Elden ring is a lot of things, but I think the most apt description is a flawed masterpiece. To start, let’s acknowledge the masterclass in FromSoft’s first step into open world game design, and doing it in the best way since Breath of the Wild. I adore the sense of exploration this game gave me. It doesn’t do it quite as well as Zelda in my opinion, but it’s hilarious how both Nintendo and From’s first try at an open world blows every other open world game out of the water with their incredible direction. Exploring and discovering things off the beaten track was such a joy. You’ll come across the smallest little thing and find yourself in a deep new area, connected to several quest lines and then a whole unique optional boss. Not to mention that along the way you’ll see some of the prettiest views and vistas you’ve ever seen in a game. It’s almost overwhelming to ride around and be torn on all the interesting things fighting for your attention. Although, I have to say that I think that this is done best in the earlier areas, but then gets progressively less interesting the further you get into the game. I get the impression that the first 2/3s of the game had more assets and time put into it. Even the ending sequence felt a little rushed to me.

Regardless, the world itself is so wonderful and interesting, and the lore and story are amazing. Dark Souls is great, but I’m really quite glad we’ve moved away from its shackles to tell a completely different story in a world with completely different rules. Elden Ring is also full of genuinely wonderful characters! FromSoft has never had a big focus on this, and while their characters are beloved, they’re not exactly too deep. This time, plenty of characters get well told stories, with more lines and cutscenes than ever before, and this goes a long way in making them feel more tangible. The Lands Between may just be my favourite video game world I’ve ever inhabited.

But I have an issue in the world, and that’s that it’s stuck in a soulslike. Elden Ring is a cheese sandwich, the combination works pretty well, but not excellently and leaves you wanting a bit more. If Souls is anything, it’s meticulously crafted. Souls is all about that perfect difficulty, and the nature of a true open world area is exploration. Stumbling across a place you’re over levelled for and blitzing it, or somewhere you’re under levelled for and fighting an impossible task just feels bad in a souls game. The openness also makes me really really miss the dedicated, phenomenal level design of the souls games. The routing was tight, you saw everything crafted for the player to experience in that moment, and exploration felt so good when it was laid out as optional and rewarding. The legacy dungeons just don’t feel as good as the traditional levels of a souls game when they’re THIS open. There is just so so much to miss. I can jump from rooftop to rooftop towards the goal, or I can walk in and be presented with 5 equally as viable routes forward. When you’re someone who wants to explore everything, having to do one path, and then come back and do another, and find yourself walking around in circles desperately trying not to miss anything just doesn’t feel as rewarding. The enemy placement also doesn’t feel as deliberate because of course it doesn’t, it has to accommodate for players coming in from every angle; as opposed to Bloodborne knowing that you’re travelling from point A to B in a castle, and giving you the perfect amount of enemies, puzzles, traps, and items along your way. Don’t get me wrong, they did a great job of making such a free experience feel this good, but it doesn’t work quite as well as the purposeful design as the other games.

Of course, you can’t talk about FromSoftware without talking about bosses. And honestly…a bit disappointed here. I can’t quite tell you what it was, but a lot of the bosses just didn’t quite give me that ‘feeling’ that other souls bosses do. I wasn’t having quite as much fun as I felt I should have when fighting them. They’re all spectacles for sure, but something just felt missing. I will say I’m not a fan of Elden Ring’s big delay gimmick with its bosses too, often times charging attacks for like 4-5 seconds (sometimes even throwing in bait movements) and then just swinging very quickly. It feels gimmicky, like something I just have to get hit by and learn to just count down, and takes me out of that ‘dance’ of a boss fight. Don’t get me wrong most bosses are good, but just never soar at the heights of the franchise. There are exceptions of course; I fucking love Malenia, Malekith is a blast, Rykard is the best gimmick boss in the series etc. But compare the boss roster to their last game Dark Souls 3…and the downgrade is undeniable.

A common criticism of the boss design is that there is a repeat boss problem, and I have to agree. Elden Ring has a lot to explore, and a lot of bosses. At the end of every single catacombs, cave, halfway through a big dungeon, even roaming the world, you’ll be met with a boss. Of course not every single one of these can be a Slave Knight Gael level unique encounter, but I also can’t pretend I wasn’t bored by the 17th ulcerated tree spirit or Erdtree Avatar, or Watchdog. There really did just need to be about 5 more bosses, which they could have spread out across the world to make the repeating less egregious. But it’s weird, because even the mainline story bosses get repeated. You’ll fight the first boss 3 times, the 2nd twice, and even different versions of the several other main bosses. It’s odd. And it makes these insurmountable threatening foes feel…surmountable and unimportant.

Despite my boss flaws, fighting itself is wonderful. The build variety and weapons are so expansive, and the movesets and new combat mechanics make each weapon such a joy. I used to just pick one weapon and would pretty much only use R1. But in Elden Ring, I would just have to try so many weapons, and I found that the flow of combat had me using my entire moveset. Jump attacks, dual wielding, jumping to dodge, weapon arts; the list goes on. And when fighting a great tough boss like Malenia, the game rewards you by giving you specific openings to punish certain attacks with only certain moves in your moveset!

My flaws aside, what it does right, it does damn near perfect. I don’t know if they needed more time to make the mediocre repetitive stuff better, or if they should have just cut it entirely, but a game with 10/10 highs falls short because of it. Souls to me is about navigating intricate, crafted levels. Not so much riding from place to place hitting r1 on random mobs, doing a small catacombs on the way, and then entering the large dungeons that just don’t reach the heights of regular Souls level design. I loved it, but it also made me realise I loved Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3 quite a bit more. And yet I want much more Elden Ring. I can’t wait for the DLC and I want more games like it. Like Breath of the Wild, they’ve created a formula to be mastered, but for now Elden Ring is a diluted masterpiece.

Up front, I want to admit I'm biased towards the cinematic action-adventure genre. The PlayStation-exclusive type of game design is not my thing, and I find it to be lacking as a a genre when it comes to producing an actual video game, which is what we're here for. However, some of them do hit for me, and I get some enjoyment out of them. Hellblade 1 was one of those. I thought it was good and I liked it.

I do not like Hellblade II.

I already knew something was up when reviews were left until release day, and how reluctant Microsoft seemed to be to market the game. I saw that Hellblade II reviewed "good" at a Metascore of an 81 or so, but it was a significantly lower mark than the first game.

After playing it, I'm not too surprised. Hellblade II gives you a garbage first impression by essentially being a walking simulator for the first 20 minutes, after which Senua picks up a sword and you're given a rude awakening by being introduced to the plodding, dull, and mind-numbing combat.

This is why I don't like "cinematic" games like this, because the combat and gameplay always feels stiff. There's so much effort put into cinematography, sure, but when every combat encounter results in the same 10 or so canned animations, with little to no variation whatsoever, it becomes a snoozefest. I can't count how many times I've seen Senua get knocked on the ground after parrying a strike with the same animation each time, or using one of the same selection of execution animations. And you'll see these often too! Especially since the combat amounts to building a charge for what is essentially a one-shot, which means that combat encounters can be breezed through fairly quickly so long as you charge up that execution move. By the way, the final boss uses the same canned combat animations you've seen for the whole game.

One thing you'll notice right away while playing Hellblade II is how stunningly beautiful it is. It is one of the best-looking games you'll ever see on a console thanks to the power of UE5. I can't take anything away from that - but Hellblade II's confusing, hollow, and bland experience is not helped at all by the graphic fidelity.

It is worth mentioning that Hellblade II only runs at 30fps. Which is fine, because you're likely going to be playing this off of Game Pass. My personal belief is that if a game is $70, there should be a performance mode. If the game is on Game Pass, however, I'm only paying $15 at max, so that's no big deal. For me.

Another minor technical issue: Hellblade does not work properly with Xbox Game Streaming. The Focus button, which you need to progress the game's numerous puzzles, does not work while streaming. I was able to work around this by turning the stream off and on. Later I reached a section where you MUST sprint to survive the level's design, and Senua just wouldn't sprint because the LB button didn't work properly while streaming. Since I like streaming my Xbox audio to my PC, I had to plug in an Elgato to proceed with the level. This is only going to be a problem for maybe 1% of people who play Hellblade, so I won't give it flak for this... but this is an XBOX game. Shouldn't XBOX Game Streaming work for it at launch?

What makes Hellblade II mediocre beyond the combat? Unfortunately, it's the story.

I beat Hellblade II in only 7 hours. Originally I thought it was 5, because it didn't feel like 7, but then again my console was on pause for what added up to an hour... so let's say 6 for good measure. Those reviewers and tweets you see weren't joking about its length. It is a very short game. Nowadays playing a AAA game that is so short is an anomaly, sure, but this game was in development for FIVE years, wasn't it? How did 5 years of development result in a 5 hour game?

Hellblade 1 had a story built around Senua's psychosis, and I think that's what made it excel, and it's why I liked that game despite my aversion to the genre.

Hellblade 2's story does not feel like it is built around Senua's story. After meeting some NPCs on her journey, Senua instead ends up hunting down giants that are ruining the land after spelunking in a cave to be proven worthy. There you go, that's the plot. I don't know how Senua's psychosis is relevant to that, because I don't think it is. The point is that Hellblade 2's story is extremely generic compared to Hellblade 1, and is a concern I had almost immediately within the first hour of playing.

Hellblade 1 really shined by being a solo experience built around Senua. Hellblade 2 features multiple companions and NPCs, which doesn't really lend itself well to using Senua's psychosis in the plot. Senua's psychosis no longer feels like a relevant portion of the game's themes and story, and instead is reduced to a background element of a dull story - a story that is somehow confusing and boring at the same time. Why? Because when the story is said and done, it's not even really clear on what happened for the most part or what it even means. While Hellblade 1 had a similar feeling, you at least got the idea and thought-provoking thematics they were trying to express.

Hellblade 2's ending presents itself as if the creators believed they had just made something profound, but instead you're just left scratching your head. What's funny about this is that the first line you hear in the ending cutscene is "All the questions answered." NO, THEY WERE NOT.

I don't know what Senua's plot or story arc is supposed to be here. Does she even have a character arc in this game? I don't think she does! The game tries to toy with this idea of Senua feeling guilty for people dying... when we just spent a whole game where Senua was all alone? Senua feels like the deaths of others are her fault, and the voices in her head try to remind her of that. (Which they do a good job of. The psychosis portrayal when it comes to Senua herself is still very well-done) It just comes across as forced and doesn't really suit the kind of character arc that Hellblade 1 concluded with. Senua's story felt finite and this attempt feels aimless, a vainful venture to continue a character arc that was already concluded.

Here's an example. At the end of The Witcher 3, Geralt's story is pretty much done. This is why many speculate that The Witcher 4 will feature Ciri or a custom protagonist. Because what else is there to tell? Geralt did everything he can possibly do and his arc is at a satisfying end, so any further attempts to tell stories for Geralt will feel forced. Same thing here. Senua's story felt done already, so her arc in Hellblade II is most comparable to a D&D DM who is struggling to continue a campaign after his players hit the end of the planned Adventure.

I'm at a loss of what else to say since the experience is so short of an acid trip that I'm grasping at straws here. It's not even good acid!

I guess I can mention that it's voice-acted pretty well. I'm surprised Senua's VA hasn't gotten more roles.

All in all, Senua's confusing mess of a plot and lack of steady direction only reinforces my own personal belief that Hellblade didn't need a sequel at all.

Score: 66

"𝑷𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝑰𝒔 𝑭𝒊𝒏𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒚 𝑩𝒂𝒄𝒌..."

"𝑾𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒂𝒏 𝑨𝒎𝒂𝒛𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑺𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒚..."

"𝑨𝒏 𝑨𝒎𝒂𝒛𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑮𝒂𝒎𝒆..."

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown... Diversão Senhoras e Senhores DIVERSÃO é o Nome...

Cara, eu não vou mentir, joguei a demo desse jogo e fiquei feliz pelo o que foi apresentado nela... E devo dizer que apenas ela já foi o suficiente para me fazer querer jogar o game por completo.... Mas antes de falar disso queria falar sobre o estúdio desse carinha aqui...

PoP: The Lost Crow foi feito pela Ubisoft Montpelier, que é, ao menos para mim, o único estúdio interno da Ubisoft que me chama atenção... Isso pois, de uns anos para cá, especificamente de 2013 prá cá, eu tenho perdido bastante interesse nos jogos dessa distribuidora em geral... Acho que o público em si também tem perdido o interesse, por muitos motivos diferentes que não pretendo citar aqui...

Todavia o estúdio Montpelier sempre foi uma exceção dentro da Ubisoft por si, principalmente pelo fato de que seus jogos sempre tentavam ser mais experimentais... A ideia de Child of Light veio desse estúdio, mesmo que eles em si não o tenha desenvolvido... Porém jogos como Rayman Origins e Legends e Honest Hearts forem feitos por eles... E todos esses três são extremamente únicos em suas ideias e aplicações, principalmente...

Então quando vi que eles estavam fazendo um Metroidvania de Prince of Persia definitivamente coloquei o jogo em meu radar, porém ele ainda precisa se provar.... E bom a Demo serviu pra isso...

Eu gostei muito do que foi apresentado nela, mas ainda assim tinha um probleminha, o preço, não rolava pagar cinquenta dólares nesse momento então decidi seguir outro caminho... O Ubisoft+ meio que me ajudou a economizar dinheiro, já que eu paguei um mês da assinatura, fiz 100% do que o game tinha, e ainda consegui começar a jogar ele dia 15... Pois a versão do serviço era a Deluxe...

O grande problema é que depois que o serviço terminar eu não vou conseguir jogar novamente, mas não me preocupo com isso agora, pois tenho vários jogos pelo caminho...

Mas falando do jogo em si... Rapaz eu me diverti demais jogando ele, não apenas porque tendo a afirmar que o combate de The Last Crow é o melhor combate já apresentado em um Metroidvania, tipo, de Todos os Tempos... Mas principalmente pois achei ele extremamente coeso do começo ao fim...

A historia tem ótimos Twists ao longo dela, alguns me surpreenderam muito, e também é contada de forma bem cadenciada, sem acelerar nos momentos errados, ou desacelerar desnecessariamente... Em geral os personagens também são interessantes, e o Sargon, protagonista, me deixou com uma sensação boa no final, ele tem personalidade, embora falte um pouco de carisma... Mas devo dizer que ele segura muito bem as pontas, naquilo que lhe é proposto.

Agora um ponto negativo é que o jogo poderia sim ter algumas skills a mais, para diversificar um pouco mais sua gameplay, não precisa ser exagerado ao ponto de não utilizarmos nada... Mas precisa ter ao ponto de não sentirmos falta, e as vezes em The Lost Crown eu senti falta de uma pitadinha a mais...

Mas sendo sincero, isso não reduz nem um pouco os acertos desse jogo, sua exploração é maravilhosa, e a movimentação é ainda melhor, tinha vezes que eu apenas me pegava andando de um lado para o outro do mapa simplesmente por que era divertido... As animações são muito bem construídas, seja a de saltar e atacar até a de trocar de direção quando se está correndo...

The Lost Crown acerta em cheio no que torna um Metrodvania bom... Um mundo bem construído, com um mapa interessante, que recompensa a exploração e convida os jogadores a tal... Além de ter algo que chama muitos jogadores, embora eu mesmo não priorize tanto isso, o combate, que como disse é maravilhoso...

No final das contas Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown não tem um mapa e mundo tão fantásticos como Hollow Knight, não é tão bonito quanto Ori, nem tem a mágica exploração de Metroid ou a essência especial de Castlevania.... Mas ele não precisa, pois é tão coeso e divertido, que talvez ele esteja na mesma prateleira dos citados acima...

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown não é nenhum deles, fato, mas ele é The Lost Crown, único em sua aplicação, divertido em sua essência, e bem aplicado na realidade...

Um acerto que me deixou muito feliz, e que torço para que torço para que a Ubisoft repita... Acredito que ele deve ficar na minha lista de melhores do ano até o final de 2024, ao menos assim espero... Para Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, um maravilhoso 9.4/10 ou 4.5/5... Gostei muito de joga-lo...

Baldur's Gate 3 é simplesmente a obra de arte máxima do Rpg Ocidental.

Sim, é isso aí que você leu mesmo, é difícil pensar em pontos negativos de uma obra que não apenas é o Magnum Opus de um estúdio que sempre mostrou muito potencial, a Larian Studios, como também faz a proeza de melhorar uma das obras mais Espetaculares da história do Rpg, Baldur's Gate 2.

Sinceramente falando, eu não consigo descrever direito tudo o que esse jogo é, e tudo o que ele trás consigo também. Saiba apenas de uma coisa, se você Ama Rpgs Ocidentais, principalmente os de tabuleiro, e os eletrônicos com camera de cima, Saiba que esse jogo, pra você, é simplesmente INDISPENSAVÉL.

Ele está pra Rpgs ocidentais, nesse estilo em especifico, como Vampiro a mascara, e D&D estão pra Rpgs de tabuleiro. Assim como Tes V: Skyrim e Tes III: Morrowind estão pra Rpgs em primeira pessoa. Tipo Elden Ring pra Rpgs Souls Like, Ou FF VII e Dragon Quest estão para JRpgs, até como The Witcher 3 está para Rpgs simplificados.

Acho que deu pra entender o quanto eu recomendo esse jogo, o bixinho se tornou meu sexto jogo favorito (-_-).

Senhoras e Senhores, se vocês gostam de Rpgs, por favor, JOGUEM Baldur's Gate 3, ele é fantástico. 10/10 ou 5/5