HaloBlues
GRAPHICS: Not amazing or anything, but perfectly fine for a visual novel. Character designs are cute, backgrounds are serviceable, and the little details are cool (such as Monika having black socks while the other three have white).
CHARACTERS: Decent range of personalities for a four-character group. I liked Sayori fast, but Natsuki ended up kind of creeping up on me as an underdog favourite due to being the most 'normal' of the cast (and thus the least scary). I thought I'd like Yuri more based on her personality archetype at the beginning and her design, but MAN did she end up creeping me out more than I thought she would. Monika is iconic, obviously. MC is pretty much a non-entity, but it turns out that's kind of the point.
GAMEPLAY: Not much to say here; it's a visual novel. Lots of reading, lots of clicking, some dialogue options and plot choices as well as different 'paths' for the girls. If you don't like visual novels, you probably won't like the gameplay of this, but I do, so I didn't mind it.
MULTIPLAYER: None.
I went into this knowing it was a psychological horror and that Monika wasn't what she seemed, so I have no idea how much harder it could've hit me if I'd been entirely spoiler-free, but even with that, holy SHIT. I didn't know just how sudden it got - that first moment walking into Sayori's room and finding her hanging with the jumpscare and the distorted music had me YELLING.
Favourite Male Character: ...Um.
Favourite Female Character: Natsuki
First Character I Liked: Yuri
Favourite Character Design: Monika
Favourite OST: TBA
Favourite Scene: For what it meant and kicked off, Sayori's suicide
Least Favourite Character: None
CHARACTERS: Decent range of personalities for a four-character group. I liked Sayori fast, but Natsuki ended up kind of creeping up on me as an underdog favourite due to being the most 'normal' of the cast (and thus the least scary). I thought I'd like Yuri more based on her personality archetype at the beginning and her design, but MAN did she end up creeping me out more than I thought she would. Monika is iconic, obviously. MC is pretty much a non-entity, but it turns out that's kind of the point.
GAMEPLAY: Not much to say here; it's a visual novel. Lots of reading, lots of clicking, some dialogue options and plot choices as well as different 'paths' for the girls. If you don't like visual novels, you probably won't like the gameplay of this, but I do, so I didn't mind it.
MULTIPLAYER: None.
I went into this knowing it was a psychological horror and that Monika wasn't what she seemed, so I have no idea how much harder it could've hit me if I'd been entirely spoiler-free, but even with that, holy SHIT. I didn't know just how sudden it got - that first moment walking into Sayori's room and finding her hanging with the jumpscare and the distorted music had me YELLING.
Favourite Male Character: ...Um.
Favourite Female Character: Natsuki
First Character I Liked: Yuri
Favourite Character Design: Monika
Favourite OST: TBA
Favourite Scene: For what it meant and kicked off, Sayori's suicide
Least Favourite Character: None
Keeping this one short, but this is the least scary FNAF game for me. Having only Springtrap as an antagonist was an alright move story-wise, but gameplay-wise it just means I found this a little too easy, especially once you work out that the Phantom animatronics can't harm you. The Phantoms just get annoying after a while, particularly because they can trigger one after the other, which means you're just kind of waiting with mild frustration for them to stop triggering so you can get back to gameplay after the ineffectual screams in your face.
Notable for it being the first physical appearance of William Afton, though, and as always I liked the additions to the lore.
Notable for it being the first physical appearance of William Afton, though, and as always I liked the additions to the lore.
2011
Graphics: Clean, fitting for the setting, some moments of genuine surprising beauty such as the first sighting of the overgrown testing facility.
Characters: Glados is as iconic as ever, and Wheatley is a great new addition. Chell continues to be a typical silent protagonist with no real personality of her own, but it's not an issue with a game of this type.
Voice acting and dialogue: All of the voice actors included, particularly the two major VAs behind Glados and Wheatley, are top-notch. Some great delivery of comedic lines adds to the humour.
Plot: Two separate storylines for single-player campaign and co-op, which is a great touch. Both are fun, engaging, and genuinely funny.
Multiplayer: Up to 2-person co-op available, with its own campaign and specially designed multiplayer puzzles. Would heavily advise you to play with someone over call and not with a stranger - communication methods without having a Discord voice chat or something similar up are pretty lacking and could be frustrating.
Characters: Glados is as iconic as ever, and Wheatley is a great new addition. Chell continues to be a typical silent protagonist with no real personality of her own, but it's not an issue with a game of this type.
Voice acting and dialogue: All of the voice actors included, particularly the two major VAs behind Glados and Wheatley, are top-notch. Some great delivery of comedic lines adds to the humour.
Plot: Two separate storylines for single-player campaign and co-op, which is a great touch. Both are fun, engaging, and genuinely funny.
Multiplayer: Up to 2-person co-op available, with its own campaign and specially designed multiplayer puzzles. Would heavily advise you to play with someone over call and not with a stranger - communication methods without having a Discord voice chat or something similar up are pretty lacking and could be frustrating.
2009
I played one single game, immediately had someone tell me I was so shitty at it that I must be doing it on purpose, and then they accused me of being a smurf. Never touched it again out of pure embarrassment.
I do want to get back into it, I find the lore and characters super interesting and I have a few friends who are into it, but I'll only re-attempt it if I can get a chill group together to play it with who won't judge me for sucking.
I do want to get back into it, I find the lore and characters super interesting and I have a few friends who are into it, but I'll only re-attempt it if I can get a chill group together to play it with who won't judge me for sucking.
GRAPHICS: They're fine. It was a low-budget 2014 video game, so it's nothing mind-blowing, but they're not bad at all IMO. I actually really like how the animatronics look; they give off a fitting air of being aged and a little gross, and their texture is good.
CHARACTERS: Seeing as the lore hasn't quite kicked in in this game yet, the characters are pretty much a non-entity aside from the handful of animatronics coming to get you, and they don't really have personalities to speak of. Not much to say here.
GAMEPLAY: I personally find the gameplay of FNAF 1 pretty tedious and repetitive, but that's probably down to the fact that I don't personally find it scary -- I'm more a fan of this series for the lore and connections between games than I am the gameplay loop itself. It's a decent challenge to keep everything out without running out of power if you like that sort of thing.
MULTIPLAYER: None.
CHARACTERS: Seeing as the lore hasn't quite kicked in in this game yet, the characters are pretty much a non-entity aside from the handful of animatronics coming to get you, and they don't really have personalities to speak of. Not much to say here.
GAMEPLAY: I personally find the gameplay of FNAF 1 pretty tedious and repetitive, but that's probably down to the fact that I don't personally find it scary -- I'm more a fan of this series for the lore and connections between games than I am the gameplay loop itself. It's a decent challenge to keep everything out without running out of power if you like that sort of thing.
MULTIPLAYER: None.
2016
Not much use in my usual style of review here since it's no longer playable, so to sum it up:
It was pretty fun to dip into every now and then and play with friends. I would get burnt out after a couple hours of playing so I could never do it more intensively, but I enjoyed it casually. It sucks that it's no longer playable and I frankly can't comprehend the decision to do the 'sequel' this way at all, but so it goes I guess. Lucio was great, graphics were sleek, the diversity in character ethnicities etc. was refreshing, and I liked the medal system post-game.
Was getting sick of the fact that most of the Overwatch women had the same fuckin' face by the end of it though. How the same company that can come up with both Roadhog and Torbjorn can't break out of their copy-pasted skinny hourglass girls I have no clue.
Favourite Male Character: Lucio
Favourite Female Character: Symmetra, Pharah
First Character I Liked: Mercy
Favourite OST: Numbani
Favourite Character Design: Symmetra
Favourite Scene: N/A
Least Favourite Character: None
It was pretty fun to dip into every now and then and play with friends. I would get burnt out after a couple hours of playing so I could never do it more intensively, but I enjoyed it casually. It sucks that it's no longer playable and I frankly can't comprehend the decision to do the 'sequel' this way at all, but so it goes I guess. Lucio was great, graphics were sleek, the diversity in character ethnicities etc. was refreshing, and I liked the medal system post-game.
Was getting sick of the fact that most of the Overwatch women had the same fuckin' face by the end of it though. How the same company that can come up with both Roadhog and Torbjorn can't break out of their copy-pasted skinny hourglass girls I have no clue.
Favourite Male Character: Lucio
Favourite Female Character: Symmetra, Pharah
First Character I Liked: Mercy
Favourite OST: Numbani
Favourite Character Design: Symmetra
Favourite Scene: N/A
Least Favourite Character: None
The sequel is definitely better than this one, but it's an alright lead-up to it. I'm not much of a fan of the graphics change Telltale went with here - the models look kind of plastic-y and Lego-like to me, oddly shiny and artificial in comparison to their natural cell-shading in games like The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us - but I get used to it after a while of playing every time.
Love that you can play Batman as a bit of an immoral asshole, love that you can lean into the Bruce as an elitist playboy thing. Troy Baker is, as per usual, pretty good in his role as the protagonist.
I wasn't sure how to feel about the treatment of the Joker when I first played this, and I think if it had been this game alone it would've felt hamfisted and out of place, but it's a build up to his bigger role in the second game where he turned out to be a fantastic character with a fantastic dynamic with Bruce, so with that in mind it's more than forgivable.
The major issue I have with this game is just that... I don't want to fuck Catwoman. And the game really, really wants me to fuck Catwoman. A lot of Telltale games have this kind of canon romance that you're nudged towards with varying degrees of force - Lee and Carley in The Walking Dead, Bigby and Snow in The Wolf Among Us, Rhys and Sasha in Tales from the Borderlands - but this is up there with the worst ones in terms of making me feel like I was required to put active, constant effort into not tripping and falling into a relationship with the character they wanted me to.
Still, fun enough game overall. Play it for the sequel, if nothing else.
(Sidenote I include with all Telltale reviews: Telltale's games often get a bad rap for having your choices not influence the story, but to me this misses the point of what they do. Variant endings are a nice bonus in games, and I enjoy them when they do pop up in Telltale's stories, but for the most part your choices aren't here to change where you go. They're there to change how you get there, who you are when you get there, and often who you get there with. They influence and change your relationships with the characters around you. The joy of replaying these games is to experience the different dialogue, the different reactions to you, the different routes you can take on the way, the different bonds you can evolve with people - not to have a wildly different ending. I think this aspect is overhated and sadly misunderstood by a lot of players, so if huge, game-changing differences are what you're looking for, I'd temper your expectations.)
Favourite Male Character: Alfred
Favourite Female Character: Vicki
First Character I Liked: Oswald
Favourite Character Design: Oswald
Favourite Moment: Being injected with the serum and the subsequent villain reveal
Least Favourite Character: Not gonna lie boys Harvey bored the shit outta me after a while
Love that you can play Batman as a bit of an immoral asshole, love that you can lean into the Bruce as an elitist playboy thing. Troy Baker is, as per usual, pretty good in his role as the protagonist.
I wasn't sure how to feel about the treatment of the Joker when I first played this, and I think if it had been this game alone it would've felt hamfisted and out of place, but it's a build up to his bigger role in the second game where he turned out to be a fantastic character with a fantastic dynamic with Bruce, so with that in mind it's more than forgivable.
The major issue I have with this game is just that... I don't want to fuck Catwoman. And the game really, really wants me to fuck Catwoman. A lot of Telltale games have this kind of canon romance that you're nudged towards with varying degrees of force - Lee and Carley in The Walking Dead, Bigby and Snow in The Wolf Among Us, Rhys and Sasha in Tales from the Borderlands - but this is up there with the worst ones in terms of making me feel like I was required to put active, constant effort into not tripping and falling into a relationship with the character they wanted me to.
Still, fun enough game overall. Play it for the sequel, if nothing else.
(Sidenote I include with all Telltale reviews: Telltale's games often get a bad rap for having your choices not influence the story, but to me this misses the point of what they do. Variant endings are a nice bonus in games, and I enjoy them when they do pop up in Telltale's stories, but for the most part your choices aren't here to change where you go. They're there to change how you get there, who you are when you get there, and often who you get there with. They influence and change your relationships with the characters around you. The joy of replaying these games is to experience the different dialogue, the different reactions to you, the different routes you can take on the way, the different bonds you can evolve with people - not to have a wildly different ending. I think this aspect is overhated and sadly misunderstood by a lot of players, so if huge, game-changing differences are what you're looking for, I'd temper your expectations.)
Favourite Male Character: Alfred
Favourite Female Character: Vicki
First Character I Liked: Oswald
Favourite Character Design: Oswald
Favourite Moment: Being injected with the serum and the subsequent villain reveal
Least Favourite Character: Not gonna lie boys Harvey bored the shit outta me after a while
2023
Considering I've always preferred fantasy to sci-fi and real-time combat to turn-based, you'd think I'd be a Genshin person more than a Star Rail person, but now that I've played this going back to Genshin means I'm spending my entire time thinking Man, I wish this was more like Star Rail.
The QoL improvements are genuinely and massively appreciated - off the top of my head, the dailies are so much faster to get through and have actual mini storylines rather than just "Go here and kill 10 hilichurls", you got more Trailblaze Power right off the bat than you ever did Resin (AND this just recently updated to be even more and to give you a reserve amount so you don't have to deplete it daily), you get far more free currency for events and missions (going back to Genshin makes this discrepancy very obvious, I'm usually pulling teeth to get 20 primogems at the end of a longass questline vs. Star Rail where I'm getting 60 jades for every part of one), grinding is so much easier because you can get exactly the material you need from everywhere whenever you want unlike Genshin's "this domain is only open on Wednesdays and you might get some random other item instead" shtick, the pity is much more generous and the Standard banner lets you manually choose a character you want after a certain number of pulls, etc.
On top of that, you can absolutely play this completely free with the characters you get from the beginning. The characters you get for free just from the early storyline are the Trailblazer (Physical damage, later optional Fire support/shield), March (Ice shield), Dan Heng (Wind DPS), Natasha (Physical healer), Asta (Fire buff support), Qingque (Quantum damage), Yukong (Imaginary damage/support), Serval (Electric damage), and Herta (Ice damage). On top of that, so far off the top of my head events have freely given you Sushang (Physical damage) as well as additional instances of Yukong and Qingque.
I've been playing for several months now, and Trailblazer and March are still absolutely mainstays in my team and very rarely leave it. They've carried me through most fights. Asta is also my go-to Fire element despite me having pulled several others by now, and Dan Heng was always in my team until recently too. I still use Yukong pretty regularly. You can absolutely build a core team of purely F2P characters and get through the current storyline just fine.
I personally don't play daily anymore, I don't feel pressured to grind for currencies unless there's a specific upcoming character I want to pull for, and I don't feel a need to grind for levelling/ascension resources unless I have a particular goal in mind for a character which only takes a few days to complete, if that. This helps me avoid burnout so I'd recommend doing the same if you're prone to that.
I'd agree with other people who say the Jarilo VI/Belobog storyline is more engaging than the Xianxhou one so far - when I was playing through Belobog I found myself actively and constantly wanting to play to progress the story, while with Xianxhou I'm enjoying it but I can easily go weeks without feeling the urge to continue - but I still like the writing and the storyline so far.
The characters are varied and pretty engaging, and the game still being relatively new means it hasn't yet fallen into the Genshin trap of a ton of the new characters looking the same as pre-existing ones because they're just recycling the same generic cute girl designs. My personal favourite characters so far are Sampo and his hilarious mischief (and I really hope some of the theories about him are right because that'd be fascinating), Gepard and his sense of duty, Welt and his witty intelligence, Blade and his mental struggle, and Luocha and the mysteries he got goin' on. I actually also really enjoy the main character, Caelus/Stelle - both their design and colour scheme, and their personality. They're not a silent protagonist like Genshin's Aether/Lumine, and I love that - they have some genuinely hilarious dialogue and moments.
I honestly look forward to seeing where this story is going.
Shoutout to the music, too - the Belobog final boss fight theme is now on repeat in the Astral Express.
Favourite Male Character: Blade, Sampo, Welt, Gepard
Favourite Female Character: March 7th
First Character I Liked: Dan Heng
Favourite Character Design: Tingyun
Favourite OST: Wildfire, Take the Journey
Favourite Scene: Trailblazer running up the statue to confront Cocolia with everyone contributing with individual skills/weapons
Least Favourite Character: Of the playable characters, I find Yanqing pretty bland and Hook grating (though I don't outright dislike either of them)
The QoL improvements are genuinely and massively appreciated - off the top of my head, the dailies are so much faster to get through and have actual mini storylines rather than just "Go here and kill 10 hilichurls", you got more Trailblaze Power right off the bat than you ever did Resin (AND this just recently updated to be even more and to give you a reserve amount so you don't have to deplete it daily), you get far more free currency for events and missions (going back to Genshin makes this discrepancy very obvious, I'm usually pulling teeth to get 20 primogems at the end of a longass questline vs. Star Rail where I'm getting 60 jades for every part of one), grinding is so much easier because you can get exactly the material you need from everywhere whenever you want unlike Genshin's "this domain is only open on Wednesdays and you might get some random other item instead" shtick, the pity is much more generous and the Standard banner lets you manually choose a character you want after a certain number of pulls, etc.
On top of that, you can absolutely play this completely free with the characters you get from the beginning. The characters you get for free just from the early storyline are the Trailblazer (Physical damage, later optional Fire support/shield), March (Ice shield), Dan Heng (Wind DPS), Natasha (Physical healer), Asta (Fire buff support), Qingque (Quantum damage), Yukong (Imaginary damage/support), Serval (Electric damage), and Herta (Ice damage). On top of that, so far off the top of my head events have freely given you Sushang (Physical damage) as well as additional instances of Yukong and Qingque.
I've been playing for several months now, and Trailblazer and March are still absolutely mainstays in my team and very rarely leave it. They've carried me through most fights. Asta is also my go-to Fire element despite me having pulled several others by now, and Dan Heng was always in my team until recently too. I still use Yukong pretty regularly. You can absolutely build a core team of purely F2P characters and get through the current storyline just fine.
I personally don't play daily anymore, I don't feel pressured to grind for currencies unless there's a specific upcoming character I want to pull for, and I don't feel a need to grind for levelling/ascension resources unless I have a particular goal in mind for a character which only takes a few days to complete, if that. This helps me avoid burnout so I'd recommend doing the same if you're prone to that.
I'd agree with other people who say the Jarilo VI/Belobog storyline is more engaging than the Xianxhou one so far - when I was playing through Belobog I found myself actively and constantly wanting to play to progress the story, while with Xianxhou I'm enjoying it but I can easily go weeks without feeling the urge to continue - but I still like the writing and the storyline so far.
The characters are varied and pretty engaging, and the game still being relatively new means it hasn't yet fallen into the Genshin trap of a ton of the new characters looking the same as pre-existing ones because they're just recycling the same generic cute girl designs. My personal favourite characters so far are Sampo and his hilarious mischief (and I really hope some of the theories about him are right because that'd be fascinating), Gepard and his sense of duty, Welt and his witty intelligence, Blade and his mental struggle, and Luocha and the mysteries he got goin' on. I actually also really enjoy the main character, Caelus/Stelle - both their design and colour scheme, and their personality. They're not a silent protagonist like Genshin's Aether/Lumine, and I love that - they have some genuinely hilarious dialogue and moments.
I honestly look forward to seeing where this story is going.
Shoutout to the music, too - the Belobog final boss fight theme is now on repeat in the Astral Express.
Favourite Male Character: Blade, Sampo, Welt, Gepard
Favourite Female Character: March 7th
First Character I Liked: Dan Heng
Favourite Character Design: Tingyun
Favourite OST: Wildfire, Take the Journey
Favourite Scene: Trailblazer running up the statue to confront Cocolia with everyone contributing with individual skills/weapons
Least Favourite Character: Of the playable characters, I find Yanqing pretty bland and Hook grating (though I don't outright dislike either of them)
Not gonna give this one a proper long review because a) it's been too long since I played it so it's not fresh enough in my mind and b) I technically never finished it, but I did enjoy this one. The oppressive and mechanical atmosphere of London was amazing, I enjoyed the characters (very fond of Jacob's rogueish humour and I was genuinely interested in his little sub-plot with Maxwell Roth), and the gameplay was as fun as Assassin's Creed usually is; I could happily spend an hour just parkouring around the city as always. Also loved the concept of your base being in a moving train.
Said gameplay was more engaging than the main plot for me, which is probably why I never completed it - I'm more of a story-driven gamer than a gameplay-oriented one. Maybe I'll get back to it someday, but I'm not planning on it.
Favourite Male Character: Jacob
Favourite Female Character: Evie
First Character I Liked: Jacob
Favourite Character Design: Henry
Favourite OST: Bloodlines, Too Dreadful a Practice for This Open Air, Jokes Jokes Jokes, Family
Favourite Scene: The burning of the theater
Least Favourite Character: N/A
Said gameplay was more engaging than the main plot for me, which is probably why I never completed it - I'm more of a story-driven gamer than a gameplay-oriented one. Maybe I'll get back to it someday, but I'm not planning on it.
Favourite Male Character: Jacob
Favourite Female Character: Evie
First Character I Liked: Jacob
Favourite Character Design: Henry
Favourite OST: Bloodlines, Too Dreadful a Practice for This Open Air, Jokes Jokes Jokes, Family
Favourite Scene: The burning of the theater
Least Favourite Character: N/A
GRAPHICS: Honestly, I like 'em way more than other people seem to. I don't have any issues with the character models and I don't care about the maps supposedly lacking detail, it's never bothered me and everything does as it's meant to. There's some pop-up sometimes around the monastery/NPCs appearing out of nowhere when they load, but I can easily ignore that.
CHARACTERS: There are so many of them that I'd be surprised if you can't find a solid few you really enjoy. They're very varied in personality and appearance, though the character writing varies from "complex and in-depth" (Edelgard, Dimitri, Rhea) to "basically one major personality trait" (Raphael, Bernadetta, Cyril). My personal favourites are Claude and his subtle cunning, Sylvain and his flirtatiousness, Hilda and her pink femininity paired with being an absolute powerhouse unit, Lorenz and his development, Leonie and her loyalty, Yuri and his resourcefulness, and Raphael (sure, I listed him as an example of objectively one-note writing, but I could still write you a whole essay on this guy). I love the Golden Deer as a collective, though.
GAMEPLAY: I really like the combat in this game. It's the first time I've played anything like this, and it's one of very very few games where I go out of my way to participate in fights because I want to, or where I find myself thinking "man I feel like doing some combat in that video game right now". The dialogue options outside of battle are silly, though - it's the most blatant case of "two options that are just reworded ways to say the exact same thing and get the exact same response" I've ever seen.
MULTIPLAYER: Eh, functionally non-existent. All it is is that if you have your online mode turned on, glowing circles will appear on battlefields signifying where other players have died or killed a unit often and granting you some XP or basic items if you stand on those spots, as well as giving you stat pages in loading screens that show things like who the most popular character for players to take to tea that month or what the most frequently fed animal at the Monastery is.
Overall, this is a great game. I've played through Golden Deer 4 times so far (one for each gender of Byleth so I could S-support everyone in it, then starting over and doing the same again to refresh myself after ages of not playing), almost done with my first run of Blue Lions, then I'll move on to the others.
Taking a half-star off because White Clouds is mind-numbingly annoying to get through if you're replaying it often like I am since it doesn't vary by route, the romantic M/M options are pretty trash (one single gay romance option in the base-game before two more were added with paid DLC, one of those being route-specific, is crazy in a game with dozen and dozens of straight ones) and for more minor issues like the dialogue options thing, but I can't justify rating it lower - I still really like it and it's definitely one of my favourite games.
Favourite Male Character: Claude, Raphael, Lorenz, Hanneman, Sylvain, Yuri
Favourite Female Character: Leonie, Hilda, Manuela
First Character I Liked: Marianne
Favourite Character Design: Hilda, Sylvain
Favourite OST: TBA
Favourite Scene: Claude and Byleth vs. Nemesis
Least Favourite Character: Solon (though I'm oddly fond of Tomas)
CHARACTERS: There are so many of them that I'd be surprised if you can't find a solid few you really enjoy. They're very varied in personality and appearance, though the character writing varies from "complex and in-depth" (Edelgard, Dimitri, Rhea) to "basically one major personality trait" (Raphael, Bernadetta, Cyril). My personal favourites are Claude and his subtle cunning, Sylvain and his flirtatiousness, Hilda and her pink femininity paired with being an absolute powerhouse unit, Lorenz and his development, Leonie and her loyalty, Yuri and his resourcefulness, and Raphael (sure, I listed him as an example of objectively one-note writing, but I could still write you a whole essay on this guy). I love the Golden Deer as a collective, though.
GAMEPLAY: I really like the combat in this game. It's the first time I've played anything like this, and it's one of very very few games where I go out of my way to participate in fights because I want to, or where I find myself thinking "man I feel like doing some combat in that video game right now". The dialogue options outside of battle are silly, though - it's the most blatant case of "two options that are just reworded ways to say the exact same thing and get the exact same response" I've ever seen.
MULTIPLAYER: Eh, functionally non-existent. All it is is that if you have your online mode turned on, glowing circles will appear on battlefields signifying where other players have died or killed a unit often and granting you some XP or basic items if you stand on those spots, as well as giving you stat pages in loading screens that show things like who the most popular character for players to take to tea that month or what the most frequently fed animal at the Monastery is.
Overall, this is a great game. I've played through Golden Deer 4 times so far (one for each gender of Byleth so I could S-support everyone in it, then starting over and doing the same again to refresh myself after ages of not playing), almost done with my first run of Blue Lions, then I'll move on to the others.
Taking a half-star off because White Clouds is mind-numbingly annoying to get through if you're replaying it often like I am since it doesn't vary by route, the romantic M/M options are pretty trash (one single gay romance option in the base-game before two more were added with paid DLC, one of those being route-specific, is crazy in a game with dozen and dozens of straight ones) and for more minor issues like the dialogue options thing, but I can't justify rating it lower - I still really like it and it's definitely one of my favourite games.
Favourite Male Character: Claude, Raphael, Lorenz, Hanneman, Sylvain, Yuri
Favourite Female Character: Leonie, Hilda, Manuela
First Character I Liked: Marianne
Favourite Character Design: Hilda, Sylvain
Favourite OST: TBA
Favourite Scene: Claude and Byleth vs. Nemesis
Least Favourite Character: Solon (though I'm oddly fond of Tomas)
Well, I have single-sided deafness, so this turned out to be unplayable for me. Apparently, no one thought about that while making this? So I had to give up and settle for watching a playthrough on YouTube.
The lore is mostly what I appreciate with this franchise, and the additions here were pretty scant.
The lore is mostly what I appreciate with this franchise, and the additions here were pretty scant.
2016
I liked it fine, though I really don't understand the hype around the ending. I played it because everyone around me kept raving about this iconic, shocking, jaw-dropping ending, and then I got there and I was just like... this is it? Surely, something else must happen. Nope, the camera's zooming out. The credits are rolling. That was seriously it. Well, okay.
I found myself looking up explanations of the end not because I was genuinely hooked on theories and possibilities like I enjoy being, but because I assumed I must have missed something massive, because it was so jarring and random and out-of-place that I figured there had to be more to it. Nope, it was just that.
I'd still recommend it, though. Everyone else seems to think it's something special, so I'm inclined to accept I'm one of the odd ones out here. It's short, and a fun experience to actually play through, so why not?
I found myself looking up explanations of the end not because I was genuinely hooked on theories and possibilities like I enjoy being, but because I assumed I must have missed something massive, because it was so jarring and random and out-of-place that I figured there had to be more to it. Nope, it was just that.
I'd still recommend it, though. Everyone else seems to think it's something special, so I'm inclined to accept I'm one of the odd ones out here. It's short, and a fun experience to actually play through, so why not?
GRAPHICS: Charming and genuinely pretty in places such as the sky/weather and the textures and designs of most of the villagers. It's easy to forget how good they are, but looking back at older games makes it clear that New Horizons is a massive graphical upgrade.
CHARACTERS: Appropriately adorable-looking, but completely devoid of personality. Villagers are the entire point of this franchise, as well as the bonds you form with yours, and yet in this game they've been reduced to window-dressing for your customised island who recite the same dozen generic lines identical to every other villager of the same type. A lot of my 'dream villagers' are of the same few types, and so I can be hitting nothing but repeated dialogues within literal minutes of opening the game. It's soulless.
GAMEPLAY: It's... fine. There are some good QoL improvements, such as the way clothes shopping now works at the Able Sisters and terraforming the land, but there are just... so many things that were a given in older games that have been cut out or have regressed in this one. The crafting system is awful and repetitive, DIY recipes are time-consuming to get and even thenmostly just carbon copies of ones you already have, even golden tools (extremely difficult to construct) are now breakable, and shops have far fewer or no upgrades to uncover, just to name a few.
MULTIPLAYER: You can have up to eight players on an island over online multiplayer, or up to four using local co-op. It's pretty much what you'd expect from Animal Crossing - you can run around together and visit each other's villagers (so you can experience their generic dialogue, too!) but aside from activities you can come up with and design yourself there's nothing to really do together.
Overall, this game just... depresses me in a lot of ways. It's stripped back, sanitised, minimalised and "streamlined" in that corporate, modern game kind of way, where all the charm and heart is being lost in order to fit flashy new features to distract from all the ones that have been made worse. Sure, it was a nice refuge over lockdown, but it genuinely kind of angers me that that means this game is going down as a huge best-seller success when it's just... empty. It has the same kind of issue as Sims 4, to my mind, and the fact that so many players picked New Horizons up as their first Animal Crossing game means they don't even know what they're missing. I'll be returning to Wild World and perhaps even New Leaf, because playing this just reminds me I miss the old villagers.
Favourite Male Character: Of the villagers, Butch; of the NPCs, Brewster or K.K.
Favourite Female Character: Of the villagers, Goldie; of the NPCs, Sable
First Character I Liked: Goldie
Favourite Character Design: Merengue
Favourite OST: The Roost
Least Favourite Character: Fuck every single gorilla villager
CHARACTERS: Appropriately adorable-looking, but completely devoid of personality. Villagers are the entire point of this franchise, as well as the bonds you form with yours, and yet in this game they've been reduced to window-dressing for your customised island who recite the same dozen generic lines identical to every other villager of the same type. A lot of my 'dream villagers' are of the same few types, and so I can be hitting nothing but repeated dialogues within literal minutes of opening the game. It's soulless.
GAMEPLAY: It's... fine. There are some good QoL improvements, such as the way clothes shopping now works at the Able Sisters and terraforming the land, but there are just... so many things that were a given in older games that have been cut out or have regressed in this one. The crafting system is awful and repetitive, DIY recipes are time-consuming to get and even thenmostly just carbon copies of ones you already have, even golden tools (extremely difficult to construct) are now breakable, and shops have far fewer or no upgrades to uncover, just to name a few.
MULTIPLAYER: You can have up to eight players on an island over online multiplayer, or up to four using local co-op. It's pretty much what you'd expect from Animal Crossing - you can run around together and visit each other's villagers (so you can experience their generic dialogue, too!) but aside from activities you can come up with and design yourself there's nothing to really do together.
Overall, this game just... depresses me in a lot of ways. It's stripped back, sanitised, minimalised and "streamlined" in that corporate, modern game kind of way, where all the charm and heart is being lost in order to fit flashy new features to distract from all the ones that have been made worse. Sure, it was a nice refuge over lockdown, but it genuinely kind of angers me that that means this game is going down as a huge best-seller success when it's just... empty. It has the same kind of issue as Sims 4, to my mind, and the fact that so many players picked New Horizons up as their first Animal Crossing game means they don't even know what they're missing. I'll be returning to Wild World and perhaps even New Leaf, because playing this just reminds me I miss the old villagers.
Favourite Male Character: Of the villagers, Butch; of the NPCs, Brewster or K.K.
Favourite Female Character: Of the villagers, Goldie; of the NPCs, Sable
First Character I Liked: Goldie
Favourite Character Design: Merengue
Favourite OST: The Roost
Least Favourite Character: Fuck every single gorilla villager
2006
Even putting aside the fact that I think ROBLOX's controls are horrific and it has the ugliest avatars and general graphics I've ever seen, 1) my friend keeps trying to make me play this with him and when I say no he consistently goes on a 10 minute monologue about how Actually Good it is including screenshots, 2) my 4 year old nephew kept coming to my house to play it with me so now I associate it with running around doing everything a small child wants you to do, and 3) I keep getting push notifications for recommended Tweets on every single one of my Twitter accounts that's just spam bots talking about free Robux and I cannot for the life of me stop it despite blocking every account.
The combination of these factors has ensured I resent this game so much that even if you found me a game mode I was absolutely guaranteed to enjoy, you would have to drag me crying and wailing into trying it.
The combination of these factors has ensured I resent this game so much that even if you found me a game mode I was absolutely guaranteed to enjoy, you would have to drag me crying and wailing into trying it.
2009
GRAPHICS: Very dated and outright ugly in places, but it's not enjoyment-affecting at all IMO. I've played games that aged far worse, and everything does its job. If you're on PC, there are plenty of texture and cosmetic mods to modernise things a little.
CHARACTERS: They don't stick with me as much as the DA2 and some of the Inquisition companions do, but they're varied and interesting nonetheless. Your romance options are Zevran, a seductive elven assassin; Leliana, a pious Chantry sister hiding dark secrets; Morrigan, a gothic and asocial swamp witch; and Alistair, a naive and humorous ex-Templar with royal blood. Additionally, you can recruit companions such as Wynne, an elderly healer who seems to be assisted by some mysterious force; Sten, a soldier from a foreign culture who's entirely new to Ferelden; Oghren, a dwarven berserker who's crude with a love of alcohol; and Loghain, a morally questionable but complex antagonist-turned-ally. The Stone Prisoner DLC will also give you Shale, a stone golem with a previously mortal identity.
DIALOGUE/VOICE ACTING: Voice acting is varied but generally good - Alistair's VA is endearingly awkward, Leliana's sounds stilted in places, and Zevran stands out as suitably suave and perpetually amused. The dialogue options you get as the protagonist are typically pretty extensive and easy to roleplay within; my biggest complaint is that I feel romance/flirt dialogues are not at all obvious enough, and very easily confused with platonically kind gestures, which means you more often than not end up 'stealth' romancing a character.
PLOT: Pretty generic, and overrated in my opinion - it's a cliche fantasy plot, there's an evil force threatening the world, you and your band of companions are the only ones who can stop it, and you have to travel around to individual locations in order to recruit factions for your army.
GAMEPLAY: Clunky, and my least favourite part of the game. The combat is aggravating enough that by the time I've been playing for a few hours I'm usually using mods just to skip most of the non-significant battles.
MULTIPLAYER: None.
Overall, this game didn't connect with me as much as it seems to for most; I think nostalgia (and the "older = better" mindset among gaming elitists) is a huge factor in the favouritism for Origins, and I prefer the sequels in most respects. However, the extensive dialogue options and roleplaying opportunities keep me coming back to Origins regardless.
Favourite Male Character: Zevran
Favourite Female Character: Leliana
First Character I Liked: I actually can't remember that far back - possibly Zevran?
Favourite Character Design: Morrigan
Favourite OST: TBA
Favourite Scene: The final battle, aftermath, and epilogue
Least Favourite Character: A part of me always wants to say Alistair for this because I find him absolutely generic and milquetoast and I resent seeing him absolutely everywhere, but I still like the guy. So: Howe and Vaughan.
CHARACTERS: They don't stick with me as much as the DA2 and some of the Inquisition companions do, but they're varied and interesting nonetheless. Your romance options are Zevran, a seductive elven assassin; Leliana, a pious Chantry sister hiding dark secrets; Morrigan, a gothic and asocial swamp witch; and Alistair, a naive and humorous ex-Templar with royal blood. Additionally, you can recruit companions such as Wynne, an elderly healer who seems to be assisted by some mysterious force; Sten, a soldier from a foreign culture who's entirely new to Ferelden; Oghren, a dwarven berserker who's crude with a love of alcohol; and Loghain, a morally questionable but complex antagonist-turned-ally. The Stone Prisoner DLC will also give you Shale, a stone golem with a previously mortal identity.
DIALOGUE/VOICE ACTING: Voice acting is varied but generally good - Alistair's VA is endearingly awkward, Leliana's sounds stilted in places, and Zevran stands out as suitably suave and perpetually amused. The dialogue options you get as the protagonist are typically pretty extensive and easy to roleplay within; my biggest complaint is that I feel romance/flirt dialogues are not at all obvious enough, and very easily confused with platonically kind gestures, which means you more often than not end up 'stealth' romancing a character.
PLOT: Pretty generic, and overrated in my opinion - it's a cliche fantasy plot, there's an evil force threatening the world, you and your band of companions are the only ones who can stop it, and you have to travel around to individual locations in order to recruit factions for your army.
GAMEPLAY: Clunky, and my least favourite part of the game. The combat is aggravating enough that by the time I've been playing for a few hours I'm usually using mods just to skip most of the non-significant battles.
MULTIPLAYER: None.
Overall, this game didn't connect with me as much as it seems to for most; I think nostalgia (and the "older = better" mindset among gaming elitists) is a huge factor in the favouritism for Origins, and I prefer the sequels in most respects. However, the extensive dialogue options and roleplaying opportunities keep me coming back to Origins regardless.
Favourite Male Character: Zevran
Favourite Female Character: Leliana
First Character I Liked: I actually can't remember that far back - possibly Zevran?
Favourite Character Design: Morrigan
Favourite OST: TBA
Favourite Scene: The final battle, aftermath, and epilogue
Least Favourite Character: A part of me always wants to say Alistair for this because I find him absolutely generic and milquetoast and I resent seeing him absolutely everywhere, but I still like the guy. So: Howe and Vaughan.