One thing I've always hated about Dark Souls is how the resource management narrows down possible strategies outside of the conservative melee+magic... Then again it's understandable for an exploration based game.

However, Sinner takes the clever approach of becoming a boss-rush game where you are incentivated to experiment with your entire arsenal. Bosses are designed to sinergize with different kinds of strategies, while having a bigger complexity than regular souls bosses.

To top things off, each boss you defeat will curse you with a permanent debuff unique to their personality, further amplifying the experimentative branch of the game by encouraging different routes (Some with hidden rewards).

Games had no politics before they said.

And this random ps2 game centered its entire appeal on watching a greedy multicorporation total capital decrease in real time as you forcefully destroy its material properties.

Oh, and seeing stuff so absurd like expensive computers causing a lesser loss than destroying a plastic trash can or a bunch of papers.

This review is highly biased, because rather than the game design or the actual demos included within the disc, I abide for this initiative as a whole and the way it is presented:

The fact that this game's lobby is structured as a museum, and that to access each game you have to go through some sort of mini-interactive exposition cabinet is a strong sign of confidence in the still nebulous nature of the final state of these games.

The fact that they think they can evoke a smile from the viewer, a smile that comes only from witnessing a life sized tribute to one of your favorite games, is confidence that the scenes from these games will turn iconic as months go by; regardless of how uninspired some seem to be in their actual state.

This museum dares to give all small projects here featured equal chance to shine and gauge audience, while still allowing for small self-contained games in the most amusing way possible: as secret stands one has to find and puzzle around to access within the confines of this museum.

For all this, I think the demo disc: both as an initiative, as a networking experience, and an encouraging tribute for thriving small devs, is perfect.

A melting pot of a game that influenced subsequent action games. Unlike those, this one managed to pick the right dose of every of its parts, and scatter them the right way so that none of them exposed their repetitiveness.

Also, the series seemed to forget the subtleties of this game's combat mechanics, specially regarding the QTEs. They were largely seen as the coward option in this game, not only giving you a breather from adjacent attacks but also depriving you from getting extra red orbs in certain cases.
Some quick time events did offer you more orbs than normal, but they were balanced out by either letting enemies hit you while doing them, or through the brutal death bonus, which obblied you to have a combo superior to 10 or 25 hits to have a slight red orb bonus when doing a QTE.

This, joined to the fact that you have to optimize your red orb count a lot in this game (most runs end up without all weapons getting maximized) was a constant tension of using the easy way out of a battle or risking more.

The sequels dumbed this down through the orb multiplier system in each difficulty and basically rewarding you more for only going for QTEs.

While everyone arounds you wants to uncover the worlds' secrets to their personal and political needs, the protagonist just desires to satisfy her unending curiosity for the past, without letting it consume her gaze towards the present.

The mechanics too support her views: the stages have lots of optional collectibles and interactions, as characters you can sell your findings to, to gather yet more knowledge in return.

And the sole reward for all this eagerness is being one step closer from understanding the next word of this ancient language. Being one step closer of gaining insight of the past through barely 5 word fragments which have survived the millenia. Being one step closer to trivial knowledge such as epitaphs or engravings in good luck charms.

And to me, this was all the reward I needed.

This game joins both survival horror and on-rail shooter principles and makes its combat fair and engaging without renouncing to the tension and vulnerability that often comes with horror games.

The game surprisingly turns more arcadey the more you play it. The staged jumpscares that scared you the first time turn into fun 'bonus score' to keep an eye on subsequent runs, the anxiety inducing enemy movement patterns that inevitably culminated in the spectre jumping towards you turn into a fun acuracy challenge with a fun risk-reward mechanic.

Unlike most horror games where the horror sentiment either remains constant (like in tank control survivals) or accidentally disappears due to its loss of shock value, Fatal Frame fully embraces this loss and decides to make it a fun game for second-timers.