Jabu-Jabu's belly. Each increase in difficulty to provide more of a challenge. I love the aesthetic of each especially Dodongo's cavern with the giant skull and the lava lakes. I have a special liking for each of these as I have probably played them around 20 times each over the years. Forest Temple is the first of the adult temples and is my personal favourite. I love the atmosphere, with it looking like an abandoned Manor house with ghosts everywhere. The boss is great and the dungeon is a good mix of challenging but fair. The fire temple is often forgotten as it isn't as memorable as the rest. I liked the boss but i found the puzzles annoying. The infamous Water temple, I actually found fairly easy this time around, the boss is very easy but managing the water level is really annoying. The water temple is made way easier of the 3ds version so maybe that's why. The shadow temple is probably my second favourite. The atmosphere is so creepy, with the murals on the walls and that horrifying dead hand monster. The lore of this temple is the most interesting as it used to be a torture chamber where the Sheikah would interrogate prisoners, Also the boss Bongo Bongo looks eerily like someone who has been beheaded. The Spirit temple is whatever, I like that you have to do it both as a kid and adult. I think its lacking because there is no connection to it as all other temples had a connection via a character like Darunia for the fire temple or Ruto for the water temple but Link isnt required to visit Gerudo valley at all when he is a kid. This games dungeons are amazing, probably my favourite in the series thus far.
Gameplay wise it plays amazingly. Combat is satisfying with the lock on targeting. The items are fun to use, like the biggoron sword which is so OP. Also for the first time in the series so far, this game is completely possible to play without a guide as it does a great job of telling you where to go and what specifically to do. That of course comes with a downside of having Navi never always yelling at you but you end up tuning it out eventually.
Visually the 3ds version has aged great. I hope that in the future Nintendo will port these versions to switch as they are so much more fun to play, this goes for Ocarina, Majora and even games like Mario 64. Also the Score is fantastic but that's a given, Forest temple and the Deku tree theme are my favourites.
I have a couple small complaints. I wish that there was a useful fast travel system. The one this game has isnt the best as it puts places you in weird spots and you dont unlock them until you are about to do that dungeon. Meaning that you dont get fast travel to Kakariko village until the 2nd last dungeon and by that point you probably have done everything there is to do there. Also Epona in this game is pretty much useless, the controls are janky and she can only be used in Hyrule field and small parts of gerudo valley. Also I wish the day/night cycle was a bit longer as it passes so quickly that is you are to walk normally you cannot make it from Kokiri forest to Hyrule castle in a single day cycle.
This game is very special to me as it was the first one I played which got me into this fantastic series. I especially love the young link segment as it feels so alive compared to the darker adult section. I have played the three starter dungeons over so many times that I know them top to bottom even years on from the last time I played. There is a reason that this is considered not only one of the best Zelda games but one of the best games of all time. It was revolutionary at the time and is still an absolute delight to play through. 100% recommended
Obviously this is the 3ds remake, not the N64 classic. I was debating playing the OG version through the switch as I had never played that version before but the 3ds version is so much more polished and all around more fun to play.
To start off, Ocarina of Time carries on the trend started by Link's awakening and puts way more effort into the narrative. While the story is the same as most others, Ocarina of Time excels due to its environmental storytelling. The main quest is the same as always, Ganon wants the Triforce so Link has to go beat some dungeons and then save Zelda. Ocarina keeps this but makes the world around it feel so lived in. Each NPC has unique dialogue and will tell you more about the area you are in, The first instance of the different races across the land of Hyrule with the Gorons, Zora's and Gerudo's and a decent amount of side quests to allow you to explore the whole map.
One thing I don't think Ocarina of Time gets enough credit for is how dark it is. Obviously it is overshadowed by its harrowing younger brother, Majora's Mask, but Ocarina is by no means a bright and happy game. Ranging from how after the time jump Hyrule Town is completely destroyed and full of ReDeads, People who get lost in the Lost Woods turn into Stalfos, the whole concept of the shadow temple which I will talk about later. Its no Majora, but hardly a laugh riot.
Ocarina's gimmick involves the time jump mechanic. It works in a similar way to the dark world in Alttp where the majority of the games content is found there. Once young link gets the three spiritual stones and obtains the master sword, he is awoken 7 years later to find Hyrule in ruin. The time jump gives Link a whole new arsenal of items, new characters and large differences to main locations. It never feels stale, as Nintendo managed to use the same map locations and make them feel completely different after the time jump.
Where of course Ocarina shines is in its dungeons. I briefly wanted to talk about each one as I have a lot of thoughts about them. First off the three child dungeons which are: Inside the Deku Tree, Dodongo's Cavern and Inside Jabu-Jabu's belly. Each increase in difficulty to provide more of a challenge. I love the aesthetic of each especially Dodongo's cavern with the giant skull and the lava lakes. I have a special liking for each of these as I have probably played them around 20 times each over the years. Forest Temple is the first of the adult temples and is my personal favourite. I love the atmosphere, with it looking like an abandoned Manor house with ghosts everywhere. The boss is great and the dungeon is a good mix of challenging but fair. The fire temple is often forgotten as it isn't as memorable as the rest. I liked the boss but i found the puzzles annoying. The infamous Water temple, I actually found fairly easy this time around, the boss is very easy but managing the water level is really annoying. The water temple is made way easier of the 3ds version so maybe that's why. The shadow temple is probably my second favourite. The atmosphere is so creepy, with the murals on the walls and that horrifying dead hand monster. The lore of this temple is the most interesting as it used to be a torture chamber where the Sheikah would interrogate prisoners, Also the boss Bongo Bongo looks eerily like someone who has been beheaded. The Spirit temple is whatever, I like that you have to do it both as a kid and adult. I think its lacking because there is no connection to it as all other temples had a connection via a character like Darunia for the fire temple or Ruto for the water temple but Link isnt required to visit Gerudo valley at all when he is a kid. This games dungeons are amazing, probably my favourite in the series thus far.
Gameplay wise it plays amazingly. Combat is satisfying with the lock on targeting. The items are fun to use, like the biggoron sword which is so OP. Also for the first time in the series so far, this game is completely possible to play without a guide as it does a great job of telling you where to go and what specifically to do. That of course comes with a downside of having Navi never always yelling at you but you end up tuning it out eventually.
Visually the 3ds version has aged great. I hope that in the future Nintendo will port these versions to switch as they are so much more fun to play, this goes for Ocarina, Majora and even games like Mario 64. Also the Score is fantastic but that's a given, Forest temple and the Deku tree theme are my favourites.
I have a couple small complaints. I wish that there was a useful fast travel system. The one this game has isnt the best as it puts places you in weird spots and you dont unlock them until you are about to do that dungeon. Meaning that you dont get fast travel to Kakariko village until the 2nd last dungeon and by that point you probably have done everything there is to do there. Also Epona in this game is pretty much useless, the controls are janky and she can only be used in Hyrule field and small parts of gerudo valley. Also I wish the day/night cycle was a bit longer as it passes so quickly that is you are to walk normally you cannot make it from Kokiri forest to Hyrule castle in a single day cycle.
This game is very special to me as it was the first one I played which got me into this fantastic series. I especially love the young link segment as it feels so alive compared to the darker adult section. I have played the three starter dungeons over so many times that I know them top to bottom even years on from the last time I played. There is a reason that this is considered not only one of the best Zelda games but one of the best games of all time. It was revolutionary at the time and is still an absolute delight to play through. 100% recommended
2010
A massive improvement on the first game in pretty much everyway imaginable. Not without its problems but Just Cause 2 is a way more enjoyable experience than the clunky mess that its predecessor was.
The story is as simple as can be, Rico is once again thrown into a politically volatile country and has to kill its dictator. This time it is the island of Panau. I much prefer Rico in this game than the first, he doesn't only speak in one liners and has a smidge more personality to him. For some reason the entire voice cast was switched so the three returning characters all have new voice actors which is also the case for every game going forward, not sure if there is any specific reason. The main story itself is only 7 missions long but the game is padded out with required side content which I will go on to talk about in a bit.
The gameplay is an absolute blast. It improves so much on the first game through stuff like the grapple hook actually working, making health an actual concern instead of Rico being a bullet sponge and all around better controls. Don't get me wrong there is still a lot of jank, the flying controls are very hard to get used to and the camera doesn't always help and instead of the driving being more like gliding, I found it to feel really stiff. Best way to describe it is if I was trying to make a turn, the car wouldn't turn till the last moment and I would normally go flying off the road. Dont get me started on trying to use planes. Trying to take off on a plane was so weirdly frustrating as if you even breathe on the joystick the plane goes full tilt into the nearest wall. Sometimes it would just hit off something on the road and go flying backwards. It was like trying to ride a scooter on an ice rink. Despite all that they really nailed down series staples like the grapple mechanic and the gun combat. All in all it feels like a less polished version of Just Cause 3 which is to be expected.
Visually its a massive upgrade, thankfully they decided to ditch the uncanny valley cutscenes for more fitting character designs and cutscenes you would see on Xbox 360 games. Nothing really to note score wise.
My biggest complaint with this game is the chaos feature. Which I believe does become a staple going forward so it will be a bit of a reoccurring issue. Basically the main story is 7 missions long, to combat this in order to unlock the next story mission you have to run around doing missions all be it fun missions for the three biggest gang leaders in Panau. Now these missions were fun, none felt stale or repetitive and most where short enough to not drag on. My problem is with the fact that there are only so many of them. While waiting to unlock the last missions I had no faction missions left to do so I had to just fly around blowing up stuff in order to get enough chaos points to unlock more missions. Which again, was really fun but its something that did put me off a bit.
To put it simply, Just Cause 2 is really really fun. You get to fly around blowing stuff up and actually able to have an enjoyable experience in this game as it fixes what was terrible about the first one. Despite the lack of substance in the main story, I had a blast with this game. Im looking forward to replaying Just Cause 3 next to see if its as good as I remember. Solid recommendation.
The story is as simple as can be, Rico is once again thrown into a politically volatile country and has to kill its dictator. This time it is the island of Panau. I much prefer Rico in this game than the first, he doesn't only speak in one liners and has a smidge more personality to him. For some reason the entire voice cast was switched so the three returning characters all have new voice actors which is also the case for every game going forward, not sure if there is any specific reason. The main story itself is only 7 missions long but the game is padded out with required side content which I will go on to talk about in a bit.
The gameplay is an absolute blast. It improves so much on the first game through stuff like the grapple hook actually working, making health an actual concern instead of Rico being a bullet sponge and all around better controls. Don't get me wrong there is still a lot of jank, the flying controls are very hard to get used to and the camera doesn't always help and instead of the driving being more like gliding, I found it to feel really stiff. Best way to describe it is if I was trying to make a turn, the car wouldn't turn till the last moment and I would normally go flying off the road. Dont get me started on trying to use planes. Trying to take off on a plane was so weirdly frustrating as if you even breathe on the joystick the plane goes full tilt into the nearest wall. Sometimes it would just hit off something on the road and go flying backwards. It was like trying to ride a scooter on an ice rink. Despite all that they really nailed down series staples like the grapple mechanic and the gun combat. All in all it feels like a less polished version of Just Cause 3 which is to be expected.
Visually its a massive upgrade, thankfully they decided to ditch the uncanny valley cutscenes for more fitting character designs and cutscenes you would see on Xbox 360 games. Nothing really to note score wise.
My biggest complaint with this game is the chaos feature. Which I believe does become a staple going forward so it will be a bit of a reoccurring issue. Basically the main story is 7 missions long, to combat this in order to unlock the next story mission you have to run around doing missions all be it fun missions for the three biggest gang leaders in Panau. Now these missions were fun, none felt stale or repetitive and most where short enough to not drag on. My problem is with the fact that there are only so many of them. While waiting to unlock the last missions I had no faction missions left to do so I had to just fly around blowing up stuff in order to get enough chaos points to unlock more missions. Which again, was really fun but its something that did put me off a bit.
To put it simply, Just Cause 2 is really really fun. You get to fly around blowing stuff up and actually able to have an enjoyable experience in this game as it fixes what was terrible about the first one. Despite the lack of substance in the main story, I had a blast with this game. Im looking forward to replaying Just Cause 3 next to see if its as good as I remember. Solid recommendation.
Ill prefix before I start that I completed a half finished save file from an old playthrough I started around a year ago. Similar to my Cuphead review im still reviewing it as technically I beat the game this year despite having played a decent chunk a while prior.
Majora's mask is one of my favourite games of all time and if it were not for Red Dead 2 I would have no problems calling it my favourite. I think that not only is it the best game Nintendo have ever made, I believe that they will not make another game that will be as amazing as this in their company lifetime.
The story goes the same way as Links Awakening, featuring none of the recuring things from other Zelda games. No Zelda, No Ganon, No Hyrule and No Triforce. Instead Link is travelling in search of Navi before being cursed by the mischievous skull kid and turned into a Deku scrub. Awaking in the land of Termina where the mysterious Happy Mask Salesman tasks Link with recovering Majora's Mask for him. Simple enough, until you step outside and gaze upwards. With three days on the clock and the moon rapidly falling towards Termina, Link has to race against time. With an already bleak story, pair that with a cast of side characters that each deal with their impending doom in a unique way. Some stay in denial, others run and hide while some just stay to face it. This is the only Zelda game where I will walk around and talk to every NPC every chance I get, just to see if what they say will be different depending on the day. The main meat of the game involves Link traveling to the 4 regions of termina and lifting the curse put over them. Each area features tragic characters like Darmani the Goron, Mikau the Zora and the King of Ikana who's small amount of screen time is so impactful to this games main theme. What I love most about this games general narrative is the air of mystery surrounding it, why are all the characters the same as Ocarina of Time? What exactly is Termina? Who is the Happy Mask Salesman? Things that keep people theorising and talking about this game well into the modern day. It has my favourite atmosphere out of any game I have played, slightly beating Arkham Asylum.
The gameplay changes up a lot of what I found slow about Ocarina. The fast travel is a lot better handled since most side content can be done any time so saving it till after all the fast travel points are unlocked is good move so you can jump around as you wish. The temples are a bit of a drop from Ocarina, I love Woodfall temple and Snowhead temple, I enjoyed Stone tower but Great bay temple isnt great.
A massive part of this game is the time management system. Having to move quickly in order to get to a certain area before you miss it adds urgency to your tasks. The ability to slow down time and skip forward helps a lot and is made more useful on the 3ds version I believe. Pair this with the masks which make for both really fun and useful gameplay objects and great side quests. Some masks may be borderline useless but the quest to get it makes it worth it. The transformation masks are great and getting to play as a Goron is a personal highlight.
Visually it looks the same as Ocarina, which looked amazing in the 3ds remake. No frame or texture issues at all. This game also features my favourite soundtrack of all time. It is heavenly. The music pairs with the atmosphere so well, simple things like the clock town theme speeding up as the days progress, the temple themes each pair with the surroundings extremely well and very few recycled tracks from Ocarina. Please put your music on Spotify Nintendo.
Im honestly surprised that this game turned out as amazing as it did. The history of this game is really interesting to look into. Majoras mask was made with a third of the development team that Ocarina of time had and was crafted in just one year. Which provides an explanation for the recycled character models and repeating day cycle. Due to this Majora's mask feels very compact which I love, nothing is too far out of reach and the map is very easy to traverse.
Now the 3ds remake. I have never played the original game, I once again debated it like I did with Ocarina but decided to go with the 3ds version as its what im more comfortable with. After researching, there seems to be two vaild criticisms, the boss fights having the massive eyes to indicate weak spots and the changes to the Zora controls. Everything else is completely down to nostalgic bias. The small QoL changes the remake made dont drastically change anything about the original. Even the valid criticisms should not attract as much hate as this remake has.
Normally I am fairly safe with my takes but one I will defend no matter what is that Majora's Mask is Nintendo's magnum opus and they never have nor will make a game as good as this ever again. I cannot recommend this enough.
Majora's mask is one of my favourite games of all time and if it were not for Red Dead 2 I would have no problems calling it my favourite. I think that not only is it the best game Nintendo have ever made, I believe that they will not make another game that will be as amazing as this in their company lifetime.
The story goes the same way as Links Awakening, featuring none of the recuring things from other Zelda games. No Zelda, No Ganon, No Hyrule and No Triforce. Instead Link is travelling in search of Navi before being cursed by the mischievous skull kid and turned into a Deku scrub. Awaking in the land of Termina where the mysterious Happy Mask Salesman tasks Link with recovering Majora's Mask for him. Simple enough, until you step outside and gaze upwards. With three days on the clock and the moon rapidly falling towards Termina, Link has to race against time. With an already bleak story, pair that with a cast of side characters that each deal with their impending doom in a unique way. Some stay in denial, others run and hide while some just stay to face it. This is the only Zelda game where I will walk around and talk to every NPC every chance I get, just to see if what they say will be different depending on the day. The main meat of the game involves Link traveling to the 4 regions of termina and lifting the curse put over them. Each area features tragic characters like Darmani the Goron, Mikau the Zora and the King of Ikana who's small amount of screen time is so impactful to this games main theme. What I love most about this games general narrative is the air of mystery surrounding it, why are all the characters the same as Ocarina of Time? What exactly is Termina? Who is the Happy Mask Salesman? Things that keep people theorising and talking about this game well into the modern day. It has my favourite atmosphere out of any game I have played, slightly beating Arkham Asylum.
The gameplay changes up a lot of what I found slow about Ocarina. The fast travel is a lot better handled since most side content can be done any time so saving it till after all the fast travel points are unlocked is good move so you can jump around as you wish. The temples are a bit of a drop from Ocarina, I love Woodfall temple and Snowhead temple, I enjoyed Stone tower but Great bay temple isnt great.
A massive part of this game is the time management system. Having to move quickly in order to get to a certain area before you miss it adds urgency to your tasks. The ability to slow down time and skip forward helps a lot and is made more useful on the 3ds version I believe. Pair this with the masks which make for both really fun and useful gameplay objects and great side quests. Some masks may be borderline useless but the quest to get it makes it worth it. The transformation masks are great and getting to play as a Goron is a personal highlight.
Visually it looks the same as Ocarina, which looked amazing in the 3ds remake. No frame or texture issues at all. This game also features my favourite soundtrack of all time. It is heavenly. The music pairs with the atmosphere so well, simple things like the clock town theme speeding up as the days progress, the temple themes each pair with the surroundings extremely well and very few recycled tracks from Ocarina. Please put your music on Spotify Nintendo.
Im honestly surprised that this game turned out as amazing as it did. The history of this game is really interesting to look into. Majoras mask was made with a third of the development team that Ocarina of time had and was crafted in just one year. Which provides an explanation for the recycled character models and repeating day cycle. Due to this Majora's mask feels very compact which I love, nothing is too far out of reach and the map is very easy to traverse.
Now the 3ds remake. I have never played the original game, I once again debated it like I did with Ocarina but decided to go with the 3ds version as its what im more comfortable with. After researching, there seems to be two vaild criticisms, the boss fights having the massive eyes to indicate weak spots and the changes to the Zora controls. Everything else is completely down to nostalgic bias. The small QoL changes the remake made dont drastically change anything about the original. Even the valid criticisms should not attract as much hate as this remake has.
Normally I am fairly safe with my takes but one I will defend no matter what is that Majora's Mask is Nintendo's magnum opus and they never have nor will make a game as good as this ever again. I cannot recommend this enough.
Quick prefix, I played this using the SNES thing on switch
I was always very interested in why this game is held as highly as it is. Still to this day being regarded as one of the best Zelda games and it came out 33 years ago. Needless to say this was one of the titles I was looking forward going into during this series replay I'm doing. Upon completion I do really get where the praise comes from, but it still unfortunately suffers from one big issue.
A Link to the Past is the first game in the series to properly nail down the format that the later games can follow. By that I mean that this game adds way more life into its open world through more NPC's, side content and slightly more detailed narrative. Comparing this to Zelda 1 its almost night and day, where that game was as basic as move from dungeon to dungeon, Link to the Past adds so much more to do. It also massively improves upon some framework started in Zelda 2 with towns and proper NPC's. This game is also the introduction of so many franchise mainstays being the first appearance of The Master Sword, Kakariko Village, Hyrule Castle and The Lost Woods. To sum up, this game is where the franchise properly kicks into gear in my opinion.
The dungeons are where this game properly shines. There is 11 dungeons in total if you include Ganon's tower at the end. Each dungeon feels very unique with varying enemy types and layout. The bosses are a big highlight for me as they provide a decent challenge and tend to get tougher as the dungeons go on and also as Link gets stronger. I like that most items are made useful throughout the game unlike in Zelda 1 where most were useless outside of the dungeon you got it in. Traversal is made less boring with the addition of the Pegasus boots letting Link dash across the screen, also allowing fast travel using the flute item which can annoyingly only be used in the light word.
This is also the first Zelda game to have a "Gimmick", such as how Majora's mask has the masks and Tears of the Kingdom has the ultra hand stuff, Link to the Past has the ability to switch between the light and dark world. The dark world is much more of a challenge with enemies dealing way more damage and being harder to kill with weaker weapons. I think this is a great feature for its time but I wish that you got to spend more time properly in the light world as outside of the three introductory dungeons, you spend the entire game in the dark world. Obviously you can jump back and forth to collect items/heart pieces but I wish there was more main quest to do in the light world.
Im a big fan of the SNES art style on a lot of games, something about it just feels nice. It keeps the retro aesthetic but adds in more colour. A lot of enemy variety with sprites and Links design is very unique when comparing to later games. Soundtrack wise it has a slightly more diverse track list than Zelda 1 and 2 but still ends up with tracks becoming repetitive. I also had this issue where whenever I would enter somewhere like Kakariko Village or The Lost Woods, the regular overworld theme would play instead of the specific theme which was annoying.
Now all the positives that I have said about this game come with this one massive * beside them. This game is borderline impossible without a guide. If you want to be on level with the dungeon you are going to, good luck finding the items/heart pieces you need as they are so well hidden that its a surprise people found them in the first place. I think a big reason for this is because of all the advances this game makes in its story and gameplay, it neglected to fix the biggest issue with the first Zelda which was "I don't know how to find anything" which is in turn made worse in this game due to its bigger scale. If it were not for the guide I would of had no clue how to get all the heart pieces I needed, how to get certain items or that you can upgrade the master sword twice. This problem comes with age as Videogames used to be designed with no hand holding whatsoever so that people would spend more time looking around and combing the game for secrets, unfortunately this has not aged well at all. I should also mention a few dungeons are like mazes with lots of unnecessary rooms just to throw you off. Its a massive problem that effects most games on OG Nintendo consoles not just this specifically. There is no shame in using a guide to play this game as you will have a 10 times more enjoyable experience that way and not be walking around lost.
That being said I will still give this game a decently high score. It properly starts a lot of trends the franchise follows from here on out. Besides the caveat of the aged game design, its still a great Zelda game and one of the best 2d Zelda's. For the love of God though, use a guide.
I was always very interested in why this game is held as highly as it is. Still to this day being regarded as one of the best Zelda games and it came out 33 years ago. Needless to say this was one of the titles I was looking forward going into during this series replay I'm doing. Upon completion I do really get where the praise comes from, but it still unfortunately suffers from one big issue.
A Link to the Past is the first game in the series to properly nail down the format that the later games can follow. By that I mean that this game adds way more life into its open world through more NPC's, side content and slightly more detailed narrative. Comparing this to Zelda 1 its almost night and day, where that game was as basic as move from dungeon to dungeon, Link to the Past adds so much more to do. It also massively improves upon some framework started in Zelda 2 with towns and proper NPC's. This game is also the introduction of so many franchise mainstays being the first appearance of The Master Sword, Kakariko Village, Hyrule Castle and The Lost Woods. To sum up, this game is where the franchise properly kicks into gear in my opinion.
The dungeons are where this game properly shines. There is 11 dungeons in total if you include Ganon's tower at the end. Each dungeon feels very unique with varying enemy types and layout. The bosses are a big highlight for me as they provide a decent challenge and tend to get tougher as the dungeons go on and also as Link gets stronger. I like that most items are made useful throughout the game unlike in Zelda 1 where most were useless outside of the dungeon you got it in. Traversal is made less boring with the addition of the Pegasus boots letting Link dash across the screen, also allowing fast travel using the flute item which can annoyingly only be used in the light word.
This is also the first Zelda game to have a "Gimmick", such as how Majora's mask has the masks and Tears of the Kingdom has the ultra hand stuff, Link to the Past has the ability to switch between the light and dark world. The dark world is much more of a challenge with enemies dealing way more damage and being harder to kill with weaker weapons. I think this is a great feature for its time but I wish that you got to spend more time properly in the light world as outside of the three introductory dungeons, you spend the entire game in the dark world. Obviously you can jump back and forth to collect items/heart pieces but I wish there was more main quest to do in the light world.
Im a big fan of the SNES art style on a lot of games, something about it just feels nice. It keeps the retro aesthetic but adds in more colour. A lot of enemy variety with sprites and Links design is very unique when comparing to later games. Soundtrack wise it has a slightly more diverse track list than Zelda 1 and 2 but still ends up with tracks becoming repetitive. I also had this issue where whenever I would enter somewhere like Kakariko Village or The Lost Woods, the regular overworld theme would play instead of the specific theme which was annoying.
Now all the positives that I have said about this game come with this one massive * beside them. This game is borderline impossible without a guide. If you want to be on level with the dungeon you are going to, good luck finding the items/heart pieces you need as they are so well hidden that its a surprise people found them in the first place. I think a big reason for this is because of all the advances this game makes in its story and gameplay, it neglected to fix the biggest issue with the first Zelda which was "I don't know how to find anything" which is in turn made worse in this game due to its bigger scale. If it were not for the guide I would of had no clue how to get all the heart pieces I needed, how to get certain items or that you can upgrade the master sword twice. This problem comes with age as Videogames used to be designed with no hand holding whatsoever so that people would spend more time looking around and combing the game for secrets, unfortunately this has not aged well at all. I should also mention a few dungeons are like mazes with lots of unnecessary rooms just to throw you off. Its a massive problem that effects most games on OG Nintendo consoles not just this specifically. There is no shame in using a guide to play this game as you will have a 10 times more enjoyable experience that way and not be walking around lost.
That being said I will still give this game a decently high score. It properly starts a lot of trends the franchise follows from here on out. Besides the caveat of the aged game design, its still a great Zelda game and one of the best 2d Zelda's. For the love of God though, use a guide.
This review will contain mild spoilers
I was originally going to play the DX version but remembered that I had a half finished save file of the remake so I decided to just finish that instead of playing the whole game through the switch Gameboy collection. Im going to be kinda combining two reviews in one here, talking a lot about the original game but referring to the remake when it comes to gameplay and visuals.
I was a big fan of Links Awakening having played the DX version on the 3ds years ago, but I put off getting this remake for quite a long time until it went down in price. I ended up getting it late last year after playing Tears of the Kingdom and being in a bit of a Zelda phase. Whilst the DX version has a lot of charm to it, this is the definitive way to play this game in the modern day.
Links Awakening is the first Zelda game in my opinion to really prioritize its story. It's the first game chronologically not set in Hyrule and not to feature Zelda or Ganon (Kind of). Instead Link is washed up on Koholint Island after a deadly storm, he is tasked with waking the mysterious wind fish with the eight instruments of the sirens in order to get back home. On the surface its very clean cut, but features a secret that is gradually revealed as Link progresses through the dungeons which really effects the atmosphere of the game. One thing I noticed was that this game makes it very obvious that it is set after A Link to the Past which I think is one of the only times that it is specified what order the games take place in outside of Ocarina/Majora and BoTW/ToTK. There are a lot of similarities in characters and locations but most obviously is that in the final boss fight, the entity takes the form of both Agahnim and Ganon from Alttp. This was a really cool detail that I never knew and thought it would be interesting to add here.
Gameplay wise the remake makes all the right changes. The Gameboy version was heavily restricted due to hardware but was great for its time, the remake removes a lot of the hindrances that the original version had. Most notably, making some items usable without having to equip them, this is done with the Pegasus boots and power bracelets and means you dont have to constantly be switching things out in the menu. Im not a huge fan of having some items only be obtainable through the shop instead of being in a dungeon, but im pretty sure the whole game is possible without buying anything so it isn't a massive issue. Link's awakening also is a lot easier to blindly play through with the addition of phone huts where you can get a small hint as to where you need to go next. In the remake you can replay NPC conversations to catch any info you missed. Unfortunately not everything is told to you and you can still be left wandering around without a clue but I played everything from dungeon 5 to the end of the game without following a guide and only had to check up on stuff twice so its already way better than all previous games. I'm not a huge fan of the map as it seemed that there is always one very specific way to get to each location and loads of paths seemed needlessly blocked off just to confuse you.
The dungeons in this game are on par with Alttp in terms of size but I found them way more confusing to get through. Im not sure how the remake compares to the original but most dungeons, especially the last three, are very confusing to get through, but still enjoyable enough where it doesnt get frustrating. Eagle Tower is my favourite one by far.
Visually I do like the remake art style but I much prefer the DX retro look over the more toy like style the remake has. One of my favourite parts of this game is its score. They really started to add more diversity in their music at this stage with most buildings having music, multiple overworld tracks and each dungeon has its own track as well. My favourite part however is that dungeons 1 to 5 all have these booming action pieces until the twist is revealed in the 6th dungeon and from then on all the dungeon tracks are much more creepy sounding, my favourite is the eagle tower track, I'd recommend checking it out, either the OG or remake. The remake does ditch the retro sounding score for a more modern one and it works really well with the new look. I do prefer the retro score a little bit but I would happily listen to either. I also liked the anime style cutscenes for the beginning and credits, a good improvement from the old versions
Graphics wise I noticed a lot of frame drop, most notably in the grassy plains areas beside the main village. Since the remake ditched the screen style the original had and has massive areas all loaded in at once, plus enemy sprites and destructible objects plus the fact the switch's hardware is very outdated, makes for a bit of frame drop. Nothing game breaking by any means but something to note.
A solid remake of a classic game. Falters in a couple places for me compared to the original but still makes for a fun experience.
I was originally going to play the DX version but remembered that I had a half finished save file of the remake so I decided to just finish that instead of playing the whole game through the switch Gameboy collection. Im going to be kinda combining two reviews in one here, talking a lot about the original game but referring to the remake when it comes to gameplay and visuals.
I was a big fan of Links Awakening having played the DX version on the 3ds years ago, but I put off getting this remake for quite a long time until it went down in price. I ended up getting it late last year after playing Tears of the Kingdom and being in a bit of a Zelda phase. Whilst the DX version has a lot of charm to it, this is the definitive way to play this game in the modern day.
Links Awakening is the first Zelda game in my opinion to really prioritize its story. It's the first game chronologically not set in Hyrule and not to feature Zelda or Ganon (Kind of). Instead Link is washed up on Koholint Island after a deadly storm, he is tasked with waking the mysterious wind fish with the eight instruments of the sirens in order to get back home. On the surface its very clean cut, but features a secret that is gradually revealed as Link progresses through the dungeons which really effects the atmosphere of the game. One thing I noticed was that this game makes it very obvious that it is set after A Link to the Past which I think is one of the only times that it is specified what order the games take place in outside of Ocarina/Majora and BoTW/ToTK. There are a lot of similarities in characters and locations but most obviously is that in the final boss fight, the entity takes the form of both Agahnim and Ganon from Alttp. This was a really cool detail that I never knew and thought it would be interesting to add here.
Gameplay wise the remake makes all the right changes. The Gameboy version was heavily restricted due to hardware but was great for its time, the remake removes a lot of the hindrances that the original version had. Most notably, making some items usable without having to equip them, this is done with the Pegasus boots and power bracelets and means you dont have to constantly be switching things out in the menu. Im not a huge fan of having some items only be obtainable through the shop instead of being in a dungeon, but im pretty sure the whole game is possible without buying anything so it isn't a massive issue. Link's awakening also is a lot easier to blindly play through with the addition of phone huts where you can get a small hint as to where you need to go next. In the remake you can replay NPC conversations to catch any info you missed. Unfortunately not everything is told to you and you can still be left wandering around without a clue but I played everything from dungeon 5 to the end of the game without following a guide and only had to check up on stuff twice so its already way better than all previous games. I'm not a huge fan of the map as it seemed that there is always one very specific way to get to each location and loads of paths seemed needlessly blocked off just to confuse you.
The dungeons in this game are on par with Alttp in terms of size but I found them way more confusing to get through. Im not sure how the remake compares to the original but most dungeons, especially the last three, are very confusing to get through, but still enjoyable enough where it doesnt get frustrating. Eagle Tower is my favourite one by far.
Visually I do like the remake art style but I much prefer the DX retro look over the more toy like style the remake has. One of my favourite parts of this game is its score. They really started to add more diversity in their music at this stage with most buildings having music, multiple overworld tracks and each dungeon has its own track as well. My favourite part however is that dungeons 1 to 5 all have these booming action pieces until the twist is revealed in the 6th dungeon and from then on all the dungeon tracks are much more creepy sounding, my favourite is the eagle tower track, I'd recommend checking it out, either the OG or remake. The remake does ditch the retro sounding score for a more modern one and it works really well with the new look. I do prefer the retro score a little bit but I would happily listen to either. I also liked the anime style cutscenes for the beginning and credits, a good improvement from the old versions
Graphics wise I noticed a lot of frame drop, most notably in the grassy plains areas beside the main village. Since the remake ditched the screen style the original had and has massive areas all loaded in at once, plus enemy sprites and destructible objects plus the fact the switch's hardware is very outdated, makes for a bit of frame drop. Nothing game breaking by any means but something to note.
A solid remake of a classic game. Falters in a couple places for me compared to the original but still makes for a fun experience.
2023
I was eager to try this game after I saw it blowing up on TikTok/YouTube and when I saw that the steam port was released I decided to give it a try.
The game is a spin of russian roulette where a shotgun is used instead of a revolver. You are put in a game against this creepy entity and need to get rid of all its hit points before it does the same to you. You get a selection of items at the start of each round ranging from cigarettes to ironically heal yourself, A switchblade to cut the barrel of the shotgun and deal double damage and handcuffs to give you an extra turn. Games are 3 rounds long with increased health and shells each time. It can be a fun brain puzzle trying to weight up the probability of a live shell being next.
I'm a big fan of the aesthetic, everything looks really dirty and rusty. It reminds me a lot of Iron Lung, with the very similar colour palette.
I see myself randomly coming back to this if I am bored and want to kill 15 - 30 mins but I probably wont play consistently as I think the gameplay loop can grow quite repetitive after a few games.
The game is a spin of russian roulette where a shotgun is used instead of a revolver. You are put in a game against this creepy entity and need to get rid of all its hit points before it does the same to you. You get a selection of items at the start of each round ranging from cigarettes to ironically heal yourself, A switchblade to cut the barrel of the shotgun and deal double damage and handcuffs to give you an extra turn. Games are 3 rounds long with increased health and shells each time. It can be a fun brain puzzle trying to weight up the probability of a live shell being next.
I'm a big fan of the aesthetic, everything looks really dirty and rusty. It reminds me a lot of Iron Lung, with the very similar colour palette.
I see myself randomly coming back to this if I am bored and want to kill 15 - 30 mins but I probably wont play consistently as I think the gameplay loop can grow quite repetitive after a few games.
This review contains spoilers
This review will contain spoilers
I came back to this version of the game to play the Iki island expansion and decided to play the main story again for the first time since 2020. This remains as one of my favourite games of all time, a mix of a powerful story, amazing combat and breath-taking visuals from start to finish.
To start with the story, the game is set in the late 13th century on the island of Tsushima off the coast of Japan during the Mongol invasion. You play as Jin Sakai, a Samurai who has to grapple with sticking to the Samurai code or breaking it to defeat the invaders. The main game was a lot shorter than I remember it being, with 24 main missions, 25 if you include the prologue. From the second this game starts, you are hit with everything that it has to offer, The Battle of Komoda Beach is probably the best opening in any game I personally have played, the sheer hopelessness as the Mongol army cuts down every Samurai fills you with dread. From here on the game has Jin gathering allies in order to defeat the Mongol invaders and their leader Khotun Khan. During this, Jin deviates from the Samurai code and becomes "The Ghost" in order to safe his people. This is the backbone of the games story, having Jin put in places where he has to break his code to get one over on the enemy whilst being stuck between his allies and his uncle, Lord Shimura. There are a few notable missions but most do feel quite similar but are made better by the combat, My favourite missions is the battle in Yarikawa and the scene where Jin unlocks the ghost stance. I really like how they portray "The Ghost" part of Jin's story as while he thinks he is doing the right thing, it isn't as clean cut as that. In particular the scene where he poisons the Mongol troops in Castle Shimura, he ends up giving the Mongols the ability to make his poison, I like how there are both good and bad sides to what Jin is doing and it isn't as clean cut as Jin good, Samurai bad. One complaint I have is that Jin very easily breaks the Samurai code and I wish they had spent more time having him grapple with the decisions he makes. I also think that they could have maybe made the game a few missions longer as Act 3 ends very quickly only being like 5 missions long. The final missions however, where Jin duels Lord Shimura is so perfectly crafted, similarly to the prologue mission, it has everything that makes this game amazing present. Powerful story, amazing combat, breath taking visuals and a sensational score.
Jin is a really interesting protagonist, considering the whole game revolves around him, he is great in the leading role. Daisuke Tsuji gives an amazing lead performance. Khotun Khan is a very imposing villain, appearing very few times but his presence is felt throughout. Lord Shimura is a great side character, his relationship with Jin is a main focus of the story and is hit out the park. I also really liked Yuna and Lady Masako both being very good side characters and Masakos side quest was my favourite of them.
This game also has my favourite combat system, I think that the sword combat in this game is amazing and it makes the bordering on repetitive missions fun regardless. Jin has 4 stances he can use that are effective on specific enemies, those enemies being regular swordsmen, shield users, spearmen and brutes. The stances are obtained by killing a certain number of Mongol generals, I like that they arent locked behind story progression and effectively you could unlock every stance as soon as you finish the first act. There are also a number of other weapons/items like bows, kunai's, powder bombs and dart guns , providing you with enough weapons to make every encounter unique. I like the horse traversal but half the time it is unnecessary as the fast travel in this game is absolutely insane. Taking seconds to travel from one side of the map to the other, rivalling spiderman 2 for quickest fast travel, and this game game out 3 years before it. I like the way the boss battles are done in a duelling way. Playing on normal, I found most of them quite challenging. I do wish there was a bit more mission variety as most consisted of attacking bases of enemies or tracking someone, It does get a bit repetitive near the end.
Visually this game is stunning, full of vibrant colours and beautiful landscapes. If not for The Last of Us Part 2, this would probably be the best looking game on last gen consoles. Im not sure how accurate the map is to real life, but I think SuckerPunch managed to capture the beauty of Japan really well. The score is equally as amazing, each track fits the moment perfectly, especially in boss fights.
The PS5 directors cut adds enough content to satisfy the price. The Iki island DLC is a good story experience with Jin travelling to the island where his father was killed. He is faced with "The Eagle" who poisons him and forces him to face the guilt he feels over his fathers death. Jin also comes face to face with the man who killed his father and has to overcome his desire for revenge and help the people of Iki island defeat the Mongol invaders. It also adds a couple new side quests, new collectables and minigames to play whilst travelling the island. Very fun experience.
Ghost of Tsushima still sits high on my list of favourite games, it is enjoyable from the minute you turn it on. 100% recommend
I came back to this version of the game to play the Iki island expansion and decided to play the main story again for the first time since 2020. This remains as one of my favourite games of all time, a mix of a powerful story, amazing combat and breath-taking visuals from start to finish.
To start with the story, the game is set in the late 13th century on the island of Tsushima off the coast of Japan during the Mongol invasion. You play as Jin Sakai, a Samurai who has to grapple with sticking to the Samurai code or breaking it to defeat the invaders. The main game was a lot shorter than I remember it being, with 24 main missions, 25 if you include the prologue. From the second this game starts, you are hit with everything that it has to offer, The Battle of Komoda Beach is probably the best opening in any game I personally have played, the sheer hopelessness as the Mongol army cuts down every Samurai fills you with dread. From here on the game has Jin gathering allies in order to defeat the Mongol invaders and their leader Khotun Khan. During this, Jin deviates from the Samurai code and becomes "The Ghost" in order to safe his people. This is the backbone of the games story, having Jin put in places where he has to break his code to get one over on the enemy whilst being stuck between his allies and his uncle, Lord Shimura. There are a few notable missions but most do feel quite similar but are made better by the combat, My favourite missions is the battle in Yarikawa and the scene where Jin unlocks the ghost stance. I really like how they portray "The Ghost" part of Jin's story as while he thinks he is doing the right thing, it isn't as clean cut as that. In particular the scene where he poisons the Mongol troops in Castle Shimura, he ends up giving the Mongols the ability to make his poison, I like how there are both good and bad sides to what Jin is doing and it isn't as clean cut as Jin good, Samurai bad. One complaint I have is that Jin very easily breaks the Samurai code and I wish they had spent more time having him grapple with the decisions he makes. I also think that they could have maybe made the game a few missions longer as Act 3 ends very quickly only being like 5 missions long. The final missions however, where Jin duels Lord Shimura is so perfectly crafted, similarly to the prologue mission, it has everything that makes this game amazing present. Powerful story, amazing combat, breath taking visuals and a sensational score.
Jin is a really interesting protagonist, considering the whole game revolves around him, he is great in the leading role. Daisuke Tsuji gives an amazing lead performance. Khotun Khan is a very imposing villain, appearing very few times but his presence is felt throughout. Lord Shimura is a great side character, his relationship with Jin is a main focus of the story and is hit out the park. I also really liked Yuna and Lady Masako both being very good side characters and Masakos side quest was my favourite of them.
This game also has my favourite combat system, I think that the sword combat in this game is amazing and it makes the bordering on repetitive missions fun regardless. Jin has 4 stances he can use that are effective on specific enemies, those enemies being regular swordsmen, shield users, spearmen and brutes. The stances are obtained by killing a certain number of Mongol generals, I like that they arent locked behind story progression and effectively you could unlock every stance as soon as you finish the first act. There are also a number of other weapons/items like bows, kunai's, powder bombs and dart guns , providing you with enough weapons to make every encounter unique. I like the horse traversal but half the time it is unnecessary as the fast travel in this game is absolutely insane. Taking seconds to travel from one side of the map to the other, rivalling spiderman 2 for quickest fast travel, and this game game out 3 years before it. I like the way the boss battles are done in a duelling way. Playing on normal, I found most of them quite challenging. I do wish there was a bit more mission variety as most consisted of attacking bases of enemies or tracking someone, It does get a bit repetitive near the end.
Visually this game is stunning, full of vibrant colours and beautiful landscapes. If not for The Last of Us Part 2, this would probably be the best looking game on last gen consoles. Im not sure how accurate the map is to real life, but I think SuckerPunch managed to capture the beauty of Japan really well. The score is equally as amazing, each track fits the moment perfectly, especially in boss fights.
The PS5 directors cut adds enough content to satisfy the price. The Iki island DLC is a good story experience with Jin travelling to the island where his father was killed. He is faced with "The Eagle" who poisons him and forces him to face the guilt he feels over his fathers death. Jin also comes face to face with the man who killed his father and has to overcome his desire for revenge and help the people of Iki island defeat the Mongol invaders. It also adds a couple new side quests, new collectables and minigames to play whilst travelling the island. Very fun experience.
Ghost of Tsushima still sits high on my list of favourite games, it is enjoyable from the minute you turn it on. 100% recommend
It says a lot that I didn't even know this season ended until I saw the update for the new season on my PlayStation today.
Funny because it wasn't even bad, the map changes were cool and the battlepass was pretty decent. I think I personally just got burned out after playing so much of the OG season and Chapter 5 season 1.
Funny because it wasn't even bad, the map changes were cool and the battlepass was pretty decent. I think I personally just got burned out after playing so much of the OG season and Chapter 5 season 1.
1986
Im going to slowly playthrough most of the mainline Zelda games as there are very few I have properly completed so no better place to start than the 1986 classic. Prefix, I played this using the NES collection thing on the Switch.
Like most NES games there isn't any narrative, just a quest. Link has to save Princess Zelda from the evil Ganon. Very simple and the groundwork that the later entries build off. The meat of the game is in the dungeons and overworld exploration. The map is very easy to navigate if you find one online, it makes everything much easier. For the most part the dungeons are good and age surprisingly well, but the last two dungeons ramps the difficulty up out of nowhere which was quite rewarding considering how OP the sword is in this game. Most items were useless besides the candle and bombs as most of them have a single use for the dungeon you get it in. The overworld is mostly just a forest looking area with Death Mountain up to the north and a graveyard to the west, fun to explore and find all the secret hidden rooms, which I have absolutely no idea how people were meant to find these back in the day.
When it comes to visuals, the 8 bit art style is really charming and I love all the enemy sprites, good variety of enemies as well for the first game in the series. Score wise it is iconic, The Legend of Zelda franchise has some of my favourite tracks of all time in it and the first game in the series sets it up well. There are a handful of tracks in this game but the one you hear the most is the overworld theme which is pretty much synonymous with the franchise at this point.
A true classic. I think this game has aged quite for an NES game,. By todays standards it is borderline required to either use a guide or at least a map to save yourself walking around lost, but besides that its a good start to my favourite franchise of all time.
Like most NES games there isn't any narrative, just a quest. Link has to save Princess Zelda from the evil Ganon. Very simple and the groundwork that the later entries build off. The meat of the game is in the dungeons and overworld exploration. The map is very easy to navigate if you find one online, it makes everything much easier. For the most part the dungeons are good and age surprisingly well, but the last two dungeons ramps the difficulty up out of nowhere which was quite rewarding considering how OP the sword is in this game. Most items were useless besides the candle and bombs as most of them have a single use for the dungeon you get it in. The overworld is mostly just a forest looking area with Death Mountain up to the north and a graveyard to the west, fun to explore and find all the secret hidden rooms, which I have absolutely no idea how people were meant to find these back in the day.
When it comes to visuals, the 8 bit art style is really charming and I love all the enemy sprites, good variety of enemies as well for the first game in the series. Score wise it is iconic, The Legend of Zelda franchise has some of my favourite tracks of all time in it and the first game in the series sets it up well. There are a handful of tracks in this game but the one you hear the most is the overworld theme which is pretty much synonymous with the franchise at this point.
A true classic. I think this game has aged quite for an NES game,. By todays standards it is borderline required to either use a guide or at least a map to save yourself walking around lost, but besides that its a good start to my favourite franchise of all time.
This review will contain minor spoilers involving a gameplay mechanic
I think if I was to describe this game in one word it would be "Uncomfortable".
I saw the press the second game was getting and since its free on game pass I was gonna just jump straight into that but I realised the first game was free as well so I thought I might as well play through it first.
The story of this game is what everyone is going to be there for. You play as Senua who has travelled to Helheim to retrieve the soul of her partner Dillion. I had no idea this game was set within Norse mythology so that was a big win for me out the gate as I love that stuff. Senua is plagued by constant voices in her head second guessing absolutely everything she does, constantly beating her down with whatever she is trying to do, so much so it can be hard to listen to at times. The main point of the game is Senua trying to overcome her grief which is shown in a lot of ways. I wont get to much into spoilers but I think the story is fantastic and kept me interested throughout the lacklustre gameplay sections
I absolutely love the character designs in this game. The Northmen all look disgusting, like hybrids of humans and animals. There are 5 enemy variants being the one with a sword, one with a hammer, one with a hammer and a shield, one massive guy with an executioner axe and one fast jumping guy with two small axe's. For the limited combat sections this game has there is enough variety to keep it interesting. I love the designs for the bosses in this game, each one towers over Senua. Valravn, Surtr Garm and Hela all look terrifying and look nothing like any designs I have seen for them previously. The game really excels off of the performances from the actors. Melina Juergens gives a fantastic performance as Senua, which I was surprised to see is her only credited acting role.
Now unfortunately the gameplay is where I would imagine the game looses a lot of people. The gameplay is very repetitive mostly revolving around perspective puzzles and small combat sections. They are cool to start with but when each area contains the exact same puzzle format it gets old fast. The game is only around 6 hours in length but took me several days to get through just to avoid burnout. The combat system is fun and I enjoyed all the segments with it but I wasn't really a fan of the "Permadeath" feature the game has. Each time Senua dies a bit more of her is covered by this black rash looking thing called "Rot" the game tells you that if you fail too many time then your quest will be over, insinuating that you have to start again. This actually isnt true as it was just a fluke which I guess was put in to further hammer in that nothing the voices tell you can be trusted. I'm not a huge fan of permadeath stuff so I was a little turned away by this but the combat is easy enough to master that it proved not a problem.
Visually this game is stunning, for being 7 years old it holds up extremely well with beautiful landscapes and extremely well designed characters as previously mentioned. Soundtrack is a banger as well. I think the place that this game excels the most is its sound design, playing this game with good headphones is a must as you can hear the voices moving around your head, it really adds to the atmosphere.
I was taken by surprise that this game is kind of a horror game at times. The whole game has a creepy atmosphere with weird voices talking to you all the time but certain segments, particularly the Garm one were genuinely scary. Add the weird 4th wall breaks when Senua just straight up talks to the unseen voices while looking straight at you and you have yourself one genuinely creepy game.
Overall I think this is a great game but is unfortunately let down by its repetitive gameplay mechanics. I would however not recommend this if you suffer from any kind of mental disorder like schizophrenia as I feel like it could be quite triggering. Good to see the developers acknowledge that with plentiful trigger warnings each time the game is loaded up. Great creepy and stressful story with amazing visuals.
I think if I was to describe this game in one word it would be "Uncomfortable".
I saw the press the second game was getting and since its free on game pass I was gonna just jump straight into that but I realised the first game was free as well so I thought I might as well play through it first.
The story of this game is what everyone is going to be there for. You play as Senua who has travelled to Helheim to retrieve the soul of her partner Dillion. I had no idea this game was set within Norse mythology so that was a big win for me out the gate as I love that stuff. Senua is plagued by constant voices in her head second guessing absolutely everything she does, constantly beating her down with whatever she is trying to do, so much so it can be hard to listen to at times. The main point of the game is Senua trying to overcome her grief which is shown in a lot of ways. I wont get to much into spoilers but I think the story is fantastic and kept me interested throughout the lacklustre gameplay sections
I absolutely love the character designs in this game. The Northmen all look disgusting, like hybrids of humans and animals. There are 5 enemy variants being the one with a sword, one with a hammer, one with a hammer and a shield, one massive guy with an executioner axe and one fast jumping guy with two small axe's. For the limited combat sections this game has there is enough variety to keep it interesting. I love the designs for the bosses in this game, each one towers over Senua. Valravn, Surtr Garm and Hela all look terrifying and look nothing like any designs I have seen for them previously. The game really excels off of the performances from the actors. Melina Juergens gives a fantastic performance as Senua, which I was surprised to see is her only credited acting role.
Now unfortunately the gameplay is where I would imagine the game looses a lot of people. The gameplay is very repetitive mostly revolving around perspective puzzles and small combat sections. They are cool to start with but when each area contains the exact same puzzle format it gets old fast. The game is only around 6 hours in length but took me several days to get through just to avoid burnout. The combat system is fun and I enjoyed all the segments with it but I wasn't really a fan of the "Permadeath" feature the game has. Each time Senua dies a bit more of her is covered by this black rash looking thing called "Rot" the game tells you that if you fail too many time then your quest will be over, insinuating that you have to start again. This actually isnt true as it was just a fluke which I guess was put in to further hammer in that nothing the voices tell you can be trusted. I'm not a huge fan of permadeath stuff so I was a little turned away by this but the combat is easy enough to master that it proved not a problem.
Visually this game is stunning, for being 7 years old it holds up extremely well with beautiful landscapes and extremely well designed characters as previously mentioned. Soundtrack is a banger as well. I think the place that this game excels the most is its sound design, playing this game with good headphones is a must as you can hear the voices moving around your head, it really adds to the atmosphere.
I was taken by surprise that this game is kind of a horror game at times. The whole game has a creepy atmosphere with weird voices talking to you all the time but certain segments, particularly the Garm one were genuinely scary. Add the weird 4th wall breaks when Senua just straight up talks to the unseen voices while looking straight at you and you have yourself one genuinely creepy game.
Overall I think this is a great game but is unfortunately let down by its repetitive gameplay mechanics. I would however not recommend this if you suffer from any kind of mental disorder like schizophrenia as I feel like it could be quite triggering. Good to see the developers acknowledge that with plentiful trigger warnings each time the game is loaded up. Great creepy and stressful story with amazing visuals.
2014
I believe this was the 4th time I have tried to play this game over the years. Each time I got a bit into it and just gave up but I was determined to finally get it off the backlog and finish it. Upon finishing I think its probably one of the most middle of the road games I have played in recent memory.
Following from Far Cry 3 was going to be a tough task and I think due to that Ubisoft made practically the same game again, beginning the stale gameplay format that Far Cry is now unfortunately known for.
The story is really quite bland, nothing that memorable really happens outside of a couple cool missions. The main thing that I want to talk about are the characters. Ajay is a massive downgrade from Jason Brody in terms of protagonists. Jason had real character development throughout Far Cry 3 with the island changing who he was as a person, while Ajay does pretty much nothing and is just your generic guy with a gun. His main goal is to scatter his mothers ashes, which is a nice way for the game to end but apart from that Ajay doesn't have a smidge of the character that Jason had. Unfortunately another downgrade is in the villain, obviously it is going to be very hard to live up to Vaas and Pagin Min does a good job to be memorable, but he is literally in the game 4 times. Vaas wasnt even the main villain in 3 and he appears more than Pagin does throughout the whole game. Despite that Pagin is your standard charismatic psychopath who does command the scenes he is present in, Troy baker does a good job as always and I really like his design. I think the problem is that they tired to hard to make another Vaas, but didnt bother to give him any memorable moments outside of him killing one of his own guard at the start so you know he is insane. Side characters are also a big dip from 3 where only 2 matter across the game and both of them are insufferable. Amita and Sabal are the two would be leaders of the golden path and the game strangely implements a choice system where you pick who to side with. Due to not particularly caring for either character I just went with who I thought made more sense at the time and ended up flip flopping between both of their missions. I ended with Amita as leader but after looking into both endings, probably would of been better off with Pagin.
Gameplay wise it plays very similarly to 3. Shooting feels a bit dated but the movement feels a bit better. I like the driving and the immersive healing animations are always cool. Im not a huge fan of crafting systems and having to hunt for resources is something that I normally wont do unless 100% necessary so I finished this game with barely any upgrades besides a few essential ones like extra weapon slots. I wasn't a fan of the stealth sections in this game as I found that the enemies would spot you from miles away and would hear suppressed bullets from miles away as well. Speaking on the enemies, they are all total bullet sponges with the shirtless enemies that run at you with knifes being able to take like 15 AR bullets to the chest before going down. I didn't touch much side content but I probably should have just to have unlocked some better guns.
Visually I do think this is a big upgrade from 3, the mountain landscapes look beautiful and im a fan of the setting in general. A lot of the ground stuff is similar to 3 but has been given appropriate upgrades. Score wise is nothing special, no tracks of note. Technically I had a few visual bugs, nothing game breaking but one cutscene in particular where you are watching Pagin give a speech on a tv, the tv just wasn't on, so I actually missed one of Pagin's 4 appearences.
I think that Far Cry 4 unfortunately began the trend of the repetitive gameplay loop that has become associated with this series now. I dont think it is a bad game by any means but it lacks anything major to set it apart from Far Cry 3. Out of the whole series it's probably my 3rd favourite behind 3 and 6. I might try 5 and new dawn again but that wont be for a while. Worth a play if you are a fan.
Following from Far Cry 3 was going to be a tough task and I think due to that Ubisoft made practically the same game again, beginning the stale gameplay format that Far Cry is now unfortunately known for.
The story is really quite bland, nothing that memorable really happens outside of a couple cool missions. The main thing that I want to talk about are the characters. Ajay is a massive downgrade from Jason Brody in terms of protagonists. Jason had real character development throughout Far Cry 3 with the island changing who he was as a person, while Ajay does pretty much nothing and is just your generic guy with a gun. His main goal is to scatter his mothers ashes, which is a nice way for the game to end but apart from that Ajay doesn't have a smidge of the character that Jason had. Unfortunately another downgrade is in the villain, obviously it is going to be very hard to live up to Vaas and Pagin Min does a good job to be memorable, but he is literally in the game 4 times. Vaas wasnt even the main villain in 3 and he appears more than Pagin does throughout the whole game. Despite that Pagin is your standard charismatic psychopath who does command the scenes he is present in, Troy baker does a good job as always and I really like his design. I think the problem is that they tired to hard to make another Vaas, but didnt bother to give him any memorable moments outside of him killing one of his own guard at the start so you know he is insane. Side characters are also a big dip from 3 where only 2 matter across the game and both of them are insufferable. Amita and Sabal are the two would be leaders of the golden path and the game strangely implements a choice system where you pick who to side with. Due to not particularly caring for either character I just went with who I thought made more sense at the time and ended up flip flopping between both of their missions. I ended with Amita as leader but after looking into both endings, probably would of been better off with Pagin.
Gameplay wise it plays very similarly to 3. Shooting feels a bit dated but the movement feels a bit better. I like the driving and the immersive healing animations are always cool. Im not a huge fan of crafting systems and having to hunt for resources is something that I normally wont do unless 100% necessary so I finished this game with barely any upgrades besides a few essential ones like extra weapon slots. I wasn't a fan of the stealth sections in this game as I found that the enemies would spot you from miles away and would hear suppressed bullets from miles away as well. Speaking on the enemies, they are all total bullet sponges with the shirtless enemies that run at you with knifes being able to take like 15 AR bullets to the chest before going down. I didn't touch much side content but I probably should have just to have unlocked some better guns.
Visually I do think this is a big upgrade from 3, the mountain landscapes look beautiful and im a fan of the setting in general. A lot of the ground stuff is similar to 3 but has been given appropriate upgrades. Score wise is nothing special, no tracks of note. Technically I had a few visual bugs, nothing game breaking but one cutscene in particular where you are watching Pagin give a speech on a tv, the tv just wasn't on, so I actually missed one of Pagin's 4 appearences.
I think that Far Cry 4 unfortunately began the trend of the repetitive gameplay loop that has become associated with this series now. I dont think it is a bad game by any means but it lacks anything major to set it apart from Far Cry 3. Out of the whole series it's probably my 3rd favourite behind 3 and 6. I might try 5 and new dawn again but that wont be for a while. Worth a play if you are a fan.
2023
Im deciding to log this now as I think my time with this game has came to an end and I dont see myself playing it often enough in the future to put it off anymore.
Lethal Company had the online world in a chokehold earlier this year and seems currently to have been knocked off this position by Helldivers 2. This is one of the most unique ideas for a game I have seen in a long time and through the couple times I have played it I had a blast. There are a few essential parts you need to properly enjoy this game, you need to play with friends and you need to use the proximity chat. The proximity chat feature is amazing and hearing your friends scream off in the distance is both hilarious and terrifying. Running around in the facilities is so tense its brilliant. After doing some research we found one of the better strategys was having someone stay on the ship and direct the three others using the cameras which was a lot of fun using the walkie talkies to communicate. Id recommend trying this playstyle out if you havent its a lot of fun even for the person on the ship.
The gameplay loop has you and 3 teammates landing on random moons to gather enough scrap to reach your quota. However you are getting attacked by ruthless and unforgiving monsters that will leave your whole squad dead within minutes of stepping off your ship.
I love the visuals, gives off old school gmod vibes mixed with a new style. Also apparently there is secret lore hidden on each planet which is cool.
I wish that I could spend more time with this game but my problem specifically is that me and all my friends primarily are on PlayStation so we dont find ourselves playing this often. I don't doubt I will probably play this again in the future as it is a fantastic multiplayer experience and I hope this game keeps its audience as it deserves all its praise.
Lethal Company had the online world in a chokehold earlier this year and seems currently to have been knocked off this position by Helldivers 2. This is one of the most unique ideas for a game I have seen in a long time and through the couple times I have played it I had a blast. There are a few essential parts you need to properly enjoy this game, you need to play with friends and you need to use the proximity chat. The proximity chat feature is amazing and hearing your friends scream off in the distance is both hilarious and terrifying. Running around in the facilities is so tense its brilliant. After doing some research we found one of the better strategys was having someone stay on the ship and direct the three others using the cameras which was a lot of fun using the walkie talkies to communicate. Id recommend trying this playstyle out if you havent its a lot of fun even for the person on the ship.
The gameplay loop has you and 3 teammates landing on random moons to gather enough scrap to reach your quota. However you are getting attacked by ruthless and unforgiving monsters that will leave your whole squad dead within minutes of stepping off your ship.
I love the visuals, gives off old school gmod vibes mixed with a new style. Also apparently there is secret lore hidden on each planet which is cool.
I wish that I could spend more time with this game but my problem specifically is that me and all my friends primarily are on PlayStation so we dont find ourselves playing this often. I don't doubt I will probably play this again in the future as it is a fantastic multiplayer experience and I hope this game keeps its audience as it deserves all its praise.
2017
I was randomly talking about Cuphead with a couple of my friends and remembered that I never completed it so I decided to finally finish it for good. I got the game in late 2020 and played through everything before getting stuck on King Dice around mid 2021 and shelving it for a while. I tried a couple times to try and beat it but gave up until today when I finally managed to beat King Dice and the devil. So i figured I would log it as I technically beat it despite playing most of it years ago.
Cuphead is up there with some of the best Indie games of all time with its incredibly unique art style and creative boss fights. The main attraction is of course the boss fights who all feel really unique and challenging Challenging might be a bit of an understatement actually as this game is actually really hard at time with certain boss fights like King Dice, Grim Matchsticks and Beppi the Clown being some standouts in the difficulty area. Whether its due to the flurry of attacks or the sheer amount of stuff on screen, most of the bosses will slap you around the first few times you try. Despite all that, none of the bosses feel impossible as attack patterns can be learned with enough attempts and after death seeing the progress bar serves as a good motivator to get back in there and finish it off. There are two main types of fights, regular ones and plane fights. The plane fights are quite fun but serve as some of the most challenging fights due to the bullet hell type attacks you have to dodge. There are also 6 run and gun stages which are ok, im not a huge fan of them as they feel quite rushed.
Your attacks can be upgraded using coins obtained from the run and gun stages. These coins can by weapon types and charms to help you. Some are way better than others and you only really need to buy the ones that you are going to use as switching between them isn't really necessary. I personally used the Charge shot type and the Spread shot type alongside the smoke bomb charm as it is insanely OP.
I can't praise this game enough for its visuals and score. Cuphead takes heavy inspiration from the 1920's cartoon animation style called "Rubber Hose". Each stage has a hand draw backdrop that changes when the boss phases change. Each boss looks like something straight out of an old Disney cartoon, alongside Cuphead himself. Each stage is so satisfying to look at I sometimes found myself getting hit as I was too distracted looking at the cool details in the backdrops and boss designs. The score is also phenomenal, every track is a banger. The boss fights go so well with there chosen music its unbelievable. Studio MDHR knocked it out of the park with both visuals and music.
My only complaint about this game is on some bosses the RNG is a bit dodgy. Mostly with the amount of stuff on screen at once, sometimes there is no way to dodge without getting hit. I noticed it particularly while fighting the devil where I would be forced to one side to dodge an attack but have one of the purple demons come from that side and hit me before I can react. Might be a skill issue but I remember some bosses like Grim Matchsticks and Baroness Von BonBon being very RNG orientated and making them more difficult in turn.
Cuphead is one of my favourite Indie games of all time. Its one of the only "hard games" that I have ever been any good at so beating it finally feels like a bit accomplishment lol. I'm currently playing the DLC and will review that once its completed. 100% worth playing.
Cuphead is up there with some of the best Indie games of all time with its incredibly unique art style and creative boss fights. The main attraction is of course the boss fights who all feel really unique and challenging Challenging might be a bit of an understatement actually as this game is actually really hard at time with certain boss fights like King Dice, Grim Matchsticks and Beppi the Clown being some standouts in the difficulty area. Whether its due to the flurry of attacks or the sheer amount of stuff on screen, most of the bosses will slap you around the first few times you try. Despite all that, none of the bosses feel impossible as attack patterns can be learned with enough attempts and after death seeing the progress bar serves as a good motivator to get back in there and finish it off. There are two main types of fights, regular ones and plane fights. The plane fights are quite fun but serve as some of the most challenging fights due to the bullet hell type attacks you have to dodge. There are also 6 run and gun stages which are ok, im not a huge fan of them as they feel quite rushed.
Your attacks can be upgraded using coins obtained from the run and gun stages. These coins can by weapon types and charms to help you. Some are way better than others and you only really need to buy the ones that you are going to use as switching between them isn't really necessary. I personally used the Charge shot type and the Spread shot type alongside the smoke bomb charm as it is insanely OP.
I can't praise this game enough for its visuals and score. Cuphead takes heavy inspiration from the 1920's cartoon animation style called "Rubber Hose". Each stage has a hand draw backdrop that changes when the boss phases change. Each boss looks like something straight out of an old Disney cartoon, alongside Cuphead himself. Each stage is so satisfying to look at I sometimes found myself getting hit as I was too distracted looking at the cool details in the backdrops and boss designs. The score is also phenomenal, every track is a banger. The boss fights go so well with there chosen music its unbelievable. Studio MDHR knocked it out of the park with both visuals and music.
My only complaint about this game is on some bosses the RNG is a bit dodgy. Mostly with the amount of stuff on screen at once, sometimes there is no way to dodge without getting hit. I noticed it particularly while fighting the devil where I would be forced to one side to dodge an attack but have one of the purple demons come from that side and hit me before I can react. Might be a skill issue but I remember some bosses like Grim Matchsticks and Baroness Von BonBon being very RNG orientated and making them more difficult in turn.
Cuphead is one of my favourite Indie games of all time. Its one of the only "hard games" that I have ever been any good at so beating it finally feels like a bit accomplishment lol. I'm currently playing the DLC and will review that once its completed. 100% worth playing.
Heard a lot of fun things about this game and decided to give it a shot since it was free on game pass.
Very fun basic premise, creating battle like simulations with different groups of soldiers like Vikings, Romans and Greeks. A lot of fun to mess around with for a while but nothing to keep you playing for excessive amounts of time.
I like the addition of mods, it helps add to the amount of content available. Also its just awesome to set up massive clone wars battles with all the starwars mods.
Id recommend this if you are looking for a quick timewaster game to sink a bit of time into. Ill probably dip in and out of it if im bored but wont keep at it consistently. A lot of fun regardless.
Very fun basic premise, creating battle like simulations with different groups of soldiers like Vikings, Romans and Greeks. A lot of fun to mess around with for a while but nothing to keep you playing for excessive amounts of time.
I like the addition of mods, it helps add to the amount of content available. Also its just awesome to set up massive clone wars battles with all the starwars mods.
Id recommend this if you are looking for a quick timewaster game to sink a bit of time into. Ill probably dip in and out of it if im bored but wont keep at it consistently. A lot of fun regardless.
2006
This game took a lot of strength to get through as I nearly gave up on it twice throughout my playthrough. To put it in one sentence, this game has aged like milk.
The story is so bland and boring but that's not the main focus as each games story is really similar where Rico is tossed into a politically unstable country and has to kill a dictator. The characters are also really dull, with Rico never speaking outside of a cheesy one liner and the two other side characters are there only to tell Rico his mission. Pair this with eerie almost uncanny valley cutscenes with character models I can only describe as something you would see in a low budget 2000's animated movie.
The map is enormous, which I will commend the game on for its time being of that big a scale. There is also lots of side content which I never touched as it all looked exactly the same. This was clearly a game created to spend more time on than just completing the main story, which I did just over 5 hours, across like 2 days as I couldn't take much more of it after two hours.
Now onto the rest. Gameplay wise, there is nothing special to note. Instead of enemies being bullet sponges, Rico is a bullet sponge. Due to there being no form of a cover mechanic, Rico can take stupid amounts of damage, so much so that I spent around 3/4 of the game with around half health and never had any problems outside of 1 mission. Enemies will never hit you, the only way you can die is by blowing yourself up or getting hit with a rocket. The driving acts like the entire game is on ice and is really hard to control. Enemy vehicles rubberband onto your car so ridiculously quick that they are impossible to escape, meaning that every piece of downtime between missions I was being chased by helicopters and armed cars. Also at one point my entire loadout disappeared, dunno what happened there.
Two missions in particular nearly made me quit. The 1st time was the far cry 3 esq burn a field of drugs mission as it was so painstakingly long and had no efficient way to burn anything (also featured no dubstep). Plus my game crashed after I burned everything and I had to do it again which nearly made me quit. The worst of them all, the 19th mission, where there are infinitly spawning helicopters and jets, a ridiculously bad checkpoint and an almost impossible objective if you dont manage to get a helicopter. This mission took me like 15 attempts and I nearly just called it quits but pushed through just to say that I did.
A game that was no doubt groundbreaking at its time but has aged as well as warm milk. I'm gonna play the rest of the Just Cause series as I have only played the third game and wanted to try them all out. A bad start unfortunately
The story is so bland and boring but that's not the main focus as each games story is really similar where Rico is tossed into a politically unstable country and has to kill a dictator. The characters are also really dull, with Rico never speaking outside of a cheesy one liner and the two other side characters are there only to tell Rico his mission. Pair this with eerie almost uncanny valley cutscenes with character models I can only describe as something you would see in a low budget 2000's animated movie.
The map is enormous, which I will commend the game on for its time being of that big a scale. There is also lots of side content which I never touched as it all looked exactly the same. This was clearly a game created to spend more time on than just completing the main story, which I did just over 5 hours, across like 2 days as I couldn't take much more of it after two hours.
Now onto the rest. Gameplay wise, there is nothing special to note. Instead of enemies being bullet sponges, Rico is a bullet sponge. Due to there being no form of a cover mechanic, Rico can take stupid amounts of damage, so much so that I spent around 3/4 of the game with around half health and never had any problems outside of 1 mission. Enemies will never hit you, the only way you can die is by blowing yourself up or getting hit with a rocket. The driving acts like the entire game is on ice and is really hard to control. Enemy vehicles rubberband onto your car so ridiculously quick that they are impossible to escape, meaning that every piece of downtime between missions I was being chased by helicopters and armed cars. Also at one point my entire loadout disappeared, dunno what happened there.
Two missions in particular nearly made me quit. The 1st time was the far cry 3 esq burn a field of drugs mission as it was so painstakingly long and had no efficient way to burn anything (also featured no dubstep). Plus my game crashed after I burned everything and I had to do it again which nearly made me quit. The worst of them all, the 19th mission, where there are infinitly spawning helicopters and jets, a ridiculously bad checkpoint and an almost impossible objective if you dont manage to get a helicopter. This mission took me like 15 attempts and I nearly just called it quits but pushed through just to say that I did.
A game that was no doubt groundbreaking at its time but has aged as well as warm milk. I'm gonna play the rest of the Just Cause series as I have only played the third game and wanted to try them all out. A bad start unfortunately