GurthingtonRacks
What’s better than a game where you walk around and press one button? A game where you walk around and press no buttons!
I played this game back in 2006 when it first released and I really enjoyed it, then a power outage happened while I was saving and it was my only save file. I never had only one save file ever again and that’s a pretty big impact on me. I bring this up because this game is a massive time investment and I was very much not willing to get back into the mix, 60 hours down the drain. Zodiac age completely and absolutely fixes this. The game comes with a 2x/4x speed up mode that completely trivializes all the leveling and walkin around you have to do. Very much like the speed up mode on emulators, it makes the game accessible in a way it previously was not. I was able to beat this game in around 30 hours because of this feature.
Now I will actually talk about the game itself, like I said at the start. You essentially just setup menus and actions before you start combat and let the game play itself. It feels like a miracle that this game is fun. But the environment, story, characters, leveling system, license board, gambits, hunts all combine together to make this very enjoyable experience.
It was very cathartic to come back to this game and beat it. That’s all I got to say. Good times
I played this game back in 2006 when it first released and I really enjoyed it, then a power outage happened while I was saving and it was my only save file. I never had only one save file ever again and that’s a pretty big impact on me. I bring this up because this game is a massive time investment and I was very much not willing to get back into the mix, 60 hours down the drain. Zodiac age completely and absolutely fixes this. The game comes with a 2x/4x speed up mode that completely trivializes all the leveling and walkin around you have to do. Very much like the speed up mode on emulators, it makes the game accessible in a way it previously was not. I was able to beat this game in around 30 hours because of this feature.
Now I will actually talk about the game itself, like I said at the start. You essentially just setup menus and actions before you start combat and let the game play itself. It feels like a miracle that this game is fun. But the environment, story, characters, leveling system, license board, gambits, hunts all combine together to make this very enjoyable experience.
It was very cathartic to come back to this game and beat it. That’s all I got to say. Good times
2024
Pre warning: I have not finished this game yet.
Ok I am finally back on the backlog train after being completely derailed by balatro. This was the game I was playing concurrently with it. This is an overall fairly enjoyable game that I would only recommend to people who are willing to work hard for the fun they can get out of a game.
This is probably the most important thing I can say in this review, dragon’s dogma 2 makes you work to extract the enjoyment out of it. It is the product of a creative sticking to their vision even though it goes against many of the tropes and ideas that modern games are built upon. For instance, you have almost certainly heard this by now but this is an open world game with no easy to access fast travel mechanics. The game does have fast travel via ferrystones and Oxcarts, but these both have stipulations that mean you won’t always have access to them. Hence walking to and from places to finish quests will be a large part of your experience in this game. I don’t completely hate this, it means you have to be very thoughtful with the order in which you do things and have to think logistically about resources and where/when to use them. Difficulty and obstacles are always a challenge for developers to balance. Too much difficulty and the player gives up but too little and the player will not respect the game or beat it too easy and move on.
Dragon’s dogma instead opts to those multiple wrenches at your gameplay experience that force you to pay close attention to what is going on around you. For instance much ado has been made over the dragon’s plague mechanic where your pawn’s can become sick and if you go to sleep when they are sick, well they can destroy a whole village worth of NPCs effectively hard locking you out of quest progression and ending your time with the game. Personally I love this, even though you are playing a game I appreciate a game not completely validating you, life won’t completely validate you. Even though you might be playing for some escapism, I personally prefer the emotional experience of being humbled by a game. Dragon’s dogma is filled with an uncanny indifference towards the player. It’s filled with much uncanny awkwardness in general. When I played the original dd, I thought to myself there is no way this was intended to be this awkward and weird of a game. I was completely wrong, dd2 shows that the vision was completely intentional. Pawns are in someways like robotic children, they say words but with no feeling around them, they incessantly babble, but they are always helpful. Then there is the FMV meat cooking videos. The fact that you can pick up and carry NPCs to certain locations to retrigger their quests. This is a very video gamey video game. Something the medium has lost touch with in many ways.
So yeah dragon’s dogma 2 isn’t for everyone. I myself will have to come back to it someday.
Ok I am finally back on the backlog train after being completely derailed by balatro. This was the game I was playing concurrently with it. This is an overall fairly enjoyable game that I would only recommend to people who are willing to work hard for the fun they can get out of a game.
This is probably the most important thing I can say in this review, dragon’s dogma 2 makes you work to extract the enjoyment out of it. It is the product of a creative sticking to their vision even though it goes against many of the tropes and ideas that modern games are built upon. For instance, you have almost certainly heard this by now but this is an open world game with no easy to access fast travel mechanics. The game does have fast travel via ferrystones and Oxcarts, but these both have stipulations that mean you won’t always have access to them. Hence walking to and from places to finish quests will be a large part of your experience in this game. I don’t completely hate this, it means you have to be very thoughtful with the order in which you do things and have to think logistically about resources and where/when to use them. Difficulty and obstacles are always a challenge for developers to balance. Too much difficulty and the player gives up but too little and the player will not respect the game or beat it too easy and move on.
Dragon’s dogma instead opts to those multiple wrenches at your gameplay experience that force you to pay close attention to what is going on around you. For instance much ado has been made over the dragon’s plague mechanic where your pawn’s can become sick and if you go to sleep when they are sick, well they can destroy a whole village worth of NPCs effectively hard locking you out of quest progression and ending your time with the game. Personally I love this, even though you are playing a game I appreciate a game not completely validating you, life won’t completely validate you. Even though you might be playing for some escapism, I personally prefer the emotional experience of being humbled by a game. Dragon’s dogma is filled with an uncanny indifference towards the player. It’s filled with much uncanny awkwardness in general. When I played the original dd, I thought to myself there is no way this was intended to be this awkward and weird of a game. I was completely wrong, dd2 shows that the vision was completely intentional. Pawns are in someways like robotic children, they say words but with no feeling around them, they incessantly babble, but they are always helpful. Then there is the FMV meat cooking videos. The fact that you can pick up and carry NPCs to certain locations to retrigger their quests. This is a very video gamey video game. Something the medium has lost touch with in many ways.
So yeah dragon’s dogma 2 isn’t for everyone. I myself will have to come back to it someday.
2024
Finally, a backlog breaker. This is probably going to destroy my desire to play any other games for a while. I have long had obsessions with rougelike games. Binding of isaac and slay the spire both managed to capture inordinate amounts of my gaming time. Maybe on the same level as street fighter and other fighting games in general.
I was extremely skeptical about this game upon initally seeing it. It's just poker and cards I thought to myself. But I took a chance because slay the spire and inscryption showed me that deck builders and rougelikes can an incredibly engrossing combination(also I had a friend recommend it).
I have absolutely no regrets, the way a lot of people talk about vampire survivors is how I feel about this game. It is visual, auditory, sensory joy. When I take a run my mind is awash with potential systems I can tweak to solve the ever daunting goal of the game(which in this case is to finish 8 antes of cards a series of 3 games with different challenges).
There is something about the clustering of strategies, the immense difficulty and constant encourage to keep trying and the myriad of systems and how they work together that is so so wonderful. I have always had a mind for statistics(I worked as a data analyst for a couple years) this game rewards understanding of statistics and critical thinking. All you are really doing is organizing poker hands with powerups but the amount of ways the games powerups allow you to do that is just atonishing. The game has a shop that you can access in the middle of the game and in that you find the main way you go about acquiring power in a run which can take you anywhere from 2-3 hours(possibly shorter if I can get more efficient at playing this game). The game has both temporary and permanent powerups. The temporary powerups coming in 2 flavors: the arcana cards and the joker cards. Arcana cards are single use, they affect the money you spend or the cards you are playing, joker cards can be held in a hand of 5 and as long as you hold them you can use their power(the powers can range from being able to make straights with gaps like 1 to 3 can be considered a straight or adding multipliers to hands with certain conditions met like a hand with diamonds). The games permanent powers come in 2 forms as planatary cards and vouchers. The vouchers are the most expensive items in the game and provide a permenant bonus and the planetary cards gives bonuses to which hands you play.
I took the time to explain a system because this game doesn't just have that it has other systems as well and they all work together to create a meta that even the creator of the game says he does not have completely figured out.
I think this game is a wonderful testament to what can be possible even with the most seemingly simple ingrediants.
I was extremely skeptical about this game upon initally seeing it. It's just poker and cards I thought to myself. But I took a chance because slay the spire and inscryption showed me that deck builders and rougelikes can an incredibly engrossing combination(also I had a friend recommend it).
I have absolutely no regrets, the way a lot of people talk about vampire survivors is how I feel about this game. It is visual, auditory, sensory joy. When I take a run my mind is awash with potential systems I can tweak to solve the ever daunting goal of the game(which in this case is to finish 8 antes of cards a series of 3 games with different challenges).
There is something about the clustering of strategies, the immense difficulty and constant encourage to keep trying and the myriad of systems and how they work together that is so so wonderful. I have always had a mind for statistics(I worked as a data analyst for a couple years) this game rewards understanding of statistics and critical thinking. All you are really doing is organizing poker hands with powerups but the amount of ways the games powerups allow you to do that is just atonishing. The game has a shop that you can access in the middle of the game and in that you find the main way you go about acquiring power in a run which can take you anywhere from 2-3 hours(possibly shorter if I can get more efficient at playing this game). The game has both temporary and permanent powerups. The temporary powerups coming in 2 flavors: the arcana cards and the joker cards. Arcana cards are single use, they affect the money you spend or the cards you are playing, joker cards can be held in a hand of 5 and as long as you hold them you can use their power(the powers can range from being able to make straights with gaps like 1 to 3 can be considered a straight or adding multipliers to hands with certain conditions met like a hand with diamonds). The games permanent powers come in 2 forms as planatary cards and vouchers. The vouchers are the most expensive items in the game and provide a permenant bonus and the planetary cards gives bonuses to which hands you play.
I took the time to explain a system because this game doesn't just have that it has other systems as well and they all work together to create a meta that even the creator of the game says he does not have completely figured out.
I think this game is a wonderful testament to what can be possible even with the most seemingly simple ingrediants.
Man I am kinda disappointed in myself for not being able to finish this one.
First I tried balanced mode and I kept getting my ass whooped then I switched to explorer and then to story and kept losing and I decided to pack it in.
I really like this game, I think I built my character and team very poorly. At chapter 4 they said you are supposed to be level 13 and I was level 9 basically soft locking me out of completion.
This game is the game Larian needed to make before they did baldur’s gate 3. In many ways it’s better than bg3, I think the combat can be at times much more interesting but I was so much more motivated to do better in bg3. I really put in the research into that game.
No excuses, I just suck and should have tried harder. Oh well.
First I tried balanced mode and I kept getting my ass whooped then I switched to explorer and then to story and kept losing and I decided to pack it in.
I really like this game, I think I built my character and team very poorly. At chapter 4 they said you are supposed to be level 13 and I was level 9 basically soft locking me out of completion.
This game is the game Larian needed to make before they did baldur’s gate 3. In many ways it’s better than bg3, I think the combat can be at times much more interesting but I was so much more motivated to do better in bg3. I really put in the research into that game.
No excuses, I just suck and should have tried harder. Oh well.
2006
I am very enthusiastic about Godhand, a game that never quite got it's time in the sun but left an impression on anyone that played it.
There is a genre of action games that blends very elements of fighting games and sports games into it's presentation. I seen the roots of it in super smash bros melee but also Godhand. As of late I see this in games such as vanquish, doom eternal and even calisto protocol(the illfated horror brawler game from late 2022). For those games I would refer to them as Trick shooters. There is a fluidity of movement, a flow, a sort of comboed movement that at times needs to be practiced and improved upon iteratively. In a way it's more like tony hawk pro skater than an action game.
Godhand I believe to be a kind of precursor game to this phenomenon, a trick brawler. Released towards the end of ps2's lifecycle around the same time as DMC3. Godhand is very much an oddity in the history of video games. It's an old school brawler set in a 3d environment. It does not have a block button, it has a dodge button and you can flick it very fast and it looks hilarious. You have a wheel of special moves you can use, one of which is spanking your opponents. It's set in the old west, it has a surf rock soundtrack. You can juggle opponents, it's ridiculously difficult. It might be one of the funniest games I have ever played, it's dialogue is like camp kung fu b movie. It's intentionally bad, "you need to feed your brain, not your ass" he says to the fat demon named "Elvis". What makes me liken this game to doom eternal and the like is the fluidity of the game. You do so many things so fast and when you master it, you feel like a God. You combo a guy, see some other guys come at you, dodge everything they do. Hit them with a baseball bat, throw the baseball bat at some other guys approaching. Launching lunge kick into another guy. Kick some guy off the ledge. And all of this can happen in seconds.
I know it might not be for everyone, but this definately feels like a game for me. It's everything I love in a game, it's silly, it's got a high skill cap, performing it feels amazing, there is room for learning and creativity. God bless clover/platinum games, those guys get it.
There is a genre of action games that blends very elements of fighting games and sports games into it's presentation. I seen the roots of it in super smash bros melee but also Godhand. As of late I see this in games such as vanquish, doom eternal and even calisto protocol(the illfated horror brawler game from late 2022). For those games I would refer to them as Trick shooters. There is a fluidity of movement, a flow, a sort of comboed movement that at times needs to be practiced and improved upon iteratively. In a way it's more like tony hawk pro skater than an action game.
Godhand I believe to be a kind of precursor game to this phenomenon, a trick brawler. Released towards the end of ps2's lifecycle around the same time as DMC3. Godhand is very much an oddity in the history of video games. It's an old school brawler set in a 3d environment. It does not have a block button, it has a dodge button and you can flick it very fast and it looks hilarious. You have a wheel of special moves you can use, one of which is spanking your opponents. It's set in the old west, it has a surf rock soundtrack. You can juggle opponents, it's ridiculously difficult. It might be one of the funniest games I have ever played, it's dialogue is like camp kung fu b movie. It's intentionally bad, "you need to feed your brain, not your ass" he says to the fat demon named "Elvis". What makes me liken this game to doom eternal and the like is the fluidity of the game. You do so many things so fast and when you master it, you feel like a God. You combo a guy, see some other guys come at you, dodge everything they do. Hit them with a baseball bat, throw the baseball bat at some other guys approaching. Launching lunge kick into another guy. Kick some guy off the ledge. And all of this can happen in seconds.
I know it might not be for everyone, but this definately feels like a game for me. It's everything I love in a game, it's silly, it's got a high skill cap, performing it feels amazing, there is room for learning and creativity. God bless clover/platinum games, those guys get it.
Sorry world, I don't like this game.
My favourite part of it probably was the shrine puzzles but to be honest I did not even really like them that much. This game has the illusion of creative problem solving to deal with situations but in reality there is very much a set solution to each problem.
I find the world completely and utterly uncapitvating much like breath of the wild before it. There is something about the way nintendo approaches open worlds that makes them completely uninteresting for me to explore. I don't know if it's the liberal usage of empty space or the fact that getting from point A to B is still boring for me even with the building option.
Speaking of this game's central mechanic, it's build system. In theory you should be able to build all sorts of things to help you traverse and defeat the enemies. I don't know if this is a skill issue on my part but I found the system to obtuse and unituitive to do anything other than what was completely obviously set up. Most of the time I did not find it to be the best way of working through the dungeons even though in theory you can do anything you want with it.
It's held back by batteries as a resource which I think are farmed by those gatchapon machines you find around. Yeah I don't like that either. I pretty much hate anything gatchapon related and even something as trivial as randomly getting machine parts annoys me. There should be a store you can buy batteries at.
But I digress, this one ain't for me. It's for the fortnite and minecraft generation bless their hearts. I miss the dungeon designs of majora's mask and ocarina of time, I wish they would find some way to freshen up those ideas instead of this open world slop.
My favourite part of it probably was the shrine puzzles but to be honest I did not even really like them that much. This game has the illusion of creative problem solving to deal with situations but in reality there is very much a set solution to each problem.
I find the world completely and utterly uncapitvating much like breath of the wild before it. There is something about the way nintendo approaches open worlds that makes them completely uninteresting for me to explore. I don't know if it's the liberal usage of empty space or the fact that getting from point A to B is still boring for me even with the building option.
Speaking of this game's central mechanic, it's build system. In theory you should be able to build all sorts of things to help you traverse and defeat the enemies. I don't know if this is a skill issue on my part but I found the system to obtuse and unituitive to do anything other than what was completely obviously set up. Most of the time I did not find it to be the best way of working through the dungeons even though in theory you can do anything you want with it.
It's held back by batteries as a resource which I think are farmed by those gatchapon machines you find around. Yeah I don't like that either. I pretty much hate anything gatchapon related and even something as trivial as randomly getting machine parts annoys me. There should be a store you can buy batteries at.
But I digress, this one ain't for me. It's for the fortnite and minecraft generation bless their hearts. I miss the dungeon designs of majora's mask and ocarina of time, I wish they would find some way to freshen up those ideas instead of this open world slop.
2023
This review contains spoilers
Dredge is very fun for a couple hours while the gameplay loop is still fresh.
In a way dredge reminds me a lot of another game I played recently that I greatly admired: Kenshi. Kenshi can be played many ways, one of them is as a resource that builds a resource that builds a resource industry simulator similar to Factorio. My autistic self loves this concept and I get a lot of thrill building things that build things. However once you see the big picture some of the magic is lost and it starts to feel like a Skinner box rather than a game you are playing. Dredge is very much this kind of game and around the midpoint of the game it becomes crystal clear what is really going on. Maybe this is me quitting before I get to the diamonds idk but regardless I am quitting all the same.
But that is not all I have to say about this game. I would like to discuss its big hook, its premise. This is a horror fishing game. Or at least it plays at being a horror fishing game. I feel like this is yet another game that has cropped up in Bloodborne’s lovecraftian wake. I know that lovecraft has long been appreciated in DND history and DnD can be considered a foundational influence on many video games. However I can’t help but notice the explosion of games that have tried their hand at interpreting or riffing on cosmic horror tropes. Fishing seems like a natural extension of this, an allusion to lovecraft’s fishmen I am sure.
The game has a day night cycle and at night is when the spooky cosmic events occur. You can go mad, see things, have gigantic monster fish chase you. All that jazz. However because it only takes place at night unless you are some how very far from dock you can successfully avoid these dangers. Indeed the thing that ended up being more dangerous was rocks and fog for me. There are more rare fish that appear st night time but you can just harvest larger bigger fish in the day time and never have to worry about money really.
The gameplay loops is not flexible or varied like an immersive sim. There are multiple ways you can tackle issues but there is a clear way of doing it. In a way dredge feels like an old flash game from the 2000’s, with its upgrade tree and simplistic gameplay loop.
The story is mostly told through the environment and dialogue with characters. Just regular ol lovecraftian stuff here. Nothing special to anyone who has read the stories.
Overall I found this game lacking I felt no need to finish it. Dvinity 2 is calling my name.
In a way dredge reminds me a lot of another game I played recently that I greatly admired: Kenshi. Kenshi can be played many ways, one of them is as a resource that builds a resource that builds a resource industry simulator similar to Factorio. My autistic self loves this concept and I get a lot of thrill building things that build things. However once you see the big picture some of the magic is lost and it starts to feel like a Skinner box rather than a game you are playing. Dredge is very much this kind of game and around the midpoint of the game it becomes crystal clear what is really going on. Maybe this is me quitting before I get to the diamonds idk but regardless I am quitting all the same.
But that is not all I have to say about this game. I would like to discuss its big hook, its premise. This is a horror fishing game. Or at least it plays at being a horror fishing game. I feel like this is yet another game that has cropped up in Bloodborne’s lovecraftian wake. I know that lovecraft has long been appreciated in DND history and DnD can be considered a foundational influence on many video games. However I can’t help but notice the explosion of games that have tried their hand at interpreting or riffing on cosmic horror tropes. Fishing seems like a natural extension of this, an allusion to lovecraft’s fishmen I am sure.
The game has a day night cycle and at night is when the spooky cosmic events occur. You can go mad, see things, have gigantic monster fish chase you. All that jazz. However because it only takes place at night unless you are some how very far from dock you can successfully avoid these dangers. Indeed the thing that ended up being more dangerous was rocks and fog for me. There are more rare fish that appear st night time but you can just harvest larger bigger fish in the day time and never have to worry about money really.
The gameplay loops is not flexible or varied like an immersive sim. There are multiple ways you can tackle issues but there is a clear way of doing it. In a way dredge feels like an old flash game from the 2000’s, with its upgrade tree and simplistic gameplay loop.
The story is mostly told through the environment and dialogue with characters. Just regular ol lovecraftian stuff here. Nothing special to anyone who has read the stories.
Overall I found this game lacking I felt no need to finish it. Dvinity 2 is calling my name.
2017
Animal planet meets dark fantasy meets studio ghibli Metroidvania game. I slept on this one, at the time I was bemoaning the lack of quality games coming out, turns out I wasn’t playing any of them!!
Hollow knight is not my favourite of its genre but I find there is a lot to appreciate about it. It’s cute light horror fantasy vibes kept me engaged with the world while playing through it. It’s got that apocalyptic last flame in the world type vibe, the world is ending and you are doing something, maybe not saving it. Idk you doing what you can, that’s fun.
Maybe besides smash bros melee or my beloved vanquish, my favourite movement in a game ever?? The game’s progression is held together by the various movement abilities the game gives you throughout its run time. The all the classic platformer moves are here but the execution and context in which they are given to you, is masterful design. Your little dude you play as is nimble and can do many fancy acrobatic and combat maneuvers. The combat is also quite fun, very simple, a lot like castlevania. You are given a few simple auxiliary weapons, very useful.
I still like blasphemous a bit more than this game, I do like the horror of it(very insect kingdom, escpailly deepnest absolutely intense) but I still wish for something more brutal. This game works very well for both children and adults, deepnest would probably scare kids but I think it’s appropriate enough for them to play, I like it.
Love the systems the game has for progression, 2 kinds of fast travel that work in different ways. Great map design, very cavernous and at times very similar to Metroid(long vertical tubes filled with platforms), no complaints about that.
This game to me also sets new standards for indie games, it’s very reminiscent of golden era 360/ps3 era indie games like dishwasher and shadow complex.
Overall love this game, no huge complaints just finnicky about the vibe but it’s not a game that was completely meant for me and I still appreciate it all the same.
Hollow knight is not my favourite of its genre but I find there is a lot to appreciate about it. It’s cute light horror fantasy vibes kept me engaged with the world while playing through it. It’s got that apocalyptic last flame in the world type vibe, the world is ending and you are doing something, maybe not saving it. Idk you doing what you can, that’s fun.
Maybe besides smash bros melee or my beloved vanquish, my favourite movement in a game ever?? The game’s progression is held together by the various movement abilities the game gives you throughout its run time. The all the classic platformer moves are here but the execution and context in which they are given to you, is masterful design. Your little dude you play as is nimble and can do many fancy acrobatic and combat maneuvers. The combat is also quite fun, very simple, a lot like castlevania. You are given a few simple auxiliary weapons, very useful.
I still like blasphemous a bit more than this game, I do like the horror of it(very insect kingdom, escpailly deepnest absolutely intense) but I still wish for something more brutal. This game works very well for both children and adults, deepnest would probably scare kids but I think it’s appropriate enough for them to play, I like it.
Love the systems the game has for progression, 2 kinds of fast travel that work in different ways. Great map design, very cavernous and at times very similar to Metroid(long vertical tubes filled with platforms), no complaints about that.
This game to me also sets new standards for indie games, it’s very reminiscent of golden era 360/ps3 era indie games like dishwasher and shadow complex.
Overall love this game, no huge complaints just finnicky about the vibe but it’s not a game that was completely meant for me and I still appreciate it all the same.
2024
I got through like 6 hours of this before I was like, “ok I’m 30 and I don’t find high school to be a captivating setting and I don’t want to play through 500 floors of Tartarus doing the same shit over and over again for my only respite to be talking to the old people at the book store and leveling up my academics by studying at the shared computer.” Baldur’s gate 3 ruined this shit for me lol. I might have enjoyed this in my early 20’s but I just can’t do it anymore. I enjoyed the original but there is just not enough new content and the game might look pretty but I got like 100 games to complete on my list and I would rather play live a live or silent hill 2 then this shit. Signing off
2022
Elden ring like many open world games is difficult for me to review. The reason being when I look back on my time with the game, I remember having wildly different emotions at different times of playing it.
Initially, pure bliss and rapture. I was madly in love with this game and playing it was the only thing I did for 2 months after it released. Later on, I found playing it to be a chore because it’s not like bloodborne, Sekiro or ds3 which are all very replayable. I think this is due to the lack of streamlining because of the open world format, there is far too many things to do and it gives me choice paralysis when playing and fucks up my experience. Bloodborne there are never more than like 2-3 things you can do at a time and that’s great it’s a clean experience you can begin and end easily but elden ring is just not replayable like that. It’s a game that is meant to have 1, 2 or maybe 3 plays then no more than that because the familiarity breeds contempt. In further replays of this game I found myself going on long horserides from one place to another and feeling very listless and agitated. I felt very similarly to how I did with Bethesda’s type of games where the open world format made me feel like I could mine limitless fun out of the game only for me to overplay them and realize that I had been tricked and the dungeons are all procedurally generated and the gameplay loop actually never was that interesting and the whole experience needed well constructed set pieces and writing to make it work. Elden ring has those well constructed set pieces but it also has a lot of “nothing” dungeons with bad loot and boring copy paste bosses.
This might be the most dark souls 2 like game from soft has and maybe ever will make. Dark souls 2 is something of a secret fan favourite amongst the series. This has to do with its gigantically strange amount of weapons and build variety. Elden ring also has a gargantuan amount of weapons and Armor and spells in it. There was no way from soft could have completely tested all of it and the online was absolute chaos multiple times on launch from the exploits. They patched them out but the memory still remains for those of that played on launch. I would say this is a positive for the game. I had a lot of fun figuring out the different ways you could play and use the different classes and systems that come out the box with this game.
In conclusion, is Elden ring the perfect best game ever? No but it was very fun and well crafted experience, really it was on me to not play it so much but I had a lot of fun and wanted to keep having fun. Their other games are like that but not this one, oh well
Initially, pure bliss and rapture. I was madly in love with this game and playing it was the only thing I did for 2 months after it released. Later on, I found playing it to be a chore because it’s not like bloodborne, Sekiro or ds3 which are all very replayable. I think this is due to the lack of streamlining because of the open world format, there is far too many things to do and it gives me choice paralysis when playing and fucks up my experience. Bloodborne there are never more than like 2-3 things you can do at a time and that’s great it’s a clean experience you can begin and end easily but elden ring is just not replayable like that. It’s a game that is meant to have 1, 2 or maybe 3 plays then no more than that because the familiarity breeds contempt. In further replays of this game I found myself going on long horserides from one place to another and feeling very listless and agitated. I felt very similarly to how I did with Bethesda’s type of games where the open world format made me feel like I could mine limitless fun out of the game only for me to overplay them and realize that I had been tricked and the dungeons are all procedurally generated and the gameplay loop actually never was that interesting and the whole experience needed well constructed set pieces and writing to make it work. Elden ring has those well constructed set pieces but it also has a lot of “nothing” dungeons with bad loot and boring copy paste bosses.
This might be the most dark souls 2 like game from soft has and maybe ever will make. Dark souls 2 is something of a secret fan favourite amongst the series. This has to do with its gigantically strange amount of weapons and build variety. Elden ring also has a gargantuan amount of weapons and Armor and spells in it. There was no way from soft could have completely tested all of it and the online was absolute chaos multiple times on launch from the exploits. They patched them out but the memory still remains for those of that played on launch. I would say this is a positive for the game. I had a lot of fun figuring out the different ways you could play and use the different classes and systems that come out the box with this game.
In conclusion, is Elden ring the perfect best game ever? No but it was very fun and well crafted experience, really it was on me to not play it so much but I had a lot of fun and wanted to keep having fun. Their other games are like that but not this one, oh well
2020
If I could give this 6 stars I would because I think this game is in a different caliber than almost every game over the last few years. Might be my second favourite game now next to bloodborne. I have played dnd, divinity 2 and dragon age origins. That’s about the level of experience I had with this kind of game. At a glance it’s similar to Larian’s other games, however it may have set a new standard for story presentation in games. It has superb voice acting, writing, enemy design, character design, world building, and map design. This is not even getting into the actual gameplay. It is in someways a step back and forward for Larian, I really enjoyed the environmental style of combat from divinity 2 but this game simplies that and instead refocuses on giving you a variety of abilities which can lead to a variety of creative ways of handling battles. You can still do trippy things like fill a box full of high weight objects and drop it on enemies using telekinesis, but you also have a variety of simple to complex ways to build different classes. The game’s power progression feels appropriately passed for what took me around 80 hours to finish and I was hauling ass to get through this game. I actually found myself dropping the difficulty halfway through as the fighting on balanced difficulty got a bit too much to handle for me when not min maxing my build.
The story takes a great amount of twists and turns as it goes on and is wound together with its unique and fleshed out cast of characters which have delightful backstories and quests related to them.
Overall this game reminded me of why I love RPGs so much and has given me excitement for what hard working passionate developers can put together in a time where large business is destroying creativity and quality in gaming.
The story takes a great amount of twists and turns as it goes on and is wound together with its unique and fleshed out cast of characters which have delightful backstories and quests related to them.
Overall this game reminded me of why I love RPGs so much and has given me excitement for what hard working passionate developers can put together in a time where large business is destroying creativity and quality in gaming.
2016
First imma make money, then imma bust inside.
Girl got me crazy with those thighs.
Then imma turn into a big blob
Then she gonna slob on the blob
No trophy for beating the game
Only collectables that are all the same.
I spent 6 bucks on the game
I spent 3 hours on this game
Girl got me crazy with those thighs.
Then imma turn into a big blob
Then she gonna slob on the blob
No trophy for beating the game
Only collectables that are all the same.
I spent 6 bucks on the game
I spent 3 hours on this game
2019
This is a very good game.
I have talked a bit about it with one of my friends and he said he did not like that this game did not have the traditional power up styles associated with metroidvania style games. Namely the movement oriented powers that you naturally acquire throughout the game. I don't think every metroidvania style game needs this.
Blasphemous handles it's progression with subtlety and does not give you the most overt power ups to adapt and advance through the world. It has broad range of powerup types including items you can equip for stat boosts, items that give you a draw back and bonus(such as you do more damage but your defenses are weakened), active items that use your MP gauge(called fervor in this game).
I think the game has a superb artstyle with a lot of beautiful sprite work. It reminds me a lot of old DOS games but just much more lavish. While this game is described as a horror game, I found it to be a lot more surreal and strange.
The game's story I am told it fleshed out a lot more in the DLC but I loved how it was presented through the lore on the items and brief dialouge with the characters. I felt like I was given a suffcient amount of mystery and explanation.
It's voice acting is very good, I am told it's even better in spanish.
Overall highly recommend this one.
I have talked a bit about it with one of my friends and he said he did not like that this game did not have the traditional power up styles associated with metroidvania style games. Namely the movement oriented powers that you naturally acquire throughout the game. I don't think every metroidvania style game needs this.
Blasphemous handles it's progression with subtlety and does not give you the most overt power ups to adapt and advance through the world. It has broad range of powerup types including items you can equip for stat boosts, items that give you a draw back and bonus(such as you do more damage but your defenses are weakened), active items that use your MP gauge(called fervor in this game).
I think the game has a superb artstyle with a lot of beautiful sprite work. It reminds me a lot of old DOS games but just much more lavish. While this game is described as a horror game, I found it to be a lot more surreal and strange.
The game's story I am told it fleshed out a lot more in the DLC but I loved how it was presented through the lore on the items and brief dialouge with the characters. I felt like I was given a suffcient amount of mystery and explanation.
It's voice acting is very good, I am told it's even better in spanish.
Overall highly recommend this one.
This review contains spoilers
I tried 3 times to pick up and play this game.
The first time when it released and I was blown away. I hated this game, I thought they completely fucked it up. The second time I tried again in like 2022 and I got about halfway and I still hated the game. The third time this year I played it to the finish after finishing ff16. I still hate this game, but I hate it less. Square came into this one with a few good maybe even great ideas. The combat for instance is a real highlight. I did not like it my first few tries but after playing ff16 I started to see and get an appreciation for square’s modern vision of how combat is supposed to work for final fantasy. This game however is not as fleshed out a vision as ff16. The pace is too broken up by having to control 3 characters at the same time. A problem which I feel would have been alieviated by utilizing final fantasy 12’s gambit system. Apparently rebirth is implementing some version of this, if done properly it could be amazing, we will wait and see.
Story wise, holy shit this is where the problems start cooking. This is not a remake, this is something or a sequel in a strange way. I love the idea but hate the execution. My theory is that all the events of the original have occurred in a previous looped universe, sephiroth has memories from this previous universe and I believe aerith does too. An interesting idea but why is it executed so strangely. Most of the changes to the canon do not feel as interesting or inspired as the original(for instance the scene with the shinra president is not as impactful as the original). I don’t like all the foreskin ghosts running around everywhere I feel like it could have been done in a more interesting way. The foreskin ghosts are called whispers and apparently they appear when the timeline is diverging(this is the crux of my theory that the events have already occurred and it was caused by sephiroth because who else would cause it). The handling of sephiroth is also a sore point for me. The excuse they gave for having him appear so much is because players are familiar with him already. What made him so impactful in the original is that he’s got like 7 minutes of screen time aside from his boss fights. What is the point of ruining all the mystery just so you can throw him on screen. They killed all the drama around it, miserable.
I don’t like the music, I don’t like how the environment looks. This is supposed to be a gritty steampunk world, why do we have a high def orchestra and extremely pristine rendered environments. The Lofi synthesizers worked so well in the original, made it feel desolate and hollow, eerie and liminal. Having a blown out orchestra is just a different kind of vibe. Also like there was a kind of charm to the original pre rendered backgrounds that is lost here.
Also whose idea was it to only have the game take place in Midgar and why did they stretch out the different sections of the game. Like the train graveyard is like 3 hours long and in the original I feel like it was 30 min or so.
Chapter 17 is the worst part of this game. Whoever had any hand in designing that should be sent to prison. Why do they keep splitting up the party, why do I have to unlock a bunch of doors, why is it so long, why is it so repetitive, why why why.
One thing I speculate about this game is that it is going to be a very bad time to play as a single game by playing all three of them back to back. Why? Because ff7 has a complete arc inside of itself, you have the build up to a climax and then a conclusion and is that going to happen again at the end of rebirth??? How many climaxes we gonna have? 3? There is a reason we don’t write stories like this. Sephiroth’s impact is gonna be ruined by this game having him as the last boss of it. Please square do better with rebirth.
Just want to say here first they aren’t killing aerith in the next one. I got 5 bucks on it.
The first time when it released and I was blown away. I hated this game, I thought they completely fucked it up. The second time I tried again in like 2022 and I got about halfway and I still hated the game. The third time this year I played it to the finish after finishing ff16. I still hate this game, but I hate it less. Square came into this one with a few good maybe even great ideas. The combat for instance is a real highlight. I did not like it my first few tries but after playing ff16 I started to see and get an appreciation for square’s modern vision of how combat is supposed to work for final fantasy. This game however is not as fleshed out a vision as ff16. The pace is too broken up by having to control 3 characters at the same time. A problem which I feel would have been alieviated by utilizing final fantasy 12’s gambit system. Apparently rebirth is implementing some version of this, if done properly it could be amazing, we will wait and see.
Story wise, holy shit this is where the problems start cooking. This is not a remake, this is something or a sequel in a strange way. I love the idea but hate the execution. My theory is that all the events of the original have occurred in a previous looped universe, sephiroth has memories from this previous universe and I believe aerith does too. An interesting idea but why is it executed so strangely. Most of the changes to the canon do not feel as interesting or inspired as the original(for instance the scene with the shinra president is not as impactful as the original). I don’t like all the foreskin ghosts running around everywhere I feel like it could have been done in a more interesting way. The foreskin ghosts are called whispers and apparently they appear when the timeline is diverging(this is the crux of my theory that the events have already occurred and it was caused by sephiroth because who else would cause it). The handling of sephiroth is also a sore point for me. The excuse they gave for having him appear so much is because players are familiar with him already. What made him so impactful in the original is that he’s got like 7 minutes of screen time aside from his boss fights. What is the point of ruining all the mystery just so you can throw him on screen. They killed all the drama around it, miserable.
I don’t like the music, I don’t like how the environment looks. This is supposed to be a gritty steampunk world, why do we have a high def orchestra and extremely pristine rendered environments. The Lofi synthesizers worked so well in the original, made it feel desolate and hollow, eerie and liminal. Having a blown out orchestra is just a different kind of vibe. Also like there was a kind of charm to the original pre rendered backgrounds that is lost here.
Also whose idea was it to only have the game take place in Midgar and why did they stretch out the different sections of the game. Like the train graveyard is like 3 hours long and in the original I feel like it was 30 min or so.
Chapter 17 is the worst part of this game. Whoever had any hand in designing that should be sent to prison. Why do they keep splitting up the party, why do I have to unlock a bunch of doors, why is it so long, why is it so repetitive, why why why.
One thing I speculate about this game is that it is going to be a very bad time to play as a single game by playing all three of them back to back. Why? Because ff7 has a complete arc inside of itself, you have the build up to a climax and then a conclusion and is that going to happen again at the end of rebirth??? How many climaxes we gonna have? 3? There is a reason we don’t write stories like this. Sephiroth’s impact is gonna be ruined by this game having him as the last boss of it. Please square do better with rebirth.
Just want to say here first they aren’t killing aerith in the next one. I got 5 bucks on it.
2023
So…. Suprise this game is GREAT!
I was in the camp of hating on square enix after the triple whammy of final fantasy 15, final fantasy 7 remake and kingdom hearts 3.
However this game might be the first one where the modern square enix vision has finally clicked for me. I would say this game’s primary strength is its visual spectacle. It’s clearly where square put most of the time and money. Its other strength is the combat, handled by a former capcom employee who worked on devil may cry.
It’s an action rpg through and through with no sentimentality for final fantasy’s legacy of methodical strategy based combat. Elements don’t affect different kinds of enemies and you only control 1 guy and his dog.
But this game can be every bit as flashy as devil may cry. It might lean a little more to the cinematic but its combat has enough meat that putting the work into learning it is worth your time.
Eikon battles are another highlight. They remind a lot of Asura’s wrath. A game known for its scale as big as the planet boss fights and over the top cutscenes. Eikon fights are flashy, highly visually stimulating boss fights that use a seperate moveset from Clive’s default one. They break up the pace of this game and provide a great deal of excitement and visual spectacle.
I found myself getting a bit bored of this game around the halfway point and was skipping most of the cutscenes because I thought it was getting a bit monotonous. But then I started to experiment more with the game’s combat and found I really enjoyed cycling through the Eikon abilities and flying around the screen.
I love the characters, escpially cid. Very stoic vibes from most of them but they are all good for carrying around a story touching on metaphors for environmentalism, racism, and geopolitical conflict. Its tone is maybe the darkest of any final fantasy game, a lot of characters die in this game. Like a huge amount. It is filled with a lot of touching moments, I am not gonna lie I teared up a few times. There is a very believable current of love and sentiment between these characters and it was enough to move me. Here’s hoping square keeps honing their creative vision, they seem to be back on track.
I was in the camp of hating on square enix after the triple whammy of final fantasy 15, final fantasy 7 remake and kingdom hearts 3.
However this game might be the first one where the modern square enix vision has finally clicked for me. I would say this game’s primary strength is its visual spectacle. It’s clearly where square put most of the time and money. Its other strength is the combat, handled by a former capcom employee who worked on devil may cry.
It’s an action rpg through and through with no sentimentality for final fantasy’s legacy of methodical strategy based combat. Elements don’t affect different kinds of enemies and you only control 1 guy and his dog.
But this game can be every bit as flashy as devil may cry. It might lean a little more to the cinematic but its combat has enough meat that putting the work into learning it is worth your time.
Eikon battles are another highlight. They remind a lot of Asura’s wrath. A game known for its scale as big as the planet boss fights and over the top cutscenes. Eikon fights are flashy, highly visually stimulating boss fights that use a seperate moveset from Clive’s default one. They break up the pace of this game and provide a great deal of excitement and visual spectacle.
I found myself getting a bit bored of this game around the halfway point and was skipping most of the cutscenes because I thought it was getting a bit monotonous. But then I started to experiment more with the game’s combat and found I really enjoyed cycling through the Eikon abilities and flying around the screen.
I love the characters, escpially cid. Very stoic vibes from most of them but they are all good for carrying around a story touching on metaphors for environmentalism, racism, and geopolitical conflict. Its tone is maybe the darkest of any final fantasy game, a lot of characters die in this game. Like a huge amount. It is filled with a lot of touching moments, I am not gonna lie I teared up a few times. There is a very believable current of love and sentiment between these characters and it was enough to move me. Here’s hoping square keeps honing their creative vision, they seem to be back on track.