FreshDandruff
4 reviews liked by FreshDandruff
Pandemonium!
1996
After a decade since seeing it first on the Nokia N-Gage of a friend, but never knowing the name, I found it again and finally got my hands on PANDEMONIUM!
A classic beautiful 2.5D platformer originally made for PS1.
Colorful, crazy, and hilarious, the title is brilliant for some jokes, and frustrating for others, like the camera.
And while it has very nice ideas, it's a pity the game doesn't shine in this version.
The game in its PC version is simply shameful, having no options in any sense, not even for the resolution which is the native one of PS1; 320x240...a VHS.
Maintaining the password system instead of implementing savegame was definitely a choice, but I guess from some perspective, it undoubtedly makes you immersed with the time it came out. Jokes and jests aside, it is obvious that there is not even a pseudo save that is actually a savestate, because the port was done by one person in 10 minutes likely with an open-source PS1 emulator.
It's really disappointing that there isn't even a straightforward way to rebind the controls on PC, so much so I learned it from a comment on this review!
As cheap as it might be both on Steam or the gray market, rather than recommending the purchase of the product to play it, I recommend it to own it and consequently emulating it, because ePSXe does a better job with stock settings than whatever they've done at Square Enix.
A classic beautiful 2.5D platformer originally made for PS1.
Colorful, crazy, and hilarious, the title is brilliant for some jokes, and frustrating for others, like the camera.
And while it has very nice ideas, it's a pity the game doesn't shine in this version.
The game in its PC version is simply shameful, having no options in any sense, not even for the resolution which is the native one of PS1; 320x240...a VHS.
Maintaining the password system instead of implementing savegame was definitely a choice, but I guess from some perspective, it undoubtedly makes you immersed with the time it came out. Jokes and jests aside, it is obvious that there is not even a pseudo save that is actually a savestate, because the port was done by one person in 10 minutes likely with an open-source PS1 emulator.
It's really disappointing that there isn't even a straightforward way to rebind the controls on PC, so much so I learned it from a comment on this review!
As cheap as it might be both on Steam or the gray market, rather than recommending the purchase of the product to play it, I recommend it to own it and consequently emulating it, because ePSXe does a better job with stock settings than whatever they've done at Square Enix.
Baldur's Gate 3
2020
Coming from Divinity 2, with some reservations about it, I could not wait to finally be able to gather my trusty friend and jump into this new adventure now that it was officially released.
We started the game excited about what was to come and it took us a total of two months to the clock to finish it. In our case, we decided to go with two custom characters and build relationships with the various origins characters in the game. We created our characters and thrust ourselves into the new campaign, both completely new to the world of Baldur's Gate, but not new to the work of Larian.
The game's writing is amazing, with every choice having the weight you'd expect if not more. The approach to the narrative, storytelling, and story progression is in your hands completely. From smaller things like specific races and backgrounds having extra options during certain dialogues giving more depth to your story, to annihilating an entire faction. Easily one of the best implementations of DnD to a game.
8h into the game, while exploring, we unlocked a way to reset the levels of our characters. Considering this was a title developed after Divinity 2, I went into it expecting there would be the possibility to change your character's appearance, but that wasn't the case. When the option wasn't available alongside the respec, especially as it has less actual impact on the game, I decided a quick search was mandatory as both me and my friend wanted to change a few things about our characters we were not happy with.
Although a way to change your looks has now been patched into the game, that was not the case more than two months ago and in an attempt at enjoying the many more hours we'd have on the title, we restarted from scratch, recreated our characters and quickly got back to where we were.
After that, it was smooth sailing. We kept exploring every crook and cranny and would never leave a region before making sure all loose ends were close and we had explored everything. The quantity and quality of content the game offers it's magical and calls for multiple playthroughs just to see how much love and attention has been put into it. We took our time - clearly - and made sure to play as meticulously as we would alone not letting the coop get in the way of attention to lore, books or dialogues. We had a wonderful time, really. Great game to play with the right person!
All dialogues have so much depth and have been motion acted! There is a moment in the late game, where one of the dialogues has such amazing voice acting and animation that it has forever engraved itself in my mind. That's how good it was. Another moment that comes to mind is a discovery we made during a mission. Something very unexpected, yet it was the truth and completely changed our objectives going forward, at least for our roleplay whereas for others it might have motivated them even further. This is the beauty of this game, everything you do and every approach is just as valid as the next one. This was not unique in these 160 magical hours. Throughout all of them, me and my friend kept being shocked by the level of detail, interaction, and ramifications of the story. There are so many other examples I could give.
But where there is good, there is bad. During the final Act we did encountered a few bumps. Still god-tier, but it is worth mentioning. Progression in particular felt sluggish, as if at every corner we would meet a wall that would make all our choices and plans crumble somewhere else as a consequence. It took us many hours, with a lot of different approaches to our progress to find the perfect balance for what to do first.
Regardless of our best attempts and careful approach, during our finale, we could not forsee this turn of events. We had to make a really hard choice to get the best outcome and find common ground with my friend, so I was already saddened by that. Right after that, my favorite origin character, my romance and companion through most of the run took a steep turn I didn't expect in their story. I was so confused by this end result considering the path we had both walked on was not the one they were now choosing, even slightly hinting at it being also my idea when it never was. I later learned shortly after seeing the finale that what I thought was an inconsequential choice made during a dialogue - one I would even say was quite neutral - was the dialogue that would permanently determine their story. This was prior to even learning and talking about the potential alternative new objective for this origin character. There is no other dialogue or check of any sort that can change that and, in my experience, nothing in the game made me understand things would have gone this way after I made this choice. Hell, it even sounded like it was still up for debate. 70h after I learned my price.
For the whole game, I have been preaching this, so: I know it's technically the result of my own choices, and since then I accepted the end result and found many ways to level with it when it comes to roleplay. That said, I stand my ground that having the choice to determine which path the character will follow, prior to knowing what are the options, and with a neutral response isn't well done, not when for everyone else it was quite clear. A simple dialogue after the events would have done it.
Add to insult injury, although I was the host, my friend during the whole finale was the only character visible besides the origins, only because he had the character that could defeat the final boss in his group. That was the case even for dialogues with my romance and companion. The coop never had any such issues until now, often having our characters at least in the background during dialogues.
The game is a solid top-down CRPG, and controls very similarly to Divinity 2. I wished for some of the prior games' limitations not to show up again. After all these years of early access and a new camera zoom that can go close to third-person perspective, I was disappointed in not having the choice to bind movement to WASD when that is the default for controller players. Especially in a game that, with all the dev's good intentions, still struggles with camera angles and environment objects at times. Yes, things become transparent when too close to the camera, but are still interactable making your character move in the wrong direction or teleport back to the area you just came from simply cause it's a big door and its hitbox is still in front of your mouse.
As a hoarder, something I also was hoping would have been improved is inventory management. There are plenty of bags in the game to order your items around, although you can't name them. When sorting, identical items will not merge into one stack, making entire lines of the same spell scroll unless you manually stack them, which I obviously did. A small icon next to books to let us know if we had read them would have also been a nice addition, especially with the large amount of literature available.
Other than that, the game plays perfectly fine and it's an extremely polished experience, with almost no gameplay limitations but your imagination.
Still, you know what they say: it's not the destination, but the journey that matters. Although I had wished for a better ending to my adventure, nothing can change our journey. What really matters is how excited, happy, and impatient I was to come home and play this game, and no amount of sour endings could erase that. I made a mark in this world and shared this crazy adventure with a friend, with highlights we'll bring back for likely the rest of our lives as already do with other titles, or until the next Larian game.
I find myself already thinking of what to do on my next run. No matter how hurt I may be from how a part of my story ended this time, it clearly can't keep me away from this game or lower it's magnificence, and that speaks volumes.
10/10.
We started the game excited about what was to come and it took us a total of two months to the clock to finish it. In our case, we decided to go with two custom characters and build relationships with the various origins characters in the game. We created our characters and thrust ourselves into the new campaign, both completely new to the world of Baldur's Gate, but not new to the work of Larian.
The game's writing is amazing, with every choice having the weight you'd expect if not more. The approach to the narrative, storytelling, and story progression is in your hands completely. From smaller things like specific races and backgrounds having extra options during certain dialogues giving more depth to your story, to annihilating an entire faction. Easily one of the best implementations of DnD to a game.
8h into the game, while exploring, we unlocked a way to reset the levels of our characters. Considering this was a title developed after Divinity 2, I went into it expecting there would be the possibility to change your character's appearance, but that wasn't the case. When the option wasn't available alongside the respec, especially as it has less actual impact on the game, I decided a quick search was mandatory as both me and my friend wanted to change a few things about our characters we were not happy with.
Although a way to change your looks has now been patched into the game, that was not the case more than two months ago and in an attempt at enjoying the many more hours we'd have on the title, we restarted from scratch, recreated our characters and quickly got back to where we were.
After that, it was smooth sailing. We kept exploring every crook and cranny and would never leave a region before making sure all loose ends were close and we had explored everything. The quantity and quality of content the game offers it's magical and calls for multiple playthroughs just to see how much love and attention has been put into it. We took our time - clearly - and made sure to play as meticulously as we would alone not letting the coop get in the way of attention to lore, books or dialogues. We had a wonderful time, really. Great game to play with the right person!
All dialogues have so much depth and have been motion acted! There is a moment in the late game, where one of the dialogues has such amazing voice acting and animation that it has forever engraved itself in my mind. That's how good it was. Another moment that comes to mind is a discovery we made during a mission. Something very unexpected, yet it was the truth and completely changed our objectives going forward, at least for our roleplay whereas for others it might have motivated them even further. This is the beauty of this game, everything you do and every approach is just as valid as the next one. This was not unique in these 160 magical hours. Throughout all of them, me and my friend kept being shocked by the level of detail, interaction, and ramifications of the story. There are so many other examples I could give.
But where there is good, there is bad. During the final Act we did encountered a few bumps. Still god-tier, but it is worth mentioning. Progression in particular felt sluggish, as if at every corner we would meet a wall that would make all our choices and plans crumble somewhere else as a consequence. It took us many hours, with a lot of different approaches to our progress to find the perfect balance for what to do first.
Regardless of our best attempts and careful approach, during our finale, we could not forsee this turn of events. We had to make a really hard choice to get the best outcome and find common ground with my friend, so I was already saddened by that. Right after that, my favorite origin character, my romance and companion through most of the run took a steep turn I didn't expect in their story. I was so confused by this end result considering the path we had both walked on was not the one they were now choosing, even slightly hinting at it being also my idea when it never was. I later learned shortly after seeing the finale that what I thought was an inconsequential choice made during a dialogue - one I would even say was quite neutral - was the dialogue that would permanently determine their story. This was prior to even learning and talking about the potential alternative new objective for this origin character. There is no other dialogue or check of any sort that can change that and, in my experience, nothing in the game made me understand things would have gone this way after I made this choice. Hell, it even sounded like it was still up for debate. 70h after I learned my price.
For the whole game, I have been preaching this, so: I know it's technically the result of my own choices, and since then I accepted the end result and found many ways to level with it when it comes to roleplay. That said, I stand my ground that having the choice to determine which path the character will follow, prior to knowing what are the options, and with a neutral response isn't well done, not when for everyone else it was quite clear. A simple dialogue after the events would have done it.
Add to insult injury, although I was the host, my friend during the whole finale was the only character visible besides the origins, only because he had the character that could defeat the final boss in his group. That was the case even for dialogues with my romance and companion. The coop never had any such issues until now, often having our characters at least in the background during dialogues.
The game is a solid top-down CRPG, and controls very similarly to Divinity 2. I wished for some of the prior games' limitations not to show up again. After all these years of early access and a new camera zoom that can go close to third-person perspective, I was disappointed in not having the choice to bind movement to WASD when that is the default for controller players. Especially in a game that, with all the dev's good intentions, still struggles with camera angles and environment objects at times. Yes, things become transparent when too close to the camera, but are still interactable making your character move in the wrong direction or teleport back to the area you just came from simply cause it's a big door and its hitbox is still in front of your mouse.
As a hoarder, something I also was hoping would have been improved is inventory management. There are plenty of bags in the game to order your items around, although you can't name them. When sorting, identical items will not merge into one stack, making entire lines of the same spell scroll unless you manually stack them, which I obviously did. A small icon next to books to let us know if we had read them would have also been a nice addition, especially with the large amount of literature available.
Other than that, the game plays perfectly fine and it's an extremely polished experience, with almost no gameplay limitations but your imagination.
Still, you know what they say: it's not the destination, but the journey that matters. Although I had wished for a better ending to my adventure, nothing can change our journey. What really matters is how excited, happy, and impatient I was to come home and play this game, and no amount of sour endings could erase that. I made a mark in this world and shared this crazy adventure with a friend, with highlights we'll bring back for likely the rest of our lives as already do with other titles, or until the next Larian game.
I find myself already thinking of what to do on my next run. No matter how hurt I may be from how a part of my story ended this time, it clearly can't keep me away from this game or lower it's magnificence, and that speaks volumes.
10/10.
I was there on day one, at 4 am my time when Sekiro got released. I still remember vividly being awake because I was extra nervous for a job interview the same morning at 9 am. Could not sleep, picked up my phone and a friend told me it was available. The wait for the unpacking of the preload was torture!
I also remember losing my first 5h of playtime to my mother opening yet again the laundry machine and oven, on top of my PC, the fridges, etc.; a killer load for our electrical system. My UPS had recently died, my PC went off during a save and it corrupted. Don't get me wrong, my 5h were less than 1 when knowing where to go and what to do, but it still scorched me so bad I keep setting hourly backups of all the active games I play! 😂
For reasons I can't even understand, I'm five years late for this, but it's time I get around to reviewing Sekiro.
And what better time than now, right after playing through it again? Shoutout to Chad of Astora for the video about the intricacy of the maps in From Software's titles, as that reminded me how wonderful Sekiro is.
Ikuzo, SEKIRO!
The main character, Wolf, is a servant to Kuro, the Divine Heir, who is blessed with the ability to grant immortality to those who serve him. An ability that shapes the world of Ashina into obsession, considering it's so rare. Said blessing, is the lore explanation for why we as the main character can die and resurrect at least once during a fight, but also at the familiar idol checkpoints in the game when failing, but not without a cost.
Being a shinobi, Sekiro can't win a strength contest but excels in ability and agility. Sekiro's mobility is one of the best parts of the game. The grappling hook feels amazing, and the wall jump, plus grab ledge ability, really gives complete freedom of movement.
Gravity is not deadly anymore, and fall damage is a lot more lenient and can be canceled by anchoring where possible with the grapple, regardless of height.
The world's interconnectivity, heavily inspired by Dark Souls 1, is second only to the aforementioned, and Elden Ring. It's possible to explore and do so much before even completing the first objective after the prologue.
The stealth mechanics and the ability to assassinate from behind walls, above, or behind enemies are so fun and well executed! The game is better at assassin's-creeding than any of the last games of the series.
Combined with all the shinobi tools you're given, unlockable skills, and shinobi arts, there is a good amount of customization and build-making available while keeping all the options viable.
Lastly, the collaboration with Activision has given us a great introduction and tutorial.
Stagnant Flaws
Although set in feudal Japan, Sekiro is surprisingly varied when it comes to its environment and design, with plenty of cultural nuances. It's sad that for a foreigner many remain obscure because of a lack of cultural understanding.
Sekiro is extremely transparent with its story and is probably their most story-driven title to date with plenty of cutscenes and dialogues. It leaves little to speculate, and descriptions take the place of instructions for usage, more than pieces of a puzzle.
Compared to Western tropes, it seems to me some subjects are dearer to the Japanese narrative, and are often included in many mediums. For example, the cyclicity of a world/universe can be seen in Dark Souls, Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Dragon's Dogma, Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, and Evangelion which I can think of. Much like the Moonlight being present in almost all From Software titles in one way or the other, some subjects and mechanics are bound to be improved and reintroduced in new ways.
The subject Sekiro focuses on is stagnancy, accompanied by a familiar mechanic that had not been seen since Demon Souls, abeit less punishing.
I mentioned all this because, for the longest time, the Dark Souls community was stuck in the misunderstanding - caused by a flawed translation - that the flow of time for those games was "convoluted" when the actual translation was "stagnant".
Stagnancy in Sekiro is so excruciatingly explained that in the process, it gives a better idea of what that looks like in Dark Souls.
In Sekiro, my favorite example that sent me into a rabbit hole of research is the character "源” used for the name of an area. Although translated correctly, it also translates to Minamoto, the most powerful and important clan out of four great clans that dominated Japanese politics during the Heian, Kamakura, Muromachi, and Edo periods, who in the Genpei Wars crushed the Taira clan, which the Ashinas were related to.
It's a small history nuance, and not as major as the translation flaw in Dark Souls hindering the understanding of the world, but sad nonetheless as a history buff, when the main setting of the game is Japan, and we could have been exposed to more things like this.
Mastery is victory, hesitation is defeat.
I consider myself a From Software veteran, but there is one boss, my favorite actually, I would say I know like the back of my hand. I can easily tell exactly what it'll do next, and take perfect spacing from its attacks.
I don't say this to boast myself, but to depict a picture of what killing any and all bosses in Sekiro is like. Mistakes are heavily punished, while ability is greatly rewarded.
Learning a fight and its pattern is, for lack of a better example, like learning a track on a rhythm game. It's not just about knowing the song, but knowing how to execute it to a level that will allow you to complete it.
When you learn how a boss moves, the objective shifts from using their windows to damage them, to using what they do against them.
Deflecting attacks will slowly chip away at their posture, giving you the opportunity, if well executed and with enough aggressivity to perform a death blow on a boss with almost all its vitality intact. At the same time, taking some of the vitality down will make their posture recover slower during breaks.
Not all attacks can be deflected, some must be avoided and others must be countered, and it's this intricate dance you do with each enemy that is the magic of Sekiro.
This rhythm, the bosses' ability to dodge or tank after consecutive hits, and the moveset of your attacks being a 4-hit combo with a long recovery on the last move, make the game a souls-lite, although it misses many key components of the genre.
The moveset combo idea worked well in Bloodborne, fast-paced and with low stamina usage, and made its way into Sekiro. The new posture system and rhythm of the boss attacks solve both the attack and roll spam Dark Souls 3 suffered from. All this then made its way into Elden Ring, making it the peak of their work yet.
I never lost a fight without understanding where my mistake was and learning from it, and I was never victorious without feeling like I could do it again.
Sekiro's punishing yet rewarding gameplay is what made me celebrate audibly for defeating a boss I had already defeated in the past, just because I didn't learn it so well at the time, but mastered it now.
Memories of Extraordinary [...]
After winning GOTY - might I remind everyone against Control, Death Stranding, and Resident Evil 2 Remake - almost a year after, a patch was released that added both a boss replay mechanic and three boss rush modes that award different outfits for Sekiro.
This is something I always felt was missing, and I'm glad made its way into it, although breaking a LOT of mod compatibility in the process. This also added some asynchronous online functionalities, like player ghosts and messages.
Although seemingly more restrictive at a glance, Sekiro offers some of the best visuals, gameplay, and movement in gaming.
It all builds up to the best reward for skill and ability of any of the From Software titles, and it makes me hope the true ending is nothing but a nudge to a sequel that would be more than welcome.
10/10
I also remember losing my first 5h of playtime to my mother opening yet again the laundry machine and oven, on top of my PC, the fridges, etc.; a killer load for our electrical system. My UPS had recently died, my PC went off during a save and it corrupted. Don't get me wrong, my 5h were less than 1 when knowing where to go and what to do, but it still scorched me so bad I keep setting hourly backups of all the active games I play! 😂
For reasons I can't even understand, I'm five years late for this, but it's time I get around to reviewing Sekiro.
And what better time than now, right after playing through it again? Shoutout to Chad of Astora for the video about the intricacy of the maps in From Software's titles, as that reminded me how wonderful Sekiro is.
Ikuzo, SEKIRO!
The main character, Wolf, is a servant to Kuro, the Divine Heir, who is blessed with the ability to grant immortality to those who serve him. An ability that shapes the world of Ashina into obsession, considering it's so rare. Said blessing, is the lore explanation for why we as the main character can die and resurrect at least once during a fight, but also at the familiar idol checkpoints in the game when failing, but not without a cost.
Being a shinobi, Sekiro can't win a strength contest but excels in ability and agility. Sekiro's mobility is one of the best parts of the game. The grappling hook feels amazing, and the wall jump, plus grab ledge ability, really gives complete freedom of movement.
Gravity is not deadly anymore, and fall damage is a lot more lenient and can be canceled by anchoring where possible with the grapple, regardless of height.
The world's interconnectivity, heavily inspired by Dark Souls 1, is second only to the aforementioned, and Elden Ring. It's possible to explore and do so much before even completing the first objective after the prologue.
The stealth mechanics and the ability to assassinate from behind walls, above, or behind enemies are so fun and well executed! The game is better at assassin's-creeding than any of the last games of the series.
Combined with all the shinobi tools you're given, unlockable skills, and shinobi arts, there is a good amount of customization and build-making available while keeping all the options viable.
Lastly, the collaboration with Activision has given us a great introduction and tutorial.
Stagnant Flaws
Although set in feudal Japan, Sekiro is surprisingly varied when it comes to its environment and design, with plenty of cultural nuances. It's sad that for a foreigner many remain obscure because of a lack of cultural understanding.
Sekiro is extremely transparent with its story and is probably their most story-driven title to date with plenty of cutscenes and dialogues. It leaves little to speculate, and descriptions take the place of instructions for usage, more than pieces of a puzzle.
Compared to Western tropes, it seems to me some subjects are dearer to the Japanese narrative, and are often included in many mediums. For example, the cyclicity of a world/universe can be seen in Dark Souls, Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Dragon's Dogma, Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, and Evangelion which I can think of. Much like the Moonlight being present in almost all From Software titles in one way or the other, some subjects and mechanics are bound to be improved and reintroduced in new ways.
The subject Sekiro focuses on is stagnancy, accompanied by a familiar mechanic that had not been seen since Demon Souls, abeit less punishing.
I mentioned all this because, for the longest time, the Dark Souls community was stuck in the misunderstanding - caused by a flawed translation - that the flow of time for those games was "convoluted" when the actual translation was "stagnant".
Stagnancy in Sekiro is so excruciatingly explained that in the process, it gives a better idea of what that looks like in Dark Souls.
In Sekiro, my favorite example that sent me into a rabbit hole of research is the character "源” used for the name of an area. Although translated correctly, it also translates to Minamoto, the most powerful and important clan out of four great clans that dominated Japanese politics during the Heian, Kamakura, Muromachi, and Edo periods, who in the Genpei Wars crushed the Taira clan, which the Ashinas were related to.
It's a small history nuance, and not as major as the translation flaw in Dark Souls hindering the understanding of the world, but sad nonetheless as a history buff, when the main setting of the game is Japan, and we could have been exposed to more things like this.
Mastery is victory, hesitation is defeat.
I consider myself a From Software veteran, but there is one boss, my favorite actually, I would say I know like the back of my hand. I can easily tell exactly what it'll do next, and take perfect spacing from its attacks.
I don't say this to boast myself, but to depict a picture of what killing any and all bosses in Sekiro is like. Mistakes are heavily punished, while ability is greatly rewarded.
Learning a fight and its pattern is, for lack of a better example, like learning a track on a rhythm game. It's not just about knowing the song, but knowing how to execute it to a level that will allow you to complete it.
When you learn how a boss moves, the objective shifts from using their windows to damage them, to using what they do against them.
Deflecting attacks will slowly chip away at their posture, giving you the opportunity, if well executed and with enough aggressivity to perform a death blow on a boss with almost all its vitality intact. At the same time, taking some of the vitality down will make their posture recover slower during breaks.
Not all attacks can be deflected, some must be avoided and others must be countered, and it's this intricate dance you do with each enemy that is the magic of Sekiro.
This rhythm, the bosses' ability to dodge or tank after consecutive hits, and the moveset of your attacks being a 4-hit combo with a long recovery on the last move, make the game a souls-lite, although it misses many key components of the genre.
The moveset combo idea worked well in Bloodborne, fast-paced and with low stamina usage, and made its way into Sekiro. The new posture system and rhythm of the boss attacks solve both the attack and roll spam Dark Souls 3 suffered from. All this then made its way into Elden Ring, making it the peak of their work yet.
I never lost a fight without understanding where my mistake was and learning from it, and I was never victorious without feeling like I could do it again.
Sekiro's punishing yet rewarding gameplay is what made me celebrate audibly for defeating a boss I had already defeated in the past, just because I didn't learn it so well at the time, but mastered it now.
Memories of Extraordinary [...]
After winning GOTY - might I remind everyone against Control, Death Stranding, and Resident Evil 2 Remake - almost a year after, a patch was released that added both a boss replay mechanic and three boss rush modes that award different outfits for Sekiro.
This is something I always felt was missing, and I'm glad made its way into it, although breaking a LOT of mod compatibility in the process. This also added some asynchronous online functionalities, like player ghosts and messages.
Although seemingly more restrictive at a glance, Sekiro offers some of the best visuals, gameplay, and movement in gaming.
It all builds up to the best reward for skill and ability of any of the From Software titles, and it makes me hope the true ending is nothing but a nudge to a sequel that would be more than welcome.
10/10
Dragon's Dogma II
2024
A series that I always wished to get into, after my initial 25h playthrough, the last time I tried to play DD1 was right after a date was announced for DD2, and when I inevitably dropped the prequel again, needless to say, I was not holding my breath for the sequel.
Still, I came across the advertising on socials and could see the huge hype the community had for it, and when the Character Creator Demo was released, I obviously had to try and make my beloved characters.
Regardless of my history with the series, this sparked my interest, but what really put the nail in the coffin was the gameranx Before You Buy video, where he compared exploring in DD2 to Elden Ring.
The Dogma
The story revolves around the main character, the Arisen, chosen directly by the Dragon who steals its heart binding the two together.
The Arisen has then the objective to become inhumanly powerful to challenge the Dragon, win its heart back, and save the world, with the help of human-looking immortal otherworldly beings known as pawns, that respond exclusively to the Arisen.
As long as the dragon lives, the Arisen cannot die.
The main pawn of the Arisen can be created freely, while the other two can be hired to have a group of four. The Arisen is not a one-man army and requires the support of a well-made team of pawns to succeed.
In the setting of DD2, Arisens are now by default the king of the city of Venworth, yet our journey begins as slaves, after having lost our memory.
That being said, the story of the game is not the primary focus and has low roleplayability when it comes to choice-making. The subplots especially in the second half, leave a lot to desire. The "bigger picture" of the world does the heavy lifting, being the more interesting part.
A world worth exploring
What DD2 does amazingly, is feel like a breathing world with a plethora of NPCs that can give quests, often responding to our actions.
The Vermundian Forest and the Batthali Desert are the 2 biomes available with cities and occasional new structures or areas in some specific parts of the map.
Besides fighting, questing, and the 240 collectibles around the map, caves/dungeons are one of the few activities available in the open world. These can be as small as a few rooms, to medium-sized, but usually share the same style and design.
The enemies' variety, although fun to fight against, is almost identical to DD1, making it blatant that, ignoring re-skinned variants, there are roughly 20 enemy types in total, including bosses. This lack of variety is extended to loot, with some chests rewarding equipment, but many offering consumables.
All this is somewhat aggravated by the constant barrage of enemies the player has to fight, to the point of making one of the alternatives to foot travel, hard to use.
The first time I took one of the carts that go by the main roads I wanted to sit and enjoy the whole trip, instead of taking a nap. We were attacked 5 times back to back and the cart was destroyed for taking too much damage.
Moreover, these carts although not supposed to travel by night in the lore, some travels are so long that if awoken, it'll be night. A simple fix for an immersion-breaking mistake.
Like in the aforementioned example, the beautiful and dynamic world of DD2 does not communicate to the player its lore with its design, enemy placement, or loot. There is often no special reason behind why a certain group of enemies is there, or why that greatsword was in that cave, instead, the world is simply where everything happens.
One of the design points that is both controversial and well-known in the series, is that fast travel is not easily accessible, by design. The creator believes that fast travel is a crutch for a bad world design and that it's a reflection of a boring world.
I could not disagree more.
While yes, fast travel can be a crutch to a less interesting world design, providing that commodity does not make the world less interesting by default.
Forcing the player to walk everywhere and constantly fight enemies didn't incentivize me to explore every corner, just like Elden Ring's fast travel did not deter me from it.
Where in Elden Ring I found myself going from A to B, having as the incentive the much more varied world, loot, enemies, etc. in between, in DD2, it's how dynamic the experience of going toward B that motivated me, because what happens during the travel often counts more than the destination.
Interactivity beast
This game shines in its combat system and the interactivity that it offers. Vocations, or classes, can be changed on a whim at no cost and completely change the fighting approach complimented by amazing animations.
Vocations have their own weapon, with a starting moveset just as complex as any From Software game. These level up only when using them, and unlock both core abilities, active abilities - basically 4 additional weapon skills, and passive abilities - that can be used on any vocation.
I started the game as a fighter using a sword and shield and later moved to the warrior with a two-handed greatsword. By the time I unlocked the magic warrior with a twin spear, my mind was set to only level up the vocations that I was interested in. When I noticed that my main pawn as an archer had unlocked a passive to deal more damage to weak points, I changed my mind and decided to level all of them.
One of the core abilities of a fighter is to absorb fall damage by landing on the shield. Right after changing back to this vocation a griffin attacked near the town's exit, and during the fight tried to fly away while I was on its back. I proceeded to attack it until we both fell from the sky, but the griffin being bigger fell faster, so with my death impending, I remembered I could land on my shield to hopefully dampen my fall, which was funnily right on its head, dealing a lot of damage.
Another highlight was how at some point I was exploring a part of the map and noticed that where I wanted to go was inaccessible to me because of a high cliff. From the near high ground, I then noticed a cyclop was sleeping not too far from the edge of the cliff. Since I was playing archer, I hit it at a distance to lure it closer, and once weakened it, pushed it against the wall of the cliff, climbed on its back, and used its height as a way to reach the top of this cliff.
All these interactions happened not because they were scripted but simply because different systems in the game worked together. If you think you can do it, you likely can, and that's the real magic of this game.
Micro optimization
A lot of rightful noise was made at the game's release because of microtransactions and PC performances, and don't get me wrong, I denounce both.
Not to be devil's advocate, but when it comes to microtransactions, while it's disgusting they included them, it is of the lesser ugly of sorts, with items that are easily accessible and available in-game. Even rift crystals used to hire pawns are readily available, and useless since hiring current-level pawns is free.
Just like for other recent Capcom releases, it's mostly a scam to less savvy players.
Stunning as it might be, the PC port runs poorly and even with my hardware, I had to fall back on DLSS Frame Generation to have a stable frame time inside the city and avoid VRR flicker. The game's graphic options do little to nothing for performance gains, with a major visual impact.
"2"
For a sequel, the title builds on the already solid gameplay base of DD1 and adds some, resulting in a magical gaming experience that I won't forget and motivates me to play the prequel and to keep playing. Although flawed, the game stands as a unique experience; one that I strongly suggest.
9.8/10
Still, I came across the advertising on socials and could see the huge hype the community had for it, and when the Character Creator Demo was released, I obviously had to try and make my beloved characters.
Regardless of my history with the series, this sparked my interest, but what really put the nail in the coffin was the gameranx Before You Buy video, where he compared exploring in DD2 to Elden Ring.
The Dogma
The story revolves around the main character, the Arisen, chosen directly by the Dragon who steals its heart binding the two together.
The Arisen has then the objective to become inhumanly powerful to challenge the Dragon, win its heart back, and save the world, with the help of human-looking immortal otherworldly beings known as pawns, that respond exclusively to the Arisen.
As long as the dragon lives, the Arisen cannot die.
The main pawn of the Arisen can be created freely, while the other two can be hired to have a group of four. The Arisen is not a one-man army and requires the support of a well-made team of pawns to succeed.
In the setting of DD2, Arisens are now by default the king of the city of Venworth, yet our journey begins as slaves, after having lost our memory.
That being said, the story of the game is not the primary focus and has low roleplayability when it comes to choice-making. The subplots especially in the second half, leave a lot to desire. The "bigger picture" of the world does the heavy lifting, being the more interesting part.
A world worth exploring
What DD2 does amazingly, is feel like a breathing world with a plethora of NPCs that can give quests, often responding to our actions.
The Vermundian Forest and the Batthali Desert are the 2 biomes available with cities and occasional new structures or areas in some specific parts of the map.
Besides fighting, questing, and the 240 collectibles around the map, caves/dungeons are one of the few activities available in the open world. These can be as small as a few rooms, to medium-sized, but usually share the same style and design.
The enemies' variety, although fun to fight against, is almost identical to DD1, making it blatant that, ignoring re-skinned variants, there are roughly 20 enemy types in total, including bosses. This lack of variety is extended to loot, with some chests rewarding equipment, but many offering consumables.
All this is somewhat aggravated by the constant barrage of enemies the player has to fight, to the point of making one of the alternatives to foot travel, hard to use.
The first time I took one of the carts that go by the main roads I wanted to sit and enjoy the whole trip, instead of taking a nap. We were attacked 5 times back to back and the cart was destroyed for taking too much damage.
Moreover, these carts although not supposed to travel by night in the lore, some travels are so long that if awoken, it'll be night. A simple fix for an immersion-breaking mistake.
Like in the aforementioned example, the beautiful and dynamic world of DD2 does not communicate to the player its lore with its design, enemy placement, or loot. There is often no special reason behind why a certain group of enemies is there, or why that greatsword was in that cave, instead, the world is simply where everything happens.
One of the design points that is both controversial and well-known in the series, is that fast travel is not easily accessible, by design. The creator believes that fast travel is a crutch for a bad world design and that it's a reflection of a boring world.
I could not disagree more.
While yes, fast travel can be a crutch to a less interesting world design, providing that commodity does not make the world less interesting by default.
Forcing the player to walk everywhere and constantly fight enemies didn't incentivize me to explore every corner, just like Elden Ring's fast travel did not deter me from it.
Where in Elden Ring I found myself going from A to B, having as the incentive the much more varied world, loot, enemies, etc. in between, in DD2, it's how dynamic the experience of going toward B that motivated me, because what happens during the travel often counts more than the destination.
Interactivity beast
This game shines in its combat system and the interactivity that it offers. Vocations, or classes, can be changed on a whim at no cost and completely change the fighting approach complimented by amazing animations.
Vocations have their own weapon, with a starting moveset just as complex as any From Software game. These level up only when using them, and unlock both core abilities, active abilities - basically 4 additional weapon skills, and passive abilities - that can be used on any vocation.
I started the game as a fighter using a sword and shield and later moved to the warrior with a two-handed greatsword. By the time I unlocked the magic warrior with a twin spear, my mind was set to only level up the vocations that I was interested in. When I noticed that my main pawn as an archer had unlocked a passive to deal more damage to weak points, I changed my mind and decided to level all of them.
One of the core abilities of a fighter is to absorb fall damage by landing on the shield. Right after changing back to this vocation a griffin attacked near the town's exit, and during the fight tried to fly away while I was on its back. I proceeded to attack it until we both fell from the sky, but the griffin being bigger fell faster, so with my death impending, I remembered I could land on my shield to hopefully dampen my fall, which was funnily right on its head, dealing a lot of damage.
Another highlight was how at some point I was exploring a part of the map and noticed that where I wanted to go was inaccessible to me because of a high cliff. From the near high ground, I then noticed a cyclop was sleeping not too far from the edge of the cliff. Since I was playing archer, I hit it at a distance to lure it closer, and once weakened it, pushed it against the wall of the cliff, climbed on its back, and used its height as a way to reach the top of this cliff.
All these interactions happened not because they were scripted but simply because different systems in the game worked together. If you think you can do it, you likely can, and that's the real magic of this game.
Micro optimization
A lot of rightful noise was made at the game's release because of microtransactions and PC performances, and don't get me wrong, I denounce both.
Not to be devil's advocate, but when it comes to microtransactions, while it's disgusting they included them, it is of the lesser ugly of sorts, with items that are easily accessible and available in-game. Even rift crystals used to hire pawns are readily available, and useless since hiring current-level pawns is free.
Just like for other recent Capcom releases, it's mostly a scam to less savvy players.
Stunning as it might be, the PC port runs poorly and even with my hardware, I had to fall back on DLSS Frame Generation to have a stable frame time inside the city and avoid VRR flicker. The game's graphic options do little to nothing for performance gains, with a major visual impact.
"2"
For a sequel, the title builds on the already solid gameplay base of DD1 and adds some, resulting in a magical gaming experience that I won't forget and motivates me to play the prequel and to keep playing. Although flawed, the game stands as a unique experience; one that I strongly suggest.
9.8/10