Griffinin
You can’t play The Price of Freedom out of nowhere and expect me not to cry
The quintessential adventure.
A pure encapsulation of a different time, this game has an indescribable ability to make you feel like nothing else in the world matters.
A pure encapsulation of a different time, this game has an indescribable ability to make you feel like nothing else in the world matters.
2010
Truly a devastating realization when you think you’ve 100%ed the game and then you get to the secret lab
2023
They solved racism
2023
This is what Miyamoto truly envisioned the advancement of the game industry would eventually lead to.
2008
Only once you understand everything do you truly realize you understand nothing
2023
Not very scary, but very good regardless
It really excels in atmosphere and lorebuilding, the best parts of the game are putting little pieces of story together through the logs you get and slowly crafting an understanding of just what exactly happened
In terms of direct story it’s alright, perfectly serviceable for most of the runtime, although there’s a really dumb twist near the end of chapter 11, but it’s made up for by a much better twist in chapter 12.
The ending was almost really good, I wish the game just sat on Isaac who’s processing everything that just happened, it feels very impactful until the lame meaningless jumpscare it pulls. Wish it just cut to credits like 3 seconds earlier.
Overall a good time, feels kind of basic in terms of horror storytelling, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Again, best part is when the game gives you the puzzle pieces and respects your intelligence enough to put them together.
It really excels in atmosphere and lorebuilding, the best parts of the game are putting little pieces of story together through the logs you get and slowly crafting an understanding of just what exactly happened
In terms of direct story it’s alright, perfectly serviceable for most of the runtime, although there’s a really dumb twist near the end of chapter 11, but it’s made up for by a much better twist in chapter 12.
The ending was almost really good, I wish the game just sat on Isaac who’s processing everything that just happened, it feels very impactful until the lame meaningless jumpscare it pulls. Wish it just cut to credits like 3 seconds earlier.
Overall a good time, feels kind of basic in terms of horror storytelling, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Again, best part is when the game gives you the puzzle pieces and respects your intelligence enough to put them together.
2001
Unintentionally very funny
The noir presentation of this game is fun, but there is not music at all 90% of the time. There are some creative moments here and there, especially later in the game, but most of the core gameplay loop is just somewhat unsatisfying. Most of it’s faults are due to its age, and you can’t blame it for that, but it doesn’t make the gameplay any better.
The noir presentation of this game is fun, but there is not music at all 90% of the time. There are some creative moments here and there, especially later in the game, but most of the core gameplay loop is just somewhat unsatisfying. Most of it’s faults are due to its age, and you can’t blame it for that, but it doesn’t make the gameplay any better.
Marina is so hot
The World Ends With You is completely ingrained in its identity as a DS game, and uses the fact it’s on the DS to go wild with gameplay and concepts, while also providing a great character-driven story.
The gameplay involves using the touch screen and mowing down enemies with slashes, energy blasts, lightning, and tons more, and is an incredibly satisfying system. The dual screens are used to tie the connection between you and your partner, which is difficult to pay attention to both, but reinforces the shared link integral to the game’s themes, and it’s tough to pull off controlling two characters simultaneously well, and the fact that the game does it and does it THIS good is staggering.
TWEWY’s most obvious element is its bombastic style, featuring a sick-ass soundtrack and street art inspired characters and art direction. The presentation of the game is phenomenal, and pairs surprisingly well with the pixel art aesthetic of the DS. It’s pure eye candy from start to finish, especially the delightful animated cutscenes.
The themes and characters in the story are excellent. Despite feeling somewhat flat at first, the characters experience satisfying development in ways that make you grow to like these characters. Neku’s arc in particular is where this shines the most, it’s an incredibly cathartic journey seeing him learn to open up to people. The story is also great, but suffers from pretty poor pacing at times. There are wonderful scenes of character progression and story development interspersed with scenes where you’re helping a guy with his ramen shop for example, and while I see what they were going for, it does feel like meandering a lot of the time. The game suffers the most in week 2, when these arbitrary tasks are at the worst, and the story feels the most disconnected out of the three.
While it’s not as rewarding in the moment, the story just makes itself retroactively better with each scene, explaining story bits or characters that are vague. There are a lot of mystery elements at play, and some are good, while others are iffy. One thing I wish was elaborated more earlier in the game is character motivations, a lot of characters appear frequently for a long while before their motivations are actually explained, and while they do make sense once they’re explained, they feel somewhat uninteresting until then. A lot of the story is surrounded in a vague feeling of “I’m not really sure what’s going on”, and it persists until the games ending, which is the only part for the game I feel HEAVILY needed some more explanation. Although that ending and Neku’s monologue are both easily the best part of the game.
While it falters in the middle a bit, TWEWY has a very strong beginning and end, and leaves a positive lasting impression, especially with its ending. Despite more minor problems I have (boring shop systems, occasional over-repetition, taboo noise) it really shines in its incredibly satisfying gameplay, unique style, engaging story, and heartfelt emotional beats. This game might not click with you, it’s definitely not for everyone, but it’s definitely an experience worth trying out.
The gameplay involves using the touch screen and mowing down enemies with slashes, energy blasts, lightning, and tons more, and is an incredibly satisfying system. The dual screens are used to tie the connection between you and your partner, which is difficult to pay attention to both, but reinforces the shared link integral to the game’s themes, and it’s tough to pull off controlling two characters simultaneously well, and the fact that the game does it and does it THIS good is staggering.
TWEWY’s most obvious element is its bombastic style, featuring a sick-ass soundtrack and street art inspired characters and art direction. The presentation of the game is phenomenal, and pairs surprisingly well with the pixel art aesthetic of the DS. It’s pure eye candy from start to finish, especially the delightful animated cutscenes.
The themes and characters in the story are excellent. Despite feeling somewhat flat at first, the characters experience satisfying development in ways that make you grow to like these characters. Neku’s arc in particular is where this shines the most, it’s an incredibly cathartic journey seeing him learn to open up to people. The story is also great, but suffers from pretty poor pacing at times. There are wonderful scenes of character progression and story development interspersed with scenes where you’re helping a guy with his ramen shop for example, and while I see what they were going for, it does feel like meandering a lot of the time. The game suffers the most in week 2, when these arbitrary tasks are at the worst, and the story feels the most disconnected out of the three.
While it’s not as rewarding in the moment, the story just makes itself retroactively better with each scene, explaining story bits or characters that are vague. There are a lot of mystery elements at play, and some are good, while others are iffy. One thing I wish was elaborated more earlier in the game is character motivations, a lot of characters appear frequently for a long while before their motivations are actually explained, and while they do make sense once they’re explained, they feel somewhat uninteresting until then. A lot of the story is surrounded in a vague feeling of “I’m not really sure what’s going on”, and it persists until the games ending, which is the only part for the game I feel HEAVILY needed some more explanation. Although that ending and Neku’s monologue are both easily the best part of the game.
While it falters in the middle a bit, TWEWY has a very strong beginning and end, and leaves a positive lasting impression, especially with its ending. Despite more minor problems I have (boring shop systems, occasional over-repetition, taboo noise) it really shines in its incredibly satisfying gameplay, unique style, engaging story, and heartfelt emotional beats. This game might not click with you, it’s definitely not for everyone, but it’s definitely an experience worth trying out.
This review contains spoilers
This game does a lot of things so right, and some things very poorly. It goes out of its way to reject the original game’s story, which is an interesting concept, but is annoying when there now STILL isn’t a way to experience that original story in a modern format.
The gameplay is overall very satisfying, and a great adaptation of FF7’s standard rpg gameplay into and action-rpg setting. But the way the system is designed, some enemies hardly stagger, but you almost always stagger, and the problem with this enemies can completely cancel your combo, or interrupt you in the middle of an ability or spell, which STILL takes the amount of ATB which is absurd. But this is only an issue in big group encounters where you get ganged up on easily, 90% of the time its very satisfying to tear through enemies, swapping characters and issuing commands, and makes the gameplay of FF7 actually fun!
The game suffers from a lot of pacing issues, mainly to do with the whispers and with padding. There are a couple chapters in the game, namely the entire section of The Drum and going through the sewers that feel like padding to make the game longer, when it would’ve been nicer to just get to the next part of the game. As well as this, whenever the whispers show up, I just wish they weren’t there. When they first show up in the sector 7 slums and you’re fighting them with avalanche, I was genuinely shocked that wasn’t a dream sequence. And every time after that, the whispers just grind the pace of the story to a halt, in service of the new story the remake wants to tell. I do think Cloud’s hallucinations are good, they just shouldn’t have involved sephiroth at all.
I’ll be honest, I don’t think making FF7 into a meta-narrative works very well at all? It alienated newcomers who want to experience the story of the game for the first time, because it requires having experienced the original games story, and it also alienates series veterans who just want to experience the game in a modern format. It would’ve been better if they had just stuck to a straight remake, because the stuff they expand on without changing the story is really good! The chapter with Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge where you’re stealing bombs makes for great interactions between them, the characters are so much more realized in the remake (seriously, Barret went from a character I felt nothing towards to one of my favorite characters ever, and cloud actually feels like an edgy wannabe awkward teen who thinks he’s cooler than he actually is, which is how he’s supposed to be). It’s unfortunate the game didn’t stop at just ‘expanding’ the story, and tried changing it.
Hot take, I don’t think sephiroth should’ve been in this game at all. I know why he is, he’s great for marketing, and having him as the final boss makes the ending feel more climactic, but the problem is that sephiroth is supposed to be a sort of unseen force for this portion of the game, someone who’s never seen yet who’s impact is immense. He’s so much more of an intimidating villain by NOT being around for the first half of the original game. The scene in the original at Shinra HQ is haunting, as you’re walking the blood-soaked halls, you find the president stabbed in the back, Sephiroth’s Masamune the only remnant of his massacre. In the remake, he just kinda shows up and kills the president, and it’s not satisfying because it’s not even sephiroth, it’s a clone taking on the role of him. Sephiroth is supposed to be built up as a threat throughout the game, and having him appear so early actually lessens the weight of his terror.
The soundtrack is legendary, the remade old tracks sound just as amazing as the brand new tracks, but what happened to Zack’s voice actor man. Downgrade of the century. (Quinton Flynn no longer being Reno is also a pretty big hit.)
The end of the game feels rather shoe-horned in, and that’s because it’s not where the game is supposed to end, so they tried to put in a finale to the game at a point in the game where it feels out of place. Sephiroth is a great boss fight, but it feels wrong, as he hasn’t been fully developed yet. The whole concept of defying fate is handled… oddly, to say the least. The way the game handles it, it seems to believe the original games story is one that needs changing, but I love the original story! The game acts like if they don’t succeed against destiny, the worst will happen, but that’s just the original games story. There’s a scene where Red XIII says if they fail, the future they see will come to pass, right after the original final cutscene of Red and his kids happening upon midgar, which is one of the most beautiful cutscenes in FF7. It feels wrong because I’m directly at odds with the idea of changing fate, because I don’t want to change the story’s destiny. They’re not interested in retelling the story, that much is clear, but it acts like FF7 is a story that needs changing, which feels really insulting.
As much as I would’ve preferred a standard remake of FF7, and as many problems as I have with this game’s storytelling, I am very curious to see where the new story goes. I just wish that if someone wanted to experience the great original story, they could play a modern remake that perfects all the best aspects of the original, without the caveats remake adds, because this game looks and feels amazing. It’s a sequel to FF7, but also converts FF7 to a format that I just want to be able to play the original FF7 in.
Also Jesus Christ stop blaming the game’s story on Nomura he literally didn’t want to change it
The gameplay is overall very satisfying, and a great adaptation of FF7’s standard rpg gameplay into and action-rpg setting. But the way the system is designed, some enemies hardly stagger, but you almost always stagger, and the problem with this enemies can completely cancel your combo, or interrupt you in the middle of an ability or spell, which STILL takes the amount of ATB which is absurd. But this is only an issue in big group encounters where you get ganged up on easily, 90% of the time its very satisfying to tear through enemies, swapping characters and issuing commands, and makes the gameplay of FF7 actually fun!
The game suffers from a lot of pacing issues, mainly to do with the whispers and with padding. There are a couple chapters in the game, namely the entire section of The Drum and going through the sewers that feel like padding to make the game longer, when it would’ve been nicer to just get to the next part of the game. As well as this, whenever the whispers show up, I just wish they weren’t there. When they first show up in the sector 7 slums and you’re fighting them with avalanche, I was genuinely shocked that wasn’t a dream sequence. And every time after that, the whispers just grind the pace of the story to a halt, in service of the new story the remake wants to tell. I do think Cloud’s hallucinations are good, they just shouldn’t have involved sephiroth at all.
I’ll be honest, I don’t think making FF7 into a meta-narrative works very well at all? It alienated newcomers who want to experience the story of the game for the first time, because it requires having experienced the original games story, and it also alienates series veterans who just want to experience the game in a modern format. It would’ve been better if they had just stuck to a straight remake, because the stuff they expand on without changing the story is really good! The chapter with Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge where you’re stealing bombs makes for great interactions between them, the characters are so much more realized in the remake (seriously, Barret went from a character I felt nothing towards to one of my favorite characters ever, and cloud actually feels like an edgy wannabe awkward teen who thinks he’s cooler than he actually is, which is how he’s supposed to be). It’s unfortunate the game didn’t stop at just ‘expanding’ the story, and tried changing it.
Hot take, I don’t think sephiroth should’ve been in this game at all. I know why he is, he’s great for marketing, and having him as the final boss makes the ending feel more climactic, but the problem is that sephiroth is supposed to be a sort of unseen force for this portion of the game, someone who’s never seen yet who’s impact is immense. He’s so much more of an intimidating villain by NOT being around for the first half of the original game. The scene in the original at Shinra HQ is haunting, as you’re walking the blood-soaked halls, you find the president stabbed in the back, Sephiroth’s Masamune the only remnant of his massacre. In the remake, he just kinda shows up and kills the president, and it’s not satisfying because it’s not even sephiroth, it’s a clone taking on the role of him. Sephiroth is supposed to be built up as a threat throughout the game, and having him appear so early actually lessens the weight of his terror.
The soundtrack is legendary, the remade old tracks sound just as amazing as the brand new tracks, but what happened to Zack’s voice actor man. Downgrade of the century. (Quinton Flynn no longer being Reno is also a pretty big hit.)
The end of the game feels rather shoe-horned in, and that’s because it’s not where the game is supposed to end, so they tried to put in a finale to the game at a point in the game where it feels out of place. Sephiroth is a great boss fight, but it feels wrong, as he hasn’t been fully developed yet. The whole concept of defying fate is handled… oddly, to say the least. The way the game handles it, it seems to believe the original games story is one that needs changing, but I love the original story! The game acts like if they don’t succeed against destiny, the worst will happen, but that’s just the original games story. There’s a scene where Red XIII says if they fail, the future they see will come to pass, right after the original final cutscene of Red and his kids happening upon midgar, which is one of the most beautiful cutscenes in FF7. It feels wrong because I’m directly at odds with the idea of changing fate, because I don’t want to change the story’s destiny. They’re not interested in retelling the story, that much is clear, but it acts like FF7 is a story that needs changing, which feels really insulting.
As much as I would’ve preferred a standard remake of FF7, and as many problems as I have with this game’s storytelling, I am very curious to see where the new story goes. I just wish that if someone wanted to experience the great original story, they could play a modern remake that perfects all the best aspects of the original, without the caveats remake adds, because this game looks and feels amazing. It’s a sequel to FF7, but also converts FF7 to a format that I just want to be able to play the original FF7 in.
Also Jesus Christ stop blaming the game’s story on Nomura he literally didn’t want to change it
1995
I was off my rocker giving this game 2.5 stars
This is one of the best classic puzzle games ever made
This is one of the best classic puzzle games ever made
A very solid mystery game with clever writing, fun character dynamics, and satisfying puzzles to solve
Unfortunately none of these apply to case 5 but at least they tried
Unfortunately none of these apply to case 5 but at least they tried
2022
cinema
2021
I didn’t know it was possible to laugh, cry, smile, and be unbelievably pissed all at the same time.